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Fatal Path
A magisterial narrative of the most turbulent decade in Anglo-Irish history: a decade of unleashed passions that came close to destroying the parliamentary system and to causing civil war in the United Kingdom.
This was the decade of the cataclysmic Great War, of an officers' mutiny in an elite cavalry regiment of the British Army and of Irish armed rebellion. It was a time, argues Ronan Fanning, when violence and the threat of violence trumped democratic politics.
This is a contentious view. Historians have wished to see the events of that decade as an aberration, as an eruption of irrational bloodletting. And they have have been reluctant to write about the triumph of physical force. Fanning argues that in fact violence worked, however much this offends our contemporary moral instincts. Without resistance from the Ulster Unionists and its very real threat of violence the state of Northern Ireland would never have come into being. The Home Rule party of constitutionalist nationalists failed, and were pushed aside by the revolutionary nationalists, Sinn Fein.
Bleakly realistic, ruthlessly analytical of the vacillation and indecision displayed by democratic politicians at Westminster faced with such revolutionary intransigence, Fatal Path is history as it was, not as we would wish it to be.
This was the decade of the cataclysmic Great War, of an officers' mutiny in an elite cavalry regiment of the British Army and of Irish armed rebellion. It was a time, argues Ronan Fanning, when violence and the threat of violence trumped democratic politics.
This is a contentious view. Historians have wished to see the events of that decade as an aberration, as an eruption of irrational bloodletting. And they have have been reluctant to write about the triumph of physical force. Fanning argues that in fact violence worked, however much this offends our contemporary moral instincts. Without resistance from the Ulster Unionists and its very real threat of violence the state of Northern Ireland would never have come into being. The Home Rule party of constitutionalist nationalists failed, and were pushed aside by the revolutionary nationalists, Sinn Fein.
Bleakly realistic, ruthlessly analytical of the vacillation and indecision displayed by democratic politicians at Westminster faced with such revolutionary intransigence, Fatal Path is history as it was, not as we would wish it to be.
448 pages, Paperback
First published April 30, 2013
28 people are currently reading
335 people want to read
About the author
Ronan Fanning
17 books2 followersBorn John Ronan Fanning, Fanning grew up in Sandymount, Dublin.
In 1963, Fanning recieved a degree in History, having initally studied English in University College Dublin (UCD). He recieved his doctorate from Peterhouse College, Cambridge.
He was a member of the academic staff of Georgetown University, a tutor at the Exeter University , and a lecturer of UCD.
Most noticeably, he was involved in the Northern Irish Peace process, defending Irish politician John Hume for negotiating with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and was involved in persuading US involvement in the process.
He was also a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and was the Professor Emeritus of Modern History at University College Dublin. He was also of the chief editor of the Dictionary of Irish Biography.
Fanning's partner of 44 years, Virginia Caffrey, predeceased him in 2014, with whom he had three children.
In 1963, Fanning recieved a degree in History, having initally studied English in University College Dublin (UCD). He recieved his doctorate from Peterhouse College, Cambridge.
He was a member of the academic staff of Georgetown University, a tutor at the Exeter University , and a lecturer of UCD.
Most noticeably, he was involved in the Northern Irish Peace process, defending Irish politician John Hume for negotiating with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and was involved in persuading US involvement in the process.
He was also a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and was the Professor Emeritus of Modern History at University College Dublin. He was also of the chief editor of the Dictionary of Irish Biography.
Fanning's partner of 44 years, Virginia Caffrey, predeceased him in 2014, with whom he had three children.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
September 18, 2017
My interest in Irish History in general began with Dr Jonathan Bardon's majestic ‘A Short History of Ireland’. This had made me curious as to the tragic circumstances behind Irish independence. After many hours on YouTube, I was introduced to Ronan Fanning's ‘The Fatal Path’ as the quintessential account of the climax of the Home Rule Movement in 1914, through into the early 1920s. I bought it and decided to give it a go. Overall, Ronan Fanning made his arguments convincingly and I was left with the impression that he really knows his stuff but was left overwhelmed to a large extent. If this has peaked your curiosity then let’s get on with the review.
