(no subject)
Emer Tannam, 5th April 2005
Was the Irish revolution a revolution in the true sense of the word? Discuss in relation to at least three revolutions studied.
The word revolution is defined by Century's Political Dictionary as "a radical change in social or governmental conditions; the overthrow of an established political system, generally accompanied by far-reaching social changes" . The above definition will be accepted, for the purposes of this essay, as the true sense of the word. In this essay I will argue that the Irish Revolution cannot exclude the social revolution, which began in 1870 and constituted radical change. The social revolution had significant political effects, culminating in the political revolution. I will show that there is continuity of ideals from the social revolution to the developments, which followed in the early twentieth century. I will argue that the key event in the political revolution was not the Easter Rising, which was just that; a rising, but the War of Independence. I will then compare it to the French, Russian and American revolutions. I will assert that the Irish revolution was indeed a revolution in the true sense of the word, although less radical than the French and Russian.
In 1876 a British government survey found that the land of Ireland was almost completely owned by ten thousand individuals; landlords . By 1937, all Irish farmers owned their land . This, I feel, constitutes radical social change. However, the social revolution also had far-reaching political implications, as it led to the politicisation of rural Ireland.
The social revolution began in 1870, with Gladstone's first land act. Although this was a significant step in solving the land question it left many issues unresolved. . For the relatively new Home Rule Party what was needed was a policy which would engage the sympathy and active support of the Irish people as a whole . Parnell became leader of the land league in 1879, which was formed by Davitt to address the acute suffering of the Irish farmer. Parnell realised the political potential of the land question, and remarked in 1880 that he "would not have taken off my coat and hat and gone to work on this if I had not known that we were laying the foundation of this movement for the regeneration of our legislative independence" . Economic political issues were inextricably linked, as is almost always the case, and Parnell recognised the futility of pursuing Irish independence without providing for the economic security of the Irish farmer through the abolition of landlordism . Through the land league the Irish rural population became politicised, under the influence of Parnell who advocated inflicting "a moral Coventry" on enemies, rather than violence . From the outset the Land league assumed the character of a mass movement based primarily on moral force and one of its main functions was to organise popular demonstrations against evictions and to mobilise public opinion. It gave the peasants self respect and a political voice. Irish politics were transformed.
Despite the fact that Parnell focused exclusively on the national question after the Phoenix park murders and the Kilmainham Treaty of 1882, he continued to benefit from the political impetus provided by the Land League, which he supplanted with the Irish National League in that same year. It was on the strength of his activity on the land question that he became the "uncrowned King of Ireland". Subsequent land acts in 1881, 1885, 1887, 1891, 1903, 1909, 1923 and 1925 transferred land ownership to the Irish farmers. Although the process was by no means speedy, it nevertheless brought about radical change in a relatively short time, despite the problems that remained for the rural Irishman.
Hence the population of Ireland became actively involved in politics, through the Land League and the Home Rule Movement (later called the Irish Parliamentary party). In the political revolution the role of the Irish Parliamentary Party was much less important than that of Sinn Fein .But without the mobilisation of rural Ireland it is doubtful that there would have been a political culture in which Sinn Fein could have flourished. Furthermore the rise of Sinn Fein was directly related to the fate of the IPP, and so there is continuity between the two phases of Revolution.
Following the death of Parnell, the IPP was fragmented into factions, and frustrated by the Conservative government who remained in power from 1895-1905. The Irish people were tired of the internal bickering between the factions, and recognised that the party's problems had arisen from, among other things, over-dependence on British parties. A movement emerged which was more self reliant, and giving Irish people a sense of cultural separateness and dignity. Among these movements were Sinn Fein, Inghinidhe na hEireann, the Gaelic League etc. From 1904 Arthur Griffith, founder of Sinn Fein, was advocating abstention from the British government, a policy which would be of central importance to subsequent events. The Sinn Fein movement grew when Home Rule was an unlikely prospect (such as after the 1907 Irish Council Bill, which offered an inadequate measure of self-government) and declined when Home Rule seemed obtainable. When it seemed inevitable in 1914, there was frustration over the issue of partition, and which Ulster counties should remain within the British Empire, and which should remain without. At the same time the Conservative/Unionist alliance vowed to resist Home Rule at all costs. This led to the formation of the Ulster Volunteers, and following suit, the Irish volunteers, as constitutional politics were abandoned. Gun-running at Larne went unopposed, while the Howth gun-running was obstructed by British troops. This was unequal treatment of essentially the same offence, and, understandably, led to considerable disillusionment with British justice in Ireland.
