Packed with violence, political drama and social and cultural upheaval, the years 1913-1923 saw the emergence in Ireland of the Ulster Volunteer Force to resist Irish home rule and in response, the Irish Volunteers, who would later evolve into the IRA. World War One, the rise of Sinn Fein, intense Ulster unionism and conflict with Britain culminated in the Irish war of Independence, which ended with a compromise Treaty with Britain and then the enmities and drama of the Irish Civil War. Drawing on an abundance of newly released archival material, witness statements and testimony from the ordinary Irish people who lived and fought through extraordinary times, A Nation and not a Rabble explores these revolutions. Diarmaid Ferriter highlights the gulf between rhetoric and reality in politics and violence, the role of women, the battle for material survival, the impact of key Irish unionist and republican leaders, as well as conflicts over health, land, religion, law and order, and welfare.

A ground-breaking history of the twentieth century in Ireland, written on the most ambitious scale by a brilliant young historian. It is significant that it begins in 1900 and ends in 2000 - most accounts have begun in 1912 or 1922 and largely ignored the end of the century. Politics and political parties are examined in detail but high politics does not dominate the book, which rather sets out to answer the question: 'What was it like to grow up and live in 20th-century Ireland'? It deals with the North in a comprehensive way, focusing on the social and cultural aspects, not just the obvious political and religious divisions.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ONSIDE NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018 The islands off the coast of Ireland have long been a source of fascination. Seen as repositories of an ancient Irish culture and the epitome of Irish romanticism, they have attracted generations of scholars, artists and filmmakers, from James Joyce to Robert O'Flaherty, looking for a way of life uncontaminated by modernity or materialism. But the reality for islanders has been a lot more complex. They faced poverty, hardship and official hostility, even while being expected to preserve an ancient culture and way of life. Writing in her 1936 autobiography, Peig Sayers, resident of Blaskets island, described it as 'this dreadful rock'. In 1841, there were 211 inhabited islands with a combined population of 38,000; by 2011, only 64 islands were inhabited, with a total population of 8,500. And younger generations continue to leave. By documenting the island experiences and the social, cultural and political reaction to them over the last 100 years, On the Edge examines why this exodus has happened, and the gulf between the rhetoric that elevated island life and the reality of the political hostility towards them.It uncovers, through state and private archives, personal memoirs, newspaper coverage, and the author's personal travels, the realities behind the "dreadful rocks", and the significance of the experiences of, and reactions to, those who were and remain, literally, on the very edge of European civilisation.

Shortlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2019 'Anyone who wishes to understand why Brexit is so intractable should read this book. I can think of several MPs who ought to.' The Times For the past two decades, you could cross the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic half a dozen times without noticing or, indeed, turning off the road you were travelling. It cuts through fields, winds back-and-forth across roads, and wends from Carlingford Lough to Lough Foyle. It is frictionless - a feat sealed by the Good Friday Agreement. Before that, watchtowers loomed over border communities, military checkpoints dotted the roads, and smugglers slipped between jurisdictions. This is a past that most are happy to have left behind but might it also be the future? The border has been a topic of dispute for over a century, first in Dublin, Belfast and Westminster and, post Brexit referendum, in Brussels. Yet, despite the passions of Nationalists and Unionists in the North, neither found deep wells of support in the countries they identified with politically. British political leaders were often ignorant of the conflict's complexities, rarely visited the border, and privately disliked their erstwhile unionist allies. Southern leaders' anti-partition statements masked relative indifference and unofficial cooperation with British security services. From the 1920 Government of Ireland Act that created the border, the Treaty and its aftermath, through the Civil Rights Movement, Thatcher, the Troubles and the Good Friday Agreement up to the Brexit negotiations, Ferriter reveals the political, economic, social and cultural consequences of the border in Ireland. With the fate of the border uncertain, The Border is a timely intervention by a renowned historian into one of the most contentious and misunderstood political issues of our time.

THE IRISH BESTSELLER 'Ferriter has richly earned his reputation as one of Ireland's leading historians' Irish Independent 'Absorbing ... A fascinating exploration of the Civil War and its impact on Ireland and Irish politics' Irish Times In June 1922, just seven months after Sinn Fein negotiators signed a compromise treaty with representatives of the British government to create the Irish Free State, Ireland collapsed into civil war. While the body count suggests it was far less devastating than other European civil wars, it had a harrowing impact on the country and cast a long shadow, socially, economically and politically, which included both public rows and recriminations and deep, often private traumas. Drawing on many previously unpublished sources and newly released archival material, one of Ireland's most renowned historians lays bare the course and impact of the war and how this tragedy shaped modern Ireland.

Major Haig ordered them to 'prepare to fire', whereupon they the fired indiscriminately, point blank, at the people in the street. Four people were killed and thirty-seven wounded. All Ireland seethed with indignation . . . ' This new edition of Dublin's Fighting Story with an introduction by Diarmaid Ferriter features stories and reports from every aspect of the War of Independence, from the formation of the Fianna Eireann and the Volunteers, through the Great Dublin Strike and Lock-out in 1913 and the 1916 Rising to the death of Sean Treacy in a bloody street shoot-out, the triumph and tragedy of Bloody Sunday and the burning of the Customs House. Dublin's Fighting Story offers the perspective of the eye witnesses and fighting men themselves to the struggle for independence in Dublin.

Years of Turbulence powerfully showcases many new perspectives on the Irish revolutionary period of 1912-23, through the vivid and provocative scholarship of leading and emerging historians. The contributors to this fascinating collection not only focus on new angles, they also revisit traditional assumptions, and elaborate on some of the central, current debates on the revolutionary period. Many muted voices of the revolution are given a platform for the first time in these pages. The collection demonstrates a determination to uncover personal experiences and protests that until now have remained relatively undocumented and ignored. Such themes as the experience of violence in its various forms, the specific circumstances of individual counties, tensions between constitutionalism and radicalism, between elites and the grassroots, the extent to which the IRA's campaign was effectively co-ordinated and controlled, as well as the challenge of writing about women and what they experienced, are deeply considered.Historians in this collection also recognise the need to address, not just events of the revolutionary period, but its afterlife, assessing what the revolution and its leaders came to symbolise, the extent to which a hierarchy of benefit existed in its aftermath, and what the implications were for survivors. Making use of a variety of recently released archival material - including censuses of Ireland of 1901 and 1911, the Bureau of Military History collection, the Military Archives and Service Pensions Collection - Years of Turbulence reveals a fascinating web of different experiences during the revolutionary era and is a fitting contribution, not only to the pioneering scholarship of renowned historian Michael Laffan, who this collection honours, but also to the current decade of commemoration of the centenary of the revolution. The book is richly illustrated with rare images of the period from the Des FitzGerald collection.

This unique volume, comprising Colm Toibin's acclaimed short text and a linked collection of key documents put together by one of Ireland's leading younger historians, offers a many-sided view of one's of history's most poignant and far-reaching catastrophes. This book will allow the reader to understand the complex way in which the fragmentary past is both available to us ... and distant from us.' We get those insights from Toibin's short history and from a rich collection of documents -- government papers, recipes, journalism, letters, statistics, personal statements, all linked so the book can be read as a whole.