This generously illustrated popular history surveys the entire period of the Irish Revolution. Beginning with the Ulster crisis of 1912, it traces the turbulent events of the following years down to the final report of the Boundary Commission in 1925 which stabilized the border between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. Naturally, the Easter Rising of 1916 is the central event. It is often thought as a foundation event, but it was not; it was, however, transformative. Irish nationalism had been a potent force since the 1790s but the Rising and its consequences raised the stakes to new heights. The more the stakes were raised by the nationalists, however, the more likely it became that the unionists of Ulster could not be accommodated, so that republicanism and partition marched hand in hand. This is one of the tragic ironies of the story. The Ireland that emerged from the revolutionary period is the Ireland with which we are all so familiar.--From publisher description.
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