For Britain the Second World War exists in popular memory as a time of heroic sacrifice, survival and ultimate victory over Fascism. In the Irish state the years 1939-1945 are still remembered simply as 'the Emergency'. Eire was one of many small states which in 1939 chose not to stay out of the war but one of the few able to maintain its non-belligerency as a policy.
How much this owed to Britain's military resolve or to the political skills of Eamon de Valera is a key question which this new book will explore. It will also examine the tensions Eire's policy created in its relations with...