The Irish independence movement is a centuries-old one that has shifted and changed with every generation, since the 12th-13th century English conquest until this day. The current exercise focuses in particular on the period between 1916 and 1922, after which the majority of the Irish territory was effectively liberated from British presence. The struggle for Irish independence and unification continued and still continues, but for practical purposes, the focus here will be in the earthquake that happened in those years. During the period in question, despite a significant change in the economic structure of Ireland, it is clear that what was achieved was a political revolution, and not a social revolution.

The purpose of this text is to look into the theories of change, revolutionary strategies and movement capabilities of this immense configuration of organizations that comprised the “Irish independence movement”. The main focuses of the analysis are to look into the following periods and how to movement acted and reacted:

• The Easter Rising
• The rise of Sinn Fein
• Irish Republican Army (IRA)
• War of Independence and Civil War

 

The Easter Rising (1916)

The Easter Rising was the key event to trigger the revolutionary movement for independence in Ireland in the 20th century. In the tradition of the previous Irish rebellions, it is an attempt that fails to spark a successful popular uprising. Notably in 1798, 1803, 1848, 1867 and numerous actions in the meantime, organisations like the Society of United Irishmen, Young Ireland, Fenian Brotherhood and the Irish Republican Broterhood (IRB) were created and maintained with the deliberate intent to create Irish Independence and finally an Irish independent democratic republic. These organisations were very much in the tradition of conspiratorial strategies as those followed by the Carbonari and La Giovine Italia, with a simplified theory of change proposal as follows:

Simplified Easter Rising theory of change (IRB)

Leaders
↓
Secret Societies
↓
Armed Uprisings
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Seizing political power and declaring national independence

 

The British were able to stave off Irish independence in the first two European revolutionary periods – after the French Revolution (1789 onwards) and the Springtime of the Peoples (1848-1849), but a culture and inheritance of nationalism, independence and republicanism were pressed into Irish social movements, in particular Catholic Ireland.

Entering the 20th century, the IRB would still be an active organization, but its theory of change would adapt to incorporate parts of the theories of the other organizations it was making alliances with. There were groups closer to utopian socialism, focusing on awareness-raising and agitation, as well as those closer to anarchism, communism, and socialism, focusing on working class organisation, economic and political struggle.

Its important to understand that the Irish independence movement wasn’t necessarily a left-wing movement, as it brought together different factions and cross-class alliances from within Irish society of the time. The most dominant narratives within the independence movement were related to liberation from oppression and English brutality, Irish nationalism and Celtic renaissance, socialism, and Redmondism/Home Rule Movement. A predominantly reformist theory of change dominated in the beginning of the century, embodied in the power of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP).

 

Home Rule Faction Theory of Change (IPP)

Political Struggle + Mass Agitation
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Enter Parliament and Approve Home Rule
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Gain an Irish Government
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Eventually become independent

 

For decades, there had been parliamentary attempts by Irish Members of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons in London to approve Home Rule for Ireland, which would bring a great deal more of autonomy for Ireland within Great Britain. There was strong opposition from Protestants in Northern Ireland to this proposal, as the majority of Ireland was Catholic, and a democratic Ireland would be mostly rules by Catholics. After failed attempts in 1886 and 1893, in 1912 Home Rule for Ireland was finally approved in the House of Commons and it was set to come into effect in 1914.

Opposing the approval of Home Rule, Protestants from Northern Ireland and Irish unionists which defended the maintenance of Ireland in Britain formed a paramilitary group to resist any measure of self-government in Ireland, the Ulster Volunteers. In response to this, Irish nationalists and republicans, including members of the IRB, created the Irish Volunteers in 1913.

Much like the rest of Europe, In the beginning of the 20th century there was a strong labour movement in Ireland. Also in the year 1913, a general strike followed by a lockout from employers and police repression in Dublin led to the creation of the ICA – the Irish Citizen Army – a paramilitary group headed by the popular socialist leader James Connolly to protect workers from police repression. Connolly was a founder of the Irish Labour Party and a member of the Second International, having sided with Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg in opposition to World War I as an imperialist conflict.

