Valuable insights into Britain’s real attitude towards the Irish Revolution
British politicians had no real interest in Ireland; some sought to exploit the Irish situation for their own political ends. In a sense the book is not about Ireland at all, but the cynical British abuse of the Irish question. Although the study covers a period a great political violence and turmoil in this country, the author, Ronan Fanning, who was Professor of Modern Irish History at University College, Dublin, emphasises that he “neither sympathises nor identifies with the political uses of violence, then or now”.
“Fear of Ulster Unionist violence so paralysed British policy from 1912 to 1914 that it prevented the implementation of Home Rule and corroded the faith of Ireland’s constitutional nationalists in parliamentary democracy,” the author explains at the outset.
