The present-day Irish Republic was created by a revolutionary élite which developed between 1858 and 1900. This book analyses the social origins of the revolutionaries who became rulers of Ireland after 1921, and examines their political ideologies and prejudices. The author argues that they were heavily influenced not only by ancient agrarian grievances and memories of the Famine, but also by contemporary Catholic abhorrence of the Protestant and secular world represented by England and America. Personal resentments also played their part; many felt their faith, their nation, and their class were slighted in the British Ireland of the period, and regarded themselves as morally superior not only to their British and Anglo-Irish rulers, but also to to the vast mass of their Catholic fellow-countrymen and co-religionists.

Drawing on the evidence of private letters and diaries, and the writings of popular journalism, Nationalist Revolutionaries makes an original contribution to Irish historiography by reconstructing the private thoughts behind the political public faces.