The Irish Revolution’s Overlooked History of Nonviolent Resistance
NOVANEWS
BY: David Carroll Cochran,
The Sinn Fein members elected in the December 1918 election at the first Dail Eireann meeting, on January 21, 1919.WIKIPEDIA
This month marks the 100th anniversary of Dáil Éireann, Ireland’s Parliament. Amid the better-known events of a century ago that led to Ireland’s independence from its union with Britain, such as the Easter Rising or the island’s partition with the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the significance of Dáil Éireann’s founding on January 21, 1919 is often underappreciated. This is unfortunate, since it played a crucial role in the Irish Revolution’s outcome and was a path-breaking event in the emergence of nonviolent civil resistance methods over the last century.
The usual story of Ireland’s independence struggle runs something...