Irish Perspectives – serie

The 1790s is one of the most critical decades in the history of modern Ireland. The decade witnessed the birth of the modern ideology of separatist Irish republicanism, the creation of the Orange Order, and the greatest bloodletting in modern Irish history in the form of the 1798 rebellion. In the aftermath of the rebellion came the Act of Union that brought Ireland into the United Kingdom for the next 121 years, and the smaller rebellion of Robert Emmet, possibly one of the most famous - and, to later generations, inspirational - of Irish republicans. Now, in the second instalment of the collaboration between Pen and Sword and History Ireland magazine, some of the world's leading experts on the 1790s explore the origins, nature and aftermath of the decade from a range of perspectives: from the individuals involved and their international links, to the events of the rebellion and the responses of the government, to the manoeuvres that led to the Act of Union, this volume explore the motives, actions and legacies of the republicans, loyalists, and propagandists who shaped one of the most important decades in Ireland's modern history.

In the aftermath of the First World War, a political revolution took place in what was then the United Kingdom. Such upheavals were common in postwar Europe, as new states came into being and new borders were forged. What made the revolution in the UK distinctive is that it took place within one of the victor powers, rather than any of their defeated enemies. In the years after the Easter Rising of 1916 in Ireland, a new independence movement had emerged, and in 1918-19 the political party Sinn F in and its paramilitary partner, the Irish Republican Army, began a political struggle and an armed uprising against British rule. By 1922 the United Kingdom has lost a very substantial portion of its territory, as the Irish Free State came into being amidst a brutal Civil War. At the same time Ireland was partitioned and a new, unionist government was established in what was now Northern Ireland. These were outcomes that nobody could have predicted before 1914\. In _The Irish War of Independence and Civil War_, experts on the subject explore the experience and consequences of the latter phases of the Irish revolution from a wide range of perspectives.