Using extensive and fresh archival material, this book places the relationship between the United Kingdom and Ireland after 1921 in a new light, encouraging us to rethink the dominant narrative of conflict and strife. While the work does not shy away from the clear points of dispute, it contends that these were far from the full story.

Clearly, partition and the Troubles seen from the late 1960s onwards cast a long shadow, but disputes over Northern Ireland must be placed alongside those successes seen elsewhere. Unpacking a variety of topics including trade, tourism, the treatment of tuberculosis, and migration, this work covers new ground in social and political history. It balances an analysis of high politics – Cosgrave and de Valera on the one side and Baldwin and Attlee on the other – with the actions of ordinary people – nurses, doctors, sports fans, and labourers. The British–Irish story is also placed in a wider context through comparison with both countries' dealings with America and an outline of their coordinated entry into the European Economic Community.

This study will be an ideal resource to both students and all those wishing to consider and re-examine the fate of the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the British Empire.