For those who don't know, the Irish Home Rule Movement was a grassroots, peaceful organisation that campaigned for Irish autonomy within the UK. It existed from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries. The book is an account of British policy during the drama of Third Home Rule Bill, which was finally passed and it’s aftermath, what the author terms as the ‘Irish Revolution’ from 1910-1922. During this time, the island of Ireland turned from a united and integral part of the UK to partition where the majority of the island gained de facto independence as the Irish Free State after the a brutal war for independence. Ronan Fanning asks why an established democracy like Britain, that took pride in its centuries long tradition of resolving domestic disputes peacefully, was incapable in resolving the Irish Question before conflict and terrorism forced it's hand.
He argues that the Ulster Unionists under Edward Carson and James Craig not the Nationalists/Republicans were the real revoluntaries by arming and threatening rebellion were able to overthrow the legitimate authority of the British government and in doing so by 1922, they got the partition they wanted which created Northern Ireland, with the dark foreshadowing for the rest of the 20th Century.
I have to say the strongest part of the book is how well researched it is. It’s so well researched that it’s not even funny, the bibliography and footnotes are a sight to behold. Ronan Fanning in his analysis of British policy in Ireland has combed through an incredible amount of speeches, cabinet papers, minutes, British government department papers. He also used diaries, letters and conversation notes of not just of the major figures like Lloyd George, Herbert Asquith, Churchill, Bonar Law and Edward Carson amongst others. The author is also able to get these type of information from British ambassadors, civil servants in the Home, Foreign and Irish offices as well as British Army officers. All of these more than sufficiently backs up the author's main argument. It really highlights how lukewarm the Liberals were towards the Irish Nationalists and Home Rule to begin with. The research also clearly illustrates how successful the Ulster Unionists were in compromising the British Army and by extension the British government in their opposition to Home Rule.
However, this astounding level of research is also the book's greatest weakness. Whenever the author makes a point or poses an argument, the sources he uses aren’t merely used to support the argument made, they completely hijack the narrative with paragraphs of quotations that continue on for several pages until another point is made. Although I understood what the author was talking about, it severely hampered the coherence of the book and someone not well versed in this area could be left completely bewildered. This also destroyed any enjoyment I could have had.
I would only recommend this as a reference book if you are interested in Edwardian Ireland, the Third Home Rule Bill Crisis and it's aftermath. The wealth of sources and primary documentation is really impressive. However, the avalanche of sourced quotations frankly made the book a chore, it took me almost a month to finish! For that, I can give the book no more than a 2.
For those who don't know, the Irish Home Rule Movement was a grassroots, peaceful organisation that campaigned for Irish autonomy within the UK. It existed from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries. The book is an account of British policy during the drama of Third Home Rule Bill, which was finally passed and it’s aftermath, what the author terms as the ‘Irish Revolution’ from 1910-1922. During this time, the island of Ireland turned from a united and integral part of the UK to partition where the majority of the island gained de facto independence as the Irish Free State after the a brutal war for independence. Ronan Fanning asks why an established democracy like Britain, that took pride in its centuries long tradition of resolving domestic disputes peacefully, was incapable in resolving the Irish Question before conflict and terrorism forced it's hand.
He argues that the Ulster Unionists under Edward Carson and James Craig not the Nationalists/Republicans were the real revoluntaries by arming and threatening rebellion were able to overthrow the legitimate authority of the British government and in doing so by 1922, they got the partition they wanted which created Northern Ireland, with the dark foreshadowing for the rest of the 20th Century.
I have to say the strongest part of the book is how well researched it is. It’s so well researched that it’s not even funny, the bibliography and footnotes are a sight to behold. Ronan Fanning in his analysis of British policy in Ireland has combed through an incredible amount of speeches, cabinet papers, minutes, British government department papers. He also used diaries, letters and conversation notes of not just of the major figures like Lloyd George, Herbert Asquith, Churchill, Bonar Law and Edward Carson amongst others. The author is also able to get these type of information from British ambassadors, civil servants in the Home, Foreign and Irish offices as well as British Army officers. All of these more than sufficiently backs up the author's main argument. It really highlights how lukewarm the Liberals were towards the Irish Nationalists and Home Rule to begin with. The research also clearly illustrates how successful the Ulster Unionists were in compromising the British Army and by extension the British government in their opposition to Home Rule.
However, this astounding level of research is also the book's greatest weakness. Whenever the author makes a point or poses an argument, the sources he uses aren’t merely used to support the argument made, they completely hijack the narrative with paragraphs of quotations that continue on for several pages until another point is made. Although I understood what the author was talking about, it severely hampered the coherence of the book and someone not well versed in this area could be left completely bewildered. This also destroyed any enjoyment I could have had.