But the “advances” of the institutional wing of the movement would soon collapse. With the breakout of World War I, the introduction of Home Rule was suspended by the British government, politically consolidating the ruptural part of the movement. Simultaneously, the question of Irish participation in the military effort on Britain’s side confirmed the major split in the independence movement. Until then, the movement was dominated by the advances of its reformist wing. With the outbreak of the war, the Home Rule part of the movement, led by Irish Parliamentary Party and its leader John Redmond, advocated for an active participation of Irish soldiers in the British Army as a stepping stone for Home Rule and independence, inside the British Empire. Redmond convinced the majority of Irish Volunteers to join the British Army. They left and created the National Volunteers.

The now much smaller Irish Volunteers, with about 15 thousand members, became dominated by the more radical IRB members, which formed a secret military council. For the IRB, the analysis was that the war was an opportunity to break Ireland away from Britain, as the British would be focused on fighting the German and not have resources and political will to resist an Irish attempt at independence. The IRB was also counting on some measure of support from the Germans. Similar analysis had happened in 1796, when the Society of United Irishmen allied with the Revolutionary French Army to prepare the invasion of Britain through Ireland and guaranteeing Irish independence. Which also failed. The Easter Rising would fail better.

Preparations got underway. IRB members went to Germany, and despite the German refusal to send soldiers to Ireland, they did get a promise of weapons and access to Irish prisoners of war as recruits for the rising in Dublin. Few accepted. Back in Ireland, an alliance was made with different organizations like the socialist ICA, the cultural organisation Gaelic League, the youth organisation Fianna Éireann and the woman’s paramilitary organisation Cumma na mBan. The plan was a nationwide rebellion, with a focus in Dublin, occupying some key buildings and waiting for the arrival of columns from the rest of the country.

On the 24th of April 1916, despite successive failures in the preparation (the majority of the Volunteers were demobilized by a leader which wasn’t part of the IRB, the German delivery of weapons failed), the rebels decided to advance with the uprising, although with an impeding sense of doom from the beginning. 1200 Irish Volunteers, including over 200 members of the ICA, took over the General Post Office and some other key buildings of Dublin, failing due to lack of soldiers to take the train stations and the major barracks, Dublin Castle. Patrick Pearse, a poet from the Gaelic League, read the proclamation of the Irish Republic in front of the taken General Post Office, to the amazement of many of the people passing by. The call to rebellion was left mostly unresponded by the population of Dublin. Initially taken by surprise, the British quickly recovered and then received reinforcements, beginning a campaign of bombardment of the centre of the city, which was left in ruins. The rebels resisted for five days, inflicting significant casualties on the British. The expected reinforcements and weapons from the rest of the country never arrived. On the 29th of April, Pearse declared unconditional surrender. 470 people died, 260 of which civilians. 66 rebels were killed, as well as 143 police and British military personnel.

The initial response of the Irish leaderships to the Easter Rising was profoundly negative. Unionists, Home Rulers and the Catholic Church all condemned the adventurers as traitors and criminally insane. The popular mood was better, in particular in the poorest neighborhoods, who applauded the bravery of the rebels. But the negative responses changed quickly because of the British reaction.

The repression was swift and cruel. 3500 men and 79 women were arrested and deported to England and Wales. Police and military brutality in Ireland peaked. And most importantly, a show was made on the execution of the leaders of the Easter Rising. During a ten day period, the key organizers of the Rising were executed, most prominent among them Patrick Pearse and James Connolly, which was shot in his stretcher, already dying from the wounds he had received in the fighting. The dragged executions were described in detail in the press and popular sentiment grew ever more favorably to the rebels, seen as romantic heroes. All the key figures of the next wave of rebellion were veterans of the Easter Rising: Michael Collins, Cathal Brugha, Eamon de Valera and Constance Markievicz, among others.

 

The rise of Sinn Féin

In the immediate aftermath of the Easter Rising, 1800 prisoners were sent to Wales, to Frongoch. Among them was Michael Collins. The prisoners elected their own leadership and organized life inside the camp with a militarized structure and created a proper school, where ideology, politics, but especially tactics and strategies were diffused among the prisoners. It became known as the “University of Revolution”. In the meantime, other members of the IRB which were still free created the Prisoner Aid Society to give support to the families of the executed prisoners and those detained abroad. In the summer of 1916, IRB members ran the entire country to take stock of who wasn’t in jail. At the National Conference of the Gaelic League, a cultural event, in the backroom, a new Provisional Committee of the Irish Volunteers was created. Cathal Brugha, which hadn’t been exiled from the country, was released after recovering from the injuries sustained in the Rising to immediately join the committee and start reorganizing. The women of Cumann na mBan who hadn’t been arrested started an agitation campaign to popularize the dead leaders of the Easter Rising, also supporting the extensive prisoner aid campaigns.

