The Easter Rising has been widely mythologised as a handful of visionaries giving their lives to rouse a slumbering nation. But it also represented the ripening of deep-seated contradictions within Irish society. Kieran Allen has provided a vivid and vital account of how class shaped the national movement which arose in the wake of the Rising and thus shaped the Ireland we live in today. --Eamonn McCann, Irish journalist, and author of 'War and an Irish Town' (Pluto, 1993)

Kieran Allen is a sociology lecturer at University College Dublin. His books include Marx and the Alternative to Capitalism (Pluto, 2011) and Max Weber: A Critical Introduction (Pluto, 2004) as well as a number of works on Irish society and politics.