Making of Modern Ireland

The history of a nation all too often depends on an admixture of truths, half-truths and mythology; exemplified by the story of Britain and Ireland. Both countries were part of the Angevin Empire that controlled an area from the banks of the Shannon to the Centre of France until after its defeat by the French, in 1399. But Ireland did not experience English rule until her colonisation by Henry VIII in the 16^thCentury. 

Basing their story on past ills which resulted in the 1798 Rising by the United Irishmen and the birth of Republicanism, together with carefully selected facts, folklore and historically inaccurate assumptions, the Fenians produced a mythology which was in part responsible for the Rising of 1916. Few are aware that this would not have been possible but for the secret connivance of the enemies of Irish freedom, while Ireland gained her independence not by the Rising but as a result of British over-reaction which produced the War of Independence.

The Treaty was followed by a period of civil strife before de Valera established himself as a statesman of world renown. His successor, Sean Lemass, laid the foundations of the economy while sowing seeds of the corruption that was to follow.

Geoff lives in Dublin with his wife Bernadette.  

The Author of Making of Modern Ireland, Geoff Robinson, though born and educated in England, is an Irish citizen who has been permanently resident in Ireland for over 50 years. On his arrival he stayed with Vincent Horgan whom he met through his sister who had moved to England to escape the internecine strife, which had erupted following the signing of the 1921 Treaty. An unswerving believer in the rectitude of the Irish cause, he knew many who had been involved in the 1916 Rising and later came to meet others of such divergent political views as the daughter of a Redmondite MP and the editor of the “Bulletin”, a clandestine newssheet which had been published during the War of Independence. Following his marriage in 1966 to Bernadette Tiernan, a national teacher he developed an interest in Irish politics, only to discover that Ireland had been ill-served by her politicians who, with one or two notable exceptions, have been self-serving since the foundation of the State. His wife’s revelation that no critical examination of the events leading up to the 1916 Rising was contained in the schools curriculum, prompted him to make a re-evaluation of Irish history which has resulted in his book, The Making of Modern Ireland.