The Sinn Féin political party was founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, proposing his conservative and even monarchical version of Irish nationalism, in the form of a dual anglo-irish monarchy under the British crown, with a autonomous parliament in Dublin. Despite its unusual political position, Sinn Féin had elected MPs from time to time, and defended not going to the Parliament in London as a tool for agitation. Its Gaelic name and apparent radicalism were propelled to fame after the Easter Rising, as many of its members participated in the rebellion and newspapers in Ireland and England called the events the “Sinn Féin Rebellion”. Suddenly, everyone thought that the place to go if you want to do a revolution to get independence was Sinn Féin.

In December 1916, eight months after the Rising, all of the prisoners that had been arrested without a trial were released and sent back to Ireland, which included most of those in the University of Revolution, who had nonetheless been exposed to the entire theory of change of the IRB and the Irish Volunteers (IV). Many of these joined the IV and Sinn Féin upon returning to Ireland. At this time, people were already calling the IV the Irish Republican Army, or its famous acronym, IRA. The return of the prisoners marked the beginning of a new period of political violence. In Cork, the welcome celebration turned into a riot. Nationalist supporters began using IRA guerrilla tactics of creating a commotion in the street that would attract police and then ambush them. Michael Collins returned, being elected to the Supreme Council of the IRB, rejoining the IV and the Prisoner’s Aid Society. In the prisoner support groups, Collins would develop a network of contacts throughout the entire country, but in particular in Dublin, which would later be used for espionage. During his stay in the University of Revolution, Collins had pushed for irregular war and guerrilla tactics in face of the overwhelming power of the British. Despite of the romantic and propaganda appeal of the heroic open conflict, even facing insurmountable odds, as the Easter Rising had been, Collins and a growing number of IRB and IV members understood the need not only to organize and grow in numbers, but also to disorganize and make the British forces have to leave their strongholds, which was a key reason for the future tactics of small units by the IRA. After returning to Ireland, the ruptural part of the movement also decided to take over Sinn Féin as the political wing of the movement, abandoning the Irish Parliamentary Party.

Understanding the strong empowerment of the independence movement post-Easter Rising, the British government, under advisement of the Irish Parliamentary Party, organized an Irish Convention to try and create a political agreement between nationalists over the implementation of the Home Rule which they hoped might weaken the movement by coopting part of its program. To bring in the most radicals, the British released the majority of the Rising political prisoners. The new Sinn Féin announced they would only participate in said convention if it was free to declare Irish Independence and if the British would accept the convention’s decision. Sinn Féin was already feeling strong enough to not even have to sit at the table with the moderate parts of the movement, as it was now leading it. But an empire is an empire, and later in the year, the British floated that they would bring military conscription in Ireland, which became a key banner for upcoming elections: It was safer to do a revolution in Ireland than to go die in a trench in France.

Sinn Féin was already running candidates connected to the Rising on by-elections against the Irish Parliamentary Party: first the father of two dead rebels, then two Easter Rising leaders still in prison, Joseph McGuinness and Eamon De Valera (release in the final amnesty in June 1917). All three won. The propaganda political program demanded the recognition of Irish Independence after the end of World War I, the overthrow of the British government and the rejection of conscription. The radicals were now mainstream.

In October 1917, while Russian Soviets were about to launch their insurrection, Sinn Féin organised a congress and elected Eamon de Valera as president. The new board included key IRB members such as Constance Markievicz, Michael Collins, Cathal Brugha and Joseph McGuinness. Sinn Féin had become a mass organization, with over 250 thousand members and 3300 clubs in a matter of months. The next day, the Irish Volunteers also organized their congress and elected De Valera as president, with Collins responsible for the internal organisation and Brugha responsible for political coordination. The political tide was turning and the theory of change had ramified to a marxist – style, combined with guerrilla movement.

Sinn Fein and IRB combined theory of change

Mass movement + political organisation + vanguard organisation
↓
Political struggle + mobile/guerrilla warfare
↓
Institutional victories + Mass mobilisations + Armed struggle
↓
Seizing political power and declaring national independence

 

IRA – Irish Republican Army

By the end of 1917, the Irish Volunteers began raiding British Army depots and police stations to arm themselves. In the beginning of 1918, they were attacking police stations and barracks. By the end of the year, there were 100 thousand people who had signed up to join the IV, although only 15 thousand of them were effectives and only 3000 actual guerrillas. The IV was recruiting in urban areas and among the petit bourgeoisie, students, teachers and some sectors of the working class like shoemakers and construction workers. Farmers and fishermen were largely absent from the ranks, while more qualified workers would be more involved with cultural organizations such as the Gaelic League.

