A Nation Once Again: How the idea of the Nation State became the primary focus of popular struggle in early twentieth century Ireland - Part 2

Members of Cumann na mBan on parade. An Phoblacht, 30 March 2014.

(Continued from previous post)

In the early years of the twentieth century, the labour movement in Ireland had been more of a rival than a friend to separatist nationalism. The Irish Parliamentary Party sometimes “referred to itself as the Irish labour party”[1] and the Irish Trade Union Congress felt that the interests of Irish workers were best served by remaining amalgamated with, and working as closely as possible with, their British trade union counterparts. However, in January 1909, James Larkin, a former organiser for the British based National Union of Dock Labourers, formed the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU) with the idea that a specifically Irish union would be better placed to look after the interests of Irish workers. As the influence of Larkin and other radicals within the trade union movement grew, the Irish Parliamentary Party, many of whose influential members were themselves employers, began to fall out of favour with the unions – particularly after the party blocked the introduction of sick pay and other medical benefits provided for in the National Insurance Act of 1911, from coming into force in Ireland – and in 1912 the Irish Trade Union Congress voted by 49 votes to 18 for the formation of an Irish Labour Party.[2]

Although the political left in Ireland was taking on an increasingly national character, Sinn Féin was still, at this time, regarded with suspicion and came in for “severe criticism”[3] in the ITGWU’s newspaper, the Irish Worker, because the party’s economic policy was one of support for Irish industry which “often led to criticism of workers’ movements and striking workers.”[4] With the protracted and intense industrial dispute of 1913 known as the ‘Dublin lockout’, however, many in the advanced nationalist movement began to realise the folly of alienating Irish labour (as well as the potential of allying themselves with what was, at the time, a mass workers’ movement) and, accordingly, Sinn Féin’s stance became more supportive.

During the lockout, the Irish Citizen Army was formed by the ITGWU leadership, initially to defend striking workers from attacks by the police. Less than a year and a half later the group took part in the Easter Rising, in spite of the fact that most of the other leaders of the rebellion did not share the socialist views of its commander, James Connolly. Shortly before the rebellion, Connolly had written, “we of the working class should fight for the freedom of the nation from foreign rule, as the first requisite for the free development of the national powers needed for our class”[5]

By the time of the 1918 general election, many in the Irish labour movement felt that, in light of the coming peace conference in Paris at which the status of various small nations would potentially be decided, it was important to show unity in regard to the desire for independence that existed within Ireland. The Irish Labour Party held a conference to decide whether to field its own candidates or to stand aside and leave the field clear for Sinn Féin to take on the Irish Parliamentary Party. The decision was made to stand aside, by a majority of 96 votes to 23.[6] This was not an abandonment of socialist or left wing politics, but a pragmatic decision to prioritise the goal of national self-determination since the realisation of this would put Irish labour in a better position to influence its own destiny. As such, it was the achievement of an independent Irish nation-state that had become, for the labour movement in Ireland, the decisive factor in the struggle for popular liberation.

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The main organisation campaigning for women’s suffrage in Ireland at the beginning of the twentieth century was the Irish Women’s Suffrage and Local Government Association. This organisation, campaigning largely through the use of “petitions, meetings and letters to the press”,[7] had made significant progress in having the local government franchise extended to some women and in women being allowed to stand as candidates in district council and poor-law guardian elections. Some more radical feminists were, however, becoming impatient with the lack of progress in terms of women being granted the vote for parliamentary elections and, in 1908, they formed the Irish Women’s Franchise League. This group employed more militant tactics ranging “from addressing crowds on the back of lorries to picketing public meetings and heckling politicians”.[8] Several members of the Irish Women’s Franchise League were later to be imprisoned for breaking the windows of government buildings.

Feminism did not only involve campaigning for women’s suffrage. Women were beginning to agitate for their rights in the domestic arena too, and in other fields such as education and politics. Many women had become involved in nationalist politics as a result of involvement in the cultural revivalist organisations that flourished at the turn of the century. Although there was an element of segregation in the official policies of some of these groups they tended in practice to value female involvement, and certain roles, such as the organisation of social activities and the teaching of Irish language classes, were considered especially appropriate for women.[9] Many of these cultural organisations had an underlying ethos of political nationalism. The Oxford historian Senia Pašeta has argued that the Celtic Literary Society, in particular, “explicitly accelerated the politicisation of Irish cultural nationalism”.[10] The Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, following Miroslav Hroch,^[11] wrote that national movements develop in three distinct stages: a “cultural, literary and folkloric” stage, followed by a phase of nationalistic political activity carried out by “pioneers and militants”, and a final stage whereby the movement acquires the support of a large mass of the population.^[12] The cultural revivalist movement in Ireland can be seen as representing the first of these stages, leading on to the growth in advanced nationalist activity and ultimately to the overwhelming success of Sinn Féin in the 1918 general election.

