Revolutionary Government in Ireland: Dail Eireann, 1919-21

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.