Pádraig Yeates looks at how these major historical events affected the lives of ordinary Dubliners. He answers questions such as

• Why did so many working-class Dublin men join the British Army?
• How did the city's 92,000 Protestants fare in this turbulent time?
• What were the motivations of Dubliners who fought on both sides in the Easter Rising?
• How did Sinn Féin overtake Labour in the battle for political control of the city after the Rising, and cement their alliance with the Catholic Church?
• Why did so many Dubliners benefit from the British war effort, especially tenement families and working women?

A City in Wartime also reveals how the population fed itself during hard times, the impact of the war on music halls, child cruelty, prostitution, public health and much more. These were the years in which Dublin as we know it was shaped.