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Rating: 
Summary: Comprehensive History of a Historic Labor Dispute
Review: I thought this was an excellent and well-written account of the specific dispute. The length of the book is due to Mr. Yeate's inclusion, properly and informatively so, of the other major issues of the day (Nationalism and Home Rule, the role of the Catholic Church, Socialism/Syndicalism, suffragism, Unionism and Partition, the 1916 uprising, and WW1).As an Irish-American with only a rudimentary understanding of Irish history, I found this account very valuable as a way to understand the different shades of opposition to English imperialism in Ireland prior to the 1916 Uprising. Reading this history has also helped me immensely in understanding the difficulties in implementing the current Peace Process. It is interesting that, according to Mr. Yeates, no detailed account of this event had been written, although it is frequently mentioned as a lead-up to the 1916 Uprising. As pointed out by Mr. Yeates, the total lack of involvement by Dublin Castle (the English Establishment) in this life-and-death dispute for so many showed the Irish that Irish affairs were very low on the English agenda. The awfuul and pervasive poverty in Dublin, which inspired the unions to carry out this sruggle, was a real indictment of capitalism and English rule of Ireland. My only disappointment was the lack of background and personal information on Jim Larkin, the fiery, inspiring, charismatic, and sometimes-destructive leader of the Transport Workers Union, whose strike against the Dublin trams led to the lockout by a unified group of employers.
Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive History of a Historic Labor Dispute
Review: I thought this was an excellent and well-written account of the specific dispute. The length of the book is due to Mr. Yeate's inclusion, properly and informatively so, of the other major issues of the day (Nationalism and Home Rule, the role of the Catholic Church, Socialism/Syndicalism, suffragism, Unionism and Partition, the 1916 uprising, and WW1). As an Irish-American with only a rudimentary understanding of Irish history, I found this account very valuable as a way to understand the different shades of opposition to English imperialism in Ireland prior to the 1916 Uprising. Reading this history has also helped me immensely in understanding the difficulties in implementing the current Peace Process. It is interesting that, according to Mr. Yeates, no detailed account of this event had been written, although it is frequently mentioned as a lead-up to the 1916 Uprising. As pointed out by Mr. Yeates, the total lack of involvement by Dublin Castle (the English Establishment) in this life-and-death dispute for so many showed the Irish that Irish affairs were very low on the English agenda. The awfuul and pervasive poverty in Dublin, which inspired the unions to carry out this sruggle, was a real indictment of capitalism and English rule of Ireland. My only disappointment was the lack of background and personal information on Jim Larkin, the fiery, inspiring, charismatic, and sometimes-destructive leader of the Transport Workers Union, whose strike against the Dublin trams led to the lockout by a unified group of employers.
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