Arrington, Lauren
(2014)
Socialist Republican Discourse and the 1916 Easter
Rising: The Occupation of Jacob's Biscuit Factory and
the South Dublin Union Explained.
Journal of British Studies, 53.
pp. 992-1010.
ISSN 1545-6986
Abstract
The events of the Easter Rising have been subjected to extensive analysis by
historians who have focused on military strategy as a means of explaining the occupation
of specific sites. However, Jacob’s Biscuit Factory and the South Dublin Union have
proven resistant to this paradigm. The political value of both places can be understood
by giving close attention to the long history of antagonism between these two institutions and the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, out of which the Irish
Citizen Army that fought in the rising was formed. In his articles for the Irish Worker
and Workers’ Republic, James Connolly adapted traditional republican discourse of
economic emancipation through political sovereignty to address a contemporary
urban context. An understanding of the way that this discourse functioned facilitates
an understanding of the role of Jacob’s Biscuit Factory and the South Dublin Union
in the Easter Rising: as sites of actual and symbolic liberation. This analysis of
popular discourse in the contemporary press offers a new approach to the study of
events that have been termed the Irish Revolution, and it presents a model for understanding the way that republican discourse accommodated the very different political
objectives of Irish separatists.
Repository Staff Only(login required)
 |
Item control page |
Downloads per month over past year
Altmetric
Altmetric