Product Description

This is a comprehensive study of British policy towards Ireland in the 20 years following the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. The Irish question did not vanish with the signing of the Treaty, and this study examines its continued importance in British politics after the Treaty, albeit under the surface. Drawing on recently released official documents, private papers, interviews and newspaper reports, the author has provided a detailed picture of opinion which determined British policy in the inter-war years. The book is intended for scholars and students of British and Irish political history and Anglo-Irish relations in the 20th century.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1630652 in Books
• Published on: 1985-07-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 360 pages

Review
"This is...an important and valuable book."--Journal of Modern History
"Drawing on official documents, private papers, interviews and newspaper reports, Canning throws new light on policy-making towards Ireland in these crucial years."--International Affairs

Customer Reviews

A good diplomatic history of Britain and Ireland
This is a standard work of 'diplomatic history', utilising all the sources one would expect of a historian examining the relationship between two countries. This was the first book to look at the travails of Anglo-Irish relations during the 1920s and 1930s, and thus has become the definitive study of this area. Canning begins his account with the signing of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty which led to the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922. This gave the newly independent Ireland dominion status within the British empire. However, from the very beginning the Treaty was opposed, splitting Sinn Fein down the middle and leading to the Irish Civil War between 1922-23. The book charts the British approach towards the newest dominion within the empire. Inevitably, the relationship was more than a little troubled even with the putatively pro-Treaty government that was in power throughout the 1920s. Canning's account highlights the varying attitudes towards Ireland of the ministers and officials in Britain. These include figures like Sir Warren Fisher, head of the Treasury for much of the period, who worked tirelessly to get his political masters to take a less hard-line attitude toward the Free State, particularly after the anti-Treaty Eamon de Valera came to power in 1932. He was to have some success with Neville Chamberlain, who originally had been a Cabinet hawk when it came to Ireland for most of the 1930s, but who went on to sign the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1938. Other prominent figures include Winston Churchill, who became one of the defenders of the Free State during the 1920s, but turned against its government during the 1930s when de Valera began to dismember the 1921 Treaty, of which Churchill had been one of the chief architects. The book mainly rests on British official documents and the private papers of many of the key individuals. The book's main focus is on Britain, and so there is relatively little treatment of events in Ireland itself. The book remains, the standard account of Anglo-Irish relations during the interwar period.