Overview

Using recently opened archives, this book provides new insights into the history of the British intelligence community and helps explain Anglo-Irish relations during a time of momentous change. The lessons it draws still echo today, as Britain contends with the threat posed by violent militants, whether from Ireland or further afield. One of the Irish Times' Books of the Year, 2008 The struggle between British intelligence agencies and Irish revolutionaries has lasted for centuries - and still goes on. But it was at its most intense during the first half of the twentieth century. Ireland experienced a bloody rebellion, bitter partition and a stuttering march towards independence. Britain grappled with imperial decline and world war, while government agencies were worrying about being stabbed in the back by their Irish neighbour. Using recently opened archives, this book reveals for the first time how intelligence and intelligence agencies shaped Anglo-Irish relations during this formative period. The book casts light on characters long kept in the shadows - IRA gunrunners, Bolshevik agitators, Nazi saboteurs, British double agents. It shows what happened when Irish revolutionaries stopped fighting, formed governments and started sharing information with London - while doing everything possible to hide this from the Irish public. It also fills in a missing chapter in the history of the British intelligence community, tracing its evolution from amateurishbeginnings, through a painful adolescence, to the sophisticated apparatus that is largely still with us. The book probes some deeper questions about intelligence and the complex Anglo-Irish relationship. What has the most influence on government policy? The work of professional intelligence agencies? Or the misconceptions and preconceptions that politicians and civil servants bring to their jobs? Why are secrets so seductive - and sometimes so misleading? Packed with anecdotes and unexpected paradoxes, this book provides new insights into the history of the British intelligence community and helps explain the twists and turns of Anglo-Irish relations during a time of momentous change. The lessons it draws still echo today, as Britain contends with the threat posed by violent militants, whether from Ireland or further afield. PAUL MCMAHON received his bachelor's degree from University College Dublin, before studying for an MPhil and a PhD at Cambridge University. He has worked as a management consultant and policy advisor focussing on climate change and food security.

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9781843836568

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Provides a well-written and impressively researched narrative history of British intelligence concerning Ireland between 1916 and 1945.(.) An important contribution to the scholarship of intelligence, and a worthy first volume in the Boydell Press History of British Intelligence series. JOURNAL OF BRITISH STUDIESMcMahon presents a fine account of this tumultuous history in the period of the 20th century's two world wars. (.) His interpretation of events is shrewd and sure. The writing is compelling, seamlessly integrating for the reader's delectation the stories of cowards and cads, heroes and buffoons, and smart spies and foolish politicians. Highly recommended. CHOICE This sober and balanced book is a major contribution not simply to the history of British and Irish intelligence but to all those interested in the Anglo-Irish relationship in all its messy complexity. CONTEMPORARY BRITISH HISTORYAn exemplary study of the strengths and limitations of British intelligence on Ireland from the 1916 Rising to the end of the Second World War. (...) Excellent. DUBLIN REVIEW OF BOOKSAn important book and one that should inspire expansion into other studies. (...) An essential academic study for those interested in the British intelligence war in Ireland from 1916-45. CAMDEN NEW JOURNAL(A) fascinating new study. (...) McMahon writes lucidly and sensibly on a subject that often attracts fevered treatment, and he makes excellent use of recently released intelligence material in both Irish and British archives. THE IRISH TIMES This is an engaging and important assessment of a relationship that has many lessons for observers of contemporary Anglo-Irish politics. HIGHGATE AND HAMPSTEAD EXPRESSParticularly impressive. (...) McMahon demonstrates the extent and limits of British knowledge and understanding of Irish affairs, and the amateurishness and prejudice which characterised attempts to assess the nature of the new Irish state. IRISH TIMESHas been produced to a high standard as befits a book that intends becoming the definitive account of the relationship between the British intelligence and security services and what finally became (...) the Republic of Ireland.(...)Sets a high standard for the rest of the volumes in the series and I can thoroughly recommend it, not just for the light it shines on the work of the British intelligence services but on the wider political and diplomatic world of the period. LOBSTER

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