Michael Collins was the main organiser in the IV, creating different facets of the organisation, with an important focus not only on the guerrilla and military training, but also on information and propaganda. He established a big network of republican media and also of spies that included civil servants and Irish policemen working for the British. In May, this network received the information that the arrest of all major Sinn Féin leaders was imminent, accused of liaising with Germany (although there is no evidence that this ever happened). The most prominent elements like De Valera decided to be arrested for propaganda purposes, while the most operational leadership went underground. This arrest followed the mass movement that had swept Ireland in the spring against the British announcement of military conscription for Irish men, which was accompanied by a General Strike. The Irish Volunteers recruited dozens of thousands of people. Even after the arrest of the Sinn Féin leadership, Cumann na mBam was organising mass protests of women against conscription. In July, the British government declared that Sinn Feéin, the Irish Volunteers and the Gaelic League were “dangerous organisations”, “a serious threat, organized to terrify the peaceful and law abiding subjects of His Majesty”. The Sinn Féin leaders had to be tried in special tribunals, as it was no longer possible to convict them in any court in Ireland.

After the Armistice and the end of WWI, a general election was called in Great Britain. It was December 1918, and Sinn Féin won, gaining 73 of the 105 seats for Ireland. Constance Markievicz, veteran of the Irish Citizen’s Army and the Easter Rising, the leader of Cumman na mBan became the first woman elected to the British Parliament, which she obviously never went to.

On the 21st of January, the elected MPs snubbed London and met in Dublin to proclaim themselves as the Irish Parliament, Dáil Éireann. They ratified the proclamation made by Patrick Pearse in the Easter Rising, demanding the exit of all British forces from the country and referring to a “state of war between Ireland and England”. In that same day, disorganized mobs started attacking police stations and military barracks. On the 9th of February, the IV organized the prison break of Eamon de Valera and two other Sinn Féin prisoners from Manchester prison, a huge publicity stunt for the Irish, while the British press downplayed and ridiculed the independence declaration.

The movement created a fait accompli by declaring a new institution that established dual power in Ireland and allowed for mass recruitment and organisation at the mainstream level.

Meanwhile, the campaign to attack British forces in Ireland intensified, against the wishes of the Dáil Éireann and even part of the leadership of the IV. It had been more than a year of training and the men were restless for action. Michael Collins organized a systematic attack of the networks of British spies and informants in Ireland, the G-Men, with the express intent of blinding the British of most of what was taking place. The dominant tactics used by IV were guerrilla, which displeased a lot of members of the Dáil Éireann, who wanted a conventional confrontation do dictate the outcome, although there was little chance of an Irish victory that way. Eamon de Valera was elected president of the Dáil Éireann upon his return to Ireland, supporting the social isolation of the police under British (even if Irish) and a strong boycott by society in general of people and organizations seen as pro-British. Shortly after, he left for the USA to look for political and financial support.

The next months saw a split begin to emerge between the political wing in the Dáil Éireann, led by Cathal Brugha and the military wing in the IV, led by Michael Collins. Cathal Brugha, the Minister of Defense, proposed an Oath of Allegiance should be sworn by the IV to the Dáil Éireann, but only almost a year later, in August 1920, would the Irish Volunteers accept to take the oath, extinguishing themselves and becoming in fact the Irish Republican Army (IRA). In September, the British outlawed the Dáil Éireann, which went underground. Once that happened, the IRA began to spearhead the political initiative with violence. The attacks on British forces shifted from intimidation to elimination, with the liberation of certain areas of the country, in particular in the rural areas, where the Dáil Éireann would rule de facto.

The choice for guerrilla tactics by the IRA was eminently a practical one. They had few trained combatants, few weapons (no artillery, no airplanes or ships) and difficulties in communication across the country. As a guerrilla, with semiautonomous units, the famous “flying columns” of the IRA would organize small groups with little infantry and explosives, in bikes or small vehicles, running the country looking for isolated British military and police. Another key advantage of these guerrilla tactics was a reduced loss of men and the capacity to attack at any time, without a planned coordination but only general guidelines. The British press would detract them as assassins in cloak, and a part of the Irish independence movement insisted on regular warfare.