I would only recommend this as a reference book if you are interested in Edwardian Ireland, the Third Home Rule Bill Crisis and it's aftermath. The wealth of sources and primary documentation is really impressive. However, the avalanche of sourced quotations frankly made the book a chore, it took me almost a month to finish! For that, I can give the book no more than a 2.
June 14, 2023
It has always been difficult for the Irish State to glorify the revolutionaries for the 1916 - 1921 period while condemning the revolutionaries in Northern Ireland of the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s. One of the ways of doing so has been historic revisionism, which argues that violent revolution was not necessary to achieve independence. This books is partly a counter-blast to this position and shows, through its focus on the high politics of the era, that the British were never going to grant Ireland dominion status, let alone independence, without it being violently wrenched from their hands.
Fanning carefully tracks the path from the Home Rule Bill of 1914, through the Easter Rising, 1918 general election (by which Sinn Fein's violent Republicanism replaced Redmond's constitutional nationalism), War of Independence and Treaty negotiations. He skillfully describes the Gladstonian background to the Irish home rule conundrum and the various factions grappling with the issue - the two wings of the Liberal party, one for and one against home rule, the Tories, Irish constitutional nationalists, Irish revolutionaries and Ulster unionists and is masterful in leading the reader through the machinations of these parties as they pushed and pulled their ways along the path that led to the Treaty and what remains a divided island.
Fanning is a top-flight historian with an elegant, crystal clear prose style. He is fully conversant with the period and its major characters and events and has an impressive ability to succintly and engagingly describe this world as it trundles on to its inevitable conclusion.
Fanning carefully tracks the path from the Home Rule Bill of 1914, through the Easter Rising, 1918 general election (by which Sinn Fein's violent Republicanism replaced Redmond's constitutional nationalism), War of Independence and Treaty negotiations. He skillfully describes the Gladstonian background to the Irish home rule conundrum and the various factions grappling with the issue - the two wings of the Liberal party, one for and one against home rule, the Tories, Irish constitutional nationalists, Irish revolutionaries and Ulster unionists and is masterful in leading the reader through the machinations of these parties as they pushed and pulled their ways along the path that led to the Treaty and what remains a divided island.
Fanning is a top-flight historian with an elegant, crystal clear prose style. He is fully conversant with the period and its major characters and events and has an impressive ability to succintly and engagingly describe this world as it trundles on to its inevitable conclusion.
November 3, 2024
It's not that it's bad, but it's not an introduction. The author assumes a lot of prior knowledge. Which is fine if you know a lot already, but I don't. Life's too short, and books too numerous, to struggle on.
January 13, 2016
This is the first book which I have read to address the continuation of the attempts to resolve the 'Irish Question' by the Liberal Government elected in 1906. Ronan Fanning convincingly exposes the reluctance of the majority of Asquith's cabinet to grasp the nettle of the Conservative's dalliance with treason in their support for the Ulster Unionists' movement towards armed revolt against the possibility of self government for the whole of Ireland. He recognises the effective impossibility of coercing the protestant north into a catholic majority Ireland and describes very well the process by which the Irish Free State emerged from a process of negotiation, skullduggery and brinkmanship - on both sides it must be admitted.
January 8, 2018
This is definitely a worthwhile read but only for the truly wonkish. It focuses on the political machinations and decision-making that led up to the partition of Ireland into two countries: the Irish Free State and Northern Island. Unlike other books on the same time period, violent events like Bloody Sunday and the Kilmichael ambush are not emphasized. Instead, Fanning helps readers understand the context of these events and how politicians and activists on all sides used them to drive their own agendas.
In short, if you are interested in diplomacy and the inner workings of parliamentary democracies, this book will likely expand your understanding. If you're looking for the story of a revolution, a different book might suit you better.
In short, if you are interested in diplomacy and the inner workings of parliamentary democracies, this book will likely expand your understanding. If you're looking for the story of a revolution, a different book might suit you better.
July 30, 2013
The idea that one of Britain's main political parties could advocate armed rebellion by citizens of the United Kingdom and mutiny in the army, all as an attempt to destabilise the government and win back power, sounds more like the plot of a bad sci-fi programme. To then say it was the Conservative Party actively supporting an armed rebellion pushes the whole story beyond the realms of credibility.
