Ireland's Independence: 1880-1923

Oonagh Walsh

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781134553662
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This timely introduction presents a clear, balanced account of the rapid and complex events from 1880 leading up to the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922.

CHAPTER ONE

Culture, land and politics, 1880-1900

It has been said that whenever the English came close to solving the so-called Irish question, the Irish changed the question. This is not quite true, but what is clear throughout the 1880s is that each element in the Anglo-Irish relationship sought a different objective, and interpreted political change in very different ways. The late nineteenth century saw the emergence of clear, and often antagonistic, political groups in Ireland which enjoyed varying levels of support within Westminster. In addition, there were many other organisations whose brief was to encourage a sense of Irish pride through a revival of language, culture and sport, but which shaded into more explicitly political movements, often against their will. The determining element in this period was Home Rule and the varied reactions to it, but the most dramatic development of the period was the rise of the Irish Parliamentary Party, and the emergence of Charles Stewart Parnell as its leader.

Home Rule - a measure of independent government for Ireland - suggested very different possibilities to different groups. Although it had been part of Anglo-Irish debates for many years, it did not take concrete form until the late 1860s and early 1870s. In 1870 the Home Government Association was founded, and in 1873 the Home Rule League was created, largely taking over from the earlier organisation. Although committed to reform within Westminster, the Home Rule Party, as the parliamentary representatives were known, displayed an increasing willingness to use tactics of obstruction in order to force consideration of the Irish cause. Central to this strategy was Charles Stewart Parnell, a Protestant landowner from Wicklow, elected for County Meath in 1875. Parnell was an ambitious and intelligent leader, one of the first to attempt to unite the two strands of constitutionalism and militantism in Irish politics in order to secure reform. He clashed with the party leader Isaac Butt, who disapproved of what he saw as Parnell's dangerous irreverence towards parliamentary procedure, but Parnell secured increasing support among the more aggressive party members, as well as radical elements among the Fenian movement throughout Britain and the United States. In May 1880 Parnell was elected Chairman of the Irish Parliamentary Party, as the Irish Home Rule members at Westminster were now known, and immediately began to forge the party into a cohesive body focused specifically upon the goal of Home Rule. An accomplished parliamentarian, Parnell swiftly realised that success would depend upon association with the other key reform movement in Ireland - the Land League.

The National Land League had been established in 1879by Michael Davitt in Co. Mayo as a radical response to the deepening crisis in land issues in Ireland. The position of the Irish peasant, especially in the west, was as bad as it had been since the Great Famine, and for largely the same reason. Between 1877 and 1879the potato crop failed, and this, allied to an economic slump, resulted in failure of rental payments and large-scale evictions. Davitt's personal circumstances had inclined him towards radicalism in any case, but in the autumn of 1879he managed to persuade Parnell to become President of the Irish National Land League, the organisation formed as a response to the support among tenants to the Mayo initiative. This was a hugely significant moment. Although Parnell was deeply interested in land reform, and in improving the lot of the Irish tenant, he was not, at this stage, a believer in the sort of radical peasant proprietorship which Davitt favoured. Parnell also had ambitions which went beyond mere transfers of land, namely Home Rule. His assumption of the presidency therefore placed him at the head of the two most powerful mass movements in Ireland - the Land League and the Irish Parliamentary Party - which sought to transform land occupancy and national government forever.

