This book explores the achievement of democratic stability in Ireland during its first decade of independence from Britain, 1922–32. A newly independent nation of the twentieth century, Ireland is among a select few nations that has succeeded in transforming political and cultural divisions into a common base of support for the democratic government. The reasons for this Irish accomplishment are the subject of the following analysis. The purpose is both to better understand the Irish case and to shed new light on the problem of democratic stability (and instability) in newly independent nations of the twentieth century.

In the following chapters, I pose two questions: First, how were deeply divided political cultural traditions coexisting in Ireland transposed into support for democratic institutions? This question explores the problem of political institutionalization when social groups adhere to systems of meaning hostile to the existence of those institutions. The second question considers the same problem from a different angle: How do political institutions, guided by a particular ruling elite, succeed in developing democratic institutions that express and confirm patterns of thought and belief in the political community? This question leads to a consideration of the ways in which social meanings in the political community shape and influence the functioning of a political apparatus. The book examines how new democratic institutions, in their quest for broad-based social support, are constrained and molded by prevailing social understandings.