Unapproved Routes: Histories of the Irish Border, 1922-1972

In contrast to ‘the border question’, the actual border has made little impact on the historiography of twentieth-century Ireland. For the most part, historians have oscillated between deference and neglect. A general failure to consider the border as an important feature of the recent Irish past has been coupled with a tendency to take for granted the territorial units it defines. Organised around a series of related, yet relatively discrete ‘histories’ – of the Irish Boundary Commission, the Foyle Fisheries dispute, cockfighting tournaments regularly held on the border, smuggling, and local conflicts over cross-border roads – Unapproved Routes explores the complex ways in which the border was experienced and incorporated into people’s lives.