The Irish War of Independence, January 1919 to July 1921, constituted the final stages of the Irish revolution. It went hand in hand with the collapse of British administration in Ireland. The military conflict consisted of sporadic, localised but vicious guerrilla fighting that was paralleled by the efforts of the Dail Government to achieve an independent Irish Republic and the partitioning of the country by the Government of Ireland Act.

Michael Hopkinson brings many of the same methods to this new book that distinguished his Green Against Green. It is a meticulous piecing together of many disparate local actions into a coherent narrative. It stresses local and contingent issues, rather than proposing a central master plan operated by the Dublin-based republican leadership.

This book devotes separate sections to British politics and government, to the Intelligence war, the fighting in the various localities, and to Irish America. Particular stress is placed on the war's relevance to the six counties. The overall aim is to place the events in a wider context than is usually adopted and to consider the crucial question of how necessary the use of violence was for the achievement of Irish independence.

The Author 

Dr Michael Hopkinson teaches history at the University of Stirling in Scotland. He is the author of Green Against Green: The Irish Civil War, the standard history of the Irish civil war, which has been in print continuously since 1988. He has edited Last Days of Dublin Castle: The Diaries of Mark Sturgis, published in 1999, and written numerous articles and contributions to books on the Irish revolutionary period.