Endorsements

This original and distinctive book surveys the political, economic and social history of Northern Ireland in the Second World War. Since its creation in 1920, Northern Ireland has been a deeply divided society and the book explores these divisions, including loyalist and republican commemoration, IRA activity, policing, internment, preparations for war and the absence of consensus on the war itself. The author examines rearmament in the 1930s, the relatively slow pace of wartime mobilisation, the impact of the blitz in 1941, as well as labour and industrial relations. Northern Ireland was the only part of the UK with a devolved government and no military conscription during the war. The book includes the debate on conscription, including the opposition of the Catholic Church, as well as the controversy on the formation of the Home Guard. The absence of military conscription made the process of mobilisation, and the experience of men and women, very different from that in Britain. There is also extensive coverage of wartime politics and social policy. As elsewhere in the UK, the war raised important questions about housing, crime, youth welfare, and led the broader debates on social policy following the 1942 Beveridge Report. The conclusion considers Northern Ireland in 1945 and how its government faced the domestic and international challenges of the postwar world. This study draws on a wide range of archival sources and newspapers and will appeal to those interested in twentieth century Irish and British history and in the Second World War. -