Permanent revolutionaries : the I.R.B. and the Land War in Skull, Co.Cork, 1879-82

Abstract

This thesis examines the Irish Republican Brotherhood at a grassroots level and its involvement in the Irish National Land League and the Land War, 1879-82 in Co. Cork with an emphasis on the grassroots organisers in West Cork. It is a micro study that centres on the village of Ballydehob and grassroots activists in the Skull Poor Law Union. The political thought of Fenianism is examined and this thesis shows that one important aspect of the Land League in West Cork was its efforts at fomenting conditions for a revolution. It also shows that American influence on the Land war was not confined to its leaders like Parnell and John Devoy but that organisers were sent to Ireland to reinvigorate the I.R.B. in the remotest parts of the country even earlier than the compact between Parnell and Clan-na-Gael. It shows the Co. Cork Land League branch was an IRB front that sought to proselytize their revolutionary doctrines of separation from Britain.