Communists and Partition

Abstract

The first Irish Communist Party was formed in October 1921, midway between the truce that ended the War of Independence and the treaty that precipitated civil war. Earlier attempts at getting a CP off the ground had been stymied by a combination of the reformist leaders of James Connolly’s old Socialist Party, who refused to relinquish control, and the sheer magnitude of military repression that marked the Tan War.