The 1916 Rising was a brief military confrontation between a minority of Irish dissidents, located at different points around Dublin City, and British forces, during Easter week, lasting six days and ending with the rebels' surrender. Its true importance was in its aftermath. The Rising, as such was carried out by the minority of a minority, instigated by Pearse, Clarke and MacDermott, without the agreement of Eoin MacNeill, who was the actual leader of the Volunteers. It was, for the most part, ridiculed and/or resented by the people of Dublin, who saw their city partially destroyed, and people killed and injured (1,350 people)
The British government reacted with understandable severity, considering the circumstances in Europe at the time. The execution of the Rising's leaders (from May 3rd to May 12th) transformed them into martyrs, and the Irish public found new respect for those who died for the cause of Irish freedom. Asquith himself acknowledged that "They fought very bravely and did not resort to outrage" . George Bernard Shaw, at the time living in England said that
"an Irishman resorting to arms to achieve the independence of his country is doing only what an Englishman will do, if it be their misfortune to be invaded and conquered by the Germans...it is impossible to slaughter a man in this position without making him a martyr and a hero, even though the day before the rising he may have only been a minor poet...the English government must have known that they were canonising their prisoners." (TPC p142-3)
`
Marshall Law was imposed in Dublin, which was also unpopular. News of the mistreatment of prisoners, most notably Tom Clarke, became public, and provoked widespread outrage. Captain Lee-Wilson ordered Tom Clarke stripped and paraded about, in humiliation. The bandage was ripped from the bullet wound in his elbow sustained during the week, reopening the wound. As Sean MacDermott was being marched to a detention centre, his walking stick, made necessary by polio, was removed from him. Lee-Wilson also insisted that the prisoners relieve themselves where they lay.
When the surviving prisoners were released from prison in 1917 they revived Sinn Fein branches, and became a hugely popular propaganda machine and party. The conscription crisis of 1918 further bolstered support for them, and in the election of that year the transformation of Irish public opinion was blatantly obvious in Sinn Fein's sweeping victory. Sinn Fein's number of seats rose from seven to seventy, and the Irish Parliamentary Party's representation fell from seventy-eight to six. The result gave Sinn Fein the democratic legitimacy to abstain from Westminster, and set up an alternative, Irish government in Ireland. What followed was the War of Independence, which lasted from 1919-1921 and produced the Anglo-Irish Agreement. This did not provide the radical break from Britain that the majority desired, but the Irish could not afford to continue the war, and those in favour of it saw it as a stepping stone. Michael Collins pragmatically opined that it "gives us freedom, not the ultimate freedom, but the freedom to achieve it“ . However, Ireland had its own parliament for the first time since the Act of Union, and indeed the freedom to achieve more radical separateness, which various Irish governments would do, until the processes culmination in the Declaration of a Republic in 1949.
The relatively slow process of transformation does not exclude the Irish experience from being a revolution. In the Irish case, the revolution can be assessed by her status in relation to Britain, as this was the key issue that the political revolution sought to address. In case of Russia, the aim was to create socialism. This, too, was a long and arduous process, and it is less clear whether or not that objective was truly achieved. In 1924 Lenin tried to bring about economic recovery with the new Economic Plan. After the civil war, the towns were hungry and half empty. Deaths from epidemic and famine in 1921-2 exceeded the total casualties of the Civil war and World War One .The Nep abandoned "war communism' and allowed the private sector to reform. It was a step back from communism in the face of severe economic conditions. The drive for "true socialism' as envisioned by Stalin only began in 1929, with the first five year plan for industrial development , and collectivisation. . There can be no doubt that Russian Society was radically transformed; the urban economy had been completely nationalised, except for a small co-operative section; agriculture had been collectivised. Yet this happened over ten years after the initial 1917 revolution, and the full implications would not be felt until further years had passed. Furthermore, it is doubtful that what was created was socialism. According to Elizabeth Wiskemann“socialist dreams about labour conditions were parodied and slave-labour camps inagurated" . In the French Revolution, the ideals of "Freedom Equality, Fraternity" were initially realised; feudal dues were abolished, as were social and regional privilege, subjects became citizens, guilds were abolished, freedom of the press was introduced, trade unions were legalised, and religious toleration was provided for in 1789. However as the terror developed these rights became hollow, in the face of repression and political persecution on a grand scale.
