An Irish Revolution Without A Revolution
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2016.602Abstract
There is a conventional view among Irish historians that a revolution occurred in that country between the passing of the Third Home Rule Bill of 1912 and the end of the Civil War in 1923. The violence of those years, the collapse in support for the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), the meteoric rise to power of Sinn Féin, a new sense of meritocracy, a greater sense of democracy and a widespread radicalism; all are seen as elements of a major change in Irish politics and life, a ‘Revolution.’ Drawing on Gramsci's notion of a “revolution without a revolution”, this paper seeks to understand the events in Ireland of 1912-23, not as a sudden rupture with the past but as the culmination of a much longer period of (often British-backed) capitalist development in post-Famine Ireland. This paper argues that Irish nationalist politics in the decades before 1912 is better understood via categories such as class, gender, capitalism and the pervasive power of the British state. As such, as well as pursuing a reassessment of the project of Irish historical development and state-building, this paper also seeks a reassessment of the project of (an equally statist) Irish historiography.
References
Allen, Theodore. 2012. The Invention of the White Race, Volume One: Racial Oppression and Social Control. London: Verso, 2nd Edition.
Anderson, Perry. 2013. The Indian Ideology. London: Verso
Braudel, Fernand.1981. Civilization and Capitalism, Volume One: The Structures of Everyday Life – The Limits of the Possible. New York: Harper & Row
Breen, Dan. 1924. My Fight for Irish Freedom. Dublin: Talbot Press.
Breen, Dan. 1966. Untitled Essay, National Library of Ireland MS 41929/1-3, Dan Breen Papers, 23 May
Brown, Terence. 1985. Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, 1922-85. London: Fontana, 2nd Edition
Cairns, David and Shaun Richards. 1988. Writing Ireland: Colonialism, Nationalism and Culture. Manchester: Manchester University Press
“Capital and Labour’. 1913. Irish Freedom, November 1913
Campbell, Fergus. 2005. Land and Revolution: Nationalist Politics in the West of Ireland, 1891-1921. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Coakley, Maurice. 2012. Ireland in the World Order: A History of Uneven Development. London: Pluto Press
Connolly, James. 1919. Labour in Irish History. New York: Donnelly Press
“Connolly’s Murderers Attack “Watchword.”’ 1919. The Watchword of Labour, Vol. No. 9, 22 November, 1919
Cronin, Mike. 2000. “Golden Dreams, Harsh Realities: Economics and Informal Empire in the Irish Free State.’ In: Cronin, M., Regan J. eds. Ireland: The Politics of Independence. London: Palgrave-MacMillan
Crotty, Raymond. 1986. Ireland in Crisis: A Study in Capitalist Colonial Undevelopment. Dingle: Brandon
De Valera, Eamon. 1917. Peace and Prosperity or Red Ruin, de Valera handbill, National Library of Ireland LOP116, Item 63
De Valera, Eamon. 1918. Eamonn De Valera states his case, undated Sinn Féin pamphlet. Reprinted from the Christian Science Monitor, 15 May 1918
De Valera, Eamon. 1922. Letter to Mary MacSwiney, 11 September, University College Dublin Archives P150/657, de Valera Papers
Dooley, Terence. 2004. “The Land for the People’: The Land Question in Independent Ireland. Dublin: UCD Press
Dunphy, Richard. 1995 The Making of Fianna Fáil Power in Ireland, 1923-1948. Oxford: Clarendon Press
English, Richard. 1994. Radicals and the Republic: Socialist Republicanism in the Irish Free State, 1925-1937. Oxford: Clarendon Press
Fitzpatrick, David. 1998. Politics and Irish Life, 1913-1921: Provincial Experiences of War and Revolution. Cork: Cork University Press, 2nd Edition
Gershoni, Israel and Jim, Jankowski. 1986. Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs: The Search for Egyptian Nationhood, 1900-1930. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Gramsci, Antonio. 1999 “The Problem of Political Leadership in the Formation and Development of the Modern State in Italy’. In: David Forgacs. ed. The Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings, 1916-1935. London: Lawrence & Wishart
Griffith, Arthur. 1922. Arguments for the Treaty, Military Archives, Bureau of Military History CD 131/8/21
Hart, Peter. 2002. “Definition: Defining the Irish Revolution.’ In: Joost Augusteijn, ed. The Irish Revolution, 1913-1923. New York: Palgrave-MacMillan
Howe, Stephen. 2000. Ireland and Empire: Colonial Legacies in Irish History and Culture. Oxford, Oxford University Press
Hutchinson, John. 1996. “Irish Nationalism’. In: Boyce, D.G., O’Day, A. eds. The Making of Modern Irish History: Revisionism and the Revisionist Controversy. New York: Routledge
Kane, Anne. 2011. Constructing Irish National Identity: Discourse and Ritual During the Land War, 1879-1882. New York: Palgrave-MacMillan
Kostick, Conor. 2009. Revolution in Ireland: Popular Militancy, 1917-1923. Cork: Cork University Press, 2nd Edition
Laffan, Michael. 1985. “Labour Must Wait: Ireland’s Conservative Revolution.’ In: P.J. Corish, ed. Radicals, Rebels, and Establishments. Belfast: Apple Tree Press
Laffan, Michael. 1999. The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Féin Party, 1916-1923. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
Lee, J.J. 1989. Ireland, 1912-1985: Politics and Society. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
Markievicz, Constance. 1925. James Connolly’s Policy and Catholic Doctrine. N.P.
