A City in Turmoil – Dublin 1919–1921

Book excerpt: Dublin was the cockpit of the Irish Revolution. It was in the capital that Dáil Éireann convened and built an alternative government to challenge the authority of Dublin Castle; it was where the munitions strike that crippled the British war effort in 1920 began and it was where rival intelligence organisations played out their deadly game of cat and mouse. But it was also a city where ambushes became a daily occurrence and ordinary civilians were caught in the deadly crossfire. Restrictions on travel, military curfews and the threat of internment would ultimately make normal life impossible. As in his previous work, A City in Wartime, Pádraig Yeates uncovers unknown and neglected aspects of the Irish Revolution, including the role that the Bank of Ireland played in keeping the city solvent, the rise of the Municipal Reform Association to challenge the hegemony of Sinn Féin and Labour, how one of Ireland's leading businessmen started out as a bagman for Michael Collins and how, ultimately, many Dubliners found it easier to sympathise with the fight for the Republic than participate in or pay for it.