What do soldiers do when all is lost? They keep fighting! In this best-selling anthology, Bryan Perrett provides gripping accounts of close-quarter battles and hard fought victory against all the odds. His journey from Napoleonic Europe through to the Korean War highlights thirteen episodes of incredible bravery and sacrifice in unbelievable actions. The book begins with the gallant fight of Napoleon's Old Guard at Waterloo. It examines the famous actions at the Alamo; against the Zulus at Rorke's Drift; and 'the Bridge Too Far' at Arnhem. The adventure concludes with the desperate last stand of the Gloucesters at Imjin during the Korean War. Last Stand! is the breathtaking story of ultimate sacrifice and glorious victory.

A timely assessment of loyalist history, identity and community in Northern Ireland today which provides a comprehensive picture of how loyalism has reacted to changes since the Good Friday Agreement. Challenging simplistic stereotypes of loyalism this book provides a complex multi-faceted explanation of the loyalist imagination.

Charles Haughey maintained one of the most controversial and brilliant careers in the history of Irish politics, but for every stage in his mounting success there was one issue that complicated, and almost devastated, his ambitions to lead Irish politics: Northern Ireland. In ‘A Failed Political Entity’ Stephen Kelly uncovers the complex motives that underlie Haughey’s fervent attitude towards the political and sectarian violence that was raging across the border. Early in Haughey’s governmental career he took a hard line against the IRA, leading many to think he was antipathetic towards the situation in Northern Ireland. Then, in one of the most defining scandals in the history of modern Ireland – The Arms Crisis of 1970 – he was accused of attempting to supply northern nationalists with guns and ammunitions. Whilst his role in this murky affair almost ended his political career, the question of Northern Ireland was ever-binding and would deftly serve to bring Haughey back to power as taoiseach in 1979. Through recent access to an astonishing array of classified documents and extensive interviews, Stephen Kelly confronts every controversy, examining the genesis of Haughey’s attitude to Northern Ireland; allegations that Haughey played a key part in the formation of the Provisional IRA; the Haughey–Thatcher relationship; and Haughey’s leading hand in the early stages of the fledgling Northern Ireland peace process.

This collection of papers examines the current rise in violence by Dissident Irish Republicans and its impact on the Northern Ireland Peace Process. The work will address advanced undergraduate and graduate students in Terrorism Studies, Irish Politics, Political Violence, and Conflict Studies.

Truth, Denial and Transition: Northern Ireland and the Contested Past makes a unique and timely contribution to the transitional justice field. In contrast to the focus on truth and those societies where truth recovery has been central to dealing with the aftermath of human rights violations, comparatively little scholarly attention has been paid to those jurisdictions whose transition from violent conflict has been marked by the absence or rejection of a formal truth process. This book draws upon the case study of Northern Ireland, where, despite a lengthy debate, the question of establishing a formal truth recovery process remains hotly contested. The strongest and most vocal opposition has been from unionist political elites, loyalist ex-combatants and members of the security forces. Based on empirical research, their opposition is unpicked and interrogated at length throughout this book. Critically exploring notions of national imagination and blamelessness, the politics of victimhood and the tension between traditions of sacrifice and the fear of betrayal, this book is the first substantive effort to concentrate on the opponents of truth recovery rather than its advocates. This book will interest those studying truth processes and transitional justice in the fields of Law, Politics, and Criminology.

In this vivid account, the author punctures some generally held assumptions: despite slaughter and famine, the province on the eve of the Plantation was not completely depopulated as was often asserted at the time; the native Irish were not deliberately given the most infertile land; some of the most energetic planters were Catholic; and the Catholic Church there emerged stronger than before. Above all, natives and newcomers fused to a greater degree than is widely believed: apart from recent immigrants, nearly all Ulster people today have the blood of both Planter and Gael flowing in their veins. Nevertheless, memories of dispossession and massacre, etched into the folk memory, were to ignite explosive outbreaks of intercommunal conflict down to our own time. The Plantation was also the beginning of a far greater exodus to North America. Subsequently, descendants of Ulster planters crossed the Atlantic in their tens of thousands to play a central role in shaping the United States of America.