Southern Irish Loyalism from Home Rule Crisis to Republic

This chapter-length introduction provides a chronological, historiographical, and thematic framework for the volume. It begins by setting out the book’s remit, outlining its understanding of loyalism, and broadly defining the individuals and groups under consideration. The introduction then provides an overview of the history and historiography of southern Irish loyalism in three sections. The first covers the period from the third Home Rule bill in 1912 to the 1918 general election while the second takes in the Irish War of Independence (1919–21) and Irish Civil War (1922–23). This is followed by a final section on southern loyalists and loyalism after southern Irish independence, from the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922 to the exit from the commonwealth and declaration of a republic in 1949.