In chapter two, Helen O’Connell explores the idea of cultural repression as an unintended consequence of a program of language and cultural renewal. Too often, the early Irish Revival promoted the rewards of cultural renewal without at the same time emphasizing the hard work of education and social improvement that such renewal entailed. Revivalists such as Douglas Hyde and D. P. Moran attempted to reverse social and cultural decline by creating resources out of the cheerless forbearance, that is to say, the suffering of ancestors, all in the name of an Ireland free of any debased and debasing foreign culture. Hyde and Moran were dedicated to the Irish language and the importance of elevating Irish culture and Irish industries and both advocated the rejection of deleterious English influences. But each occupied a different position: one was an Anglo-Protestant and the other a Catholic, one minimized politics and ideology, the other amplified both.

In chapter four, Sean Williams illustrates the creative potential of music and dance for the development of revivalism up to the present day. During the early years of the Revival, beginning in the 1890s, Irish dance and music were governed by strict ideas about form and performance promulgated by such groups as the Gaelic League. Music and dance, in different ways, underscore the difficulties of remaining connected to traditional standards while allowing the introduction of modern or non-Irish elements in singing style, dance steps, and instrumentation. At each stage of the development of cultural revivalism, cultural authenticity is vitally important. Despite apparent ruptures in the traditions of music and dance, both have flourished on a world stage with their “Irishness” intact. Because of the inclusion of non-Irish dance and vocal styles, a contemporary spectacle such as Riverdance, while quite different from traditional forms of dance, remain connected to broader revivalist concerns.

The creation of the Irish Free State, with its largely Catholic ethos, destroyed the Protestant nationalist hope for an all-Ireland, secular republic. The Conclusion opens with a discussion of how a number of prominent Protestant nationalists adapted to life in the Free State. It discusses figures, such as Douglas Hyde, Ernest Blythe, and David Lubbock Robinson, who found success in the new state, and those such as George Russell and George Irvine, who came to react against it. It ends by stressing the extent to which Protestant nationalists formed identifiable denomination-based networks, and spent vast amounts of time seeking to inculcate nationalist sentiment in their fellow Protestants. It argues for the importance of associational culture as a category of historical research. Finally, it stresses both the diversity of Irish Protestant society during the period 1900–1923, and highlights the sense of loss engendered among some Catholic nationalists with the decline of a substantial Protestant nationalist activist tradition.