Originally edited by F.X. Martin in 1963, this is the 50th anniversary edition of the classic work on the Irish Volunteers. This book is a wonderful and unique historical record of the Irish Volunteer movement, revealing fascinating documents and essays written by the leading members of Irish nationalism, during a period when the Irish people witnessed social and cultural changes that were as radical as anything seen in Irish history. Including contributions by Bulmer Hobson, Eoin MacNeill, Pádraig Pearse, Michael Davitt, The O’Rahilly, Éamonn Ceannt, and Seán T. Ó Ceallaigh, this a rich compendium of essays, original letters, first hand reports, inspiring speeches, newspaper editorials, military and administrative instructions as well as members’ subscription lists. This classic text explains how the Irish Volunteers, encompassing a new generation of Irish men and women, oversaw the develop ment of a new and re- energized movement, free from much of the party-political machinations and interference that had hindered Irish nationalist attempts at self-determination in previous decades. As described in these essays, the Irish Volunteers were a ‘broad church’ encompassing members of the Gaelic League, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Sinn Féin, the IRB, Irish Citizen Army, Cumann na mBan and Fianna Éireann, all contributing to a unified and dynamic coalition. Something new and unprecedented occurred in Irish history – a movement which we are only now beginning to understand in terms of its great and distinctive legacy, a full century later.

In his exploration of the use of intelligence in Ireland by the British government from the onset of the Ulster Crisis in 1912 to the end of the Irish War of Independence in 1921, Grob-Fitzgibbon analyzes the role that intelligence played during those critical nine years.

What is it like to be in the IRA - or at their mercy? This study explores the lives and deaths of the enemies and victims of the County Cork IRA between 1916 and 1923.

The Irish Citizen Army (ICA) was born from the Dublin Lockout of 1913, when industrialist William Martin Murphy ‘locked out’ workers who refused to resign from the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, sparking one of the most dramatic industrial disputes in Irish history. Faced with threats of police brutality in response to the strike, James Connolly, James Larkin and Jack White established the ICA in the winter of 1913. By the end of March 1914, the ICA espoused republican ideology and that the ownership of Ireland was ‘vested of right in the people of Ireland’. The ICA was in the process of being totally transformed, going on to provide significant support to the IRA during the 1916 Rising. Despite Connolly’s execution and the internment of many ICA members, the ICA reorganised in 1917, subsequently developing networks for arms importation and ‘intelligence’, and later providing operative support for the War of Independence in Dublin. The most extensive survey of the movement to date, The ‘Labour Hercules’ explores the ICA’s evolution into a republican army and its legacy to the present day.

An innovative and original analysis of Protestant advanced nationalists, from the early twentieth century to the end of the Irish Civil War.

The Easter Rising of 1916 had a lasting effect upon Ireland, with many viewing it as a watershed in the history of modern Ireland and concurring with Yeats that a «terrible beauty was born». Seeking to clarify the state of nationalist opinion in the period before the Rising, Genesis of the Rising is as much an undertaking in social psychology as it is a social and political history. It strives to debunk many longstanding theories, most significantly the turning of the tide thesis, which asserts that British blunders in the wake of the failed Rising turned the tide in public opinion toward the course envisioned by the Rebels. Genesis of the Rising contends that as early as 1912, with the introduction of the Third Home Rule Bill, through the start of the Great War, and right up to Easter 1916, the tide in nationalist opinion had been turning, albeit silently, and that the Rising was a catalytic force that accelerated an already ongoing process. It reveals a dichotomy in nationalist opinion between covert views and misleading, overt opinion when it suggests that it was the Rising and the executions that subsequently forced nationalist opinion to show its true colors. In effect, the tide had begun to turn long before Easter 1916; and constitutional nationalism, as represented by the Third Home Rule Bill and the Irish Parliamentary Party, was giving way to some aspect of physical-force nationalism.

This is a major, collaborative study of organised military activity and its broad impact on Ireland over the last thousand years or so, from the middle of the first millennium AD to modern times. It integrates the best recent scholarship in military history into its social and political context to provide a comprehensive treatment of the Irish military experience. The eighteen chronologically-organised chapters are written by leading scholars each of whom is an authority on the period in question. Drawing the whole work together is a wide-ranging introductory essay on the 'Irish military tradition' which explores the relationship of Irish society and politics with militarism and military affairs. The text is illustrated throughout by over 120 pictures and maps.