A compelling narrative of contemporary Ireland from one of its most highly respected historians The Ireland of today is a place poised between the divisiveness of deep-seated conflict and the modernizing pull of material prosperity. Though each state's history is strikingly divergent, the mirroring ideologies that fuel them are remarkably symbiotic. With Ireland Since 1939, one of the most distinguished Irish historians working today casts a fresh and unpredictable eye to Ireland's history from World War II up through the present to show how-by putting aside its North/South conflict-Ireland can look forward to a prosperous economic future.

A compelling narrative of contemporary Ireland from one of its most highly respected historians The Ireland of today is a place poised between the divisiveness of deep-seated conflict and the modernizing pull of material prosperity. Though each state's history is strikingly divergent, the mirroring ideologies that fuel them are remarkably symbiotic. With Ireland Since 1939, one of the most distinguished Irish historians working today casts a fresh and unpredictable eye to Ireland's history from World War II up through the present to show how-by putting aside its North/South conflict-Ireland can look forward to a prosperous economic future.

Where previous histories of Ireland in the war years have focused on high politics, That Neutral Island mines deeper layers of experience. Stories, letters, and diaries illuminate this small country as it suffered rationing, censorship, the threat of invasion, and a strange detachment from the war.

This is a comprehensive history of Ireland, North and South, which traces the developments from World War II to the Belfast Agreement and the creation of a new inclusive government in Northern Ireland. It aims to avoid what is too often a partitional approach to the history of Ireland, which treats the North and South in isolation from one another.; Making extensive use of archival material from Belfast, Dublin, and London, "Ireland Since 1939" provides varying perspectives on a range of important episodes - from Irish neutrality to the 1970 Arms Crisis, and from Lord Brookeborough's failed attempt to modernize the Northern Ireland state to the disastrous events of Bloody Sunday in Derry.; Developments in Ireland are placed in an international context - from the period when World War II rescued Ulster Unionism from economic decline and social conflict to explaining how the end of the Cold War contributed to the IRA's 1994 ceasefire. The importance of economic developments on the political situation in both states is also emphasized, and Patterson argues that the Celtic Tiger was an important factor in the recent talks between North and South.

This original and distinctive book surveys the political, economic and social history of Northern Ireland in the Second World War. Since its creation in 1920, Northern Ireland has been a deeply divided society and the book explores these divisions before and during the war. It examines rearmament, the relatively slow wartime mobilisation, the 1941 Blitz, labour and industrial relations, politics and social policy. Northern Ireland was the only part of the UK with a devolved government and no military conscription during the war. The absence of military conscription made the process of mobilisation, and the experience of men and women, very different from that in Britain. The book's conclusion considers how the government faced the domestic and international challenges of the postwar world. This study draws on a wide range of primary sources and will appeal to those interested in modern Irish and British history and in the Second World War.

The curiously claustrophobic 'lost years' of the Second World War were a watershed for neutral Ireland and the Irish. While many Irishmen volunteered to serve in the British forces, others crowded into Ireland's own defence forces, and German spies were rumoured to be forging links with the IRA. Draconian emergency powers orders used the (often ludicrous) weapon of censorship to protect the nation's neutrality and the war came closer than the news reports from distant battlefields when bombs fell on Belfast and Dublin, raising questions about the viability of neutrality. ony Gray recreates the 'lost years' with wit and vigour and a comprehensive knowledge of the period. Drawing on personal recollections of his life in Ireland furing the war he brings to life a unique slice of history and a time of great change.