A Nation Once Again: How the idea of the Nation State became the primary focus of popular struggle in early twentieth century Ireland - Part 1

John Redmond (left) with John Dillon, circa 1910. Irish Times, 18 Nov 2015.

In the first half of the twentieth century, particularly in those areas subjected to imperial rule, the idea of national self-determination - the right of nations to their own sovereign statehood - became the driving force behind many liberation movements throughout the world, taking precedence over other political goals and movements in terms of its ability to command popular support. In Ireland, during the first decades of the century, and particularly in the years leading up to the War of Independence in 1919, although other forms of popular liberation existed and even flourished, they ultimately – and, to a large extent, voluntarily – became subjugated to the struggle for an Irish nation-state. Three of the most influential rival approaches to popular liberation in Ireland during this period were the constitutional nationalist movement with its goal of home rule within the United Kingdom; the labour movement; and the feminist movement. In each case, the ideology in question was either abandoned, temporarily set aside or de-emphasised by large numbers of its adherents, in favour of a concentration on achieving an independent Irish nation-state. Republicanism too, while intimately bound up with the idea of Irish independence and therefore hardly a rival ideology, did nevertheless involve a goal distinct from mere independent nationhood. The distinction became relevant at significant moments, both shortly before and again shortly after the War of Independence, and on both occasions it was the goal of the nation-state, rather than the achievement of a republic, which proved more decisive in terms of its influence on the actual historical outcome. Indeed, the very concept of the nation-state became a decisive weapon in the struggle, as 'advanced' Irish nationalists set out to create their own national institutions in an effort to construct an Irish ‘counter-state’ within the territory of the United Kingdom.

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At the beginning of the century, various social and political movements vied for popularity with separatist Irish nationalism, itself very much a fringe movement. One of these, mainstream nationalism, revolved around the activities of the Irish Parliamentary Party, by far the most popular political party in Ireland.[1] The party had successfully persuaded the UK government to introduce Home Rule Bills in 1886 and 1893. Both bills had been defeated but in 1912 the Parliamentary Party, holding the balance of power in parliament, used its resulting influence to bring about the Third Home Rule Bill which passed into law in 1914. However, the outbreak of war in Europe led to a postponement of this bill’s implementation.

In January 1913, unionist leaders had founded the Ulster Volunteer Force, a militia whose purpose was to back up the unionist threat to resist home rule at all costs. Later that year, nationalists responded by setting up their own uniformed organisation, the Irish Volunteers. The refusal of Irish Parliamentary Party leader John Redmond to oppose Irish involvement in the war led to a split within the Irish Volunteers between the faction who chose to support the war effort and the much smaller group who opposed any such involvement. This reflected the growing division within the nationalist movement between the majority, constitutional nationalists and those who demanded a fully independent Ireland.

Right from the foundation of the Volunteers, members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood - a secret organisation dedicated to the cause of separation from Britain through extra-parliamentary means, including physical force – had begun manoeuvring themselves into positions of influence within its command structure. By 1916, a group of Irish Republican Brotherhood members within the Volunteer general staff, along with prominent labour leader James Connolly, had formulated a plan to take over sites in Dublin that they believed to be of strategic importance, in the hope that this would precipitate a nationwide armed rebellion. The ‘rising’ took place on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916. The rest of the country, with a few minor exceptions, failed to rise and the rebellion was put down by the British army in the space of a week. It was, however, the aftermath of the rebellion that proved of great significance in terms of the popularity of that element of the nationalist movement which was determined to agitate for an independent Irish nation.

The government appointed General Sir John Maxwell as commander-in-chief in Ireland and he arrived there as the short-lived rebellion was coming to its end. Since martial law had been declared, Maxwell was also effectively the military governor. In this capacity, he ordered the arrest of anybody suspected of involvement in the rebellion as well as all those known to be active in the Sinn Féin “movement” and considered to be dangerous. Though the rebellion does not appear to have engendered a great deal of support amongst the population at the time it was staged, these mass arrests caused a great deal of animosity among even the more moderate members of the nationalist community.[2] Then, between 3 May and 12 May, fifteen ‘ringleaders’ of the rebellion, after trial by court martial, were executed by firing squad on Maxwell’s orders, against the strong advice of many of those with arguably greater experience of the political situation in Ireland than Maxwell (eg. the Viceroy Lord Wimborne and the deputy leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, John Dillon). As the executions progressed, public and press opinion in Ireland was repelled by the harshness of the British response and, in the months that followed, the rebels began to be viewed with sympathy and, increasingly, respect.