Some of the women members of the Celtic Literary Society had gone on to form the explicitly nationalist women’s organisation Inghinidhe na hÉireann, one of the stated aims of which was “the re-establishment of the complete independence of Ireland.”[13] Some months after the formation of the Irish Volunteers, a group of nationalist women (including some members of Inghinidhe na hÉireann) formed Cumann na mBan, an organisation intended to remain formally independent of the Volunteers but “to fund and equip them”.[14] The Irish Citizen Army was open to both men and women and a number of advanced nationalist women who were also attracted to socialist ideas found a home in this organisation.

Both Cumann na mBan and the Irish Citizen Army were actively involved in the Easter rebellion, with women acting as cooks, medical operatives and messengers and, in some cases, in combat roles. The rising proved to be a significant moment in terms of strengthening the bonds between nationalism and feminism. The Proclamation of the Irish Republic, signed by the leaders of the rising and read outside the Dublin General Post Office in what was later to be seen as a highly symbolic moment for the advanced nationalist movement, was addressed to “Irishmen and Irishwomen” and, as well as claiming the national allegiance of both, stated that the Republic would guarantee “equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens”. It also promised that a future national government of Ireland would be “elected by the suffrages of all her men and women”.[15]

In the realm of electoral politics, the Irish Parliamentary Party was even less welcoming to women than many of the cultural and literary societies had been. It, too, was happy to allow women to assist in auxiliary roles such as fund raising but they were generally excluded from any direct political involvement. John Redmond was not in favour of votes for women and the party would not, despite urging from women’s suffrage activists, support the Conciliation Bills aimed at extending the suffrage to some property-owning women. Similarly, it would not put pressure on the Liberal government to allow women to be eligible to vote in elections for the proposed home rule parliament, for fear of jeopardising the passage of the 1912 Home Rule Bill, particularly since the prime minister at the time, Herbert Asquith, was a well-known opponent of women’s suffrage.[16] Sinn Féin, on the other hand, had declared its support for women’s suffrage and the constitution adopted by Sinn Féin at its 1917 Ard Fheis (convention) required that “the equality of men and women in this organisation be emphasised in all speeches and leaflets.”[17] As a consequence, women who wished to be involved in nationalist politics were more likely to find a home in the more advanced wing of the nationalist movement and it is likely that Sinn Féin’s more progressive attitude to women’s rights was a factor in its success at the 1918 general election, since this was the first general election in which women were allowed to vote - albeit only those over 30 years of age who met certain property qualifications. 

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST

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[1] Adrian Grant, Irish Socialist Republicanism 1909-36 (Dublin, 2012), p. 26.

[2] Ibid., p. 35.

[3] Ibid., p. 37

[4] Ibid., p. 42

[5] James Connolly, ‘The Irish Flag’, The Workers’ Republic (8 April 1916), https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1916/04/irshflag.htm (Accessed 29 December 2016).

[6] Charles Townshend, The Republic: The Fight for Irish Independence, 1918-1923 (London, 2014), p. 59

[7] Joseph E. Connell, ‘Irish Women’s Franchise League and Irish Women’s Workers’ Union’, History Ireland, 21, 1 (2013), p. 66.

[8] Louise Ryan, ‘The “Irish Citizen”, 1912-1920’, Saothar, 17 (1992), pp. 105-111, p. 105.

[9] Senia Pašeta, Irish Nationalist Women, 1900-1918 (Cambridge, 2013), p. 28.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Miroslav Hroch, Social Conditions of National Revival in Europe (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 22-23.

[12] Eric J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge, 1992), p. 12.

[13] Margaret Ward, In Their Own Voice: Women and Irish Nationalism (Cork, 1995), p. 19.

[14] Cal McCarthy, Cumann na mBan and the Irish Revolution, Kindle edition, loc. 361 (Downloaded: 1 January 2017).

[15] Thomas J. Clarke et al., The Proclamation of the Irish Republic (Dublin 1916), http://the1916proclamation.ie/ (Accessed: 3 January 2017).

[16] James McConnel, ‘The Franchise Factor in the Defeat of the Irish Parliamentary Party, 1885-1918’, The Historical Journal, 47, 2 (2004), pp. 355–377, p. 362.

[17] Sinn Féin party members, The Constitution of Sinn Féin in Dorothy McCardle, The Irish Republic: a documented chronicle of the Anglo-Irish conflict and the partitioning of Ireland, with a detailed account of the period 1916-1923 (London, 1937) pp. 915–916 [electronic edn.] (Cork, 2010), p. 916, http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/E900007.html (Accessed: 5 January 1917).