Ruth Dudley Edwards (born 24 May 1944) is an Irish Unionist[1] historian and writer, with published work in the fields of history, biography and crime fiction, and a number of awards won.
Her brother Owen Dudley Edwards, a recognised expert on Sherlock Holmes, also pursued a career as an historian, latterly at the University of Edinburgh, while her sister, Mary, is deceased.
Her non-fiction books include An Atlas of Irish History, James Connolly, Victor Gollancz: A Biography (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize), The Pursuit of Reason: The Economist 1843–1993, The Faithful Tribe: An Intimate Portrait of the Loyal Institutions (shortlisted for Channel 4/The House Politico's Book of the Year) and Newspapermen: Hugh Cudlipp, Cecil King and the glory days of Fleet Street.
Her Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, first published in 1977, which won the National University of Ireland Prize for Historical Research, was reissued in 2006 by Irish Academic Press.
[12] In 2016 she published The Seven: The Lives and Legacies of the Founding Fathers of the Irish Republic (Oneworld), a re-examination of the Easter Rising, addressing the fundamental questions and myths surrounding the 1916 leaders.
She summarises her own position as "I'm a proud revisionist who believes it is the job of historians to be prepared constantly to revise their opinions in the light of fresh evidence, and that if their conclusions are of national relevance they should defend them publicly.
She called on the DUP to support Boris Johnson's Brexit deal in October 2019, citing a Unionist friend who said "it could put Northern Ireland in a terrific position as a gateway between the EU and the UK/world economy.