In September 1939 the Second World War broke out. The fact that Ireland remained neutral in the conflict is well known. What is far less well-known is that from 1939 onwards Ireland prepared to defend itself from invasion. Combining many previously unseen photographs and documents and with a text based on research in Defence Forces and official archives, this book is an illustrated photographic and documentary history of the military and defensive preparations made by Ireland’s Defence Forces during the Second World War, what became known officially only as ‘The Emergency’.