Boyce examines the relationship between ideas and political and social reality. A new final chapter considers the development of nationalism in both parts of Ireland, and places the phenomenon of nationalism in a contemporary and European setting

Introduction: Nationalism and Ireland; 1: Colony and Nation; 2: Intimations of Nationalism in Tudor Ireland; 3: For God, King and Country; 4: From English Colony to Irish Nation: The Protestant Experience; 5: 'The Irish, Properly So Called'; 6: Patterns of Nationalism, 1842-1870; 7: The Making of Parnellism and Its Undoing; 8: The Battle of Three Civilizations; 9: What Home Rule Stood For, 1891-1918; 10: Nationalism, Socialism and the Irish Irevolution; 11: State and Nation in Modern Ireland; Conclusion: Ireland and Nationalism; Epilogue: History, Politics and Nationalism; Epilogue: Contemporary Ireland: Nationalist and Post-Nationalist?