1922: The Birth of Irish Democracy

The process of democratic nation-making reached full fruition while a vicious civil war was raging, ostensibly fought over points of political principle but actually deciding whether Ireland was to be ruled by popular majority will or by a virtuous but unaccountable minority. Gavin argues that militant republicanism always lacked popular, democratic legitimacy and that mainstream Irish nationalism was moderate and realistic. It was this nation-building tradition that triumphed in 1922. Thus, Ireland did not go the way of so many newly emerging European states. There evolved a stable democracy which eventually came to include most of those defeated in 1922.