Taking the War to England: The IRA in Britain

'We are doing this because you are doing it in Ireland'. These were the words of an IRA volunteer in Manchester explaining attacks in Britain during the Irish War of Independence. During the conflict, Britain and particularly England became a major battlefield. Britain was not only geographically close to Ireland, it was also home to large Irish communities in many major cities. Between 1919 and 1922, the IRA made sustained efforts to bring the conflict across the Irish Sea, carrying out hundreds of attacks, most of them in England. This forgotten front of the war included major attacks on the Liverpool docks, the targeting of Black and Tans in Britain and several high-profile incidents, most notably the killing of the British field marshal Sir Henry Wilson. The war also consumed and divided British politics in a way few other issues did until Brexit nearly a century later. Political parties, trade unions and communities were split over what should happen in Ireland, while massive and sometimes violent demonstrations swept across Britain. In this episode of Brothers in Pain, a global history of the Irish Revolution, Dr Brian Hanley explores the IRA’s campaign in Britain and ho