The Political Thought of the Irish Revolution

The Irish Revolution was a pivotal moment of transition for Ireland, the United Kingdom, and British Empire. A constitutional crisis that crystallised in 1912 electrified opinion in Ireland whilst dividing politics at Westminster. Instead of settling these differences, the advent of the First World War led to the emergence of new antagonisms. Republican insurrection was followed by a struggle for independence along with the partition of the island. This volume assembles some of the key contributions to the intellectual debates that took place in the midst of these changes and displays the vital ideas developed by the men and women who made the Irish Revolution, as well as those who opposed it. Through these fundamental texts, we see Irish experiences in comparative European and international contexts, and how the revolution challenged the durability of Britain as a global power.

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'Bourke and Gallagher's book tells us that this body of specifically political writing can be and should be placed alongside the thinking of other revolutionary processes, or other histories of secession or decolonisation, or alongside the political ideas of the European war or of the great re-arrangement of states, nations and one-time empires which was the global context for the Irish struggles. Irish political ideas and writing deserve to be studied and evaluated in their own terms, not merely as part of the discursive mix underpinning a Yeats poem or a party campaign. Richard Bourke and Niamh Gallagher's excellent anthology shows us where to start.' Conor McCarthy, Dublin Review of Books

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Product details

• Date Published: May 2022
• format: Hardback
• isbn: 9781108836678
• length: 300 pages

• dimensions: 222 x 144 x 29 mm
• weight: 0.694kg
• availability: Available