Making the Difference?: The Irish Labour Party 1912-2012

In 2011, on the cusp of its centenary year, the Labour Party recorded its greatest ever electoral success, with 37 TDs elected and a President. In doing so the party has succeeded, temporarily at least, in breaking free from the old two-and-a-half party system. But, why, for its first century, did Labour struggle to match its ambition? This series of essays to mark the party's centenary assesses the challenges facing Labour in a deeply conservative country, where echoes of civil war and Cat...