The truth really is stranger than fiction, isn't it...
The truth really is stranger than fiction, isn't it...
February 25, 2024
https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/fatal-path-british-government-and-irish-revolution-1910-1922/
Although this book came late in his life, published in 2013, four years before he died, big chunks are apparently taken from his PhD thesis of 1968. I guess history doesn’t necessarily change that much.
The subject is Westminster attitudes to Ireland at the time of independence, focussing especially on the two Prime Ministers, Asquith and Lloyd George, and also on the leading Conservative politicians and the other Liberals, Winston Churchill in particular. My own PhD thesis concentrated on almost exactly the same period, and I thought I had done a pretty exhaustive dive into the last two decades of British administration in Ireland. So I was pleasantly surprised by just how much I learned from this book. Fanning concentrates on policy rather than administration, and on the debate in London rather than what was happening on the ground in Ireland – the Easter Rising, for instance, gets barely a page, but the British response gets most of a chapter. This is not a criticism – Fanning was entitled to write the book he wanted to write, and he was entirely correct to see a huge gap in the historiography of the period.
Things that I learned, roughly in order:
The Liberals from 1905 until the House of Lords crisis in 1909-10 were not just apathetic to Irish Home Rule, the leadership were actively hostile to the concept, and would not have ever legislated for it if they had not been backed into a corner by John Redmond and the Irish Nationalists (one of the latter’s few strategic successes).
At the same time, the Liberal government in 1912-14 knew that Home Rule could not be implemented in large parts of Ulster. Lloyd George and Churchill proposed excluding Ulster from home rule as early as February 1912. This was copper-fastened by the disloyal and treacherous actions of senior army officers, in particular Sir Henry Wilson and the brothers Hubert and Johnnie Gough, who undermined the elected government by conspiring with the opposition and with the military garrison in Ireland to provoke the Curragh mutiny in March 1914.
Therefore the counterfactual idea that, if there had been no 1916 Rising or War of Independence, a Home Rule Ireland would have eventually evolved into a Dominion-like status, is wrong. The only decisive factor affecting British policy, apart from the personal prejudices of political leaders, was violence or the threat of violence. The British folded on Ulster in 1914, and on independence for the rest of the island in 1921, purely because of the balance of coercive force. The British government’s own use of coercive force was poorly planned and disastrously implemented.
When it came to the Treaty negotiations on 1921, the British got entirely what they expected (apart from a late concession on tariffs). The Irish delegation were thoroughly unprepared, particularly on the issue of partition. Michael Collins then planned to destabilise and attempt to take control of Northern Ireland, but was distracted by the Civil War, and after that he was dead. London did nothing to protect Catholics in the North in the 1922-25 period (or for that matter Protestants in the South, though they were in less danger). The Boundary Commission, to which Fanning devotes an interesting epilogue, was designed to achieve nothing, and did so.
In general, both Asquith and Lloyd George were motivated (on Ireland at least) not by ideology but by the need to stay in power by satisfying their coalition partners, successively the Irish Nationalists and then the Conservatives. (Also Asquith was fundamentally a procrastinator who did not want to actually do anything.) The Conservatives were more ideologically Unionist than the Liberals; so too was the fledgling Labour party. Andrew Bonar Law, who actually became Prime Minister briefly in 1922-3, was Canadian by birth but an Ulster Presbyterian by background; however, once he came to power his first decision was to get the last stages of the Treaty enacted, just to get it over with.
There’s not a lot about women here, but a key figure is Frances Stevenson, Lloyd George’s secretary and lover. The smartest officials, notably General Macready who was the person who advised the British in 1921 that the military campaign in Ireland was lost, knew that Lloyd George never read his own paperwork and wrote to Stevenson instead. Not everyone knew this trick. Lloyd George and his key male adviser, Tom Jones, often had crucial conversations in Welsh, which nobody else in Downing Street understood.
The whole thing is eloquently written. It’s not short (361 pages) and it’s not for beginners (knowledge of the broad thrust of events is assumed) but it’s really interesting.
I found the account of the bitterly divided 1912-14 government, publicly committed to a policy goal that had been wished on it from outside, and that few of its leaders really believed in, very reminiscent of the Brexit period. But the wider lesson, that most British prime ministers spend most of their political energy on simple day-to-day survival, has much broader relevance, and not just in the UK.
