‘They’ll never understand why I’m here’: British Marxism and the Irish Revolution, 1916–1923

The Irish Revolution of 1916-1923 posed a huge challenge to Marxist organizations in Britain. Although Marx and Engels themselves had supported Irish independence, later British socialists were not able to frame a consistent response to the Irish national question. Few organizations supported the Easter Rising in 1916 and although attitudes changed markedly during the Irish War of Independence, most British Marxists, with some notable exceptions, did not seem to view the Irish struggle against British imperialism to be connected to their own struggle for revolutionary change in Britain.