Originally edited by F.X. Martin in 1963, this is the 50th anniversary edition of the classic work on the Irish Volunteers. This book is a wonderful and unique historical record of the Irish Volunteer movement, revealing fascinating documents and essays written by the leading members of Irish nationalism, during a period when the Irish people witnessed social and cultural changes that were as radical as anything seen in Irish history. Including contributions by Bulmer Hobson, Eoin MacNeill, Pádraig Pearse, Michael Davitt, The O’Rahilly, Éamonn Ceannt, and Seán T. Ó Ceallaigh, this a rich compendium of essays, original letters, first hand reports, inspiring speeches, newspaper editorials, military and administrative instructions as well as members’ subscription lists. This classic text explains how the Irish Volunteers, encompassing a new generation of Irish men and women, oversaw the develop ment of a new and re- energized movement, free from much of the party-political machinations and interference that had hindered Irish nationalist attempts at self-determination in previous decades. As described in these essays, the Irish Volunteers were a ‘broad church’ encompassing members of the Gaelic League, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Sinn Féin, the IRB, Irish Citizen Army, Cumann na mBan and Fianna Éireann, all contributing to a unified and dynamic coalition. Something new and unprecedented occurred in Irish history – a movement which we are only now beginning to understand in terms of its great and distinctive legacy, a full century later.

What is it like to be in the IRA - or at their mercy? This study explores the lives and deaths of the enemies and victims of the County Cork IRA between 1916 and 1923.

The Irish Citizen Army (ICA) was born from the Dublin Lockout of 1913, when industrialist William Martin Murphy ‘locked out’ workers who refused to resign from the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, sparking one of the most dramatic industrial disputes in Irish history. Faced with threats of police brutality in response to the strike, James Connolly, James Larkin and Jack White established the ICA in the winter of 1913. By the end of March 1914, the ICA espoused republican ideology and that the ownership of Ireland was ‘vested of right in the people of Ireland’. The ICA was in the process of being totally transformed, going on to provide significant support to the IRA during the 1916 Rising. Despite Connolly’s execution and the internment of many ICA members, the ICA reorganised in 1917, subsequently developing networks for arms importation and ‘intelligence’, and later providing operative support for the War of Independence in Dublin. The most extensive survey of the movement to date, The ‘Labour Hercules’ explores the ICA’s evolution into a republican army and its legacy to the present day.

In his exploration of the use of intelligence in Ireland by the British government from the onset of the Ulster Crisis in 1912 to the end of the Irish War of Independence in 1921, Grob-Fitzgibbon analyzes the role that intelligence played during those critical nine years.

An innovative and original analysis of Protestant advanced nationalists, from the early twentieth century to the end of the Irish Civil War.

The Easter Rising of 1916 had a lasting effect upon Ireland, with many viewing it as a watershed in the history of modern Ireland and concurring with Yeats that a «terrible beauty was born». Seeking to clarify the state of nationalist opinion in the period before the Rising, Genesis of the Rising is as much an undertaking in social psychology as it is a social and political history. It strives to debunk many longstanding theories, most significantly the turning of the tide thesis, which asserts that British blunders in the wake of the failed Rising turned the tide in public opinion toward the course envisioned by the Rebels. Genesis of the Rising contends that as early as 1912, with the introduction of the Third Home Rule Bill, through the start of the Great War, and right up to Easter 1916, the tide in nationalist opinion had been turning, albeit silently, and that the Rising was a catalytic force that accelerated an already ongoing process. It reveals a dichotomy in nationalist opinion between covert views and misleading, overt opinion when it suggests that it was the Rising and the executions that subsequently forced nationalist opinion to show its true colors. In effect, the tide had begun to turn long before Easter 1916; and constitutional nationalism, as represented by the Third Home Rule Bill and the Irish Parliamentary Party, was giving way to some aspect of physical-force nationalism.

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.

