Open Secret of Ireland

Thomas Michael (Tom) Kettle (1880-1916) was born in Artane, Co. Dublin and qualified as a lawyer. He became a Tyrone MP for the Irish Parliamentary Party, and a writer and academic at University College Dublin. He was widely acknowledged as the leading constitutional nationalist of his generation. He became involved with the nationalist Irish Volunteers, although he supported the British war effort and died at the Somme. Senia Paseta is a Fellow and Tutor in St Hugh's College, Oxford, and the author of Before the Revolution, National, Social Change and Ireland's Catholic Elite, 1879-1922 and A Very Short Introduction to Ireland

"University College Dublin Press has now published over thirty 'Classics of Irish History'. These contemporary accounts by well known personalities of historical events and attitudes have an immediacy that conventional histories do not have. Introductions by modern historians provide additional historical background and, with hindsight, objectivity." Books Ireland Nov 2007 "While Kettle is perhaps not so well known these days despite his bust in Stephen's Green, the re-issue of this book is to be lauded in that it allows us a glimpse of a political view which was to be one of the victims of 1916 and what followed ... For anyone who is intrigued by the political and intellectual arguments for Home Rule in the Edwardian period this is an essential resource." Irish Democrat 2007 "Scholars of nineteenth-century Irish and Irish-American politics should reacquaint themselves with these classics, part of a long running and immensely useful series from University College Dublin Press." Irish Literary Supplement Fall 2008

• Introduction by Senia Paseta; original introduction by J. E. Redmond, MP; Preliminary; I An Exercise in Humility; II History (a) Coloured; III History (b) Plain; IV The Obviousness of Home Rule; V The Ravages of Unionism (1); VI The Ravages of Unionism (2); VII The Hallucination of 'Ulster'; VIII The Mechanics of Home Rule; IX After Home Rule; X An Epilogue on 'Loyalty'.