The first fifty years of the state saw Ireland change dramatically, and the Irish Labour Party changed with it. Using a wealth of new material, Niamh Puirseil traces the party's fortunes through its first fifty years in the Dail, from its perceived role as the 'political wing of the St Vincent de Paul' to its promise that the 1970s would be socialist. As well as examining the competing currents in the party itself, she also looks at Labour's relationship with different organisations and movements, including trade unions, republicans, the far left, the Catholic Church, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, as well as with other Social Democratic parties in Britain and Northern Ireland. "The Irish Labour Party, 1922-1973" is an outstanding contribution to the political history of twentieth-century Ireland. Over the course of the book, Niamh Puirseil charts the ever-depressing fortunes of the Labour party. Her exhaustive research provides a penetrating analysis of the myriad personalities and structures of the Labour Party, and shows a new picture of a party that seemed throughout the period to be hell bent on pressing the self-destruct button.This book offers a fresh and insightful look at a party riven by factions throughout its existence, and one that never reached its potential for a variety of reasons all outlined here. This book marks a major contribution to our understanding, not simply of the Labour Party, but of twentieth-century Ireland itself.

Knights Across the Atlantic tells the story of the Knights of Labor, one of the great social movements of American history, in Britain and Ireland.

Geoffrey Bell's Hesitant Comrades is the first published history of the policies, actions and attitudes of the British working class towards the Irish national revolution of 1916-21. Drawing principally on primary sources, Bell brings to light for the first time important incidents in British/Irish history, including how the leaders of British trade unions were complicit in Belfast loyalist sectarianism; the troubled nature of the Labour Party's relations with its Irish community; and how the Bolsheviks criticised British Marxists over their inaction on Ireland. The author also looks at socialist debates on the compatibility of Irish nationalism with socialism and the contentious 'Ulster question'. Participants examined range from Ramsay MacDonald to Sylvia Pankhurst. Based on in-depth research - with sources ranging from newly discovered writings to reports of police spies - Hesitant Comrades is a scholarly, provocative and groundbreaking perspective on the fragile relationship between the British left and the Irish revolution.--Cover.

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This book provides a concise set of thirteen essays looking at various aspects of the British left, movements of protest and the cumulative impact of the First World War. There are three broad areas this work intends to make a contribution to; the first is to help us further understand the role the Labour Party played in the conflict, and its evolving attitudes towards the war; the second strand concerns the notion of work, and particularly women’s work; the third strand deals with the impact of theory and practice of forces located largely outside the United Kingdom. Through these essays this book aims to provide a series of thirteen bite-size analyses of key issues affecting the British left throughout the war, and to further our understanding of it in this critical period of commemoration.

The Irish Citizen Army (ICA) was born from the Dublin Lockout of 1913, when industrialist William Martin Murphy ‘locked out’ workers who refused to resign from the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, sparking one of the most dramatic industrial disputes in Irish history. Faced with threats of police brutality in response to the strike, James Connolly, James Larkin and Jack White established the ICA in the winter of 1913. By the end of March 1914, the ICA espoused republican ideology and that the ownership of Ireland was ‘vested of right in the people of Ireland’. The ICA was in the process of being totally transformed, going on to provide significant support to the IRA during the 1916 Rising. Despite Connolly’s execution and the internment of many ICA members, the ICA reorganised in 1917, subsequently developing networks for arms importation and ‘intelligence’, and later providing operative support for the War of Independence in Dublin. The most extensive survey of the movement to date, The ‘Labour Hercules’ explores the ICA’s evolution into a republican army and its legacy to the present day.

This modern classic of Irish history is an accomplished and readable synthesis. Subjects covered include the early 'communism' of the Celtic clans ; the role of the Church; the Irish aristocracy and their handover to Henry II; Wolfe Tone’s rising and O’Connell’s betrayal.