This is the first detailed study of violent Irish republicanism in Britain during the Irish Revolution, 1916–1923. The Irish Volunteers (later known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA)) is the main focus of study, though the other outfits of physical force republicanism are considered too: the secretive Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), the Cumann na mBan or League of Women and Na Fianna Éireann, the boy scouts movement. The activities of these bodies are traced from the foundation of the Irish Volunteers in Britain in 1914, through the Irish war of independence to the IRA's defeat in the Iri ... More

This is the first detailed study of violent Irish republicanism in Britain during the Irish Revolution, 1916–1923. The Irish Volunteers (later known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA)) is the main focus of study, though the other outfits of physical force republicanism are considered too: the secretive Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), the Cumann na mBan or League of Women and Na Fianna Éireann, the boy scouts movement. The activities of these bodies are traced from the foundation of the Irish Volunteers in Britain in 1914, through the Irish war of independence to the IRA's defeat in the Irish civil war in 1923. The means by which they were organized and managed is studied in detail, as are gunrunning, the acquisition and smuggling of weapons to the IRA in Ireland, republicans’ seven-and-a-half month campaign of violence in England and Scotland. The response of the authorities to such violence is also examined. Expanding upon an observation made by a senior IRA leader, the book argues that republicans in Britain acted as ‘auxiliaries’ to the ‘attacking forces’ in Ireland. In other words, gun-smuggling, attacks on property and other activities in Britain were carried out in support of the IRA's campaign in Ireland.