Prior to the rebellion, Sinn Féin, formed in 1905 and committed to political separation from Britain as well as a distinct cultural identity for Ireland, had been a very minor political party. After Easter week, Maxwell and others referred to the rebels as Sinn Feiners. The Irish Times even published a “Sinn Fein Rebellion Handbook” throughout which the participants in the rebellion were termed “Sinn Feiners” or “Sinn Fein Volunteers”.[3] As a result, much of the growing sympathy and admiration for the rebels fell also to the benefit of Sinn Féin, in spite of the fact that the party had not been directly involved in either planning or executing the rebellion. Conversely, dissatisfaction with the Irish Parliamentary Party, was growing. In part, this stemmed from the fact that home rule had still not been implemented and the party’s aim of “a self-governed Ireland embracing all creeds and classes...peacefully and constitutionally achieved within the British empire”[4] now seemed unrealistic in the face of unionist opposition. The 1917-1918 Irish Convention, aimed at resolving the issues around home rule and attended by the Irish Parliamentary Party but boycotted by Sinn Féin, had failed to resolve matters. It was also the case that the Parliamentary Party’s support for the war effort meant that it was, in the minds of some, implicated in the looming threat of conscription.[5] During 1917 there were 4 by-elections in Ireland, all in seats previously held by the Parliamentary Party. In each case, it was the Sinn Féin candidate who won.

In April 1918, Lloyd George’s government, under pressure from the military leadership, the press and public opinion in Britain, and in the face of a renewed German offensive on the Western Front, decided to extend the Military Service Act to (and thereby attempt to introduce conscription in) Ireland. The prime minister had been strongly advised against this course of action by Irish politicians, both unionist and nationalist. In parliament, he was told that the decision was “a declaration of war against Ireland”.[6] A nationwide campaign against conscription was launched in Ireland with both constitutional and advanced nationalists joining forces with the Roman Catholic Church to successfully oppose its enforcement. The fact that the Parliamentary Party had failed to prevent the act being passed meant that Sinn Féin, along with the Irish Volunteers, were seen as the most effective force for opposing conscription and the membership of both organisations increased dramatically amidst “a wave of emotion which was even stronger than that which had followed the rising.”[7]

When the 1918 general election took place, a month after the signing of the armistice with Germany, the Parliamentary Party only managed to win six seats while Sinn Féin won seventy-three and the Unionists won twenty-six[8] (all but two of which were in Ulster). It is clear that, by this time, the movement towards a fully independent Irish nation-state had supplanted constitutional nationalism as the decisive means of national liberation in Ireland.

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST

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[1] Alvin Jackson, Home Rule: An Irish History, 1800-2000 (New York, 2003), p. 3

[2] Charles Townshend, Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion (London, 2006), pp.273-275.

[3] Irish Times, The Sinn Fein Rebellion Handbook, Easter, 1916 (Dublin, 1917), https://ia802607.us.archive.org/5/items/sinnfeinrebellio00dubl/sinnfeinrebellio00dubl.pdf (Accessed: 26 December 2016).

[4] Michael Wheatley, Nationalism and the Irish Party: Provincial Ireland 1910-1916 (Oxford, 2005), p.266.

[5] Marie Coleman, The Irish Revolution, 1916-1923 (Oxford, 2014), p. 33.

[6] William O’Brien, Hansard, HC Deb 09 April 1918 vol. 104, col. 1,362, http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1918/apr/09/conscription-in-ireland (Accessed: 28 December 2016).

[7] Michael Laffan, The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Féin Party, 1916–1923 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 137

[8] Ibid., p. 164.