Democracy and Dissent in the Irish Free State: Opposition, Decolonisation, and Majority Rights

By Jason Knirck

A new analysis of the difficulties in normalising opposition in the Irish Free State, this book analyses the collision between nineteenth-century monolithic nationalist movements with the norms and expectations of multiparty parliamentary democracy. The Irish revolutionaries' attempts to create a Gaelic, postcolonial state involved resolving tension between these two ideas. Smaller economically-driven parties such as the Labour and Farmers' parties attempted to move on from the revolution's unnatural focus on nationalist political issues while the larger revolutionary parties descended from Sinn F in attempt to recreate or restore notions of revolutionary unity. This conflict made democracy and opposition hard to establish in the Irish Free State.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1526166275
• ISBN13: 9781526166272
• Release Date: February 2023
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.2"