Ireland and the Great War: A Social and Political History

On 4 August 1914 following the outbreak of European hostilities, large sections of Irish Protestants and Catholics rallied to support the British and Allied war efforts. Yet less than two years later, the Easter Rising of 1916 allegedly put a stop to the Catholic commitment in exchange for a re-emphasis on the national question.
 
In Ireland and the Great War Niamh Gallagher draws upon a formidable array of original research to offer a radical new reading of Irish involvement in the world's first total war. Exploring the 'home front' and Irish diasporic communities in Canada, Australia, and Britain, Gallagher reveals that substantial support for the Allied war effort continued largely unabated not only until November 1918, but afterwards as well.
 
Rich in social texture and with fascinating new case studies of Irish participation in the conflict, this book has the makings of a major rethinking of Ireland's twentieth century.
 
Award
Winner of the Royal Historical Society's 2020 Whitfield Prize for the best new work of British and Irish History to be published in 2019.
 
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Page credits & information

Gallagher, Niamh. Ireland and the Great War : A Social and Political History. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020

 

Testimonials

Royal Historical Society Judges’ citation:
 
“This is a bold and indeed audacious intervention in the historiography of Irish Catholic involvement in British and Allied action during the Great War. Niamh Gallagher’s sophisticated interpretation of the Home Front in towns across Ireland enables us to appreciate the ways in which individuals, families, businesses, civic and political leaders, and their supporters, understood Allied war aims and the reasons for contributing and remembering. Richly detailed and illustrated throughout, this is an unusually substantial contribution to the social and political history of Ireland and Irish communities abroad.”
 
Richard Grayson (Goldsmiths, University of London), review in British Journal of Military History
 
The book she has produced is an outstanding analysis, based on extensive research and written in a lively and accessible style. I believe it will come to be seen as a classic in the field and a standard reference point for all scholars working on Irish history in this period – whether they start from interests in the war or the Irish Revolution.