9780717144211: The Modernisation of Irish Society 1848 - 1918 - AbeBooks
In surveying the period from the Famine in 1848 to the triumph of Sinn Fein in the 1918 general election, Joe Lee argues that Ireland became one of the most modern and advanced political cultures in the world during that time. Lee contends that the Famine death-rate, however terrible, was not unprecedented. What was different was the post-Famine response to the catastrophy. The sharply increased rate of emigration left behind a population of tenent farmers engaged in market orientated agriculture and determined to protect and improve their position. It was this group that used the British pol...