This is the most wide-ranging study ever published of political violence and the punishment of Irish political prisoners from 1848 to the founding of the Irish Free State in 1922. Those who chose violence to advance their Irish nationalist beliefs ranged from gentlemen revolutionaries to those who openly embraced terrorism or even full-scale guerilla war. Sean McConville provides a comprehensive survey of Irish revolutionary struggle, matching chapters on punishment of offenders with descriptions and analysis of their campaigns. Government's response to political violence was determined by a number of factors, including not only the nature of the offences but also interest and support from the United States and Australia, as well as current objectives of Irish policy. Drawing on archives and special collections, many of them hitherto unused by historians, McConville also looks at the part played by punishment in the development of Anglo-Irish relations.