The Irish experience, as well as satisfying the criteria described in the above definition, also follows the same pattern of development, characteristic of revolutions. The initial triumph of the revolution quickly led to civil war. In Ireland the civil war was over the treaty provisions demanding an oath of allegiance to the King, maintaining three military ports, and the partition of Ireland. In France, civil war came in the shape of uprisings in the Vendee, caused by conscription which was necessitated by the War with Austria from 1790. The uprising was fuelled by land hunger and increased taxes. A federalist revolt also broke out in the provinces, rejecting the authority of the National Convention, and protesting against the arrest of the Girodins, calling for moderation. In Russia, the scenario is slightly different. In Ireland and France the civil wars were essentially disputes as to how to run the fledging states, and what shape they should be, from within. The Russian civil war was between the Bolsheviks (reds) and the anti-Bolsheviks which included foreign powers. . In American the civil war would not occur for almost one hundred years, but the same type of disputations occurred in the immediate aftermath of independence, as to whether to have a federal government or a centralised government: Jefferson versus Hamilton. In America the debate was solved peacefully: the war would come with the question of slavery.
The Revolutions are also comparable under the theme of "Terror". The French Revolution is most notable for the "Terror" that was used as a legitimate weapon against political opposition, based on the creed expressed by Saint-Just "we must rule with iron those who cannot be ruled by justice". At its height, during June and July 1794, more people were guillotined in Paris in six weeks than had been during the whole of the previous fifteen weeks. The Terror in France arose from the insecurity of the regime, in the face of opposition from Europe, and from within France, fears of conspiracy theories, and the growing strength of the Committee of Public Safety, which became head of a highly centralised government. The death toll for the terror is 23, 7000, including deaths from the Vendee uprisings. In Russia terror against class enemies had been part of the civil war, collectivisation and Cultural Revolution. It reached its height during the Great Purges from 1936. They destroyed not only the surviving members of the old Bolsheviks, but later Bolsheviks too. The intelligentsia were also victims, as were class enemies, and people who had ever been put on a blacklist for anything at all. People with foreign connections were suspect. In 1939 the population of the gulag was 1.3 million. A further 681,692 were executed, without ever reaching the gulag.
After such staggering figures associated with the French and Russian revolutions it seems far-fetched to suggest that Ireland experienced anything like it, yet the newly formed government used harsh measures to stifle opposition during and after the civil war. As minister for Home Affairs Kevin O'Higgins was mainly responsible. The Public Safety Act of 1923 allowed the internment, arrest and detainment of anyone considered a danger to society . Subsequent acts expanded these powers. In 1927, following the assassination of Kevin O'Higgins possessing illegal arms became a capital offence. Although these harsh measures left a legacy of bitterness in their aftermath, they stabilised the country at a highly turbulent time.
I would argue that the political revolution that began in earnest after the 1916 rising was the logical completion of the social revolution preceding it. If there was to be "the land of Ireland for the people of Ireland" then why not government of Ireland by the people of Ireland? That the war in Europe was fought on the strength of "self-determination for small nations" made the whole process even more inevitable. Furthermore I believe that the Irish people would not have been ultimately content with Home Rule, and even that provision would have resulted in an effort to achieve greater freedom. Under Home Rule the British Government would have maintained sovereignty over foreign and imperial affairs . When the British Government legitimately proposed to exercise that power, in the form of conscription in 1918 it provoked outrage in Ireland. Although it was not as radical as the French and Russian revolutions, the circumstances were significantly different. The French Revolution ushered in the modern era, and pre-revolutionary Russia was so backward it may as well have occurred in 1789. In terms of radical change it is perhaps most comparable to the American Revolution, as the issue of contention was the status of Ireland/America in relation to United Kingdom. However I adamantly maintain that the Irish revolution was indeed a revolution.
Bibliography
Collins, M.E, Ireland 1868-1966, (Ireland 1993)
Coogan, T.P, Michael Collins, (Ireland 1990)
Coogan, T.P, 1916: The Easter Rising, ( Ireland 2002)
FitzPatrick, S, The Russian Revolution, (United States 1994)
Gough, H, The Terror in the French Revolution, (United States 1998)
Lyons, F.S.L, Ireland Since the Famine, (United Kingdom 1975)
Lyons, F.S.L, Charles Stewart Parnell , (United Kingdom 1977)
Wiskemann, E, Europe of the Dictators, (United Kingdom 1966)
http://www.survivalplus.com/dictionary/page0035.htm : Century's Poltical Dictionary from1889
Was the Irish revolution a revolution in the true sense of the word? Discuss in relation to at least three revolutions studied.
