Niamh Gallagher's bold and ambitious study, Ireland and the Great War is a welcome addition to the historiography of the country and this period of contested history. Taking a thematic approach, Gallagher addresses a diverse range of subjects, which places her work into the wider historiography of the war while also providing new insights into it. The themes explored include an examination of Catholic Irish women and war work, looking at an array of organizations and investigating their religious composition. The war at sea is addressed (an element that is often missing from histories of Ireland's war) and how this influenced Irish attitudes to the war, particularly focusing upon German submarine warfare. Irish Catholic diasporic responses to the war, especially those of Irish-Canadians and Irish-Australians are also explored, with particular emphasis on the degree to which these communities placed importance on a sense of loyalty to the British Empire. Irish Catholic attitudes at home are also assessed, particularly the attitudes toward the international context of the war. Gallagher states that after 1916, nationalists began to distinguish between Britain's war effort and that of the other Allies. Finally, the book addresses the Armistice and the return of veterans to Ireland in the immediate postwar period, looking at the notion of amnesia and the place of the First World War in Irish society in the fifteen years after its conclusion.

Gallagher states, correctly, that Irish Catholic support for the war effort was limited from the outset and that support for this war effort was tied to the changes within nationalism after Easter 1916. In what is a compelling and convincing argument, and one that forms the central thesis of the book, Gallagher states that the antiwar picture painted about Catholic Ireland after this period is not accurate. The contention is that there are inconsistencies in the social and cultural history of the war experience in Ireland that are at odds with the political narrative, especially in relation to the increasing move towards advanced nationalism after 1916. For example, there is a useful reassessment of the Conscription Crisis: Gallagher argues that this was not a direct indication that the Irish people had turned against the war, but rather a sign that while they were still supportive of it, they were simply against the British policy of compulsion. This nuance is crucial, and Gallagher thus puts the social and cultural history at the forefront of the wartime experience.

That Gallagher does so, however, highlights one of the issues with the book as a whole. Though, ultimately, perhaps the decision of the publisher rather than the author, it is problematic that the book is titled “Ireland and the Great War” and that it purports to be “a social and political history.” Certainly, it is a social history of a certain type, but, as Gallagher states in the opening pages, it is a history that focuses on Catholic Ireland—specifically middle-class Catholic Ireland. Had the book been called “Middle-Class Ireland and the Catholic Response to the Great War,” I would have had very few issues with its content. This is not to take away from Gallagher's central arguments; as I have said, these are convincing and compelling, and this is also not to say that there is an expectation that a history of this type will cover every aspect of the subject matter. The job of the historian is to select the evidence, but it is unusual that whole swathes of Irish society have been left out of what is sold as a history of Ireland and the Great War.

Related to this, the choice of subjects for each thematic chapter appears incoherent meaning that it is difficult to pull out a consistent narrative to the book as a whole. Individually, each chapter provides an interesting insight into various aspects of the wartime experience. However, owing to their disparate nature, the book often reads more like an edited volume than a monograph. Each of these chapters, however, is well researched. Gallagher uses an impressive array of both national and international newspapers and draws upon primary material from archival collections from Ireland, Britain, and Australia.

Ultimately, though there are issues with this book, on balance it is an important addition to the discourse covering the role of Irish society during the First World War. It provides a convincing reassessment of the role of Irish society in the war, relegating the dominant political narrative to the background, and placing certain individuals and small groups of people at the forefront of this assessment. Gallagher's work will become a welcome, if limited, addition to the ever-growing reading list relating to the First World War's central role in Ireland's recent history.