Was Ireland Conquered?: International Law and the Irish Question

Is it legitimate for the majority of the population of the North of Ireland to impose a veto on the reunification of the island? In turn is it legitimate for the Irish Republic to claim an historic title to the North as part of a land taken by force whose liberation remains to be completed. The Protestant position is that Ireland was never conquered. The Catholic version is that the English invaded in what was just another instance of colonial expansion. Tony Carty is an international lawyer who tackles these questions as issues of public international law. The book is a detailed analysis of the shifting social, political and legal context of Irish history, from the initial medieval developments, through the movement towards Protestant ascendancy in the 16th and 17th centuries, to the growth of the ideology of national self-determination and the political significance which confronts issues central to the Irish struggle from a legal perspective which has often been ignored.