In 1916, Kieran Allen argues that this pivotal moment in Irish history has been obscured by those who see it only as a prelude for a war of independence. Emphasizing an often ignored social and political radicalism at the heart of the rebellion, he shows that it gave birth to a revolutionary tradition that continues to haunt the Irish elite. Socialist aspirations mixed, and sometimes clashed, with the republican current, but both were crushed in a counterrevolution that accompanied the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921. The result today is a partitioned Ireland that acts as a neoliberal tax haven for multinational corporations--a state of affairs quite alien to both Connolly's and Pearse's vision.

Published to coincide with the Rising's centennial, 1916: Ireland's Revolutionary Tradition re-establishes the political role of socialist republican figures, offers a highly accessible history of the Easter Rising, and explores the militancy and radicalism that continues to haunt the Irish elite one hundred years later.