Britain and Ireland from the Treaty to the Troubles Independence and Interdependence, c. 1921-1973

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1.     ‘It all happened so long ago’ - contested histories

Contesting Cromwell

Rebellion

Race and reasonableness

Culture

The fatal path

2.     A ‘weariness’ among ‘everybody’ – conflict and the road to 1921

The Rising and its aftermath

Courting conscription and constraining compromise

The war of independence

Internationalising the cause

Truce and Treaty

3.     The ‘practical experience of administration’ – Cosgrave’s conservatism

The Civil War

Unionists outside the Union

Credibility and customs

Baldwin and the Border

An electrifying endeavour

4.     The logical enigma – de Valera’s divergence

Parliamentary republicanism

The land campaign

Annuities

Ford

Guinness

Smuggling

End of the trade war

5.     Dissent, descent, and difference in interwar discourse

Defining the Irish

Dealing with the diaspora

New arrivals

Anger and assimilation

6.     ‘English cold’ or a ‘want of immunity – tackling tuberculosis

Perceptions

Collaborations

Solutions

Peamount Industries

The man on the spot

The work

Breaking point

7.     Commonwealth and Monarchy

Cosgrave’s Commonwealth

The Crown and Irish life

Constitutional niceties

A new relationship

A new King

A new constitution

8.     ‘Hot Air Harps – the American dimension

The First World War

Versailles

De Valera in the States

The road to independence

Goods and people

Britain remains the priority

The global stage

9.     ‘Friendly’ neutrality? – the Second World War

Neutrality

The Irish in Britain

The American context

Leaving the Commonwealth

10.  To conserve or change the ‘rigid society’ – the postwar status quo

Priests and ‘pagans’

Morality and the Single Mother

Welfare

Partition and Republicanism

An economic reboot

Exiled, and estranged, children

Preferred Immigrants

11.  Travel, trade and the Troubles

Broadening minds

A common destiny? The EEC

Into the Troubles

Conclusion

Bibliography

Biography

Richard Carr is Associate Professor of Public Policy and Strategy at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), Cambridge, England. He has authored the books Charlie Chaplin: A Political Biography from Victorian Britain to Modern America, (2017, longlisted for a Kraszna-Krausz book award) and March of the Moderates: Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and the Rebirth of Progressive Politics (2019). He co-authored Alice in Westminster: The Political Life of Alice Bacon (2016, a Guardian newspaper politics book of the year) with Rachel Reeves (MP). He has worked in the think tank and public policy sphere and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

"This is a well-written, informative account that identifies a niche in the existing historiography. Beginning in the period leading up to Irish independence, it takes the reader through five decades of the evolving relationship between the Irish Free State / Éire and Britain, covering high politics and constitutional evolution alongside social and cultural change. Whilst different audiences will agree and disagree with elements of its conclusions, notions of citizenship, nationality and migration are particularly well addressed."

Dr David Shiels, Former Archives By-Fellow, Churchill College, University of Cambridge

"[a] careful and convincing study of the relationship between Britain and Ireland in the mid-twentieth century...The book...contains several useful chapters for scholars and students of modern British and Irish political, economic, social, and cultural history. Carr’s handling of this varied material is deft, maintaining both an empathetic standpoint and a wry tone."  

Dr Colm Murphy, Senior Lecturer in British Politics, Queen Mary University of London, (Journal of) Modern British History