Abstract: In the 1890s, most of the inhabitants of the west of Ireland experienced great poverty and hardship, living as they did on farms that were too small to provide them with a reasonable standard of living. By 1921, however, the living conditions of many of them had been transformed by a series of Land Acts that revolutionized the system of land holding in Ireland. This book examines agrarian conflict in Ireland during the neglected period between the death of Parnell (1891) and the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921), and demonstrates that land reform was often introduced in response to popular protest. This book provides an account of popular political activity in late 19th- and 20th-century Ireland and the social background, ideas, and activities of grassroots political activists are explored, as are the class conflicts that threatened to fragment the unity of the nationalist movement in rural communities. This book suggests new interpretations of a number of critical developments including the failure of ‘constructive unionism’, the origins of Sinn Féin, and the nature and dynamics of the Irish revolution (1916-23).

Keywords: west of Ireland, Land Acts, land holding, agrarian conflict, Anglo-Irish Treaty, land reform, political activists, class conflicts, nationalist movement, Sinn Féin