Here, the movement shifted into something similar to a Maoist and guerrilla theory of change:

IRA led theory of change

Armed Vanguard organisation + Popular Party Organisation
↓
Protracted People’s war (guerrilla + mobile warfare)
↓
Large cross-class alliance
↓
Independence

 

War of Independence and Civil War

Even before the British had decided to crackdown on the Dail Eireann, they had already decided to repress the Irish once again. To that effect, they went forward with direct confrontational tactics and repression, which would once again provide the movement with a flurry of volunteers, radicalised by British oppression.

In November 1919, the British government recruited 10 thousand WWI veterans and sent them to Ireland. Once in Ireland, the infamous “Black and Tans” proceeded with mass arrests of the Irish youth, suspected of being republicans and IRA member. sThis led to a new General Strike in 1920, whilst in jail the prisoners went into hungers trikes. Dockers refuses to unload British ships and railway workers refused to transport weapons or British soldiers. In Northern Ireland, the Ulster Volunteers joined the British army, expelling thousands of catholic workers from the docks. In many different locations around Ireland, soviets would be created to run cities and villages, the most famous one was the Soviet of Limerick. Without republican support, as it fell well off their theory of change, these structures dissolved. The motto was: first independence, then the rest.

The workers’ movement intervention in the Irish independence was always parallel, except for the ICA’s participation in the Easter Rising. General strikes would support the independence efforts but shy attempts of turning the broader movement into a workers movement were stymied, in particular after the disappearance of James Connolly. We must recall that this was all happening while in 1917 the Russian Revolution had already broke out. As such, the soviets were only a minor attempt to influence the general theory of change, which was disregarded by the movement’s leadership.

Throughout 1920, the conflict became bloodier. The British controlled the cities but the IRA liberated rural areas where Sinn Féin would rule. The IRA would also control key roads and develop systematic attacks inside the cities.

After the IRA had basically dismantled the British spy network, a new group was sent from London, the “Cairo Gang”, to take over intelligence services in Ireland. In November 1920, Michael Collins decided on the elimination of 15 of its members, which happened simultaneously all around Dublin. As a reprisal, the Black and Tans rode tanks into a Gaelic football match and opened fire on the players and the crowd, the first famous “Bloody Sunday”. The IRA would exact vengeance on the Black and Tans with a huge ambush, and the reply would be the torching of the city of Cork by British forces.

In December 1920, the British tried again to break the movement. The House of Commons in London approved the Government of Ireland Act, creating two separate parliaments for Ireland, one in Dublin and one in Belfast, consolidating the separation. Whilst still in war, in May 1921 there were elections. Sinn Féin won 124 of the 128 seats of the Dublin Parliament, while in Belfast the protestants finally accepted Home Rule. The IRB, the IRA and Sinn Féin didn’t have a known plan for Northern Ireland. In July, the British proposed a cease-fire, which the IRA accepted.

Negotiations followed for months, and finally led to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which would break the leadership of the movement once again.

The Treaty, negotiated mostly by Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith, would see the withdrawal of British troops from most of the country and give dominion status to Ireland (like Canada or Australia), keeping and oath of allegiance to the Crown, creating an Irish Free State that excluded Northern Ireland. It was presented by those in favor as a necessary evil to achieve complete independence in the short term. Collins believed the IRA could not continue fighting the British much longer and would soon need to give up. De Valera led the camp opposing the treaty.

In January 1922 the Dáil Éireann approved the treaty, with 64 votes in favor and 57 against. Eamon De Valera, Cathal Brugha and Constance Markievicz opposed the treaty. In April 1922, the IRA split, with the majority of members creating a anti-treaty IRA, while the ones in favor became the Irish National Army (INA). Most of the organizations of the Irish independence movement split as well, such as the IRB and Sinn Féin (which split into Fianna Fáil (anti-Treaty) and Cumman na nGaedheal (pro-Treaty) which would lead to Fine Gael). In the following months, Cathal Brugha and Michael Collins would be killed in the Civil War.

