In his exploration of the use of intelligence in Ireland by the British government from the onset of the Ulster Crisis in 1912 to the end of the Irish War of Independence in 1921, Grob-Fitzgibbon analyzes the role that intelligence played during those critical nine years. He argues that within that period, the British government lost power in Ireland because it failed to utilize the intelligence it received. Through its indifference, the British government contributed to the turning points of the Irish Revolution, and allowed a bloody guerrilla war to develop that was far from inevitable.

In his exploration of the use of intelligence in Ireland by the British government from the onset of the Ulster Crisis in 1912 to the end of the Irish War of Independence in 1921, Grob-Fitzgibbon analyzes the role that intelligence played during those critical nine years.

The story of the British Empire in the twentieth century is one of decline, disarray, and despondency. Or so we have been told. In this fresh and controversial account of Britain's end of empire, Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon rejects this consensus, showing instead that in the years 1945-1960 the British government developed a successful imperial strategy based on devolving power to indigenous peoples within the Commonwealth. This strategy was calculated to allow decolonization to occur on British terms rather than those of the indigenous populations, and thus to keep these soon-to-be former colonies within the British and Western spheres of influence during the Cold War. To achieve this new form of informal liberal imperialism, however, the government had to rely upon the use of illiberal dirty wars. Spanning the globe from Palestine to Malaya, Kenya to Cyprus, these dirty wars represented Britain's true imperial endgame.