This is a major, collaborative study of organised military activity and its broad impact on Ireland over the last thousand years or so, from the middle of the first millennium AD to modern times. It integrates the best recent scholarship in military history into its social and political context to provide a comprehensive treatment of the Irish military experience. The eighteen chronologically-organised chapters are written by leading scholars each of whom is an authority on the period in question. Drawing the whole work together is a wide-ranging introductory essay on the 'Irish military tradition' which explores the relationship of Irish society and politics with militarism and military affairs. The text is illustrated throughout by over 120 pictures and maps.

Ireland's Second World War frontline troops were the men of the Coast Watching Service. From 1939-45 they maintained a continuous watch along the Irish shoreline, reporting all incidents in the seas and skies to Military Intelligence (G2). They had a vital influence on the development of Ireland's pro-Allied neutrality and on the defence of Ireland during 'The Emergency', as through their reports G2 assessed the direction of the Battle of the Atlantic off Ireland and reported belligerent threats to the state upwards to the Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces, to the Cabinet and Taoiseach and Minister for External Affairs Eamon de Valera. Using unique Irish military sources and newly available British and American material, the history of the coastwatchers and G2 combines to tell the history of the Second World War as it happened locally along the coast of Ireland and at national and international levels in Dublin, London, Berlin and Washington. Of particular importance, the study reveals in the greatest detail yet available the secret relationship between Irish military and diplomats and British Admiralty Intelligence, showing how coast watching service reports were passed on to the RAF and Royal Navy Britain in the hunt for German u-boats and aircraft in the Atlantic.

Drawing from Irish intelligence records, This book fills a gap in the history of Irish intelligence and some twists and turns in Anglo-Irish relations.

This fascinating and original book is the first to analyse the evolution of internal security policy and external defence policy in Ireland from independence to the present day. Professor O'Halpin examines the very limited concept of external defence understood by the first generation of Irish leaders, going on to chart the state's repeated struggles with the IRA and with other perceived internal and external threats to stability. He explores the state's defence and security relations with Britain and the United States and, drawing extensively on newly released records, he deals authoritatively with problems of subversion, espionage, counterintelligence and codebreaking during the Second World War. In conclusion, the book analyses significant post-Second World War developments, including anti-communist co-operation with Western powers, the emergence of UN service as a key element of Irish foreign and defence policy, the state's response to the Northern Ireland crisis since 1969, and Ireland's difficulties in addressing the collective security dilemmas facing the European Union in the post-Cold War era. It is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the development of independent Ireland since 1922.

Military Aviation in Ireland charts the history of the Irish Air Corps from its early days as the Military Air Service established by Michael Collins in 1922 to the ineffective air operations conducted during the Second World War period. Using extensive archival research, Michael C. O'Malley throws new light on the people and operations of Ireland's early aviation history. Lieutenant Colonel Michael C. O'Malley served in the Irish Air Corps, as a flying officer, from 1961 to 1999 and holds a doctorate in history from NUI, Maynooth.

Richard English's brilliant new book, now available in paperback, is a compelling narrative history of Irish nationalism, in which events are not merely recounted but analysed. Full of rich detail, drawn from years of original research and also from the extensive specialist literature on the subject, it offers explanations of why Irish nationalists have believed and acted as they have, why their ideas and strategies have changed over time, and what effect Irish nationalism has had in shaping modern Ireland. It takes us from the Ulster Plantation to Home Rule, from the Famine of 1847 to the Hunger Strikes of the 1970s, from Parnell to Pearse, from Wolfe Tone to Gerry Adams, from the bitter struggle of the Civil War to the uneasy peace of the early twenty-first century. Is it imaginable that Ireland might – as some have suggested – be about to enter a post-nationalist period? Or will Irish nationalism remain a defining force on the island in future years? 'a courageous and successful attempt to synthesise the entire story between two covers for the neophyte and for the exhausted specialist alike' Tom Garvin, Irish Times

During a time of high tension, terror and fear, the Irish Defence Forces faced the very real threat of the Irish State being plunged into a savagely sectarian civil war. The southern state faced a breakdown of law and order, severely challenged by manhunts, prison breaks, shoot-outs, kidnappings, bank robberies, subversive training camps, bomb-making factories, illegal weapons shipments, and border operations. Soldiering Against Subversion is the dramatic and previously untold story of the Irish Defence Forces’ critical role in defending the southern state against paramilitary forces during the worse years of the modern Troubles. Retired Lieutenant Colonel, Dan Harvey, describes the major operations via in-depth interviews with Irish Defence veterans, revealing how these brave men and women protected the state on home soil. From the kidnapping of Shergar and Quinsworth CEO Don Tidey, the manhunt and capture of INLA leader Dessie ‘the Border Fox’ O’Hare, the pandemonium as the Irish army quells a violent prison riot in Mountjoy in 1972, to the Irish navy’s efforts to thwart gun-running off the coast of Kerry, these first-hand accounts reveal the true story of the fight for the nation’s democracy.