In general the study of Irish history is pretty nuanced so you aren't going to get many books that are overtly biased towards any side. "Bitter Freedom" by Maurice Walsh is a great book because it places the War of Independence in the wider international context of what was happening at the time in other colonial empires. "The Republic" by Charles Townshend is also very good and not biased towards the IRA, "The Irish War of Independence" by Michael Hopkinson is probably one of the best books on the topic but is a bit of a heavier read. A literally heavier read, at 5kg, is "Atlas of the Irish Revolution" which contains some fantastic research.

Most books on the topic are written by Irish based historians and deal mainly with Irish sources and the Irish side of the conflict. British historians tend not to cover their countries role in Ireland. There are a number of books that are "skeptical" of the IRA but few, if any, that are "fair and balanced". Peter Hart's "The IRA at War" would be one, he is critical of the IRA to the point of bias and there is evidence he may have fabricated sources in relation to some of his research. I still consider much of his research to be of value though.

Most of the books above handle the Black and Tans in a very fair and balanced way in that they document the horrendous crimes they committed! I doubt any sympathetic account of the Black and Tans exists and it is not really possible for one to exist either, they were pretty bad guys. Any book worth its salt will deal with the government sanctioned policy of reprisals against civilians they carried out. At the same time it will deal with the IRA's killing of "spies". "Hearts and Mines" by William Sheehan deals with the British 5th Division in Ireland during the War of Independence but specific British studies tend to be rare.

Biographies are a different matter where bias tends to run wild, especially in the many fawning biographies of Michael Collins. Peter Hart produced a very balanced bio of Collins and David McCullagh produced what I think is the best work on De Valera yet. Tim Pat Coogan might be worth avoiding.

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"Bitter Freedom" would be a good place to start, deals with the basics as they happened. "The IRA at War" is good for introducing some criticism of the IRA but has to be considered in terms of the wider controversy around Hart's work.