The end of empire and the revolutions in China and Ireland
Dr Aglaia De Angeli (Queen’s University Belfast)
At the turn of the twentieth century both China and Ireland experienced a revolution and became a republic. The beginning of a new era started for both countries, which erased the empire and gave birth to new countries.
The Xinhai Revolution of China happened in 1911, five years earlier than the Easter Rising, but both led to a dramatic change in the future of those states, which were challenged by a new elite and dealing with the legacy of the empires. This paper aims to analyse the impact of those two events, as well as to examine how the Irish perceived the Xinhai Revolution in the period 1911-1920.