William Martin Murphy, the Irish Independent and Middle-Class Politics, 1905–19

Abstract

The Irish nationalist movement in the later decades of the Union was a cross-class coalition, many of whose components thought themselves imperfectly represented by the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP). Nationalist advocacy of state-led development (linked to the view that an Irish state, widely accepted and responsible to the people, would function more effectively) is often seen as proto-socialist, but it could also reflect belief in a minimalist state. The view of the Dublin Castle administration as a corrupt ancien regime, maintained by overmanned and expensive security forces and by wasteful and ineffective attempts at crowd-pleasing and patronage to undeserving patricians and corruptible ‘patriots’, could inspire a middle-class tax revolt by relatively self-sufficient small farmers and local businessmen seeing taxation and government intervention as inherently corrupt and wasteful.