As World War 1 began in 1914, Ireland put to one side its differences with Britain as it fought for ‘King and Empire’, hoping for the return of ‘Home Rule’ at war’s end. But this was to be a temporary state of affairs. Between 1916 and 1923 ‘a terrible beauty was born’, as Yeats so memorably put it. Rebellion, the partition of Ireland and the consequent Civil War saw two separate states emerge, north and south. Ruskin wrote it was the art of a country, not its deeds or words, that was a more trustworthy guide to its history. Was this a piece of Victorian romanticism? The final lecture of this series will test this theory in an attempt to make sense of the recent past.