Colonialism is at the heart of making sense of Irish history and contemporary politics across the island of Ireland. In this exhaustive analysis, England's oldest colony is considered in the context of the history of colonisation and anti-colonial politics throughout the world. In painstaking detail, McVeigh and Rolston chart the centuries leading to the Act of Union, the struggles for Irish independence and the legacies of partition from 1921. One hundred years later, the Union is in crisis and alternatives to partition are being seriously considered outside the republican tradition for the first time in generations. The conclusion is optimistic. In the words of Padraig Pearse: Anois ar theacht an tSamhraidh - now the summer is coming.