Robert Heinlein may have started the definition for Irish Democracy when he wrote “I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” (The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress) I don’t believe he intended to write a definition – but some of his quotations suggest that he wrote descriptions of the term we discovered long after his death.
Heinlein described the virtue of transparency in government: “I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy…censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to it’s subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked, contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything—you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.” (Revolt in 2100)
Heinlein may have written a handbook for Irish Democracy in his many novels.
Trego's Mountain Ear 