Documents on Irish Foreign Policy: v. 1: (1 Documents on Irish Foreign Policy)

‘Volume I’ of the ‘Documents on Irish Foreign Policy’ series is a documentary history of the forging of Irish foreign policy and the Irish diplomatic service amid the backdrop of a bloody civil war. It begins on 21 January 1919 with the opening of the First Dáil (parliament) in Dublin and the publication of the Irish Declaration of Independence. It closes on 6 December 1922, the date of the founding of the Irish Free State, one year after the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed. The intervening years covered in this volume were turbulent: a bitter political and military clash in Ireland, the British partition of the island into Northern and Southern Ireland in 1920, a negotiated settlement giving Southern Ireland dominion status through the December 1921 Treaty, and the emergence of the Irish Free State amid the violence of a civil war which began in June 1922 and ended in May 1923. These years also saw the birth, near death and re-birth of the Irish Department of External (now Foreign) Affairs, where these foundational documents were written into history. The volume includes previously unseen letters from Michael Collins, Arthur Griffith, Eamon de Valera; confidential despatches and political reports from Irish diplomats, including accounts of the fundraising activities of Eamon de Valera and Harry Boland in America. It is indispensable to historians of modern Ireland.

About the Author :
Ronan Fanning MRIA was Professor of Modern History at University College Dublin. He was an editor of the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy series and a founder-member of the Royal Irish Academy's National Committee for the Study of International Affairs.  Dr Michael Kennedy has been the executive editor of the RIA's Documents on Irish Foreign Policy series and head of the DIFP series since 1997. Catriona Crowe is a member of the Royal Irish Academy. She was Head of Special Projects at the National Archives of Ireland. She was Manager of the Irish Census Online Project, which has placed the 1901 and 1911 censuses online free of charge over the last 5 years. She was an Editor of Documents on Irish Foreign Policy. Dermot Keogh MRIA is Professor of History at University College Cork and an editor of the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy series. Eunan O'Halpin MRIA is the Professor of Contemporary Irish History at Trinity College, Dublin. He is also an editor of the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy series.