The publication in 1965 of J.C. Beckett's The Making of Modern Ireland was a milestone in the modern study of Irish history. 'This excellent book supersedes all previous histories of modern Ireland... admirably constructed and written with clarity and economy which carry the narrative unflaggingly through to the end .' New Statesman 'Technically this book is a masterly achievement... The presentation is not only learned but cool, objective, unimpassioned and yet almost always alive and compassionate as well... As a reference book alone it is immensely valuable... As an example of a humane, scholarly, expert history, Professor Beckett's book will be difficult to surpass.' D. B. Quinn, Belfast Telegraph 'One of the most remarkable single-volume histories of modern Ireland. It would be hard indeed to improve upon its lapidary style and concise lucidity... an achievement unusual in scope and authoritative in judgement.' Charles Townshend, History Today

'I was brought up to think myself Irish without question or qualification,' wrote the Irish author and politician, Stephen Gwynn, in the 1920s, 'but the new nationalism prefers to describe me and the like of me as Anglo-Irish.' This new nationalism maintained that the only true Irishman was a Gael, and Gaelic culture the only truly Irish culture. Other elements, if they could not be eliminated, must be given a label indicating their 'foreign' origin. 'Anglo-Irish was the name given to the descendents and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy that had ruled Ireland in the eighteenth century, to which belonged Swift and Burke, Goldsmith and Grattan. They were, in general, members of the Church of Ireland and mainly, though not exclusively, of English extraction. But they certainly felt themselves to be Irish, however they might differ from the majority of their countrymen. In this book J. C. Beckett maintains that the Anglo-Irish tradition is an essential part of the life of Ireland. He traces its history down to the Treaty of 1921, and discusses briefly the significance for Ireland of their decline, both in numbers and in influence, after that date.

During the Jacobite war of 1689-91 James II had no more determined enemies than the Irish presbyterians. But when protestant ascendancy in Ireland was restored under William III, they found that the privileged position of the established church was to remain intact. To English statesmen of the period it seemed that the only essential division of Irish society was that of 'protestant or papist'. But in fact the sub-division of the protestant minority into churchmen and dissenters was in some respects more important. It was a political and social as well as a religious division; and it was one of the forces which stimulated emigration from Ulster to North America during the half century preceding the war of independence.

This book is an attempt to explain why this division among protestants persisted in face of a hostile majority of Catholics, and to examine the extent to which the dissenters actually suffered under the penal laws directed against them.

The essays in this collection cover several centuries of Irish history and discuss a variety of topics. Yet, as Professor Beckett points out in his preface, they are linked by a crucial central theme; in one way or another the essays all touch on 'those elements of conflict that have played such a large part in Ireland's past and have left a troublesome legacy to the present generation'. The opening essay, his inaugural lecture as the first Professor of Irish History at Queen's University, Belfast, lays the foundation for the rest by discussing in a general way the chief problem facing the Irish historian: the lack of any clear pattern of development into which the conflicts presented in the other essays can be readily placed.

The topics discussed range from the question of Irish-Scottish relations in the seventeenth century to the role played by Edward Carson in the politics of Ulster, and include a previously unpublished essay on 'Swift: the priest in politics'.

'. He] brings out, with his usual lucidity and detachment, how at all levels and in all periods of modern Irish history, friction of a peculiarly abrasive kind has been almost a law of life.' "Times Literary Supplement"