Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon has examined the “colossal security failure” (12) of the British government in Ireland in the years between the start of the home rule crisis in 1912 and the partition of Ireland in 1921. Well organized and well argued, the book is divided into three chapters. Part I, “The Period of Overt Militancy, 1912–1914,” chronicles when the Ulster Volunteers and the Irish Volunteers in the two years prior to the First World War introduced open paramilitary organization to Ireland. Part II, “The Period of Clandestine Organization, 1914–1916,” describes when the secret Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) used the Irish Volunteers to plan the Easter Rebellion. Part III, “The Period of Guerrilla War, 1916–1921,” investigates when the Irish Republican Army went to war against British forces in Ireland.

Making excellent use of archival material from the Dublin Castle Records, Grob-Fitzgibbon paints a picture of British police and military forces remarkably well informed about the personnel and activities of the prewar Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). He argues that even as late as December 1913 the Cabinet had the authority and ability to arrest UVF members and that if the government had acted, “it would be practically impossible for the U.V.F. to continue to exist” (54). He finds that this security failure was “not in the collection of intelligence … but in the implementation of government policy based on that intelligence” (70). Grob-Fitzgibbon places most blame for this pivotal initial security failure upon Augustine Birrell, the Chief Secretary for Ireland. According to the author, Birrell allowed “a grave and treasonous threat to be born, to grow, and to remain unchallenged for the better part of two years” (71). The author holds government leaders responsible for the failure of home rule, not for failing to accommodate Ulster Unionism, but for failing to crush Ulster Unionist opposition when they had the chance.

Conversely, Grob-Fitzgibbon observes, “What is striking about the period of clandestine organization is … the lack of police intelligence” (112) and that the government suffered from “a failure of imagination” (113) as it worried about German activity in Ireland and missed signs of the coming rebellion. Ironically, the traditionally antinationalist Royal Irish Constabulary (R IC) showed greater suspicion toward unionist paramilitaries before the war than they did toward nationalist paramilitaries during it.

Following the Easter Rebellion the author blames British failure in the ensuing guerrilla war on the government's failure to establish a “structured security policy” and on its reliance on an “ad hoc system” (138) to combat republicanism. He provocatively argues that the government lost Ireland not because it alienated the population with the imposition of martial law but because the repeal of martial law allowed Irish revolutionaries time to organize armed resistance. He states plainly, “The British government … failed because it had refused to grapple with the rise of Sinn Fein … in the years 1917 and 1918” (173).

Grob-Fitzgibbon's conclusion poses “a counterfactual argument [which] suggests that had the British government acted on the intelligence it received in a prompt and determined fashion, the rise of paramilitarism in Ireland could have been avoided and Ireland could have experienced a more peaceful twentieth century” (12). The author makes a well-supported case that the government had the means if not the will to eliminate the unionist paramilitary threat at its earliest stages. This argument would benefit from a discussion of how much good intelligence helped the government defeat previous armed resistance in 1798, 1848, and 1867. Modern Irish history supplies plenty of evidence to support the author's basic thesis—that ruthless government security methods can work. His book demonstrates the advantage of studying the rise of paramilitarism from a practical perspective, analyzing each group's capabilities rather than its ideological posture.

The Larne gunrunning episode demonstrates this well. Contrary to the common interpretation of an apathetic or even sympathetic government attitude toward the Ulster Volunteers’ illegal arms shipment, Grob-Fitzgibbon reports, “Even when faced with considerable danger and threats to their own lives, the police, customs officers, and coast guard refused to leave the scene of the shipment. They were able to compile detailed reports of what had taken place.” The Larne landing was outrageous, not because of R IC indifference, but because of Birrell's failure to neutralize it afterward: “Within days Birrell knew exactly who was responsible and where the rifles were being stored. … Still, however, Birrell chose to do nothing” (61–65). Political weakness likewise afflicted Birrell's successor, H. E. Duke, with similar “cowardice in the face of unconventional politics” (133). This begs the question of whether the office of Chief Secretary naturally produced indecisive leadership, or whether it merely attracted lower-quality candidates, as Grob-Fitzgibbon tellingly identifies Duke as the prime minister's seventh choice for the job (115).

The book's greatest weakness is the anachronistic depiction of Sinn Fein. Grob-Fitzgibbon claims that in 1912 “the Sinn Fein Party … represented the physical-force tradition of the I.R.B.” (46), when Sinn Fein was actually a constitutional party that supported a dual monarchy. He likewise argues that, following Count Plunkett's electoral victory in February 1917, “the Sinn Fein Party, which Plunkett soon joined, adopted this policy of abstention as its own” (121), when in fact Sinn Fein promoted abstention from parliament from its inception and the party had to convince Plunkett to adopt the policy. He also asserts that “the Sinn Fein Party was able to gain an electoral victory only through intimidation and violence” (178). This betrays a cavalier dismissal of Sinn Fein's strong political program and the weakness not only of the Home Rule Party's program but of its organization. In this case more than any other we see the dangers of a narrow interpretation of the period focused solely on security.

Overall the book offers a good analysis of an important aspect of the Irish revolution. This study of intelligence efforts also adds to the historical understanding of the Royal Irish Constabulary—emphasizing the professionalism of a group often dismissed as simply an antinationalist security force. It gives additional reasons for the demoralization of the R IC by 1919, often attributed simply to its planned reorganization under a home rule government. Grob-Fitzgibbon correctly asserts that by then British indifference toward Ireland doomed their intelligence efforts to failure.