This fascinating book about Belfast in the middle of the nineteenth century looks at how and why Ireland’s most prosperous and industrialized town began to tear itself apart. This study provides a vivid example of how a society can come apart at the seams – and how it can stay that way for generations. Through a series of steadily escalating riots, working-class Protestants and Catholics forged a tradition of violence that profoundly shaped their own identities and that of the city itself, setting the stage for the bitter conflicts of the next century.

Fighting like the Devil for the Sake of God describes that foundational moment, offering a new analysis of Belfast’s violence that is rooted in the social lives of those who constructed this bitter rivalry and those who were forced to endure it.


This book will be of interest to scholars in the fields of Irish and Modern History.