The Politics of the Irish Civil War
Bill Kissane
Abstract
This book situates the Irish civil war in the general process of decolonization in the 20th century and explains why divisions over the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 proved so decisive in the creation of the Irish state. It suggests that the Treaty settlement and the manner in which it was implemented touched the raw nerve of a society with long-standing ambiguities on the question of Empire. On the pro-Treaty side, the Treaty opened up the prospect of co-operation with Britain in an increasingly democratic Commonwealth. On the anti-Treaty side, dominion status was incompatible with the conceptio ... More
This book situates the Irish civil war in the general process of decolonization in the 20th century and explains why divisions over the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 proved so decisive in the creation of the Irish state. It suggests that the Treaty settlement and the manner in which it was implemented touched the raw nerve of a society with long-standing ambiguities on the question of Empire. On the pro-Treaty side, the Treaty opened up the prospect of co-operation with Britain in an increasingly democratic Commonwealth. On the anti-Treaty side, dominion status was incompatible with the conception of nationality, which had animated the Sinn Fein movement since 1917. The presence of dexterous individuals, such as Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera, meant that these divisions could initially be bridged, but their viewpoints became marginalized as the conflict progressed. As a result, the bulk of this book is devoted to analysing the process of polarization in Irish society occasioned by the civil war.
Keywords:
Ireland,
Sinn Fein,
Empire,
nationalism,
Commonwealth
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2005 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199273553 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2007 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273553.001.0001 |
