The Anglo Irish War 1916 1921

An analysis of the Anglo-Irish War of 1916–1921 using the framework of a people's war, this study explains how one of the smallest nations on earth emerged victorious against one of the world's most powerful empires. Of the many accounts of the Irish War of Independence, none adequately explains the Irish victory over a force that was superior in technology, industry, military force, and population. While the theorists associated today with the strategies characteristic of a people's war were either not yet born or were unknown to those in the Irish Republican Army and Sinn Fein, the war they waged closely fits later revolutionary models. This is the first critical study of the insurgent and counter-insurgent campaigns in a controversial and often misunderstood conflict. The Republic won in 1921, but what did it win? The Irish succeeded in securing Home Rule on their own terms when England refused to give in. Meanwhile the Crown Forces gained valuable experience in a form of war that would continue to plague them decades later. Appendices include information on the political, military, and paramilitary organizations in Ireland; important Irish political documents; songs of the rebellion; and a critical bibliography.

The Irish Revolution at the beginning of the twentieth century spawned the creation of the modern Irish state. This is the first full length analysis to offer a comprehensive framework of that revolution in its totality, taking into account the broad range of social, economic and political developments as well as the IRA's campaign of guerrilla warfare and the British response to it. Drawing on such previously unpublished sources as the Irish Department of Defense's Military History Bureau, the author paints a broad picture of the people and the key events in the Irish struggle for independence. The book also breaks new ground in presenting much of the behind the scenes debate within the British Government in the prosecution of its policies in response to the revolt in Ireland. British official frustration provoked by the acceptance of D���¡il Eireann by the majority of the Irish people and the independent institutions it sought to set in place is also explicitly chronicled. New light is shed on the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations as well as on the divisions within Irish nationalism before and indeed afterwards which culminated in the Irish Civil War. The role of external forces including public opinion in the United States and British competing obligations at home and abroad are also covered. Considerable attention is given to the development of democratic government in the fledgling Irish Free State in the midst of domestic upheaval, and to the broader effort at nation building which followed after the Civil War.

The first comprehensive account to record and analyze all deaths arising from the Irish revolution between 1916 and 1921 This account covers the turbulent period from the 1916 Rising to the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921—a period which saw the achievement of independence for most of nationalist Ireland and the establishment of Northern Ireland as a self-governing province of the United Kingdom. Separatists fought for independence against government forces and, in North East Ulster, armed loyalists. Civilians suffered violence from all combatants, sometimes as collateral damage, often as targets. Eunan O’Halpin and Daithí Ó Corráin catalogue and analyze the deaths of all men, women, and children who died during the revolutionary years—505 in 1916; 2,344 between 1917 and 1921. This study provides a unique and comprehensive picture of everyone who died: in what manner, by whose hands, and why. Through their stories we obtain original insight into the Irish revolution itself.

An accessible overview of Ireland's War of Independence, 1919-21. From the first shooting of RIC constables in Soloheadbeg, Co Tipperary, on 21 January 1919 to the truce in July 1921, the IRA carried out a huge range of attacks on all levels of British rule in Ireland. There are stories of humanity, such as the British soldiers who helped three IRA men escape from prison or the members of the British Army who mutinied in India after hearing about the reprisals being carried out by the Black and Tans in Ireland. The hundreds of thousands of people who celebrated the Centenary of the 1916 Rising with pride and joy are the same people who will appreciate the story of the Irish Republicans who battled against all odds in the next phase of the fight for Ireland between 1919 and 1921.

The Irish War of Independence was a sporadic guerrilla campaign which lasted from January 1919 until July 1921. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) attacked the forces of the British crown with the intention of breaking Britain's will to rule Ireland. This campaign paralleled the political efforts of Sinn Fein to create an independent Irish republic.

?Ireland's War of Independence generated a wealth of published material but very little from a British perspective. Yet many British servicemen left accounts of their time in Ireland from 1918 to 1921. They describe military operations, the IRA, the Irish, the actions of their own forces, morale and relationships with local communities. There is Brigadier Vinden's strange tale of a drinking session with Michael Collins and humour in the sending of Gaelic-speaking Highlanders into a public house to eavesdrop in the belief that Sinn Féiners always spoke Irish to each other. The author has gone deep into British military archives to unearth these never-published accounts. Supplemented with unpublished photographs from the Imperial War Museum and the Irish National Library, these accounts form a landmark oral history told through the personal experiences of men from across the ranks.

Brings together in a cohesive and readable volume, the three key events from which the Republic of Ireland evolved: the Easter Rising of 1916, The War of Independence of 1921 and the Civil War of 1922.