Northern Ireland in the Second World War Politics, Economic Mobilisation and Society, 1939–45

This original and distinctive book surveys the political, economic and social history of Northern Ireland in the Second World War. Since its creation in 1920, Northern Ireland has been a deeply divided society and the book explores these divisions before and during the war. It examines rearmament, the relatively slow wartime mobilisation, the 1941 Blitz, labour and industrial relations, politics and social policy. Northern Ireland was the only part of the UK with a devolved government and no military conscription during the war. The absence of military conscription made the process of mobilisation, and the experience of men and women, very different from that in Britain.

The conclusion considers how the government faced the domestic and international challenges of the postwar world. This study draws on a wide range of primary sources and will appeal to those interested in modern Irish and British history and in the Second World War.

Philip Ollerenshaw is Reader in History at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK.

Introduction
I. The background to war
2. Problems of economic mobilisation, 1939–c.1941
3. The war economy 1941–45
4. Early wartime politics and society
5. Later wartime politics and society
Conclusion
Select Bibliography
Index