Anyway, this was a tremendously good read.
Although this book came late in his life, published in 2013, four years before he died, big chunks are apparently taken from his PhD thesis of 1968. I guess history doesn’t necessarily change that much.
The subject is Westminster attitudes to Ireland at the time of independence, focussing especially on the two Prime Ministers, Asquith and Lloyd George, and also on the leading Conservative politicians and the other Liberals, Winston Churchill in particular. My own PhD thesis concentrated on almost exactly the same period, and I thought I had done a pretty exhaustive dive into the last two decades of British administration in Ireland. So I was pleasantly surprised by just how much I learned from this book. Fanning concentrates on policy rather than administration, and on the debate in London rather than what was happening on the ground in Ireland – the Easter Rising, for instance, gets barely a page, but the British response gets most of a chapter. This is not a criticism – Fanning was entitled to write the book he wanted to write, and he was entirely correct to see a huge gap in the historiography of the period.
Things that I learned, roughly in order:
The Liberals from 1905 until the House of Lords crisis in 1909-10 were not just apathetic to Irish Home Rule, the leadership were actively hostile to the concept, and would not have ever legislated for it if they had not been backed into a corner by John Redmond and the Irish Nationalists (one of the latter’s few strategic successes).
At the same time, the Liberal government in 1912-14 knew that Home Rule could not be implemented in large parts of Ulster. Lloyd George and Churchill proposed excluding Ulster from home rule as early as February 1912. This was copper-fastened by the disloyal and treacherous actions of senior army officers, in particular Sir Henry Wilson and the brothers Hubert and Johnnie Gough, who undermined the elected government by conspiring with the opposition and with the military garrison in Ireland to provoke the Curragh mutiny in March 1914.
Therefore the counterfactual idea that, if there had been no 1916 Rising or War of Independence, a Home Rule Ireland would have eventually evolved into a Dominion-like status, is wrong. The only decisive factor affecting British policy, apart from the personal prejudices of political leaders, was violence or the threat of violence. The British folded on Ulster in 1914, and on independence for the rest of the island in 1921, purely because of the balance of coercive force. The British government’s own use of coercive force was poorly planned and disastrously implemented.
When it came to the Treaty negotiations on 1921, the British got entirely what they expected (apart from a late concession on tariffs). The Irish delegation were thoroughly unprepared, particularly on the issue of partition. Michael Collins then planned to destabilise and attempt to take control of Northern Ireland, but was distracted by the Civil War, and after that he was dead. London did nothing to protect Catholics in the North in the 1922-25 period (or for that matter Protestants in the South, though they were in less danger). The Boundary Commission, to which Fanning devotes an interesting epilogue, was designed to achieve nothing, and did so.
In general, both Asquith and Lloyd George were motivated (on Ireland at least) not by ideology but by the need to stay in power by satisfying their coalition partners, successively the Irish Nationalists and then the Conservatives. (Also Asquith was fundamentally a procrastinator who did not want to actually do anything.) The Conservatives were more ideologically Unionist than the Liberals; so too was the fledgling Labour party. Andrew Bonar Law, who actually became Prime Minister briefly in 1922-3, was Canadian by birth but an Ulster Presbyterian by background; however, once he came to power his first decision was to get the last stages of the Treaty enacted, just to get it over with.
There’s not a lot about women here, but a key figure is Frances Stevenson, Lloyd George’s secretary and lover. The smartest officials, notably General Macready who was the person who advised the British in 1921 that the military campaign in Ireland was lost, knew that Lloyd George never read his own paperwork and wrote to Stevenson instead. Not everyone knew this trick. Lloyd George and his key male adviser, Tom Jones, often had crucial conversations in Welsh, which nobody else in Downing Street understood.
The whole thing is eloquently written. It’s not short (361 pages) and it’s not for beginners (knowledge of the broad thrust of events is assumed) but it’s really interesting.
I found the account of the bitterly divided 1912-14 government, publicly committed to a policy goal that had been wished on it from outside, and that few of its leaders really believed in, very reminiscent of the Brexit period. But the wider lesson, that most British prime ministers spend most of their political energy on simple day-to-day survival, has much broader relevance, and not just in the UK.
Anyway, this was a tremendously good read.
