In 1942 Gearóid Ó Cuinneagáin, a young pro-Axis activist, founded Ailtirí na hAiséirghe ("Architects of the Resurrection"), a fascist movement that aimed to destroy the infant Irish democracy and replace it with a one-party totalitarian state.

But Ailtirí na hAiséirghe was no Nazi imitator. Rather, it aimed at something far more ambitious: the fusion of totalitarianism and Christianity that would make Ireland a "missionary-ideological state" wielding global influence in the postwar era. Supported by idealistic youths and mainstream politicians like Ernest Blythe, Oliver J. Flanagan and Dan Breen—and scrutinised anxiously by British and American intelligence—Aiséirghe won several seats in the 1945 local government elections.

Architects of the Resurrection casts an uncomfortable light on the popularity of anti-democratic, anti-Semitic and extremist ideas in wartime Ireland. Students of Irish history and of comparative fascism will find many new insights in this book.

R. M. Douglas is Associate Professor of History at Colgate University