Socialism and Irish Nationalism :: essays research papers

The 1913 Lockout was the culmination of several years of political organisation and hullabaloo among the unskilled working tell, carried out primarily through the Irish mail Workers Union. The ITGWU had been founded by Larkin in 1909 specifically as a sum of money of the unskilled, bulky deemed unorganisable by the authoritative trade union movement. The open militancy of the ITGWU was a new departure in the history of the Irish trade union movement and the organisation grew rapidly, from 4,000 members in 1911 to 10,000 by 1913. The ITGWU quickly came up against decided resistance from employers, the police and the British state. However well-nigh of the most grim abuse and opposition to this manifestation of the independent organisation of the working class was expressed by Irish nationalist organisations, not only the official Irish Parliamentary (Home Rule) Party but also by the much radical Sinn Fein movement led by Arthur Griffith. While James Connolly declared the in divisibility of the of the effort for Irish independence from the fight for socialism he was essentially a lone voice whose ideology, based on the application of Marxist principles to the Irish situation, was a radical break from the previous two centuries of Irish patriotism which had laid the foundations for the collection of political beliefs that still dominate the discussion on the National Question.Irish nationalism, as it developed in the 19th and early twentieth centuries was an eclectic mixture of aspects of various political doctrines, not necessarily of Irish origin, which were gradually amalgamated in different forms by the groups who adopted a policy of Irish independence. In the 1890-1910 period at least quartet main nationalist organisations existed, these being the Irish Parliamentary Party, Sinn Fein, the Irish republi potentiometer Brotherhood and the old-fashioned Order of Hibernians. Around these a series organisations, some officially non political had emerge d such as the Gaelic Athletic Association, the Gaelic compact and a number of bodies promoting cultural expression and the Gaelic revival.The genesis of what can be broadly termed as Irish Nationalism emerged from the ideals of the United Irishmen and the failed revolt of 1798. All of the above organisations active in the early 20th ampere-second claimed a heritage that stemmed from the radical ideas propounded by Wolfe Tone and his supporters in the 1790s, Sinn Fein and the IRB more so than the Irish Parliamentary Party or the Ancient Order of Hibernians.