The word revolution is defined by Century's Political Dictionary as "a radical change in social or governmental conditions; the overthrow of an established political system, generally accompanied by far-reaching social changes" . The above definition will be accepted, for the purposes of this essay, as the true sense of the word. In this essay I will argue that the Irish Revolution cannot exclude the social revolution, which began in 1870 and constituted radical change. The social revolution had significant political effects, culminating in the political revolution. I will show that there is continuity of ideals from the social revolution to the developments, which followed in the early twentieth century. I will argue that the key event in the political revolution was not the Easter Rising, which was just that; a rising, but the War of Independence. I will then compare it to the French, Russian and American revolutions. I will assert that the Irish revolution was indeed a revolution in the true sense of the word, although less radical than the French and Russian.
In 1876 a British government survey found that the land of Ireland was almost completely owned by ten thousand individuals; landlords . By 1937, all Irish farmers owned their land . This, I feel, constitutes radical social change. However, the social revolution also had far-reaching political implications, as it led to the politicisation of rural Ireland.
The social revolution began in 1870, with Gladstone's first land act. Although this was a significant step in solving the land question it left many issues unresolved. . For the relatively new Home Rule Party what was needed was a policy which would engage the sympathy and active support of the Irish people as a whole . Parnell became leader of the land league in 1879, which was formed by Davitt to address the acute suffering of the Irish farmer. Parnell realised the political potential of the land question, and remarked in 1880 that he "would not have taken off my coat and hat and gone to work on this if I had not known that we were laying the foundation of this movement for the regeneration of our legislative independence" . Economic political issues were inextricably linked, as is almost always the case, and Parnell recognised the futility of pursuing Irish independence without providing for the economic security of the Irish farmer through the abolition of landlordism . Through the land league the Irish rural population became politicised, under the influence of Parnell who advocated inflicting "a moral Coventry" on enemies, rather than violence . From the outset the Land league assumed the character of a mass movement based primarily on moral force and one of its main functions was to organise popular demonstrations against evictions and to mobilise public opinion. It gave the peasants self respect and a political voice. Irish politics were transformed.
Despite the fact that Parnell focused exclusively on the national question after the Phoenix park murders and the Kilmainham Treaty of 1882, he continued to benefit from the political impetus provided by the Land League, which he supplanted with the Irish National League in that same year. It was on the strength of his activity on the land question that he became the "uncrowned King of Ireland". Subsequent land acts in 1881, 1885, 1887, 1891, 1903, 1909, 1923 and 1925 transferred land ownership to the Irish farmers. Although the process was by no means speedy, it nevertheless brought about radical change in a relatively short time, despite the problems that remained for the rural Irishman.
Hence the population of Ireland became actively involved in politics, through the Land League and the Home Rule Movement (later called the Irish Parliamentary party). In the political revolution the role of the Irish Parliamentary Party was much less important than that of Sinn Fein .But without the mobilisation of rural Ireland it is doubtful that there would have been a political culture in which Sinn Fein could have flourished. Furthermore the rise of Sinn Fein was directly related to the fate of the IPP, and so there is continuity between the two phases of Revolution.
Following the death of Parnell, the IPP was fragmented into factions, and frustrated by the Conservative government who remained in power from 1895-1905. The Irish people were tired of the internal bickering between the factions, and recognised that the party's problems had arisen from, among other things, over-dependence on British parties. A movement emerged which was more self reliant, and giving Irish people a sense of cultural separateness and dignity. Among these movements were Sinn Fein, Inghinidhe na hEireann, the Gaelic League etc. From 1904 Arthur Griffith, founder of Sinn Fein, was advocating abstention from the British government, a policy which would be of central importance to subsequent events. The Sinn Fein movement grew when Home Rule was an unlikely prospect (such as after the 1907 Irish Council Bill, which offered an inadequate measure of self-government) and declined when Home Rule seemed obtainable. When it seemed inevitable in 1914, there was frustration over the issue of partition, and which Ulster counties should remain within the British Empire, and which should remain without. At the same time the Conservative/Unionist alliance vowed to resist Home Rule at all costs. This led to the formation of the Ulster Volunteers, and following suit, the Irish volunteers, as constitutional politics were abandoned. Gun-running at Larne went unopposed, while the Howth gun-running was obstructed by British troops. This was unequal treatment of essentially the same offence, and, understandably, led to considerable disillusionment with British justice in Ireland.