The pro-treaty INA received weapons from the British and had access to the ports, which allowed very quickly for an overwhelming force in their favor. The IRA resisted in guerrilla mode, but the INA began a violent repression campaign, with prisoner executions and persecution of anti-Treaty leaders, in particular after the death of Michael Collins in combat. The INA also repressed the trade union movement, becoming in fact a counter-revolutionary force. In May 1923, the IRA accepted a ceasefire and the civil war ended.

In 1932, an anti-Treaty government was first elected, which created a new constitution for the Republic of Ireland in 1937. In 1949, Ireland became a completely independent state. Twenty six years later, the side that lost the Civil War achieved its political program and Irish independence.

Rupture, grand strategies and movement capabilities

The victory of the Irish Independence movement was achieved by the adoption of a ruptural model of transformation, in which the movement attacked the state. Other components of the movement had tried outside-the-system but mostly inside-the-system models. In the end, it was the ruptural wing that opened the door to independence, creating a new reality in which the previous status quo could no longer rule.

In terms of Grand Strategies, the movement was always very much focused on Mass Agitation, with vanguard elements to try and mobilize the public against the establishment. This is very clear in the “failed” Easter Rising. The Gaelic League developed a work of ideological mobilization around Irish and Gaelic language and culture for decades, recruiting and consolidating nationalists and republicans. Later on, the movement would also move on to more ideological mobilization as a whole, of which the “University of Revolution” is the clearest example, although all the media and cultural apparatus of the movement never stopped doing it.

The movement was looking at opportunities and the first and most obvious one was the outbreak of World War One. The British gave the most “Outrageous Moment” opportunity to the movement with the violent repression of the Easter Rising, which was immediately taken by the creation of the prisoner aid campaigns, the campaigns for liberation and legitimizing the attempt and the ruptural wing of the movement (another uprising was not possible at the moment, mass recruitment was). Later, the menace of war conscription was strongly used and guaranteed that Sinn Féin would become a mass party. Finally, the elections were used to affirm the instability of the status quo, with a complete earthquake that delegitimized the previous situation, taken by the movement as the moment do declare independence and create an institution to that effect, the Dáil Éireann.

The movement’s revolutionary program was the one constant throughout the entire period and in the end, it was also inflexibility around it which led to the Civil War (and in the very end, even after the war, it was the revolutionary program of independence with stayed alive, after most of the organizations that had been created to execute it – IRB, IRA, Sinn Féin – has disappeared or become irrelevant).

The Irish independence movement was imbued with all the necessary transformative capacities, as it developed for over 200 years. Its weakest capacities were finally acquired in the final struggle. The movement was highly resilient, with different tools of legal and financial support, hiding, training, etc., which is why it lasted for more than a century. It was projecting the future all the time in a prefigurative way, from the declaration of independence in the Easter Rising to the creation of its own structures, and then the Dáil Éireann and all the institutions active in the areas liberated by the IRA during the war of independence. It had a powerful narrative against British oppression and violence, and for liberty and autonomy, which grew its power with the escalation of the conflict. It had strong institutional capabilities, having tried different avenues of institutional exploration, even inside the House of Commons, both demonstrating institutional avenues of solutions and the system’s unwillingness to respond to them. Finally, the disruptive capability of the Irish independence movement was strong from the beginning, and only grew as the veterans of the Easter Rising set up the entire following stage of the movement’s action, with mass disruption, violent as well as non-violent, jeopardizing the entire establishment until the revolutionary goal was achieved.

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João Camargo is a climate researcher and climate justice and political organiser. With a background in agrarian and environmental sciences, he first worked as a journalist before teaching chemistry and botany at the University in Mozambique. In Portugal, he was heavily involved in the precarious workers and the anti-austerity movement in the early 2010s. In 2015 he co-founded Climáximo and he’s currently living in Brussels, where he does comunication work full time, while organising international coordination efforts. He’s a revolutionary ecosocialist.

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Further readings

• The Easter Rising (1916) in Ireland and its Historical Context: The Campaign for an Irish Democracy, Féilim Ó hAdhmaill
  Ghosts of the Paris Commune, Donal Fallon
• Ireland and the Revolutionary Tradition of Easter Week, J.R. Johnson
• Red Flag Times, Emmet O’Connor
• Rast, Mike, “Tactics, Politics, and Propaganda in the Irish War of Independence, 1917-1921.” Thesis, Georgia State University, 2011. doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/1956314
• The Irish Working Class and the War of Independence, Conor Kostick
• Women in the Irish Revolution, Mary Smith
• 1916: The Easter Rising, Tim Pat Coogan