Reviews

Radicals and the Republic: Socialist Republicanism in the Irish Free State 1925-1937 Richard English (Clarendon Press, £35)

(3:1) Reviewed by Emmet O’ConnorIn February 1925, the Communist International activated two ‘front’ organisations in Ireland, International Class War Prisoners’ Aid and Workers’ International Relief. Their function was to channel welfare to dependants of IRA prisoners and victims of the near famine conditions then afflicting small-holders in the West. Their aim was to draw republicans … Read more

Northern Nationalism: nationalist politics, partition and the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland 1890-1940 Eamon Phoenix (Ulster Historical Foundation, £14.95) (3:1)

Reviewed by Michael Farrell ‘You had opponents willing to co-operate… We were willing to help…[but] you went on the old political lines, fostering hatreds, keeping one third of the population as if they were pariahs…and relying on those religious differences and difficulties so that you could remain in office for ever’. Joe Devlin, the northern … Read more

British High Politics and Nationalist Ireland, Margaret O’Callaghan and Ideology and the Irish Question, Paul Bew (3:1)

British High Politics and Nationalist Ireland: criminality, land and the law under Foster and Balfour Margaret O’Callaghan (Cork University Press, £30hb, £15.95pb) Ideology and the Irish Question: Ulster Unionism and Irish Nationalism 1912-1916 Paul Bew (Clarendon Press, £20) (3:1) Reviewed by Martin Mansergh In Ireland, history is ideology. Over the last few decades, historians of … Read more