A major appraisal of a crucial decade in Ireland's recent history by the leading Irish historian of his generation, based on recently opened archives and many previously unpublished public and private papers. In this definitive history of the Irish Rebublic in the 1970's, Diarmaid Ferriter considers the widespread social, cultural, economic and political upheavals of the 1970's, a period when the Northern Irish Troubles profoundly affected the governance of the Republic, when Ireland joined the EEC; when for the first time a majority of the population lived in urban areas and when economic challenges abounded. The decade also witnessed an increasingly visible feminist movement, and the political and legal establishments and other powerful institutions, including the Catholic Church, began to be subjected to new criticisms. -- Back cover.