June 15, 2021
A long dense read dealing with the "resolution" of the longstanding and complex relationship of Britain and Ireland. Although the title claims it covers the period of 1910-22, it really begins with Gladstone's ill-fated 1st Home Rule Bill in 1886, though even there the author is forced to wind the clock back to explain the context and complexities of the Act of Union. Indeed this is one of the frustrating traits of the book; because of the complexities it is never a straightforward chronological account but is forever backtracking or projecting forward from events to explain context and consequences of all manner of words and actions. However reading this now within the timeframe of the centenaries of the events it describes and the current complexities of Brexit, many of which impinge on Ireland and Northern Ireland there are clear comparisons and contrasts. The main contrast is the religious dimension and the anti-Catholicism that pervaded much of British political life (for various reasons) 100 years ago, has now in the wake of Vatican 2, the radical secularisation of Ireland following the Catholic-child-abuse scandals, and the gradual secularisation of the UK since WW2 means that NI is largely the only area where this remains a significant political factor- but that is a function of the policies and decisions outlined in this book. The main comparison is the entirely self-serving mindset of the ostensibly "unionist" political establishment in Westminster prepared to sacrifice (literally in this period) anyone or any principle to gain or maintain political power, with Lloyd George, the Welsh wizard who achieved both the Government of Ireland Act and the Irish Treaty in an 18 month period, effectively putting the Irish Genie in its bottle for another 50 years. The description of the pre-WW1 cabinet and its approach to the Irish question by one of its number as "the (most?) inept, blind and cowardly crew that ever disgraced Downing Street" is probably now up for challenge, but the role of religio-political fetishists lie Pearce and De Valera on on side and Imperial-militarists who refused to learn the lessons of the Western front like French and Wilson on the other certainly didn't make their job any easier... And then of course there was the role of Churchill who was never happier than when spoiling for a fight. Not am easy read, but then not an easy situation to resolve or describe.
August 26, 2025
"Fatal Path" offers an insightful trek through the tortured politics of Irish Home Rule and, ultimately, independence in the 1920s amidst the conflagration of civil war. Ronan Fanning teases out all the high political nuances, with a book that echoes the best reporting from Timothy Shipman and others on the modern travails of Brexit and Great Britain's place in 21st Century Europe. Perhaps the most surprising theme is the indifference and "got to get it done" attitude by Prime Ministers Asquith and Lloyd George, who emerge as far from impassioned Home Rulers as possibly can be. Both leaders approach the issue with the joys of a root canal, resulting in a gravitational pull away from moderate Irish Nationalist solutions and towards the pro-Ulster positions that lead to partition.
The depressing moral of the story is the success achieved by Ulster Unionists by sheer force and violence. By introducing guns and force into the equation, Ulster handicapped the British political system into giving into their political aspirations to remain in the British state. The Ulster example may very well have lit the fuse for the next century of violence in the region, demonstrating that strength and obstinacy at the point of a gun barrel mattered more than fulfilling the hopes and dreams of the most people by political compromise.
Fanning would have done better with more historical context and details around the sweep of the First World War and deeper character portraits of the key leaders. However, "Fatal Path" is a magnificent book to become acquainted with the Irish troubles at the beginning of the 20th century.
The depressing moral of the story is the success achieved by Ulster Unionists by sheer force and violence. By introducing guns and force into the equation, Ulster handicapped the British political system into giving into their political aspirations to remain in the British state. The Ulster example may very well have lit the fuse for the next century of violence in the region, demonstrating that strength and obstinacy at the point of a gun barrel mattered more than fulfilling the hopes and dreams of the most people by political compromise.
Fanning would have done better with more historical context and details around the sweep of the First World War and deeper character portraits of the key leaders. However, "Fatal Path" is a magnificent book to become acquainted with the Irish troubles at the beginning of the 20th century.
August 28, 2025
Marketed as a book of Irish history, but it’s really a book of British history, and specifically British political history, focussed on Westminster and not Dublin or Belfast. And yet the author is still himself an Irish historian (in both senses), and this background might be part of why this is an oddly Dangerfieldian book, as Fanning depicts complacent Liberals unwilling or (in Asquith’s case) unable to deal head on with the nation’s problems, obsessed with parliamentary politics, continuing to politely drink and dine with opponents who were whipping up armed rebellion. There are differences, to be sure, and Fanning doesn’t follow Dangerfield’s causal claim that these phenomena led to the destruction of the Liberal Party (he has his own causal claim to make, equally spurious); but the similarities are as striking as the differences. Read it, then, if you want a well-argued modern Dangerfieldism; but, with apologies for the two-way anachronism, my respect for Burke and for Trimble makes me more sympathetic towards Liberal parliamentarism than Fanning.
