In the early morning of Saturday May 31, 1941 German planes dropped bombs on central Dublin. Nearly all the victims were among the poorest of Dublin's citizens. In Bombs over Dublin, the first book on the subject, Sean McMahon looks at the background to the bombings: Ireland's neutrality in what the country called the 'Emergency'; the Belfast Blitz of April and early May 1941 that was a forerunner of the Dublin bombing; why the bombing of neutral Eire happened; and the repercussions for de Valera's wartime administration and for relations between Ireland and the Allied and Axis powers. ""Concise and very readable, this book will appeal to readers interested in Irish history of the history of the Second World War.""—Book News