Bread Not Profits: Provincial Working-Class Politics During the Irish Revolution
Francis Devine & Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh (eds), Dublin: Umiskin Press, May 2022, h/b €48.50, pb €40.00 (UK including postage)

The latest collection from the estimable Umiskin [labour history] Press, of Dublin, is notable for carrying the story of Irish working class mobilisation beyond the metropolitan centres and into the regions of Ireland during the revolutionary period of the early twentieth century. Its editors’ ‘history from below’ approach endeavours to bring the working-class in from the margins of history by exposing ‘the stark contradiction at the heart of Ireland’s revolution … between the lived and recorded version of [its] revolutionary past.’ In doing so, it challenges conventional history, and historians, which invariably ignored the working-class altogether. As the editors wryly declare, ‘the nationalist proto-elite on their own did not a revolution make.’ It is a quest not without precedent, from James Connolly (‘History has ever been written by the masterclass’), through the pages of the journal Saothar, into debate around the centenary of the 1913 Dublin lockout.

The importance of the collection also derives from its scope and depth, and the wealth of local historical sourcing underpinning it. Moreover, not only does it aspire to chart the extent of working-class activism but also reveals ‘the working-class movement’s repression by both the outgoing and incoming administrations of the time.’ Comprising fourteen regional essays and three ‘thematic’ ones, the narrative is driven through people, biography, localities, economic grouping and institutions. A common thread is the presence of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. The three thematic essays explore workers’ writings, fictional representations of class and gender and the oppressive power of the Catholic Church. The mood of the book is one of both celebration and regret, with one essay suggesting that the chronic problems since suffered by the Irish labour movement can be traced back to these revolutionary years. But this is a vital collection, deserving a wide readership and further expansion. For a British readership it reveals that the Irish revolution went beyond the Dublin GPO building, across Ireland and its suppressed classes.

The book can be purchased direct from Umiskin Press.

Dr Mike Mecham, St Mary’s University, London