The Irish Revolution, 1916-1923

Marie Coleman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317801467
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This concise study of Ireland's revolutionary years charts the demise of the home rule movement and the rise of militant nationalism that led eventually to the partition of Ireland and independence for southern Ireland. The book provides a clear chronology of events but also adopts a thematic approach to ensure that the role of women and labour are examined, in addition to the principal political and military developments during the period. Incorporating the most recent literature on the period, it provides a good introduction to some of the most controversial debates on the subject, including the extent of sectarianism, the nature of violence and the motivation of guerrilla fighters.

The supplementary documents have been chosen carefully to provide a wide-ranging perspective of political views, including those of constitutional nationalists, republicans, unionists, the British government and the labour movement. The Irish Revolution 1916-1923 is ideal for students and interested readers at all levels, providing a diverse range of primary sources and the tools to unlock them.

Part 1

BACKGROUND

1 The Irish Question, 1870–1916

HOME RULE, 1870–1912

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century a vigorous political movement emerged in Ireland seeking home rule, a form of devolved government that would give Ireland control of its own affairs while remaining within the imperial framework. Ireland would remain part of the United Kingdom with Great Britain that was formed in 1801 but the Westminster Parliament would not have sole legislative jurisdiction for Ireland. Home rule was the latest manifestation of a nineteenth-century tradition of using constitutional means to achieve some modification of the Act of Union and was preceded by O’Connell’s emancipation and repeal movements in the 1820s and 1840s, and the Independent Irish Party in the 1850s.

Home rule: Devolved government for Ireland within the United Kingdom. Existed in Northern Ireland 1921–72.

A second impetus for the emergence of the home rule movement was the campaign for an amnesty for Fenian prisoners. The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), popularly known as the Fenians, was a secret revolutionary organisation. Following an abortive uprising in 1867 many of its members were imprisoned and an Amnesty Association was formed, comprising Fenian sympathisers and constitutional nationalist politicians, to seek a reprieve for them. The president of the association was a Protestant lawyer from Donegal, Isaac Butt, who had defended Fenian prisoners. Initially a Tory who opposed repeal of the union, the experience of the famine in the 1840s and of defending nationalists gradually brought him around to supporting a measure of Irish self-government.

Act of Union: Political, economic and religious union of Ireland with Great Britain from 1801 until 1921.

Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB): Secret oathbound society formed in 1858 to achieve an Irish republic by revolutionary means. Responsible for planning the Easter Rising.

In 1870 Butt formed the Home Government Association, which was essentially a Dublin-based pressure group, initially composed mostly of Protestants. It had a very limited appeal and did not enjoy much success (O’Day, 1998: 29). A broader-based Home Rule League was formed in 1874, enjoying immediate success with the return of 59 home rule candidates in that year’s general election. The parliamentary strength of the league was somewhat illusory as many of those elected were former Liberals who had simply switched over to the increasingly popular new political movement. In reality, only about one-third of those elected in 1874 were committed home rulers, and many abandoned their short-lived dalliance with home rule as soon as election had been secured (Thornley, 1964: 195–6).

The Fenian uprising also had a significant impact on British politics. The Liberal Party leader, William Gladstone, who became Prime Minister in 1868, saw the rebellion as an indication that reform was badly needed in Ireland to assuage the discontent that had precipitated it. For the next 25 years Ireland became a ‘preoccupation’ for Gladstone. The policy he adopted towards Ireland was aimed at drawing a line ‘between the Fenians and the people of Ireland and to make the people of Ireland indisposed to cross it’. In pursuit of this policy he sought to introduce a level of reform that would detract support from revolutionary nationalism while preserving Ireland’s place within the union. His first government sought ‘justice for Ireland’ through disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, land reform and solving the issue of university education for Catholics, but was still a long way from supporting home rule (Matthew, 1986: 192–6).

Fenians: See Irish Republican Brotherhood.

The first Irish Home Rule Party made very little impression at Westminster between 1874 and 1877. The first home rule resolution introduced by Butt in July 1874 was defeated soundly by 458 votes to 61 and his land reform bill met a similar fate in 1876. In 1877 a group of Irish Members of Parliament (MPs), including Joseph Biggar and Charles Stewart Parnell, resorted to the tactic of obstruction, essentially filibustering and delaying the workings of Parliament with long speeches and frequently tabling amendments to legislation. The stratagem which was opposed by Butt divided the party and by the time of his death in May 1879 it had little to show for five years in parliament (Thornley, 1964: 233, 274, 335).

Butt’s failure was partly due to his own personality, which was unsuited to political life, and his precarious personal finances, which required him to spend much of his time on the legal circuit in Ireland to the neglect of his leadership of the parliamentary party. The perceived Protestant dominance of the early home rule movement made essential allies such as the Roman Catholic clergy, tenant farmers and the remnants of the Fenians suspicious of it. Even if Butt had garnered greater support in Ireland and been a more effective party leader, it would have been to little avail as there was no significant support in Britain for Irish home rule, which was an essential prerequisite for its success. Nevertheless, Butt bequeathed an important legacy to his successors; a distinct Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) existed at Westminster and home rule had been established as the minimum demand of Irish nationalists (Thornley, 1964: 380–7).

