Preface 1. Introduction: perspectives on Irish history and social studies
2. Nationalist historiography and the decline of the Irish economy: George O’Brien revisited
3. A Saorstát is born: how the Irish Free State came into being
4. Labour in the post-independence Irish state: an overview
5. The Irish Constitution of 1937
6. Industrial development and the unmaking of the Irish working class
7. The Protestant working class and the state in Northern Ireland since 1930: a problematic relationship
8. Tearing the house down: religion and employment in the Northern Ireland Housing Executive
9. The women’s movement in the north of Ireland: twenty years on
10. The demolition squad: Bew, Gibbon and Patterson on the Northern Ireland state
11. The jerrybuilders: Bew, Gibbon and Patterson – the Protestant working class and the Northern Ireland state
12. Patrick MacGill: the making of a writer
13. Bringing the margins into the centre: a review of aspects of Irish women’s emigration
14. Missing the boat: the Labour party and the Irish question