Arthur Griffith

As a working-class Dubliner who played a crucial role in inspiring and leading Dail Eireann in its formative stages, Arthur Griffith's life and world is one of the greatest windows into understanding the dynamics of the Irish revolution. This major biography is based upon fascinating original research and presents a fresh analysis and interpretation of Griffith's life and the economic basis of the political history of the era. Griffith has been typified as 'the last Young Irelander' and this account reflects on this by examining the often very different conceptions of Irish nationalism that existed before and after the formation of the Irish state. It also suggests that Griffith's belief in the importance of economic freedoms and the ability of an independent Ireland to provide for its own people was an ideal that inspired the subsequent evolution of the Irish state.