Irish republicanism and socialism: The politics of the Republican movement, 1905 to 1994

by Pat Walsh

280 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 1994

Reviews

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

Potentially one of the worst works on the Irish national liberation struggle, useful only for its use of primary sources and as a premier example of a complete misunderstanding of the national question. Walsh proposes, all in the same breath, to condemn republicanism as a reactionary "Catholic-nationalist movement," recognize Ulster as a British neo-colonial entity, and give the settler class of Protestants the status of a "nation" (without analyzing this at all), coupled with slander against James Connolly, Frank Ryan, and absolutely no mention of Jim Larkin. Walsh holds a totally static view of republicanism which equates the conservative nationalism of Arthur Griffith in 1905 with the progressive socialist republicanism of Sinn Fein, all the while leaving the "class analysis" he claims to bring to the table totally unexamined in favor of an internal ideological history of the IRA.

Most ironic is his discussion of the peace agreements of the late 1980s and early 1990s, where he predicts that Sinn Fein and republicanism will remain a totally "Catholic-nationalist" movement with merely the trappings of socialism. This sort of conspiratorial attitude about Catholicism pervades the entire work, echoing English fears of the Jacobites in his dismissal of the religious "subordination" (leaving, of course, the far more reactionary fundamentalist Protestantism of the Paisleyites totally unexamined). A truly ridiculous work.