In 1966 Emmet Dalton wrote to the Irish Times to remind readers that 1966 was not just the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rising but also of the Battle of the Somme ‘where thousands of Irishmen fought with great gallantry’. Dalton, a British army veteran from the great war who subsequently fought with the I.R.A. during the War of Independence, was attempting to ‘remember both sides equally’. Dalton's story embodies what Richard Grayson has attempted with his latest work, to write an inclusive history of Dublin's military experience from the First World War to the Civil War.

Grayson's new study of Dublin's wars applies similar ‘military history from the street’ methods to his previous work on west Belfast soldiers in the First World War. Drawing on extensive archival research, he makes use of newspapers, regimental rolls, service records and unit diaries together with the recently digitised military service pensions and Bureau of Military History collections. Grayson's study focuses on the military experience of Dublin city from the Boer War to the Civil War, rather than on the social and economic conditions on the home front. It thus complements Padraig Yeates's excellent Dublin trilogy exploring Dublin life from 1914 to 1923. An estimated 35,000 men from Dublin served with the British forces during the First World War, about one-fifth of the total wartime recruits from Ireland. Over 6,500 of these were killed or died in service. Grayson has also identified 2,122 Dubliners who participated on the rebel side in the Easter Rising while the Dublin Brigade of the I.R.A. had 5,464 members by the time of the truce in 1921. The years of conflict 1914–23 therefore had a very significant impact upon Dublin's population.

The book's introduction asserts that it offers a ‘new narrative’ of Dublin between 1912 and 1923, arguing that the events from the home rule crisis to civil war ought to be understood as a series of ‘interconnected Great Wars’. The integration of these histories is to be commended but is perhaps less original than the author suggests. While Grayson is correct to assert that the historiography of the Irish Revolution has typically paid limited attention to the context of the First World War and vice versa, there are several important studies which have taken a more integrated approach, including John Borgonovo's study of Cork city from 1916 to 1918. The county studies series on the Irish revolution published by Four Courts Press also cover the period 1912–23 and are intended to explore the impact of the war, the Rising and subsequent conflict on each county.

One of the primary achievements of Grayson's work, however, is the skilful means by which he integrates these tangled histories, reminding us that during the Easter Rising more Irish men were killed while serving overseas with the British army than the total number of rebels who were killed in Dublin. Although the War of Independence and Civil War sections are comparatively brief, they benefit from the context provided by the preceding chapters. The violent interactions from 1919 to 1923 become part of a wider narrative of conflict and trauma.

Grayson has an impressive command of his research material and he has uncovered many illuminating stories. The accounts of more well-known figures such as Thomas Kettle are interspersed with those of ‘ordinary people’. Poignant stories include that of Dubliner Bernard McGeehan, shot for desertion at the Somme in November 1916. He had left his battalion to escape the cruel taunts of his fellow soldiers: ‘I don't know what I was doing when I went away. Every time I join the trenches they throw stones at me and pretend its shrapnel’ (p. 203). Most disturbing is the account of Private Robert Storey who murdered his wife and cut his own throat in front of his young child just before he was due to return from leave to the trenches (p. 226).

Handsomely published by Cambridge University Press, the book includes several images and maps along with statistical tables providing helpful information on recruiting, casualties and Red Cross service alongside interesting facts on the average height and body mass index of British recruits. The book is a welcome addition to the ever-expanding scholarship on Ireland's wartime and revolutionary period and should spur further research into the experience of Irish people during this pivotal period.