The West Must Wait ─ County Galway and the Irish Free State 1922-32

The West must wait presents a new perspective on the development of the Irish Free State. Through a detailed examination of key local themes - land, poverty, politics, emigration, the status of the Irish language, the influence of radical republicans and the authority of the Catholic Church - it offers a probing analysis of the political and social realities of life in the new state.

This book extends the regional historical debate beyond the Irish revolutionary period and raises a series of challenging questions about how we think about post-civil war society in Ireland. It opens up a new dimension by providing a rural contrast to the Dublin-centred views of Irish politics in the first decade of independence. Significantly, it reveals the level of deprivation in local Free State society with which the government had to confront (however inadequately) in the west of Ireland.

Drawing on sophisticated rigorous research of a wide range of unexplored sources, Una Newell studies in some detail the disconnect between the perceptions of what independence would deliver and what was actually achieved by the incumbent Cumann na nGaedheal administration. The book explores the expectations and frustrations of the local people and examines why Cumann na nGaedheal lost the popular vote in County Galway.

It is a timely study of great originality which will be of central interest to all students, scholars and general readers who wish to deepen their understanding of the nature of politics and local life in post-revolutionary Ireland.

Una Newell is a Research Associate at the Humanities Institute of Ireland, University College Dublin