This book is the first ever collection of scholarly essays on the history of the Irish working class. It provides a comprehensive introduction to the involvement of Irish workers in political life and movements between 1830 and 1945. Fourteen leading Irish and international historians and political scientists trace the politicization of Irish workers during a period of considerable social and political turmoil. The contributions include both surveys covering the entire period and case studies that provide new perspectives on crucial historical movements and moments. This volume is a milestone in Irish labour and political historiography and an important contribution to the international literature on politics and the working class.

This book is the first ever collection of scholarly essays on the history of the Irish working class. It provides a comprehensive introduction to the involvement of Irish workers in political life and movements between 1830 and 1945. Fourteen leading Irish and international historians and political scientists trace the politicization of Irish workers during a period of considerable social and political turmoil. The contributions include both surveys covering the entire period and case studies that provide new perspectives on crucial historical movements and moments. This volume is a milestone in Irish labour and political historiography and an important contribution to the international literature on politics and the working class.

Introduction; F.Lane & D.Drisceoil Robert Owen, co-operativism and Ulster in the 1830s; V.Geoghegan Labour and Politics, 1830-1945: Colonisation and Mental Colonisation; E.O'Connor Working Women, Trade Unionism and Politics in Ireland, 1830-1945; M.Luddy Politics, Sectarianism and the Working Class in Nineteenth-Century Belfast; C.Hirst 'Brethren in Bondage': Chartists, O'Connellites, Young Irelanders and the 1848 Uprising; C.Kinealy Rural Labourers, Social Change and Politics in Late Nineteenth-Century Ireland; F.Lane Parnellism and Workers: The Experience of Cork and Limerick; M.Cronin William Walker, Labour, Sectarianism and the Union, 1894-1912; H.Patterson Interpreting James Connolly, 1916-23; H.Woggon Labour Militancy During the Irish War of Independence; C.Kostick Radical Politics in Interwar Ireland, 1923-39; F.McGarry The Northern Ireland Labour Party, 1924-45; G.Walker Fianna Fail and the Working Class, 1926-38; R.Dunphy 'Whose Emergency is it?' Wartime Politics and the Irish Working Class, 1939-45; D.O Drisceoil