The Green Flag

The Green Flag

Volume 1-3: The Most Distressful Country, The Bold Fenian Men, Ourselves Alone

  • Paperback
  • ISBN 9780140291650
  • 896 Pages
  • Penguin Books
  • Adult


Covering Irish history from the beginnings of Irish Nationalism through 1973, Robert Kee’s treatment ranges from the Protestant Plantations through Wolfe Tone and the Great Famine to the founding of the Fenian Movement and the Irish Free State. His authoritative and comprehensive history is masterly in its detail and judicious analysis. A classic in its field, this is essential reading for anyone attempting to understand the complex historical forces that have shaped Ireland.

Table of Contents

List of Maps
List of Tables
List of Figures

Part One: Who Were Irishmen?
1. Treaty Night
2. Contradictions of Irish Nationality
3. Strongbow (1170) to the Ulster Plantation (1609)
4. Great Rebellion (1641) to Penal Laws (1703)
5. Majority Living (1703-1880)
6. Minority Politics, 18th Century

Part Two: The First Irish Republicans
1. Ireland and the French Revolution
2. Wolfe Tone and Samuel Neilson
3. United Irishmen and Defenders
4. French Contacts
5. Defenders and Orangemen
6. Bantry Bay
7. United Irishmen in Trouble
8. New French Preparations
9. Repression, 1798
10. Rebellion in Wexford
11. Collapse of United Irishmen
12. The French Landing

Part Three: The Union
1. The Making of the Union
2. Robert Emmet’s Fall and Rise
3. The Failure of the Union
4. Daniel O’Connell and Catholic Emancipation
5. The Repeal Debate
6. O’Connell and Davis
7. ‘Monster Meetings’
8. Biding Time After Clontarf
9. O’Connell’s Imprisonment and After
10. More ‘Monster Meetings’
11. Repeal, Famine, and Young Ireland
12. The Irish Confederation
13. Smith O’Brien’s ‘Rising’ 1848
14. The Corpse on the Dissecting Table
15. Beginnings of the Fenian Movement
16. James Stephens at Work
17. Stephens In and Out of Trouble
18. 1867: Bold Fenian Men
19. The Manchester Martyrs

Part Four: The Tragedy of Home Rule
1. Beginnings of Home Rule
2. Parnell and the Land Crisis
3. Parnell and Home Rule
4. The Orange Card
5. Parnell’s Fall
6. Second Home Rule Bill: Orangemen at Play
7. Nationalists at Ease
8. Growth of National Consciousness
9. Arthur Griffith and Sinn Fein
10. Asquith and the Third Home Rule Bill
11. Ulster Volunteers
12. The Liberal Nerve Begins to Fail
13. Volunteers and Home Rule
14. Volunteers and the European War
15. The ‘Sinn Fein’ Volunteers
16. Casement in Germany
17. The Dublin Rising, 1916
18. Executions and Negotiations

Part Five: Ourselves Alone
1. Rebellion to De Valera’s Election at Clare (July 1917)
2. The New Sinn Fein (July 1917-April 1918)
3. Conscription Crisis to General Election (December 1918)
4. Sinn Fein in a Vacuum (January-May 1919)
5. Michael Collins and Others (April-December 1919)
6. The Campaign of Killing (1919-20)
7. Enter Black and Tans (1920)
8. Murder by the Throat (1920)
9. War and Truce (1921)
10. Treaty (1921)
11. Nemesis (1922-3)
12. Epilogue

Select Bibliography