A gripping narrative of the most critical years in modern Ireland's history, from Charles Townshend. The protracted, terrible fight for independence pitted the Irish against the British and the Irish against other Irish. It was both a physical battle of shocking violence against a regime increasingly seen as alien and unacceptable and an intellectual battle for a new sort of country.

Before Easter 1916 Dublin had been a city much like any other British city, comparable to Bristol or Liverpool and part of a complex, deep-rooted British world. The devastating events of that Easter changed everything. This book focuses on these events.