Although this strategy might appear logical enough from our distant perspective, it was a risky one for Parnell. The slogan of the Land League was 'the land of Ireland for the people of Ireland' - a direct threat to the position of Irish landlords, and an implied threat to national security. Although the Land League did not officially espouse violence as a means of securing tenant rights, it was an ever-present element among the ordinary members. The League's most useful weapon, and one which it encouraged followers to use, was boycott. (The word boycott derives from the case of Captain Charles Boycott, a land agent and farmer from Co. Mayo, whose tenants refused to gather his harvest in September 1880. Unionist labourers were brought in, at great expense, from Counties Monaghan and Cavan, but the effectiveness of the strategy had been proven to the League's satisfaction: thereafter, the policy, and the name, became common.) Tenants were advised to refuse their labour to landlords who demanded excessive rents, and to boycott anyone who took land from which another had been evicted. However, within a short period of time more violent methods of indicating disapproval emerged, and attacks upon persons and property, especially livestock, increased. Parnell was a constitutional nationalist, and any taint of illegal militant activity would damage his parliamentary career. Moreover, Parnell was himself a landowner, and wished as far as possible to protect the interests of that class, while ameliorating tenant grievances. Yet to allow anyone else to assume the Presidency of the League was to run the risk of eroding his popular power base, and alienate support from the Irish Parliamentary Party. Ironically, although he did not advocate the agrarian violence which frequently accompanied Land League activity, it became a useful element in his negotiations with the British government, and made government officials less critical of his leadership. His British parliamentary colleagues may have had reservations regarding his ultimate intentions for Ireland, but he provided the only acceptable point of contact between Westminster and the mass of the Irish people. It was believed, not entirely correctly, that Parnell could control the agrarian movement, and this was to prove extremely valuable when the campaign moved into a more violent phase.

One major grievance, as far as land reformers were concerned, was the regulation of rents, and another was land-ownership. Tenants could be subject to the whims of landlords, and depended upon custom rather than law for their rights. There was therefore a good deal of support for widespread land purchase, although there was much argument over whether this should be compulsory, or voluntary and gradual. Tenants throughout the country, but particularly in the west, increasingly adopted boycott and intimidation against landlords to secure an improvement in their economic position. The government responded on two fronts: in 1881 the Land Law (Ireland) Act was passed, which allowed for the adjudication of rent levels, limited the landlord's right to evict, and gave tenants the right of Free Sale. The second initiative was an attempt to crush the Land League by the suppression of the organisation and the large-scale arrest and imprisonment of activists, including, in October 1881, Parnell himself. He predicted that his imprisonment would remove any restraint as far as land agitation was concerned, and this belief did appear to be borne out. From Kilmainham Gaol, Parnell issued a call for a rent strike, a strategy which suggested that large-scale violence and disruption must inevitably follow. In fact, it would appear that Parnell was more concerned with maintaining the threat of violence rather than actually provoking it, for the actions of the body which assumed responsibility for coordinating land protest were met with alarm by both the Land League and the government.

It was to be women who took the land agitation movement into a new and radical phase. The male leadership of the Land League decided that in their enforced absence, Land League activities would be dealt with by what was literally its sister organisation, the Ladies' Land League. This organisation had been established by Fanny Parnell, sister of Charles Stewart, while in America in the autumn of 1880. Despite Fanny's wish to see an Irish branch established under the leadership of her sister Anna, this move was resisted until Michael Davitt took the simple, if rather arrogant, step of announcing the organisation of a Ladies' Land League in Ireland, headed by Anna. This rather inauspicious beginning was an unfortunate indication of things to come, as the women played 'catch-up' with male policy, and were excluded from the process of decision making. Anna, somewhat reluctantly, came to Dublin in December 1880, and the women's organisation was set up in the same premises as that of the Land League. The purpose of the Ladies' Land League was to support evicted tenants, and to work to prevent land-grabbing. To this end they were to finance the construction of wooden shelters for evicted families, and disburse funds to the dependants of those imprisoned for withholding rent. As far as the Ladies' Land League was concerned, this policy was a mandate for radical action. Within a relatively short time, however, it became clear that the Land League had intended them to be a symbol of resistance rather than a practical body, a misconception which was to prove fatal to relations between the two organisations.

