Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2009
The Irish national revolution has been a long time dying. This is due in part to its artificial continuance in Northern Ireland and in part to the survival of its slogans, in fossilized form, as official symbols of the democratic regime in the Republic of Ireland. The main phase of the movement is, however, long over; even the ideological residue left by it is in an advanced state of decomposition, and Patrick Pearse and James Connolly have no intellectual heirs of any importance.
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