The 1916 Rising was a brief military confrontation between a minority of Irish dissidents, located at different points around Dublin City, and British forces, during Easter week, lasting six days and ending with the rebels' surrender. Its true importance was in its aftermath. The Rising, as such was carried out by the minority of a minority, instigated by Pearse, Clarke and MacDermott, without the agreement of Eoin MacNeill, who was the actual leader of the Volunteers. It was, for the most part, ridiculed and/or resented by the people of Dublin, who saw their city partially destroyed, and people killed and injured (1,350 people)
The British government reacted with understandable severity, considering the circumstances in Europe at the time. The execution of the Rising's leaders (from May 3rd to May 12th) transformed them into martyrs, and the Irish public found new respect for those who died for the cause of Irish freedom. Asquith himself acknowledged that "They fought very bravely and did not resort to outrage" . George Bernard Shaw, at the time living in England said that
"an Irishman resorting to arms to achieve the independence of his country is doing only what an Englishman will do, if it be their misfortune to be invaded and conquered by the Germans...it is impossible to slaughter a man in this position without making him a martyr and a hero, even though the day before the rising he may have only been a minor poet...the English government must have known that they were canonising their prisoners." (TPC p142-3)
`
Marshall Law was imposed in Dublin, which was also unpopular. News of the mistreatment of prisoners, most notably Tom Clarke, became public, and provoked widespread outrage. Captain Lee-Wilson ordered Tom Clarke stripped and paraded about, in humiliation. The bandage was ripped from the bullet wound in his elbow sustained during the week, reopening the wound. As Sean MacDermott was being marched to a detention centre, his walking stick, made necessary by polio, was removed from him. Lee-Wilson also insisted that the prisoners relieve themselves where they lay.
When the surviving prisoners were released from prison in 1917 they revived Sinn Fein branches, and became a hugely popular propaganda machine and party. The conscription crisis of 1918 further bolstered support for them, and in the election of that year the transformation of Irish public opinion was blatantly obvious in Sinn Fein's sweeping victory. Sinn Fein's number of seats rose from seven to seventy, and the Irish Parliamentary Party's representation fell from seventy-eight to six. The result gave Sinn Fein the democratic legitimacy to abstain from Westminster, and set up an alternative, Irish government in Ireland. What followed was the War of Independence, which lasted from 1919-1921 and produced the Anglo-Irish Agreement. This did not provide the radical break from Britain that the majority desired, but the Irish could not afford to continue the war, and those in favour of it saw it as a stepping stone. Michael Collins pragmatically opined that it "gives us freedom, not the ultimate freedom, but the freedom to achieve it“ . However, Ireland had its own parliament for the first time since the Act of Union, and indeed the freedom to achieve more radical separateness, which various Irish governments would do, until the processes culmination in the Declaration of a Republic in 1949.
The relatively slow process of transformation does not exclude the Irish experience from being a revolution. In the Irish case, the revolution can be assessed by her status in relation to Britain, as this was the key issue that the political revolution sought to address. In case of Russia, the aim was to create socialism. This, too, was a long and arduous process, and it is less clear whether or not that objective was truly achieved. In 1924 Lenin tried to bring about economic recovery with the new Economic Plan. After the civil war, the towns were hungry and half empty. Deaths from epidemic and famine in 1921-2 exceeded the total casualties of the Civil war and World War One .The Nep abandoned "war communism' and allowed the private sector to reform. It was a step back from communism in the face of severe economic conditions. The drive for "true socialism' as envisioned by Stalin only began in 1929, with the first five year plan for industrial development , and collectivisation. . There can be no doubt that Russian Society was radically transformed; the urban economy had been completely nationalised, except for a small co-operative section; agriculture had been collectivised. Yet this happened over ten years after the initial 1917 revolution, and the full implications would not be felt until further years had passed. Furthermore, it is doubtful that what was created was socialism. According to Elizabeth Wiskemann“socialist dreams about labour conditions were parodied and slave-labour camps inagurated" . In the French Revolution, the ideals of "Freedom Equality, Fraternity" were initially realised; feudal dues were abolished, as were social and regional privilege, subjects became citizens, guilds were abolished, freedom of the press was introduced, trade unions were legalised, and religious toleration was provided for in 1789. However as the terror developed these rights became hollow, in the face of repression and political persecution on a grand scale.