When Anna Parnell began the task of organising the Ladies' Land League, she turned first to the existing Land League structures. To her alarm, she found an almost total shambles. Instead of the nationwide network of branches which she had been led to believe existed, there was instead an extremely uneven patchwork of associations with wildly differing degrees of efficiency. It soon became clear that in many places the Land League had done no more than make rhetorical speeches about resistance and solidarity, while offering little practical support. There was no consistency with regard to the non-payment of rent, with the result that a coherent strategy to implement rent strikes had never been devised. Thus where the men had been content with the appearance of resistance, the women actively supported a strategy of militant action, one which involved at least verbal, if not physical, encouragement towards agrarian violence. Anna and the other female activists implemented Land League policy in full. The 'No Rent' Manifesto issued by Parnell and his colleagues from Kilmainham Gaol on 18 October 1881 was brought to its logical conclusion, leading to the eviction of tenants and their families. The Ladies' Land League refused to allow grants for the payment of rent, and although they assisted evicted families, they did so where possible in kind rather than in cash, which they feared would simply be used to pay rent. They held demonstrations, observed elections, obstructed rent collectors, and encouraged the boycotting of members of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and land agents. It proved to be an expensive policy - the organisation spent £70,000 between October 1881 and May 1882 in relief to evicted families. The women sought to professionalise the land war, and compiled an impressive rent book, detailing estate information from all over the country, which became known as the 'Book of Kells'. Not surprisingly, the Ladies' Land League appeared to violate prevalent Victorian notions regarding appropriate spheres of action for men and women, although in fact what the women had done was simply translate the political rhetoric of the Land League into practical political action, and as a result attracted a good deal of criticism. They were denounced by the main churches for their unfeminine behaviour, and criticised by Land League members for militancy and supposed extravagance. The government, alarmed at the deteriorating situation in Ireland, approached C.S. Parnell in prison. A deal, known as the Kilmainham Treaty, was agreed, whereby the government pledged to address land grievances, including the rent arrears which had grown as a result of recent agitation, and Parnell pledged to accept the 1881 Act as a basis for land reform in Ireland. The treaty was agreed without the knowledge of the Ladies' Land League, and on Parnell's release relations between the two organisations deteriorated badly. Without explanation, the Land League starved the women's organisation of funds, but did not immediately ask it to disband. The reason for this peculiar policy appears to have been a reluctance to be seen to immediately destroy an organisation which had attracted a great deal of attention and support from Irish tenants, but it left the Ladies' Land League in the unenviable position of continuing a policy which they themselves had not devised, but in the face of tacit disapproval from the male leadership. There were personal as well as political consequences from this policy: Anna and Charles quarrelled badly, and did not speak to each other again.

Other events swiftly overtook personal and national difficulties. In May 1882, just four days after Parnell's release from prison, the new Chief Secretary (Lord Frederick Cavendish) and new UnderSecretary for Ireland (Thomas Henry Burke) were murdered in Phoenix Park. There were rumours which attempted to link Parnell with the murders, attempts which were to be publicly rebutted in the Special Commission set up in 1888 to investigate allegations made in The Times newspaper about Parnell and other Irish nationalists. Parnell denounced the murders and settled himself to the task of forging the Irish Parliamentary Party into a key political body. He did so by increasingly, though subtly, distancing himself from militant nationalism, although so reserved was he in this regard that his change in strategy went unnoticed by many. Nationally popular, regarded with respect, if not affection, by fellow-Parliamentarians, Parnell emerged as the single most important political figure in the country. In 1886, Gladstone underwent his rather unexpected 'conversion' to Home Rule, a development which appeared to pay tribute to Parnell's political strategies. But looked at from Westminster, events in Ireland formed only a part of a complex series of legal, constitutional and ideological changes which took place during that decade, and indeed before it. For example, the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, overseen by Gladstone in 1869, was the single most important event for the church in the nine- teenth century. However, from Gladstone's perspective, although he had been committed to reform since the 1850s, its real importance lay in providing an experimental model for the disestablishment of the Church of Wales, and even, possibly, that of England. Gladstone's commitment to Home Rule, explicitly expressed from 1886, was similarly part of his drive towards a greater democracy in British politics. In 1884-1885 reforms of the British franchise took place which tripled the electorate, and this consideration of the rights of the broader population partly explains Gladstone's willingness to consider Home Rule for Ireland. However, the Tory Party, led by Lord Salisbury, strenuously opposed even the most moderate concessions for Ireland, believing it would signal the disintegration of British Imperial power. Salisbury feared that Gladstone's plan to grant a limited measure of power to Irish constitutional nationalists would provide an undesirable example to important possessions such as India, in a period in which the major European powers were actually expanding their empires. The general atmosphere in Britain was therefore not conducive to sympathy for Irish nationalism. Furthermore, the Tory philosophy of elite rule, centralised control and unswerving patriotism had a far more popular appeal to the majority of the population than the democratic, conciliatory approach of the Liberals. Allied to an entrenched anti-Catholicism in British society, which was strengthened by what many regarded as the alarming increase of Catholics in the country (the Catholic population in Britain more than doubled to 1,500,000 and 1900) the prevailing view was that Home Rule ambitions should be actively discouraged.

