Preface

Summary

I approached writing about nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Irish history with more than a slight sense of trepidation. Previously, I had researched the rather more manageable and less emotive topic of European influences on Ireland during the Enlightenment. But there is nothing that is not compelling about the history of this period and a desultory interest, in due course, became a fascination. I should like to thank those who have encouraged the project: Suzanne Mackenzie, Thomas Bartlett, Alvin Jackson, Aisling Byrne and Anna-Rose O'Dwyer. A long-term debt of gratitude is overdue to all my former teachers in Irish history in University College Dublin: Ronan Fanning, Michael Laffan and Tadhg Ó hAnracháin, who communicated such a passion for the subject, a passion even earlier communicated by an inspirational teacher, Maura Farrell. My senior students at St Paul's School, London have been an excellent sounding board for my ideas about British and Irish interactions and their questions and interests have helped to clarify my own. Latterly, I should like to thank Paul Kelton, who provided me with a research position at the University of Kansas; this has enabled me to complete this project transatlantically, making use of their library, the National Library of Ireland and the British Library. The University of Kansas indeed has inherited the 25,000 item collection of Irish books which once belonged to no less a person than P. S. O'Hegarty, whose name will appear in these pages. This has been an invaluable resource.