Irish Parliamentary Party (Irish Party/IPP): The Irish home rule party.

By the late 1870s home rule had also been over-shadowed by the emergence of the Land War. An economic depression in the late 1870s, caused by unusually bad weather and a succession of bad harvests, resulted in a decline in both crop and livestock production. An influx of cheap grain from the USA, the curtailment of credit and the refusal of landlords to lower rents resulted in an increase in evictions and a generally precarious situation for Irish tenant farmers. In 1879 the Land League was formed in County Mayo, initially to protect tenants during the immediate crisis, but with the long-term aim of replacing landlords. As the rising star of Irish nationalist politics, Parnell accepted the presidency of the League and much of the period from 1879 to 1882 was taken up with the land issue.

Gladstone introduced a Land Act in 1881 that granted the basic demands of tenants, known as the three ‘f’s – fair rent, free sale and fixity of tenure. Parnell’s response to it was ambiguous and when he attacked it at public meetings in Ireland he was arrested and held in Kilmainham Jail. After reaching a compromise with Gladstone in 1882, whereby the Prime Minister agreed to amend the Act to make better provision for leaseholders and tenants in arrears with rent in return for Parnell using his influence to quell agrarian agitation, Parnell was finally in a position to bring home rule back to the centre of the Irish and British political stages.

When Parnell established the Irish National League in 1882, to replace the outlawed Land League, home rule became its primary aim. He also formed a much more cohesive and disciplined parliamentary party, insisting that prior to standing in an election all candidates were required to take an oath pledging themselves to ‘sit, act and vote with the Irish Parliamentary Party’ and to resign their seats if found to be in breach of this promise. As a result, the 86 home rule MPs elected in the 1885 general election were loyal home rulers (O’Day, 1998: 70–80).

The overall result of the election – 335 seats for the out-going Liberal government and 249 for the Conservatives – meant that the Irish Party, whose 86 seats represented the exact difference between the two main parties, was in a position to make or break the government. The Irish Party eventually pledged its support to the Liberals early in 1886 when Gladstone announced that he had come around to supporting home rule for Ireland, a decision that appears to have stemmed from a belief that there was a strong moral argument for it as well as a feeling that such a measure of reform was needed to head-off serious social disorder in Ireland (Loughlin, 1986: 284–7).

The first home rule bill, which was introduced in parliament in April 1886, provided for a unicameral legislature with jurisdiction over domestic affairs, the Irish bureaucracy and the judiciary. There would no longer be any Irish representation in the House of Commons at Westminster, a controversial provision in light of the significant powers to govern Ireland that were retained by the imperial parliament, including trade, defence and taxation. Opposition to the measure from Liberal-Unionists within Gladstone’s own Party, who wished to protect the union and the interests of the Protestant minority in Ulster, resulted in the bill’s defeat in the House of Commons by 341 votes to 311 (O’Day, 1998: 106–16).

Gladstone’s second home rule bill in 1893 proceeded one step further, making it through the Commons, only to be rejected by the House of Lords, an institution whose implacable opposition would need to be overcome for Irish home rule to have a chance of success. By that time the IPP was in disarray, riven by the O’Shea divorce case that ousted Parnell as leader, and left rudderless by his death in 1891. Gladstone’s government was forced out of office soon afterwards and replaced by a Conservative government and Gladstone was replaced as leader of the Liberal Party by Lord Rosebery, who did not commit the party to home rule (O’Day, 1998: 165–70).

Although the Irish Party re-emerged united in 1900, the obstacle of British opposition to home rule remained. The Conservatives tried to quell demands through a policy of constructive unionism, also known as ‘killing home rule with kindness’, that included new Land Purchase Acts, local government reform and renewed efforts to solve the university question. The post-Gladstone Liberals were wary of home rule for having split the party in 1886, supported constructive unionism, were alienated by elements of the Irish Party’s support for the Boers during the South African Wars and did not want to be dependent on a small party as they had been after the 1885 election. Therefore, when the Liberals were returned to power with a large majority in 1906 under Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who was replaced as party leader and prime minister by Herbert Asquith in 1908, it was the first Liberal government since 1886 not to introduce an Irish home rule bill. Given the size of their majority (245 more seats than the Conservatives), the government could probably have successfully introduced a home rule bill. The House of Lords would have had difficulty opposing the will of a government with such a huge mandate, and if it had done so it would have triggered a latent confrontation with the Commons over the veto powers of the unelected peers.