If Gladstone was relatively well disposed to moderate nationalism, Salisbury and his Tories were whole-heartedly behind Irish unionists. This latter group emerged as a significant political entity from the late nineteenth century, defined largely by opposition to Home Rule, and a determination to maintain the union between Britain and Ireland intact. Although much more vocal and better organised in the north-east of the country, there was also a considerable unionist minority in the south. The Tories and Irish unionists literally spoke the same language, describing political differences in Ireland in racial terms, subscribing for the most part to a staunch Protestantism, and drawing upon a shared rhetoric of loyalty and unionism. This support is hardly surprising. While Home Rulers sought to loosen Anglo-Irish ties, unionists desired increasing links, and regarded Ireland as an integral part of the Empire. Even the most moderate of nationalists were portrayed in certain Tory quarters as dangerous rebels, while unionists were presented as a stabilising political force in Ireland. But were unionist (and indeed Tory) fears about the implications of Home Rule actually justified? The bill proposed by Gladstone in April 1886 was actually very limited in its scope, and even then raised strenuous opposition within and beyond his party. Gladstone's intention was to establish an Irish governing body which would sit in Dublin 'to deal with Irish as distinguished from Imperial affairs'; interestingly, he stressed in his speech to the House of Commons the unifying, as opposed to divisive, potential of the bill: 'in such a manner, as would be just to each of the three Kingdoms, equitable with reference to every class of the people of Ireland, conducive to the social order and harmony of that country, and calculated to support and consolidate the unity of the Empire on the combined basis of Imperial authority and mutual attachment.' Gladstone, who spoke for almost three and a half hours, argued persuasively that the Irish were fit for selfgovernment, and that a voluntary secession of power would bind the country closely to Britain without the need for the coercive policies favoured by the Tories. The powers offered to Ireland were therefore clearly circumscribed. Although Dublin would once again be a seat of government, the body established there would have strictly limited powers. Defence and Foreign Affairs would be determined at Westminster, and Dublin would not have control over Irish customs and excise, the principal source of Irish revenue. The Irish Assembly would have certain rights to raise local taxes, but ultimate power would still reside at Westminster, which would in all circumstances have authority over Dublin. Despite its obvious limitations, and intended reassurances for unionist members, the bill was defeated, following the second-reading debate, by 341 votes to 311. Although the margin was not huge, Gladstone had lost several key members of his party over the issue, the most notable being Joseph Chamberlain, who defected to the Tory Party. The issue remained a feature of the British political scene, however, and Gladstone brought a second Home Rule Bill to Parliament in 1893, which was rejected by the House of Lords on 8 September. The defeats did little to dampen Irish enthusiasm for a parliamentary settlement, and indeed the longer it was delayed the greater the faith in Home Rule as an answer to the country's ills grew.