The Irish experience, as well as satisfying the criteria described in the above definition, also follows the same pattern of development, characteristic of revolutions. The initial triumph of the revolution quickly led to civil war. In Ireland the civil war was over the treaty provisions demanding an oath of allegiance to the King, maintaining three military ports, and the partition of Ireland. In France, civil war came in the shape of uprisings in the Vendee, caused by conscription which was necessitated by the War with Austria from 1790. The uprising was fuelled by land hunger and increased taxes. A federalist revolt also broke out in the provinces, rejecting the authority of the National Convention, and protesting against the arrest of the Girodins, calling for moderation. In Russia, the scenario is slightly different. In Ireland and France the civil wars were essentially disputes as to how to run the fledging states, and what shape they should be, from within. The Russian civil war was between the Bolsheviks (reds) and the anti-Bolsheviks which included foreign powers. . In American the civil war would not occur for almost one hundred years, but the same type of disputations occurred in the immediate aftermath of independence, as to whether to have a federal government or a centralised government: Jefferson versus Hamilton. In America the debate was solved peacefully: the war would come with the question of slavery.
The Revolutions are also comparable under the theme of "Terror". The French Revolution is most notable for the "Terror" that was used as a legitimate weapon against political opposition, based on the creed expressed by Saint-Just "we must rule with iron those who cannot be ruled by justice". At its height, during June and July 1794, more people were guillotined in Paris in six weeks than had been during the whole of the previous fifteen weeks. The Terror in France arose from the insecurity of the regime, in the face of opposition from Europe, and from within France, fears of conspiracy theories, and the growing strength of the Committee of Public Safety, which became head of a highly centralised government. The death toll for the terror is 23, 7000, including deaths from the Vendee uprisings. In Russia terror against class enemies had been part of the civil war, collectivisation and Cultural Revolution. It reached its height during the Great Purges from 1936. They destroyed not only the surviving members of the old Bolsheviks, but later Bolsheviks too. The intelligentsia were also victims, as were class enemies, and people who had ever been put on a blacklist for anything at all. People with foreign connections were suspect. In 1939 the population of the gulag was 1.3 million. A further 681,692 were executed, without ever reaching the gulag.
After such staggering figures associated with the French and Russian revolutions it seems far-fetched to suggest that Ireland experienced anything like it, yet the newly formed government used harsh measures to stifle opposition during and after the civil war. As minister for Home Affairs Kevin O'Higgins was mainly responsible. The Public Safety Act of 1923 allowed the internment, arrest and detainment of anyone considered a danger to society . Subsequent acts expanded these powers. In 1927, following the assassination of Kevin O'Higgins possessing illegal arms became a capital offence. Although these harsh measures left a legacy of bitterness in their aftermath, they stabilised the country at a highly turbulent time.
I would argue that the political revolution that began in earnest after the 1916 rising was the logical completion of the social revolution preceding it. If there was to be "the land of Ireland for the people of Ireland" then why not government of Ireland by the people of Ireland? That the war in Europe was fought on the strength of "self-determination for small nations" made the whole process even more inevitable. Furthermore I believe that the Irish people would not have been ultimately content with Home Rule, and even that provision would have resulted in an effort to achieve greater freedom. Under Home Rule the British Government would have maintained sovereignty over foreign and imperial affairs . When the British Government legitimately proposed to exercise that power, in the form of conscription in 1918 it provoked outrage in Ireland. Although it was not as radical as the French and Russian revolutions, the circumstances were significantly different. The French Revolution ushered in the modern era, and pre-revolutionary Russia was so backward it may as well have occurred in 1789. In terms of radical change it is perhaps most comparable to the American Revolution, as the issue of contention was the status of Ireland/America in relation to United Kingdom. However I adamantly maintain that the Irish revolution was indeed a revolution.
Bibliography
Collins, M.E, Ireland 1868-1966, (Ireland 1993)
Coogan, T.P, Michael Collins, (Ireland 1990)
Coogan, T.P, 1916: The Easter Rising, ( Ireland 2002)
FitzPatrick, S, The Russian Revolution, (United States 1994)
Gough, H, The Terror in the French Revolution, (United States 1998)
Lyons, F.S.L, Ireland Since the Famine, (United Kingdom 1975)
Lyons, F.S.L, Charles Stewart Parnell , (United Kingdom 1977)
Wiskemann, E, Europe of the Dictators, (United Kingdom 1966)
http://www.survivalplus.com/dictionary/page0035.htm : Century's Poltical Dictionary from1889