Product Description

"It will be indispensable reading for those who wish to understand the bloody birth of independent Ireland." Michael Laffan, Irish Historical Studies "Michael Hopkinson has finally broken the taboo on research into this crucial event in Irish political history and has given us the first full-length, archive-based history of the Irish Civil War." Tom Garvin, Irish Literary Supplement "Dr Hopkinson's outstanding achievement is that he is always concise and yet has produced much the most comprehensive and valuable account of the civil war ever published." Ronan Fanning, New Nation "A model of objectivity and detailed knowledge." James Healy, Studies. "Thoroughly researched and well-written it is a dispassionate account of the most passionate of times." T Ryle Dwyer, Irish Times.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #165564 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

About the Author
Dr Michael Hopkinson teaches in the Department of History at Stirling University in Scotland. One of the world's leading authorities on the Irish revolutionary period, he is also the author of The Irish War of Independence.

Customer Reviews

Past and Present

For many outside the island of Ireland, particularly British observers, the ferocity of the various guerrilla or terrorist wars against British rule are difficult to understand. In this splendid and detailed account of the Irish Civil War, Michael Hopkinson, puts Irish violence into an historical context which can best be summarised as "The English never remember, the Irish never forget".

Almost a century after the short-lived Easter Rising of 1916 and the creation of the Irish Free State in 1921 the bitterness of those conflicts still lives on in a Republic created out of the failure to persuade the Green and Orange traditions to live peaceably with each other within the context of an All Ireland Government.

The unity which had characterised Irish nationalism between 1912 and 1919 leading to the withdrawal from the Westminster Parliament of Irish MP's and the establishment of the First Dail after the Coupon Election of 1918 was short-lived. Although the newly established Dail (Assmbly) claimed jurisdiction over Ireland as a whole, the Government of Ireland Act of 1920 partitioned the island leaving six counties in the North to be governed by Britain. Ulster intransigence prevented the usual British compromise.

Between 1919 and 1921 large parts of Ireland, organised by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, were in open revolt against the British government. Following a truce the nationalist leader Eamon de Valera, American born of Hispanic descent but with an Irish mother, delegated Arthur Griffiths and Michael Collins to negotiate Irish independence with Lloyd George. The British Government was unwilling to cede so much and the result was that Ireland was granted dominion status within the British Empire under the terms of the Anglo Irish Treaty signed in December 1921.

The result was deep division within all nationalist institutions "the Dail Cabinet, the Dail, the Sinn Fein Party, the IRA and the IRB" For de Valera the Treaty was not the Republican state he wanted. When the Dail approved it by a narrow margin he resigned. The Provisional Free State, supported by the Catholic Church, became the legitimate government but found itself opposed by anti-Treaty Republican groups. Between June 1922 and May 1923 Ireland was in civil war in which former friends and colleagues killed each other with the same disregard as they formerly killed the British. Some of those killings remain unforgiven to this day and the main political parties in the Republic Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are the successors of the pro and anti Treaty groupings of the 1920's.

Shortly after the death of the IRA Chief of Staff Liam Lynch, his successor Frank Aiken, issued a cease fire and the Irish Civil War came to an end. Aiken himself, like many involved in the war, later served in the Dail and held ministerial office. The crucial issues of "principle" over which the war was fought followed their historic course with the establishment of Eire (Ireland) as the successor to the Free State in 1937 and its departure from the British Commonwealth in 1949. Ulster still remains under British sovereignty although the political cooperation since the Good Friday Agreement is indicative of movement towards the political reunification of the island as a whole. Of course the Real IRA amongst others still want to achieve political union by force while some on the Ulster side of the border are equally adamant in their opposition to change.

Hopkinson's book is a masterpiece of overview and detail and it is hard to disagree with his conclusion that failure to come to terms with the war and its consequences has, "hindered prospects of reconciliation between Ireland and Britain, loyalist and nationalist, as well as Republican and Free Stater". If there is hope it lies in objective reappraisals of the past, whether palatable or not, coupled with the recognition that the past can only be observed, it can never be changed. Not just a book, a work of reference. Five stars without question.