Publisher's Synopsis
The object of this study is to authenticate an assertion made in 1908 by Laurence Ginnell, a nationalist MP and agrarian agitator. Contrary to claims made by the British government in Ireland during this time, that in perpetuating violence in the western counties small-farmers and landless labourers were engaged in 'senseless anarchy', Ginnell argued that their ß alleged love of agitation for its own sake is the most baseless of myths'. Through a consideration of agrarian violence in Co. Roscommon over the period 1920-3, this study illustrates the effects of this myopia and how a clear understanding of the Irish revolutionary period will remain ungraspable until it is overcome.