This confrontation finally happened in 1909 when the Lords rejected aspects of David Lloyd George’s ‘people’s budget’ that introduced higher taxes to fund national insurance, resulting in the introduction of the Parliament Act in 1911 that severely curtailed the ability of the Lords to reject legislation indefinitely. One major obstacle to home rule, which had prevented its implementation in 1892, had now been removed. The remaining barrier of Liberal indifference had also been overcome in the meantime, as the general elections of 1910 reduced the Liberals’ working majority, replicating the situation of 1886 where they required the support of the Irish Party, the quid pro quo for which was a third home rule bill. The introduction of the third home rule bill on 11 April 1912 triggered a political crisis in the United Kingdom.

Third home rule bill: Irish home rule bill introduced in April 1912 and passed in September 1914 but suspended for the duration of the war and subsequently abandoned and replaced by the Government of Ireland Act in 1920.

THE ULSTER CRISIS, 1912–14

The third home rule bill envisioned a devolved bi-cameral parliament in Ireland with limited jurisdiction that excluded land purchase, old age pensions, national insurance, policing, taxation and postal services as well as imperial concerns such as defence and foreign policy [Doc. 1]. Limitations were also to be imposed on the Home Rule Parliament’s right to legislate over matters relating to religion and education. These clauses were inserted to assuage unionist fears, which were heightened at the time by the Ne Temere papal decree of 1908 requiring the children of mixed marriages to be raised as Catholics. Unionists were not convinced by such safeguards and were more fearful than ever of home rule becoming a reality as their traditional protectors in the House of Lords could no longer veto the bill indefinitely. Under the terms of the Parliament Act the Lords could reject the bill twice. If it passed the Commons a third time it would become law. Unionists, especially in the commercialised regions of the north-east and the major urban centres, were also concerned that a Home Rule Parliament, which would inevitably be dominated by the agrarian interests of the IPP, could be detrimental to their business interests. The union had already been tampered with when Gladstone disestablished the Church of Ireland in 1869 and they feared any further dilution of it would distance them further from their co-religionists in Britain, with whom they felt a closer ethnic affiliation.

The prospect of home rule by 1914 led unionists to resort to an intensive campaign of political, extra-parliamentary and military tactics to defeat it. While there was opposition within southern unionism, this was a declining force, and much of the focus of the campaign against the bill was centred on Ulster, in the process further distancing the Ulster Unionists from their southern brethren. Under its new leader, the Dublin-born lawyer, Sir Edward Carson, the Unionist Party forged a close alliance with the Conservative Party to attack the bill during its parliamentary passage. The Conservative leader, Andrew Bonar-Law, whose family had Ulster-Scots heritage, was personally opposed to home rule but also saw a good opportunity to unite his party, which was recovering from a debilitating split over free trade, around a major political issue (Smith, 2000: 5–8).

The unionists also brought their campaign to a wider public audience with a series of large demonstrations held throughout Ulster and Britain, including gatherings at Craigavon, County Down, the family seat of the influential unionist Sir James Craig, and Blenheim Palace, the ancestral home of the Churchills. The initial hope of unionists was to defeat home rule entirely. However, with its enactment a strong possibility since the removal of the Lords’ veto, contingency plans were drawn up to exclude Ulster from it. In September 1913 plans were put in place for the formation of an Ulster Provisional Government that would breakaway from the Irish Home Rule Parliament.

Ulster Provisional Government: Plans for a breakaway government drawn up by the Ulster Unionists in the event of home rule being imposed against their will in 1914.

Solemn League and Covenant: Commitment to resist home rule signed by over 200,000 men in Ulster in September 1912. A corresponding declaration was signed by over 200,000 women.

The most telling demonstration of Ulster’s intention to resist home rule was the signing of the Ulster Solemn League and Covenant in September 1912. Drawing its inspiration from the covenant signed by the opponents of Charles I in 1643, more than 200,000 men signed the Ulster Covenant and reaffirmed their loyalty to the king, promised to defend their rights as citizens of the United Kingdom and declared their intention to ‘defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland’ and refuse to recognise it should it be established. Over 200,000 women signed a declaration expressing similar sentiments [Doc. 2]. The covenant was signed throughout Ulster on 28 September 1912, which was declared as Ulster Day (Buckland, 1973: 45–67).

The unionist strategy was successful in highlighting the cause of Ulster and eventually ensuring that home rule would need to be modified to accommodate unionist opposition. The first suggestion of making some form of separate provision for Ulster arose in June 1912 when a Liberal backbencher, T. G. Agar-Robartes, proposed an amendment that would have excluded the four counties with Protestant majorities – Antrim, Armagh, Derry and Down. While unionists opposed the idea of partition initially, they were prepared to use the threat of it as a tactic to destroy home rule, in the belief that the IPP would accept nothing less than home rule for all of Ireland. However, by 1914, the home rule bill was enter...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Introduction to the series
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Chronology
• Who's who
• Glossary
• List of plates
• General reading
• Maps
• Part One Background
• Part Two Analysis
• Part Three Documents
• References
• Index