This volume sets out to examine the history of Ireland in the years following the Dail's ratification of independence from Britain in 1922. The different authors in the collection, all experts on different aspects of Irish history from the first half of the twentieth century, focus on a wide range of different themes. Considerations of the decline of Redmondite nationalism, the role of Unionism in the Free State, Party structures and organisation, the development of different forms of identity, the nature of economics and the place of the newly independent Ireland within the British Empire are all included. All chapters are either the result of new archival research or else offer a sustained historiographical critique of current thinking.

Autorentext

MIKE CRONIN is Senior Research Fellow in History at De Montfort University, Leicester. He was the author of The Blueshirts and Irish Politics, Sport and Nationalism in Ireland: Gaelic Games, Soccer and Identity, and editor of The Failure of British Fascism: the Far Right and the Fight for Political Recognition.

JOHN M. REGAN is a Research Fellow at Merton College, Oxford. He was formerly the Irish Government Senior Scholar at Hertford College, Oxford and a holder of a British Academy post-doctoral research fellowship also at Wolfson College. His Counter-revolution and Settlement in Independent Ireland, 1921-36 is to be published in 1999.

Inhalt
Glossary Notes on the Contributors Introduction; M.Cronin & J.Regan Ireland's Last Home Rule Generation: The Decline of Constitutional Nationalism in Ireland, 1916-30; S.Paseta The Politics of Utopia: Party Politics, Executive Autonomy and the New Administration; J.Regan The Enigma of Fianna Fail: Party Strategy, Social Classes and the Politics of Hegemony; R.Dunphy Socialist Republicanism in Independent Ireland, 1922-49; R.English The Unpopular Front: Catholic Revival and Irish Cultural Identity, 1932-48; S.Riordan Social Catholicism and the Social Question in Post-independence Ireland: The Challenge to the Fiscal System; F.O.Driscoll Golden Dreams, Harsh Realities: Economics and Informal Empire in the Irish Free State; M.Cronin New Ireland, Old Empire and the Outside World, 1922-49: The Strange Evolution of a 'Dictionary Republic'; D.Lowry Trinity College Dublin and the New Political Order; P.Dempsey Index