The Story of The Irish Citizen Army

P.O. Cathasaigh [Sean O’Casey]

The Story of The Irish Citizen Army

Dublin

Maunsel

1919

Sean O’Casey played a central role in the formation and leadership of the Irish Citizen Army, created in 1913 to protect workers against both employers and the Dublin Metropolitan Police. In this, O’Casey’s first published book, he writes, “We can only hope that Nationalism, in its new-found strength, will not remain deaf to the claims of Irish Labour....” Yet O’Casey left the labor group when it became too aligned with the nationalist Irish Volunteers, accounting for his more cynical view of the Rising in his play The Plough and Stars.