Parnell's increasing determination to secure a constitutional settlement was not accepted by all in Ireland. Land reform remained a major grievance, despite some significant advances in the early 1880s, and the middle of the decade saw a return to more militant approaches on the part of tenant farmers. The so-called Plan of Campaign was first proposed in October 1886 through the pages of the radical newspaper, United Ireland. The work of John Dillon, William O'Brien and Timothy Harrington, the paper advocated collective action on the part of tenants to strike fair rents, and proposed that tenants on a particular estate combine to offer a fair rent to their landlord. If this was refused, they were advised to withhold any payments, but to put the offered sum into an 'estate fund' which would support them when they were evicted. Between 1886 and 1890 the plan of campaign took place on 203 estates. The cost of maintaining evicted families was considerable, but it succeeded both in drawing a good deal of unwelcome attention to governmental land policy and maintaining awareness of land issues among the broader population. The plan provoked a twopronged approach to Irish affairs from government. The first was increasingly hard-line as far as violence and illegal activity was concerned. A Criminal Law Amendment Act was passed in 1887 which allowed the police exceptional powers to repress violent protest, provisions they were encouraged to use to their utmost extent. The second was a series of legislative changes designed to address the defects of land policy, and thereby eliminate grievances at source. In 1885 the Ashbourne Purchase Act had been passed to encourage land purchase by willing landlords to their tenants. This was extended in 1888 by the Land Purchase Act which made considerable additional funds available for the transfer of estate property. These initiatives, especially the latter, were generally favourably received by the public, resulting in a brief flowering of the Plan of Campaign. Hard on the heels of these developments was the vindication of Parnell in the Special Commission (see above, p. 14), which concluded in late 1889. By 1890, then, it appeared as though considerable advances had been made in Irish affairs. Parnell stood as the undisputed leader of the country, there was a generally good relationship between the Irish Parliamentary Party and the British government, long-overdue reforms relating to land-ownership were underway, and there was considerable hope among nationalists that a Home Rule bill would meet with success at Westminster. With horrifying speed, the entire political canvas unravelled. Parnell had been having an affair since 1880 with Katherine O'Shea, the wife of an Irish Parliamentary Party colleague. They had had three children, the first of whom was born while he was in Kilmainham Gaol, and although the affair was common knowledge among some of Parnell's closer parliamentary colleagues, it was not widely known. When it became public, through Captain O'Shea's citing of Parnell as co-respondent in the former's divorce petition (O'Shea had known of the affair for years, and lived apart from his wife), many thought that it was another attempt to slander Parnell, and as a result he received a great deal of support. However, when Gladstone denounced the Irish Parliamentary Party leader, and declared privately that he could not work with such an immoral character, the divisions within Parnell's own party grew steadily. In December 1890 it split into proand anti-Parnell camps, and plunged into a vicious internal struggle from which it took a decade to recover. Parnell's closest friends advised him to temporarily withdraw from politics to allow the controversy to die down, but he refused. He married Katherine as soon as her divorce decree was made absolute, and continued to campaign for candidates who had supported him, often in the face of considerable hostility. His death in October 1891 was certainly linked to the strain he had undergone in the past few years. It also marked the dashing of Irish hopes as far...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Ireland's Independence, 1880-1923
• Introductions to History
• Ireland's Independence, 1880-1923
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Chronology of Key Events
• Introduction: The Nineteenth-Century Context,1800-1880
• 1. Culture, Land and Politics, 1880-1900
• 2. Consolidation and Advance, 1900-1914
• 3. The Rising and Its Aftermath, 1916-1918
• 4. The Anglo-Irish War, January 1919 to July 1921
• 5. The Treaty and Its Consequences, December 1921
• 6. The Civil War, January 1922 to May 1923
• Brief Biographies of Principal Individuals
• Select Further Reading
• Index