From its earliest interference in Irish affairs, England’s conquest of Ireland imposed hundreds of alien laws — murderous towards its people, and suppressive of its language and culture. It proclaimed those laws legitimate, enforcing them through criminal sanctions and the colonial system it had established.

It wielded brute power over centuries to consolidate and perpetuate its rule, including the partitioning of Ireland in 1920.

Given that today Sinn Féin is the largest party in Ireland, Britain’s attempt from 1969 to crush nationalist and republican resistance failed abysmally — but at great cost in lost lives and suffering.

Apart from those in a state of denial, it is clear that the tenure of British rule in the North is finite. There is now a significant and growing public support for, and momentum towards, Irish reunification.

Ongoing British interference, and British bad faith with pledges made under the Good Friday Agreement, remains the greatest impediment to establishing a national democracy, reconciliation and a permanent peace.

In Unlawfully Detained Gerry Adams revisits this historical and flagrant abuse of law and power. He examines the extraordinary scope, absolute hypocrisy, cruelty and sheer pettiness of British rule in Ireland from its earliest days. He draws on his own experiences, and those of friends and community, and outlines, at times with wry humour, the long resistance to repression, not least in the prison camps and jails.