The key turning point in modern Ireland's history, the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 has shadowed Ireland's political life for decades. In this first book-length assessment of the treaty in over seventy years, Jason Knirck recounts the compelling story of the nationalist politics that produced the Irish Revolution, the tortuous treaty negotiations, and the deep divisions within Sinn Féin that led to the slow unraveling of fragile party cohesion. Focusing on broad ideological and political disputes, as well as on the powerful personalities involved, the author considers the major issues that divided the pro- and anti-treaty forces, why these issues mattered, and the later judgments of historians. He concludes that the treaty debates were in part the result of the immaturity of Irish nationalist politics, as well as the overriding emphasis given to revolutionary unity. A fascinating story in their own right, the treaty debates also open a wider window onto questions of European nationalism, colonialism, state-building, and competing visions of Irish national independence. Treaty Documents

As late as 2007, Anglo Irish Bank was a darling of the markets, internationally recognized as one of the fastest growing financial institutions in the world. By 2008, it was bust. The Irish government's hopeless attempts to save Anglo have led the state to ruin - culminating in a punitive IMF bailout in late 2010 and threatening the future of the euro. Now, for the first time, the full story of the Anglo disaster is being told - by the journalist who has led the way in coverage of the bank and its many secrets. Drawing on his unmatched sources in and around Anglo, Simon Carswell of the Irish Times shows how the business model that brought Anglo twenty years of spectacular growth was also at the heart of its - and Ireland's - downfall. He paints a vivid and disturbing picture of life inside Anglo - the credit committee meetings, the lightning-quick negotiations with property developers, the culture of lavish entertainment for politicians and regulators - and of the men who presided over its dizzying rise and fall: Sean FitzPatrick, David Drumm, Willie McAteer and many others. This is not only the first full account of the Anglo disaster; it will also be the definitive one.

Moynahan begins in 1800 with the Act of Union and the dissolution of the Dublin Parliament, at which point the Anglo-Irish become Irish. Just as the fortunes of this community begin to wane, its literary power unfolds. The Anglo-Irish produce a haunting, memorable body of writings that explore a unique yet always Irish identity and destiny. Moynahan's exploration of the literature reveals women writers - Maria Edgeworth, Edith Somerville, Martin Ross, and Elizabeth Bowen - as a generative and major force in the development of this literary imagination. Along the way, he attends closely to the Gothic and to the mystery writing of C.R. Maturin and J.S. Le Fanu, and provides in-depth revaluations of William Carleton and Charles Lever.

The Irish War of Independence is still regarded as a conflict that is both enigmatic and emotive in content; it transformed the British imperial dream into a nightmare and was to shape the foreign and domestic agendas of two countries for nearly a century. This book seeks to examine the reasons and ask the hard questions to determine why the British state was unable to pour oil on troubled Irish waters and put Home Rule to bed and how that inability was left to fester. It examines in detail the relationships which existed between the arms of the British administration in Ireland and how the complexity of those bonds led sometimes to an animosity of sorts being fostered until it began to affect operational aspects of the British security apparatus in Ireland.' The operations and actions of British Army, the Royal Irish Constabulary, their mercenary Auxiliary security forces and the Bristish Government of the day are all probed and examined in this book. Why were the British, with massive imperial holdings and a modern and well equipped armed forces, unable to suppress an infant insurgency, numerically inferior and ill equipped less than four hundred miles from Whitehall? Why was the shining light of British colonial policing, the Royal Irish Constabulary subjected to stagnation and rot from within for over fifty years? Why instead of reforming the existing police in place in Ireland mercenary forces, with little official oversight, were introduced into Ireland in an effort to quell the rising trouble?

This work fills a long-felt void in the study of both Irish and English, by providing the first extensive compilation of Hiberno-English words, their meanings and etymologies. The legendary eloquence of the Irish is here shown to be the product of not one, but two languages.

Gillian Kenny provides a coherent picture of the lives of women in medieval Ireland through an examination of their marital circumstances. By comparing and contrasting the differing lives of Anglo-Irish and Gaelic singlewomen, wives, widows and nuns of late medieval Ireland, the author tries to identify how their functions and roles in society were affected by the differing rights enjoyed and by the restrictions imposed by their different societies. The book is constructed to reflect thematically the standard marital progression of women in medieval Ireland (both Gaelic and Anglo-Irish) from singlewomen to wives to widows. The machinery of church and state dominated and controlled how women conducted their lives. Within these structures, however, women were able, to differing extents, to transmit and receive land and movables, to work for a living as tradeswomen, craftswomen or merchants, or to devote themselves to the spiritual life as singlewomen, wives or widows.

'I was brought up to think myself Irish without question or qualification,' wrote the Irish author and politician, Stephen Gwynn, in the 1920s, 'but the new nationalism prefers to describe me and the like of me as Anglo-Irish.' This new nationalism maintained that the only true Irishman was a Gael, and Gaelic culture the only truly Irish culture. Other elements, if they could not be eliminated, must be given a label indicating their 'foreign' origin. 'Anglo-Irish was the name given to the descendents and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy that had ruled Ireland in the eighteenth century, to which belonged Swift and Burke, Goldsmith and Grattan. They were, in general, members of the Church of Ireland and mainly, though not exclusively, of English extraction. But they certainly felt themselves to be Irish, however they might differ from the majority of their countrymen. In this book J. C. Beckett maintains that the Anglo-Irish tradition is an essential part of the life of Ireland. He traces its history down to the Treaty of 1921, and discusses briefly the significance for Ireland of their decline, both in numbers and in influence, after that date.