Unapproved Routes: Histories of the Irish Border, 1922-1972 by Peter Leary

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Let's start with the good news. I had not appreciated how profound the impact of the 1925 Boundary Commission's failure was. Leary draws this out well, and dedicates chapters on different aspects of the tensions created by the Irish border (and local workarounds). One especially startling fact (to me) was that the shipping channel to access the major British naval base at [London]Derry in WW2 ran through Free State territorial waters. Both countries found it convenient to turn a blind eye.
Unfortunately the book repeatedly betrays its ancestry as a PhD thesis. There are long digressions into historical antecedents and philosophical / political theory which have little or no relevance to the trials of people trying to cope with the mess wished on them by bureaucrats, politicians and ideologues. The book could have been far more relevant to a world of hardening frontiers if it had focussed on the topic in hand.
Which is not to say there is no useful, thought-provoking content here. It just takes a bit of work to draw out.



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