Britain and Ireland, Past and Future

A vital history from the award-winning Financial Times journalist Philip Stephens on the dramatic century since the Anglo-Irish Treaty and partition.

Ireland and Britain's relationship is as intertwined as it has so often been violent and traumatic.

A vital history from the award-winning Financial Times journalist Philip Stephens on the dramatic century since the Anglo-Irish Treaty and partition.

Ireland and Britain's relationship is as intertwined as it has so often been violent and traumatic. In These Divided Isles the award-winning author and journalist Philip Stephens tells the vital, riveting history that focuses on the dramatic century since the Anglo-Irish Treaty and on the unfinished business of partition, revealing how the past has shaped the present and will inform the future of both nations.

Telling the story from both sides of the Irish Sea and cutting through the layers of grievance and prejudice, Philips explores the emotional intimacy and enmity of a relationship shaped by close familial ties and clashing national identities. It's a story written by big political leaders - David Lloyd George, Michael Collins, Winston Churchill and Eamon de Valera - and the millions of Irish emigrants who crossed from Ireland to Britain to begin new lives.

Today demography, Brexit and political logic have brought the possibility of Irish unity into view. Grounded in decades of personal contact and interviews with key policymakers across Britain and Europe, Stephens maps this complex relationship and asks how Ireland might deploy its history to inform its future rather than hold it in place.