When the attacks against Catholics known as the Belfast pogrom erupted in July 1920, Tom Glennon was a 20-year old officer in the IRA. The next three years took him from brutal street fighting in Belfast to organising a flying column in the Glens of Antrim, to a daring escape from captivity in the Curragh and then the viciousness of civil war in Donegal. Scarred by his experiences, he sought to create a new life in Australia, only to find further tragedy awaiting him. His silence about his past was so complete that almost eighty years passed before his son learned the truth about his own mother's death. Now, using contemporary documents and the accounts of comrades and enemies, his grandson not only tells the story of Tom Glennon's life, but also re-examines the mythology of the pogrom and questions Michael Collins' northern policy, asking: were the northern IRA the victims of a monstrous betrayal?

The start of the Irish Civil War was signalled by the artillery bombardment of the Four Courts in Dublin on 28 June 1922. A week later, the Four Courts was gutted and O’Connell Street a smouldering ruin, but the anti-Treaty IRA was driven from the city. Most accounts of the fighting in Dublin end there. The Civil War in Dublin reveals the complete, shocking story of Ireland’s capital during the ten-month guerrilla war that followed – a ruthless and bitter cycle of execution, outrage and revenge. The strategy of the anti-Treaty forces, often ignored or dismissed in previous histories, is brought to the fore. Dorney’s exacting research provides total insight into how the city of Dublin operated under conditions of disorder and bloodshed: how civilians and guerrilla fighters controlled the streets, the patterns of IRA violence and National Army counter-insurgency alternated, and – for the first time – how the pro-Treaty ‘Murder Gang’ emerged from Michael Collins’ IRA Intelligence Department, ‘the Squad’, with devastating effect. The Civil War in Dublin brings the chaos of these years to life through meticulous detail, revealing unsettling truths about the extreme actions taken by a burgeoning Irish Free State and its anti-Treaty opponents.

During the Irish Civil War, events of late 1922 and early 1923 together with waves of 'dishonourable' killings created poisoned relations between Republicans and 'Free Staters' which would last for several generations. The most enduring of these controversies, a policy of summary executions carried out by the Provisional Government from November 1922, continues to surround the argument. This book offers a fresh perspective on the causes, development and consequences of the Irish Civil War. Triggered by the signing of the Anglo-Treaty, there were those that would accept nothing less than complete Irish independence. Very few IRA commanders active in the field supported the Treaty and, as happens often in the dissection of civil wars, controversy over the conduct of both sides figures heavily within the text, where, at a local and national level, it left bitter legacies. This book offers an overview of the war in all regions of Ireland.

The 1921 partition of Ireland had huge ramifications for almost all aspects of Irish life and was directly responsible for hundreds of deaths and injuries, with thousands displaced from their homes and many more forced from their jobs. Two new justice systems were created; the effects on the major religions were profound, with both jurisdictions adopting wholly different approaches; and major disruptions were caused in crossing the border, with invasive checks and stops becoming the norm. And yet, many bodies remained administered on an all-Ireland basis. The major religions remained all-Ireland bodies. Most trade unions maintained a 32-county presence, as did most sports, trade bodies, charities and other voluntary groups. Politically, however, the new jurisdictions moved further and further apart, while socially and culturally there were differences as well as links between north and south that remain to this day. Very little has been written on the actual effects of partition, the-day-to-day implications, and the complex ways that society, north and south, was truly and meaningfully affected. Birth of the Border: The Impact of Partition in Ireland is the most comprehensive account to date on the far-reaching effects of the partitioning of Ireland.

The story of the Hales family from Bandon epitomises the whole revolutionary period in Ireland. They were involved from the establishment of the Irish Volunteers in West Cork and were closely associated with well-known revolutionary figures, including Michael Collins, Tom Barry and Liam Deasy. Both Seán and Tom were company commanders in the IRA in the area. The signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921 split the family and led to the two brothers taking opposing sides in the Civil War that would follow. Tom Hales was the most senior Republican officer on the scene of the chaotic ambush at Béal na mBláth that led to the shooting of Michael Collins. Seán Hales was himself assassinated in Dublin by Republicans, following a vote in Dáil Éireann to allow the Provisional Government to increase its powers to penalise Republican prisoners.The story of these brothers and the rest of the family gives a unique insight into life in Ireland in this tumultuous period.

This book examines the grass-roots relationship between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the civilian population during the Irish Revolution. It is primarily concerned with the attempts of the militant revolutionaries to discourage, stifle, and punish dissent among the local populations in which they operated, and the actions or inactions by which dissent was expressed or implied. Focusing on the period of guerilla war against British rule from c. 1917 to 1922, it uncovers the acts of 'everyday' violence, threat, and harm that characterized much of the revolutionary activity of this period. Moving away from the ambushes and assassinations that have dominated much of the discourse on the revolution, the book explores low-level violent and non-violent agitation in the Irish town or parish. The opening chapter treats the IRA's challenge to the British state through the campaign against servants of the Crown - policemen, magistrates, civil servants, and others - and IRA participation in local government and the republican counter-state. The book then explores the nature of civilian defiance and IRA punishment in communities across the island before turning its attention specifically to the year that followed the 'Truce' of July 1921. This study argues that civilians rarely operated at either extreme of a spectrum of support but, rather, in a large and fluid middle ground. Behaviour was rooted in local circumstances, and influenced by local fears, suspicions, and rivalries. IRA punishment was similarly dictated by community conditions and usually suited to the nature of the perceived defiance. Overall, violence and intimidation in Ireland was persistent, but, by some contemporary standards, relatively restrained.

On 8 July 1921 a Truce between the IRA and British forces in Ireland was announced, to begin three days later. However, in those three days at least sixty people from both sides of the conflict were killed. In 'Truce', Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc goes back to the facts to reveal what actually happened in those three bloody days, and why. •What sparked Belfast's 'Bloody Sunday' in 1921, the worst bout of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland's troubled history? • Why were four unarmed British soldiers kidnapped and killed by the IRA in Cork just hours before the ceasefire began? •Who murdered Margaret Keogh, a young Dublin rebel, in cold blood on her own doorstep? •Were the last spies shot by the IRA really working for British intelligence or just the victims of anti-Protestant bigotry? This book answers these questions for the first time and separates fact from fiction to find out what really happened in the final battles between the IRA and the British forces.