Description
Book SynopsisIrish Artisans and Radical Politics, 1776-1820: Apprenticeship to Revolution is a comparative study of the political activities of workers in three Irish cities: Dublin, Belfast and Cork. It investigates how Ireland’s journeymen and apprentices engaged in campaigns for political reform, as well as in revolutionary conspiracies, during the years 1776 to 1820. This book marks the first ever attempt to analyse the role of Irish workers in the creation of eighteenth-century republicanism, representing the careful distillation of nearly a decade of research on the topic. It argues that Irish craftsmen truly did serve an ‘apprenticeship to revolution’. In the literal sense, the experience of the workshop provided artisans with a set of traditions which shaped how new revolutionary doctrines were received. But generations of Irish workers also served a figurative apprenticeship to successive political movements: the campaigns of Irish ‘Patriot’ MPs, the Volunteering movement of the 1770s, and the revolutionary campaigns of the United Irishmen. The book explores the role of urban workers within the 1798 Irish Rebellion and Robert Emmet’s 1803 rising and, adopting a transnational framework, places the actions of these Irish artisans within the context of British radicalism and the creation of an industrial working class.
Trade Review'While the lives of the mostly middle-class radicals who led the United Irishmen have received much attention in recent years, this important book focuses squarely on the political world of those at the lower end of the social scale. With great skill, Murtagh takes us into the world of urban workshops, taverns and clubs to show us how journeymen and apprentices forged a distinctive type of radical politics. This book provides the first comprehensive overview of the political culture of urban workers in the age of revolutions and in doing so makes a distinctive and original contribution to Irish historical scholarship.'- Padhraig Higgins, Professor of History, Mercer County Community College
‘Rich in detail, and fresh in perspective, Apprenticeship to Revolution makes a genuinely substantive contribution to both Irish and labour historiography.’ Jim Smyth, History Ireland
Table of ContentsIntroduction1. Irish Cities and Popular Politics in the Eighteenth Century2. Irish Artisans and the American Revolution 1776-17843. Culture and Conflict in Three Irish Cities 1785-17904. ‘Hibernian Sans-Culottes’: Dublin’s Radical Journeymen 1790-17955. Provincial Revolutionaries: Cork and Belfast in the 1790s6. Dublin and the 1798 Rebellion7. Counter-Revolution, Union and Emmet 1799-18038. Aftermath and Radical Exodus 1804-1820Conclusion