'Hasn't it been a full life, Lillie, and isn't this a good end?', were James Connolly's last words to his wife in Dublin Castle in the early hours of 12 May 1916 just before his execution for his part in leading the Easter Rising. James Connolly, the son of Irish immigrants, was born in Edinburgh. The first fourteen years of his life were spent in Edinburgh and the next seven years in the King's Liverpool Regiment in Ireland. In 1889, he returned to Edinburgh where he was a socialist activist and organiser for seven years. In 1896, at the age of 28, he was invited to Dublin as socialist organiser, founding the Irish Republican Socialist Party and editing The Workers' Republic. Connolly spent seven years in America between 1903 and 1910, returning to Ireland in 1910 as organiser of the Socialist Party of Ireland. Connolly was appointed Ulster Organiser of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union by James Larkin, succeeding him as acting general secretary in October 1914. As Commander of the Irish Citizen Army, Connolly joined with leaders of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in the Easter Rising in 1916, becoming Commandant-General of the Dublin Division of the Army of the Republic and Vice-President of the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic. For their part in the Easter Rising, Connolly and thirteen of his fellow revolutionaries were executed in Kilmainham Gaol by the British government. Connolly, the last to be executed, was wounded in the Rising and had to be strapped to a chair to face the firing squad. This biography deals with Connolly's activities as soldier, agitator, propagandist, orator, socialist organiser, pamphleteer, trade union leader, insurgent, and traces the evolution of his political thinking as social democrat, revolutionist, syndicalist, revolutionary socialist, insurrectionist. It is based largely on Connolly's prolific writings in twenty-seven journals in Scotland, England, Ireland, France and America, and some 200 letters which are particularly revealing of his relationships with colleagues. James Connolly is the very best survey of Connolly's remarkable life and times. James Connolly, A Full Life: Table of Contents Preface by Des Geraghty - PART I Edinburgh 1868–1882 - PART II Ireland 1882–1889 - PART III Edinburgh 1889–1896: Social Democrat - PART IV Dublin 1890–1903: Revolutionist - PART V America 1903–1910: Syndicalist - PART VI Writings - PART VII Ireland 1910–1916 The Red and the Green: Revolutionary Socialist–Insurrectionist - PART VIII Revolutionary Thinker - APPENDICES

On Easter Monday 1916, Irish rebels seized a number of strategic buildings in Dublin, including the General Post Office on O’Connell Street, and declared an Irish Republic. Within a week they had been bombarded into surrender. Out in the countryside, amidst chaos and confusion over counter orders, the Rising failed to materialize as planned. The one notable exception was the campaign of the Fingal Brigade of North County Dublin. Their leader, the charismatic Tom Ashe, launched a fast moving guerrilla campaign against the para-military Royal Irish Constabulary, seizing barracks and capturing arms. At Ashbourne the Irish Volunteers, having captured the RIC barracks, were faced with the arrival of a numerically superior force of armed policemen. Using tactics evolved from British army training manuals, they overcame and defeated the police. Ashe and Fingal Brigade had shown that fast moving guerrilla warfare was the way ahead in the future struggle for Irish independence This little-known yet crucial development in the Irish War of Independence is well researched and described in this over-due account.

The son of a Head Constable in the Royal Irish Constabulary, by the age of twenty-five, Éamonn Ceannt was married with a young son. He played the uilleann pipes and was passionate about the Irish language. His commitment to a politically independent, Gaelic-speaking Ireland led him from the classrooms of the Gaelic League to the National Council of Sinn Féin and the senior ranks of the Irish Volunteers. He was a member of the Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which planned and carried out the Rising of Easter 1916, outright rebellion against the world's biggest imperial power. During Easter week 1916, he was Commandant of the 4th Battalion of the Irish Volunteers and a signatory to the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. His severely depleted battalion held the strategic South Dublin Union until ordered to surrender. He was executed by firing squad on 8 May 1916. 'an epic new series of books' - RTE Guide on 16Lives