In the wake of the Easter Rising of 1916, Irish nationalism was transformed. The old Irish Nationalist Party was outflanked by the younger and more radical Sinn Fein. In the British general election of 1918, Sinn Fein took practically all the seats in nationalist Ireland. They had pledged themselves to a policy of not attending Westminster - instead they would constitute themselves as Dail Eireann, the parliament of Ireland. Dail Eireann met for the first time in Dublin in January 1919. It attempted to put into practice the Sinn Fein theory of an alternative government. It established an alternative administration to the official British one, complete with government departments, courts of law, a department of finance, a propaganda machine and other arms of civil administration. It was, of course, a rickety and sometimes provisional structure operated frequently by hunted men, but it remained intact throughout the Irish war of independence and secured the tacit allegiance of a large segment of the Irish nationalist population. This book examines the workings of this counter-state between 1919 and 1921.
- ISBN10 0717120155
- ISBN13 9780717120154
- Publish Date 31 January 1995 (first published 30 September 1993)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 23 December 2009
- Publish Country IE
- Publisher Gill
- Imprint Gill & Macmillan Ltd
- Format Paperback
- Pages 352
- Language English