Read more
This book is the first ever collection of scholarly essays on the history of the Irish working class. It provides a comprehensive introduction to the involvement of Irish workers in political life and movements between 1830 and 1945. Fourteen leading Irish and international historians and political scientists trace the politicization of Irish workers during a period of considerable social and political turmoil. The contributions include both surveys covering the entire period and case studies that provide new perspectives on crucial historical movements and moments. This volume is a milestone in Irish labour and political historiography and an important contribution to the international literature on politics and the working class.
List of contents
Introduction; F.Lane & D.Drisceoil Robert Owen, co-operativism and Ulster in the 1830s; V.Geoghegan Labour and Politics, 1830-1945: Colonisation and Mental Colonisation; E.O'Connor Working Women, Trade Unionism and Politics in Ireland, 1830-1945; M.Luddy Politics, Sectarianism and the Working Class in Nineteenth-Century Belfast; C.Hirst 'Brethren in Bondage': Chartists, O'Connellites, Young Irelanders and the 1848 Uprising; C.Kinealy Rural Labourers, Social Change and Politics in Late Nineteenth-Century Ireland; F.Lane Parnellism and Workers: The Experience of Cork and Limerick; M.Cronin William Walker, Labour, Sectarianism and the Union, 1894-1912; H.Patterson Interpreting James Connolly, 1916-23; H.Woggon Labour Militancy During the Irish War of Independence; C.Kostick Radical Politics in Interwar Ireland, 1923-39; F.McGarry The Northern Ireland Labour Party, 1924-45; G.Walker Fianna Fail and the Working Class, 1926-38; R.Dunphy 'Whose Emergency is it?' Wartime Politics and the Irish Working Class, 1939-45; D.O Drisceoil
About the author
MAURA CRONIN Lecturer in History, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, IRELAND
RICHARD DUNPHY Senior Lecturer, Department of Politics, Dundee University, UK
VINCENT GEOGHEGAN Professor of Political Theory, Queen's University, Belfast, UK
CATHERINE HIRST Policy Officer, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
CHRISTINE KINEALY Reader in History, University of Central Lancashire, UK
CONOR KOSTICK Writer and Historian
MARIA LUDDY Reader in History, University of Warwick, UK
HENRY PATTERSON Professor of Politics, University of Ulster, UK
FEARGHAL MCGARRY Lecturer, School of History, Queen's University, Belfast, UK
EMMET O'CONNOR Senior Lecturer in Modern History, University of Ulster, UK
GRAHAM WALKER Reader in Politics, Queen's University, Belfast, UK
HELGA WOGGON Historian
Summary
This book is the first ever collection of scholarly essays on the history of the Irish working class. It provides a comprehensive introduction to the involvement of Irish workers in political life and movements between 1830 and 1945. Fourteen leading Irish and international historians and political scientists trace the politicization of Irish workers during a period of considerable social and political turmoil. The contributions include both surveys covering the entire period and case studies that provide new perspectives on crucial historical movements and moments. This volume is a milestone in Irish labour and political historiography and an important contribution to the international literature on politics and the working class.
Additional text
'...this edited volume is a welcome addition to Irish working-class historiography. It goes some way to tighten the accepted reasons for the lack of left-right politics in Ireland, north and south, while offering glimpses of when this development may have broken through the barriers of religion, nationalism and ownership of the land...The reading of Politics and the Irish Working Class, 1830-1945 prompts the reader to delve further, and the range and wealth of sources contained within illustrate plenty of scope for further research.' - Kieran McGovern, Reviews in History
'A welcome and important contribution to Irish working class history. It has taken far too long for a volume such as this to appear and the editors, contributors and publishers are to be congratulated on the publication of such an interesting and scholarly collection. It is a collection that will prove useful to experienced scholars and students alike and many of the chapters provide a large amount of useful references. ' - Irish Economic and Social History
Report
'...this edited volume is a welcome addition to Irish working-class historiography. It goes some way to tighten the accepted reasons for the lack of left-right politics in Ireland, north and south, while offering glimpses of when this development may have broken through the barriers of religion, nationalism and ownership of the land...The reading of Politics and the Irish Working Class, 1830-1945 prompts the reader to delve further, and the range and wealth of sources contained within illustrate plenty of scope for further research.' - Kieran McGovern, Reviews in History
'A welcome and important contribution to Irish working class history. It has taken far too long for a volume such as this to appear and the editors, contributors and publishers are to be congratulated on the publication of such an interesting and scholarly collection. It is a collection that will prove useful to experienced scholars and students alike and many of the chapters provide a large amount of useful references. ' - Irish Economic and Social History
