Irish Counter-Revolution, 1921-1936: Treatyite Politics and Settlement in Independent Ireland

by John M. Regan

In 1921, Michael Collins argued that the Anglo-Irish treaty offered nationalists the freedom to achieve freedom. In 1926, his successor Kevin O'Higgins went to London with a proposal to have the British monarch crowned king of a reunited Ireland. In 1933, General Eoin O'Duffy, leader of the Blueshirts, advocated a corporatist state on the Fascist Italian model, within a republican settlement. All three men accepted the Treaty, and were leaders of the party which implemented it during the first decade of independence.
John M. Regan explains how such contrasting political views were reconciled within an evolving treatyite position. Regan argues that in order to understand the development of the new state and the establishment of a viable democracy it must first be recognised that a dedicated counter-revolution underpinned the post-revolutionary settlement.

475 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

There is more than one author in the Goodreads catalog with this name. This entry is for John ^ M. Regan, professional historian.

Reviews

[Eoin M · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a real slog in the middle but concludes with the strangely unexpected yet accepted notion that what is important about the civil war split (and politics since) is not what makes the sides different but how much they have in common. Uniquely, it actually has an exciting introduction (and ok conclusion) but it necessarily gets bogged down in party financing and by election boredom at times. The early chapters on the split & civil war, the one called O'Higgins and his party, the blueshirt chapters (as awkwardly as they are introduced) and the conclusion are probably most interesting. Two points which are interesting is the idea of the pre-1916 nationalist elite retaking power through O'Higgins (the titled counter-revolution) as well as the fact that O'Higgins had some secret plan for 32 county dual monarchy ?? Oh well, just like Collins, he was killed before his ambition came to fruit and everyone else was left to live with his confused legacy. At the same time, just like Collins, he did so much in so little time that we still live with the institutions he established and possibly also the culture he promoted.