Winston Churchill and Austen Chamberlain both entered Parliament with inherited Unionist views. However, changing political circumstances in Britain and Ireland led them to change their stance and adopt policies that would have been anathema to their fathers.

The full story of Winston Churchill's lifelong engagement with Ireland and the Irish. A long overdue book which at last addresses the most neglected part of Churchill's legacy, on both sides of the Irish Sea.

The deaths in and around Dunmanway in 1922 have always been shrouded in rumour and supposition. This book seeks to get to the bottom of them. One thing is certain: Captain Herbert Woods shot Commandant Michael O'Neill of the IRA on the stairs of Ballygroman House at 2.30a.m. on the 26th April and killed him. Who was Herbert Woods and why did shoot an unarmed man? Who was Michael O'Neill and what was he doing inside the house at that hour of the morning? What connection had this event to the killing of ten Protestants in West Cork over the next three nights? Are they connected with the killing of four British soldiers in Macroom on the same day? What was the effect on the local Protestant minority? What happened after Herbert Woods and his Hornibrook relations were arrested by the Irish Republican Police and disappeared? This book attempts to answer all these questions. Using previously overlooked evidence it proves that the real story is a simple one of revenge. It directly challenges claims of sectarianism and British involvement presenting a true story of these appalling events.

'Stimulating, erudite and above all entertaining...For any reader tired of the seemlingly endless round of Churchill-worship' Robert Harris A radical biography for a new generation In A.J.P. Taylor's words, Churchill was 'the saviour of his country' when he became prime minister in 1940. Yet he was also a deeply flawed character. Giving due credit to Churchill's achievements but making no secret of his failures, Geoffrey Wheatcroft takes a radically different approach to other biographies. Going far beyond a reappraisal of a life and a career, he reveals the complex shadow Churchill has cast over post-war British history and contemporary politics. Telling the story of Churchill's extraordinary life and the equally fascinating one of his legacy, Churchill's Shadow focuses on how we as a nation have been living in the grip of his self-written myth ever since his death. 'This is the indispensable biography of Churchill for the post-Brexit 2020s' David Kynaston, author of On the Cusp: Days of '62 'Wheatcroft is a skilled prosecutor with a rapier pen...this could be the best single-volume indictment of Churchill yet written' New York Times 'A clear-eyed, incisive and superbly balanced account of Churchill, the man and the myth' Robert Gildea, author of Empires of the Mind

Shows that a rising antipathy in Ireland toward Victorian Britain's expanding global imperialism was a crucial factor in popular support for Irish Home Rule.

A holistic, all-Ireland history of the causes, course, and consequences of the partition of Ireland between 1918 and 1925.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A major reassessment of Winston Churchill that examines his lasting influence in politics and culture. Churchill is generally considered one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century, if not the greatest of all, revered for his opposition to appeasement, his defiance in the face of German bombing of England, his political prowess, his deft aphorisms, and his memorable speeches. He became the savior of his country, as prime minister during the most perilous period in British history, World War II, and is now perhaps even more beloved in America than in England. And yet Churchill was also very often in the wrong: he brazenly contradicted his own previous political stances, was a disastrous military strategist, and inspired dislike and distrust through much of his life. Before 1939 he doubted the efficacy of tank and submarine warfare, opposed the bombing of cities only to reverse his position, shamelessly exploited the researchers and ghostwriters who wrote much of the journalism and the books published so lucratively under his name, and had an inordinate fondness for alcohol that once found him drinking whisky before breakfast. When he was appointed to the cabinet for the first time in 1908, a perceptive journalist called him “the most interesting problem of personal speculation in English politics.” More than a hundred years later, he remains a source of adulation, as well as misunderstanding. This revelatory new book takes on Churchill in his entirety, separating the man from the myth that he so carefully cultivated, and scrutinizing his legacy on both sides of the Atlantic. In effervescent prose, shot through with sly wit, Geoffrey Wheatcroft illuminates key moments and controversies in Churchill’s career—from the tragedy of Gallipoli, to his shocking imperialist and racist attitudes, dealings with Ireland, support for Zionism, and complicated engagement with European integration. Charting the evolution and appropriation of Churchill’s reputation through to the present day, Churchill’s Shadow colorfully renders the nuance and complexity of this giant of modern politics.

Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891) wrote remarkably little about himself, but he has attracted the attention of many writers, politicians, and scholars, both during his lifetime and ever since. His controversial and provocative role in Irish and British affairs had him vilified as a murderer in The Times, and afterwards dramatically vindicated by the Westminster Parliament. It cast him as a romantic hero to the young James Joyce, and a self-serving opportunist to the journalists of the Nation. Parnell has been the subject of court cases, parliamentary enquiries and debates, journalism, plays, poems, literary analysis and historical studies. For the first time all these have been collected, catalogued and cross-referenced in one volume, an invaluable resource for scholars of late nineteenth century Ireland and Britain. Divided into fifteen chapters, including a biographical sketch, the volume contains information on manuscript and archival collections, printed primary sources, Parnell's writing, Parnell's speeches in the House of Commons and outside Parliament, contemporary journalism, contemporary writing, and contemporary illustrations on Irish affairs, and a substantial list of scholarly work, including biographies, books, articles, chapters, and theses. This volume offers readers a clear record of the substantial material already available on Parnell, and in doing so offers resources to future research in this area.

Between 1917 and 1919 women enlisted in the Women's Land Army, a national organisation with the task of increasing domestic food production. Behind the scenes organisers laboured to not only recruit an army of women workers, but to also dispel public fears that Britain's Land Girls would be defeminized and devalued by their wartime experiences.

Ireland and Partition: Contexts and Consequences brings together multiple perspectives on this key and timely theme in Irish history, from the international dimension to its impact on social and economic questions, alongside fresh perspectives on the changing political positions adopted by Irish nationalists, Ulster Unionists, and British Conservatives. It examines the gestation of partition through to its implementation in 1921 as well as the many consequences that followed. The chapters, written by experts based in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Great Britain and the United States, include new scholars alongside contributions from authorities in their fields. Together, they consider partition from a variety of often overlooked angles, from its local impact on the ground through to its place in the post-1918 international order and diplomatic relations, its implications for political violence and security policy, and its consequences for sport and economics, through to its capacity to divide both nationalism and unionism from within. This book places the current questions about the future of partition, resulting from ‘Brexit’ and the centenary of partition 2021, in a fuller perspective. It is relevant to those with an interest in Irish History and Irish Studies, as well as British History, European History and Peace Studies.