Maume, Patrick. 1999. The Long Gestation: Irish Nationalist Life, 1891-1918. Dublin: Gill and MacMillan
McCabe, Conor, 2011. Sins of the Father: Tracing the Decisions that Shaped the Irish Economy. Dublin: The History Press
McMahon, Timothy. 2010. ““The Land for the People”: The Irish Revolution as a Revolution of Rising Expectations.’ In: De Nie, M., Farrell, S. eds. Power and Popular Culture in Modern Ireland: Essays in Honour of James S. Donnelly, Jr. Dublin: Irish Academic Press
Morton, Adam David. 2003. “Structural Change and Neoliberalism in Mexico: “Passive Revolution” in the Global Political Economy’. Third World Quarterly 24 (4), pp. 631-653
Nairn, Tom. 1997. Faces of Nationalism: Janus Revisited. London: Verso
O’Ceileachar, S. 1921. The Labour Problem. Dublin: Cumann Léigheachtaí an Phobhail
O’Donnell, Peadar. 1963. There Will Be Another Day. Dublin: Dolmen Press
O’Hearn, Denis. 2001. The Atlantic Economy: Britain, the US and Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press
O’Hegarty, P.S. 1924. Victory of Sinn Féin: How and It Won It, And How It Used It. Dublin: Talbot Press
O’Higgins, Kevin. 1922. Mexican Politics, article, University College Dublin Archives P197/137, Kevin O’Higgins Papers
O’Malley, Ernie. 1936. On Another Man’s Wounds. London, Rich & Cowan
Pašeta, Senia. 1999. Before the Revolution: Nationalism, Social Change and Ireland’s Catholic Elite. Cork: Cork University Press
Regan, John. 1999. The Irish Counter-Revolution, 1921-1936: Treatyite Politics and Settlement in Independent Ireland. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan
Regan, John. 2013. Myth and the Irish State. Dublin: Irish Academic Press
Riley, Dylan, and Manali Desai. 2007. “The Passive Revolutionary Route to the Modern World: Italy and India in Comparative Perspective.’ Comparative Studies in Society and History, 49 (4), pp.815-847
Sasson, Donald. 2010. One Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in the Twentieth Century. London: I.B. Tauris, Revised Edition
Sinn Féin. 1918. General Election: Manifesto to the Irish People. Military Archives, Bureau of Military History CD, 95/4/1
Sinn Féin. 1920. Claims on Property: Sinn Fein Manifesto, Handbill. National Library of Ireland MS 33912 (11), Piaras Béaslaí Papers,
Smith, Jackie and Rachel Kutz-Flamenbaum. 2010. “Prisoners of our Concepts: Liberating the Study of Social Movements.’ In: Simon Teune. ed. The Transnational Condition: Protest Dynamics in an Entangled Europe. New York: Berghahn Books
Smith, Jackie and Dawn Wiest. 2012. Social Movements in the World-System: The Politics of Crisis and Transformation. New York: Russell Sage
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1991. “The Construction of Peoplehood: Racism, Nationalism, Ethnicity.’ In: Etienne Balibar & Immanuel Wallerstein. Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities. London: Verso
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2004. World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press
Wallerstein, Immanuel.. 2011a. The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth Century. Berkeley CA: University of California Press, 2nd Edition
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2011b. The Modern World-System III: The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy. Berkeley CA: University of California Press, 2nd Edition
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
- Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.
- The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License or its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
- Attribution—other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;
- The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a prepublication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.
- Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.
- The Author represents and warrants that:
- the Work is the Author’s original work;
- the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
- the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
- the Work has not previously been published;
- the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
- the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
- The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.
Revised 7/16/2018. Revision Description: Removed outdated link.