January 25, 2021
Excellent and concise political summary of the Home Rule journey to partition from the perspective of the British cabinet office.
In the lop-sided triangle of Liberal/coalition government, Irish parliamentary party, and Unionist/conservative axis the fix was always going to be in from the beginning to limit the damage by keeping the interests of Ulster first.
Doesn't get bogged down in the emotive nationalist/unionist weeds and myth making that still surround this period.
David Lloyd George does come across as something of an amoral political magician for being able to make the UK's domestic 'Irish Problem' finally vanish from centre stage into something that happens off stage where nobody had to care about it.
In the lop-sided triangle of Liberal/coalition government, Irish parliamentary party, and Unionist/conservative axis the fix was always going to be in from the beginning to limit the damage by keeping the interests of Ulster first.
Doesn't get bogged down in the emotive nationalist/unionist weeds and myth making that still surround this period.
David Lloyd George does come across as something of an amoral political magician for being able to make the UK's domestic 'Irish Problem' finally vanish from centre stage into something that happens off stage where nobody had to care about it.
August 29, 2018
A very detailed narrative of the political and diplomatic process that led very slowly to the establishment of the Irish Free State and the province of Northern Ireland. There are many characters in the process, and with all the detail it is easy to lose sight of the bi picture. It’s is not always clear for example why progress seems to go in fits and starts with great frame at some times and periods of inactivity at others. Part of that is explained by the process of diplomacy including Conferences and Destroyers standing by to deliver people and documents across the Irish Sea.
November 2, 2019
Undoubtedly the definitive work on the lead up to the Partition of Ireland from the British perspective. It details the lack of empathy of the British statesmen?? in the Liberal Party towards the aspirations of the Irish Party that lead to the ultimate destruction of both.
It is very instructive in the light of the current Brexit crisis to reflect on the willingness of the Conservative Party to divide the country and commit treason to achieve their objective. Nothing has changed - England remains the faithless 'friend' of Ireland and the Irish.
It is very instructive in the light of the current Brexit crisis to reflect on the willingness of the Conservative Party to divide the country and commit treason to achieve their objective. Nothing has changed - England remains the faithless 'friend' of Ireland and the Irish.
January 24, 2024
An interesting take on what was a difficult period in British-Irish relations. The author's focus was on the British politics that defined what was to become the treaty signed in 1921. So many annoying statements regarding the Irish from the mouths of these now-deceased Liberal and Tory politicians.
I would not recommend this book to someone who has no prior knowledge of Irish history- it would be akin to entering a marathon without ever having run before.
Glad that I read it and will pass it on to my mother who is studying history.
I would not recommend this book to someone who has no prior knowledge of Irish history- it would be akin to entering a marathon without ever having run before.
Glad that I read it and will pass it on to my mother who is studying history.
May 8, 2024
Interesting perspectives on how British parliamentary politics largely dictated Anglo-Irish settlement e.g. partition, dominion status
It's nice how it skims the typical narrative details of the war of independence and 1916 because the focus is always on the British cabinet and what they're up to. Part of the point is to emphasise the minor relevance of things happening in Ireland to what would happen to Ireland. Good book! Not a rehash.
It's nice how it skims the typical narrative details of the war of independence and 1916 because the focus is always on the British cabinet and what they're up to. Part of the point is to emphasise the minor relevance of things happening in Ireland to what would happen to Ireland. Good book! Not a rehash.
May 28, 2020
Didn't finish reading this, I didn't know much (if any) about British politics in the early 1900s so I couldn't really keep up. Will try find another book about this era as I want to learn more.
March 19, 2025
Wouldn’t recommend to anyone who doesn’t know the basics of British politics late 19th-early 20th century. A great read though.
May 23, 2016
Great account of ordinary life during the turbulent Easter Rising in Dublin. Just firms up what one already knows.
October 5, 2016
A really clear explanation of how policy towards Irish independence was formulated and changed between 1910-1922.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews