The Dynamics of War and Revolution: Cork City, 1916-1918 [Hardcover]

The city of Cork experienced a political odyssey between Easter 1916 and the end of 1918. Irish Republicans evolved from a marginalized minority into Cork???s unquestioned political masters. The First World War created the context for this political transformation in Ireland???s third-largest city.

Wartime policies conceived in London manifested themselves unexpectedly in Cork--The Defence of the Realm Act was used to repress political speech; deficit spending generated massive inflation; mandatory arbitration encouraged workers to join trade unions; food rationing panicked a country scarred by the Potato Famine; and military conscription generated virtual rebellion. As a result, the Cork public increasingly turned against the war.

The book examines the political situation in Cork prior to the Easter Rising; local reactions to the rebellion; the rapid creation of the Republican mass movement; the dramatic decline of the Irish Party; the explosion of anti-authority street rioting; the mobilization of women in the independence struggle; disturbances against venereal disease treatments and visiting American sailors; the emergence of radical trade unionism; agitation over the retention of local food supplies; the nationalist mobilization during the Conscription Crisis; and Sinn F??in???s triumph in the 1918 General Election.

While previous scholarship has analyzed these themes in isolation, this study synthesizes different strands into a single compelling narrative that explains the war???s destabilizing effects on one Irish city during 1916-1918. The Dynamics of War and Revolutionwill be extremely useful for anyone interested in the local history of Cork, or seeking to show how the Irish independence movement had origins in both high ideology and in popular opinion. Historians often fall short in explaining the decline of the Irish Parliamentary party and its assorted satellite organizations, along wl£)