Seeking success and confronting failure: the British Army's campaigns in Ireland and Northern Ireland 1919-2007

Sloan, G. (2025) Seeking success and confronting failure: the British Army's campaigns in Ireland and Northern Ireland 1919-2007. Reimagining Ireland, 145. Peter Lang, Berlin and Geneva, pp276. ISBN 9781803748160 doi: 10.3726/b22438

Abstract/Summary

During the twentieth century and the early years of the twentieth century the British Army, uniquely among European armies fought two domestic counterinsurgency campaigns. This monograph will challenge the judgements concerning these campaigns in Ireland and Northern Ireland; the verdict on the first is one of sub-optimal military effectiveness which produced a clear defeat and the second one was an 'honourable draw'. In both cases the British state was obliged to defend the political integrity of its sovereign territory.

Item Type	Book
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/122652
Identification Number/DOI	10.3726/b22438
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Politics, Economics and International Relations > Politics and International Relations
Publisher	Peter Lang
Publisher Statement	Professor Sloan shows how over the span of a century, the Whitehall /Westminster nexus twice seized political defeat from the jaws of military victories achieved for the Crown by the Army. He finds and names the guilty men. This book is explosive It will be uncomfortable but essential reading on both sides of the Irish Sea.
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