Dreamers, dupes and dynamiters : political violence and the transnational flows of Irish nationalism, 1865-1885

Abstract

Insurrection is frequently viewed as a vertical theme in Irish history, both by historians and the conspirators themselves. The Proclamation of the Irish Republic, delivered by insurgents during the 1916 rebellion, depicted their actions as the logical extension of a historical tradition in a country that had already seen violent rebellion four times during the long-nineteenth century.1 Tradition kept the rifles warm, or so the manifestos claimed, and not successful precedents of insurrectionary action. After the penultimate uprising of 1867, however, rebels began to rethink the merits of insurrection and canvas alternative strategies, which led to an urban-guerrilla or bombing campaign in the 1880s. The present study investigates this transformation in revolutionary action and seeks to challenge the frequent analytical collapse of militant Irish nationalism into 'traditions of violence' explanations. Instead, I argue that the rebels’ actions may be better grasped if placed in concurrent contexts and in connection with specific milieux. Between the insurrectionary movements of the nineteenth century and the organised revolutionary parties of the early twentieth lies a field of action ill-defined. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate that field.