Rebellion, Resistance and the Irish Working Class: The Case of the ‘Limerick Soviet’ explores the background and history of a major strike which occurred in Limerick city, Ireland, in 1919. This industrial dispute made headlines worldwide given that many central aspects of the dispute impacted on controversies as relating to workers’ rights in both Ireland European at this juncture. In this volume the “Limerick Soviet,” as it was known, is considered as a seminal element within Ireland’s local and regional history. This volume is an important addition to the historical literature, one which illuminates Ireland’s symbolic role within more large-scale European events of this historical period—the Russian Revolution and the mass protests by striking workers in both Germany and Scotland being just two examples.

History is not made by kings, politicians, or a few rich individuals--it is made by all of us. From the temples of ancient Egypt to spacecraft orbiting Earth, workers and ordinary people everywhere have walked out, sat down, risen up, and fought back against exploitation, discrimination, colonization, and oppression. Working Class History presents a distinct selection of people's history through hundreds of "on this day in history" anniversaries that are as diverse and international as the working class itself. Women, young people, people of color, workers, migrants, indigenous people, LGBTQ people, disabled people, older people, the unemployed, home workers, and every other part of the working class have organized and taken action that has shaped our world, and improvements in living and working conditions have been won only by years of violent conflict and sacrifice. These everyday acts of resistance and rebellion highlight just some of those who have struggled for a better world and provide lessons and inspiration for those of us fighting in the present. Going day by day, this book paints a picture of how and why the world came to be as it is, how some have tried to change it, and the lengths to which the rich and powerful have gone to maintain and increase their wealth and influence.

The signing of the Good Friday Agreement on April 10, 1998, marked the beginning of a new era of peace and stability in Northern Ireland. As the public has overwhelmingly rejected a return to the violence of the Troubles (1968–1998), loyalist and republican groups have sought other outlets to continue their struggle. Music has long been used to celebrate cultural identity in the North of Ireland: from street parades to football chants, and from folk festivals to YouTube videos, music facilitates the continuation of pre-Agreement identity narratives in a “post-conflict” era. Sounding Dissent draws on original in-depth interviews with Irish republican musicians, contemporary audiences, and former paramilitaries, as well as diverse historical and archival material, including songbooks, prison records, and newspaper articles, to understand the history of political violence in Ireland. The book examines the hagiographic potential of rebel songs to memorialize a pantheon of republican martyrs, and demonstrates how musical performance and political song not only articulate experiences and memories of oppression and violence, but play a central role in the reproduction of conflict and exclusion in times of peace.

Focusing on the everyday behaviour of people in the late-Victorian street, this extensive study provides an alternative history of the modern city, and sheds new light on the relationship between police constables and civilians. A wealth of source material is scrutinised to explore this public interaction in the capital.

Religion in Rebellions, Revolutions, and Social Movements demonstrates that, while religion is often a social force that maintains, if not legitimates, the sociopolitical order, it is also a decisive factor in economic, social, and political conflict. The book explores how and under what conditions religion functions as a progressive and/or reactionary force that compels people to challenge or protect social orders. The authors focus on the role that religion has played in peasant, slave, and plebeian rebellions; revolutions, including the Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Iranian; and modern social movements. In addition to these case studies, the book also contains theoretical chapters that explore the relationship religious thought has with the politics of liberation and oppression. It examines the institutional, organizational, ritualistic, discursive, ideological, and/or framing mechanisms that give religion its oppressive and liberating structures. Many scholars of religion continue very conventional modes of thinking, ignoring how religion has been—and continues to be—both a hegemonic and counterhegemonic force in conflict. This book looks at both sides of the equation. This international and interdisciplinary volume will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of politics of religion, sociology of religion, religious studies, gender studies, and history.

This text offers a re-interpretation of Irish political history in the partition era from the perspective of the losers. It is a general text covering 50 years of Irish political history, as well as a case study of Catholic Belfast and a biography of Joe Devlin.

“For those puzzled by Northern Ireland, Belfast Diary offers a well-written, sympathetic and clear-eyed view” of life during the Troubles (New York Times Book Review) In the late 1960s, the ongoing conflict between the Protestant unionists and Catholic nationalists of Northern Ireland—divided by their stance on the country’s constitutional position as part of the United Kingdom—escalated to new, terrifying heights. Chicago journalist John Conroy was there on the frontlines, living among the people most affected by it. In Belfast Diary, Conroy offers a street-level view of life in a Catholic Ghetto in West Belfast, painting vivid portraits of its citizens and the violence they faced during the Troubles: bomb threats, murder, police brutality, and more. Conroy’s recounting of this tumultuous moment in Northern Irish history has been hailed as the best explanation of the more than twenty-five-year conflict. Now with a new afterword, Belfast Diary conveys an understanding that is an essential prerequisite to peace: the resolution of intractable problems around the world requires understanding ordinary people as well as leaders.

Neimeyer for the first time reveals who really served in the army during the Revolution and why. His conclusions are startling. The long-termed Continental soldiers were not those whom historians have traditionally associated with the defense of liberty.