Shaping Ireland S Independence

This book explores the political and ideological developments that resulted in the establishment of two separate states on the island of Ireland: the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. It examines how this radical transformation took place, including how British Liberals and Unionists were as influential in the “two-state solution” as any Irish party. The book analyzes transformative events including the third home rule crisis, partition and the creation of Northern Ireland, and the Irish Free State’s establishment through the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The policies and priorities of major figures such as H.H. Asquith, David Lloyd George, John Redmond, Eamon de Valera, Edward Carson, and James Craig receive prominent attention, as do lesser-known events and organizations like the Irish Convention and Irish Dominion League. The work outlines many possible solutions to Britain’s “Irish question,” and discusses why some settlement ideas were adopted and others discarded. Analyzing public discourse and archival sources, this monograph offers new perspectives on the Irish Revolution, highlighting in particular the tension between public rhetoric and private opinion.

Originally published in 1960 and edited by Conor Cruise O’Brien, The Shaping of Modern Ireland was a seminal work surveying the lives of prominent early twentieth-century figures who influenced Irish affairs in the years between the death of Charles Stewart Parnell in 1891 and the Easter Rising of 1916. The chapters were written by leading historians and commentators from the Ireland of the 1950s, some of whom personally knew the subjects of their essays. This volume draws its inspiration from that seminal work. Written by some of today’s leading figures from the world of Irish history, politics, journalism and the arts, it revisits a crucial phase in the country’s history, one that culminated in the Easter Rising and the Revolution, when everything ‘changed utterly’. With chapters on men and women of the stature of Carson, Connolly and Markievicz, but also industrialists such as Guinness who contributed to ‘shaping modern Ireland’ in the social and economic sphere, this book offers an important contribution to the renewal of the debate on the country’s history.

"The Irish War of Independence, January 1919 to July 1921, constituted the final stages of the Irish revolution. It went hand in hand with the collapse of British administration in Ireland. The military conflict consisted of sporadic, localised but vicious guerrilla fighting that was paralleled by the efforts of the Dail Government to achieve an independent Irish Republic and the partitioning of the country by the Government of Ireland Act."--Book jacket.

 Women have too often been written out of history. This is especially true in the fight for Irish independence. The women's struggle was three-fold, beginning with the suffragettes' fight to win the vote. Then came the push for fair pay and working conditions. Binding them together became part of the national struggle, first for home rule, then for the establishment of an Irish Republic. The Easter Rising of 1916 brought them together as soldiers of the Republic. Through the terrible years that followed, they became the conscience of Republicanism. Following independence, they were betrayed by the men they had served alongside. DeValera and the Catholic Church restricted their roles in society--they were to be wives and mothers without a voice. It was not until Ireland's entry into the European community and the self destruction of a corrupt Church that Irish women were acknowledged for what they had achieved.

In an exploration of the essential structure of what is called Irish history, A.T.Q. Stewart looks at some shadowy areas and asks provocative questions about popular misconceptions. Even where such misconceptions have been refuted by academic research, Stewart argues, the information has not percolated into the general domain because modern historians, writing mainly for one another, have lost the wider audience. Criticizing his own profession for purporting to be scientific while largely ignoring the implications of, for example, scientific archaeology, Stewart also opens up the closed shop of Irish history for the general reader. The result is a landmark book - the terrain of Irish history will never be the same again.

"Ireland's revolution was an inherently transnational event. Buoyed by the rise of Wilsonian self-determination and the consequent weakening of imperial prestige, radical and anti-colonial movements flourished across the globe after the First World War. Although emerging from widely differing contexts, from Korea to India, and Egypt to Ireland, proponents of these movements communicated, engaged with, and learned from one another in anti-imperial metropoles such as Paris, London and New York. Irish nationalists at home and abroad were intimately involved in this international exchange, from mobilizing Ireland's vast diaspora in support of Irish independence, or engaging directly with radical causes elsewhere in the world, to providing models for other anti-colonial struggles. Reassessing the Irish Revolution within this transnational context, this volume broadens our understanding of Ireland's place in the evolving postwar world. Foregrounding how the ebbing of political authority from the imperial to democratic nation-state created revolutionary opportunities that were seized by anti-colonial activists, this study argues for the importance of empire, anti-imperialism and new understandings of self-determination in shaping political discourse and violence in revolutionary Ireland"--

This volume gathers over 40 world-class scholars to explore the dynamics that have shaped the Irish experience in America from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries. From the early 1600s to the present, over 10 million Irish people emigrated to various points around the globe. Of them, more than six million settled in what we now call the United States of America. Some were emigrants, some were exiles, and some were refugees—but they all brought with them habits, ideas, and beliefs from Ireland, which played a role in shaping their new home. Organized chronologically, the chapters in this volume offer a cogent blend of historical perspectives from the pens of some of the world’s leading scholars. Each section explores multiple themes including gender, race, identity, class, work, religion, and politics. This book also offers essays that examine the literary and/or artistic production of each era. These studies investigate not only how Irish America saw itself or, in turn, was seen, but also how the historical moment influenced cultural representation. It demonstrates the ways in which Irish Americans have connected with other groups, such as African Americans and Native Americans, and sets “Irish America” in the context of the global Irish diaspora. This book will be of value to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as instructors and scholars interested in American History, Immigration History, Irish Studies, and Ethnic Studies more broadly.

Examines how the Irish American community, the American public, and the American government played a crucial role in the making of a sovereign independent Ireland On Easter Day 1916, more than a thousand Irishmen stormed Dublin city center, seizing the General Post Office building and reading the Proclamation for an independent Irish Republic. The British declared martial law shortly afterward, and the rebellion was violently quashed by the military. In a ten-day period after the event, fourteen leaders of the uprising were executed by firing squad. In New York, news of the uprising spread quickly among the substantial Irish American population. Initially the media blamed German interference, but eventually news of British-propagated atrocities came to light, and Irish Americans were quick to respond. America and the Making of an Independent Ireland centres on the diplomatic relationship between Ireland and the United States at the time of Irish Independence and World War I. Beginning with the Rising of 1916, Francis M. Carroll chronicles how Irish Americans responded to the movement for Irish independence and pressuring the US government to intervene on the side of Ireland. Carroll’s in-depth analysis demonstrates that Irish Americans after World War I raised funds for the Dáil Éireann government and for war relief, while shaping public opinion in favor of an independent nation. The book illustrates how the US government was the first power to extend diplomatic recognition to Ireland and welcome it into the international community. Overall, Carroll argues that the existence of the state of Ireland is owed to considerable effort and intervention by Irish Americans and the American public at large.