The failure of socialist republicanism in the Irish revolution and its aftermath - Part 9

A pro-Treaty poster from the 1922 Free State general election (from History Ireland on Pinterest).

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST.

Nationalism and socialism

As well as warning against the dangers of socialism from a purely Christian perspective, Reverend

Michael Phelan, in his article for the Southern Star newspaper, associates socialism strongly with

England. At one point, he laments that "The full sewerage from the maxims of Anglicisation is now

discharged upon us. The black devil of Socialism, hoof and horns, is amongst us". The Gaelic revival is

seen as a way to shore up "the strong hold Christianity has on our people". The writer points to

strike-bound Dublin as "the very antithesis of the dream of Gaeldom" and "the living spectacle of the

cesspool into which Anglicisation has at last dragged us". He claims that "Gaelicism and Socialism,

mutually repel and antagonise each other at every point", and invites the reader to choose between

two possible futures: "Gaelicised or Socialised Ireland".(1)

Such views demonstrated and encouraged the strong association between the romantic nationalism,

with its emphasis on Gaelic culture and language, that had originally inspired many of the early

adherents of advanced nationalism in Ireland, and a Catholic, corporatist political vision which

embraced and even encouraged social reform but loathed what it saw as the divisive and

materialistic creed preached by men like Larkin and Connolly.

In a letter to the editor of the Irish Independent, former Sinn Féin president John Sweetman

comments on Reverend Phelan's article (which had also been published in the November issue of

the Catholic Bulletin. He expresses the hope that the coming of "English Socialism...into Catholic

Ireland" would "open the eyes of our West British upper classes, who believed that it was England

that kept us from chaos". He urges such "West Britons" to "throw themselves in with the movement

for establishing an Irish Ireland" and expresses the hope that "the awful evil of Larkin's Socialism"

would cause all of Ireland to unite "against our common enemy, England".(2) This letter leaves no

doubt that, at least in the minds of some senior figures in the advanced nationalist movement, the

ideologies of socialism and of advanced Irish nationalism, far from being compatible, were in fact

complete opposites.

This mood of complete opposition to the very concept of socialism was to soften somewhat in the

ensuing years. In November 1918, J.J. O'Kelly, opening the Sinn Féin general election campaign in

County Louth, addressed a meeting in Drogheda in which he commented on the Labour movement

and socialism. Rather than portraying the Labour movement as unchristian, or as a product of

Anglicisation, he distinguished between the Labour movement in England, which he characterised as

weak, possessing "not as much blood as a turnip", and the Labour movement in Ireland. Of the Irish

Labour leaders he declared that he had never met "more determined, sincere or patriotic men". This

may well have been in response to the Irish Labour party's decision not to take part in the election.

That decision would have meant that the workers of Ireland were now a source of potential votes

for Sinn Féin, so any expression, on the part of its activists, of good will towards the Labour

movement is not necessarily evidence of a genuine ideological rapprochement.

Labour and the Anglo-Irish treaty

Both Emmet O’Connor and Adrian Grant have, as we have seen, argued that by its decision to

participate in the constitutional life, and thereby to recognise the institutions of, the Irish Free State

after its establishment in 1922, the Labour leadership had alienated the more radical republican

members of its rank and file, condemning the socialist republican movement to having to operate

within various smaller organisations such as the Irish Worker League or the Socialist Party of Ireland.

Superficially, it could indeed be argued that, had Labour thrown its weight behind the anti-treaty

republican movement it could have strengthened that movement to a point whereby it might have

posed a very significant challenge to the pro-treaty faction of Sinn Féin. One way to measure the

possible strength of such a hypothetical alliance is to look at the results of the 1922 election to the

Provisional Parliament of the Free State. In this election, Labour received slightly more votes than

did the anti-treaty Sinn Féin candidates (21.33 percent to anti-treaty Sinn Féin’s 21.26 percent),

although in terms of seats Labour won only 17 as compared to anti-treaty Sinn Féin’s 36. Although

the combined total of seats won by either Labour or anti-treaty Sinn Féin came to less than the 58

won by the pro-treaty Sinn Féin candidates, their combined percentage of the vote was greater than

the latter’s 38.48 percent.(3)

Such an analysis does not really tell us much, however, about how much popular support there

would have been for the Labour movement had it set itself up in opposition to the Anglo-Irish treaty.

As both Michael Laffan and Diarmaid Ferriter have argued, at least part of the reason for Labour’s

relative success in that election was the fact that it was focusing on issues other than the divisive

debate over the treaty. In fact, not only was Labour concerned, as always, with issues related to the

economy and the social condition of the working classes, but in the run-up to the election it was

actively speaking out in favour of national unity. On 11 April, the National Executive of the ILPTUC

published a “manifesto” in the Dublin Newspapers, in which it deplored “the growth of the idea that

the army may be a law unto itself; that the possession of arms gives authority which may be

exercised regardless of the civil power”. The accusation was not aimed specifically at either of the

two rival armed groups which by this time were in a tense stand-off over the question of the Anglo

Irish treaty, but stated that “both forces have sometimes shown that they have learned lessons in

arrogance from the British occupation”.(4)

On 24 April the ILPTUC organised a one-day general strike throughout the Free State area in protest

at the growing prospect of civil war. In Cork, one of the areas where opposition to the treaty was

strongest, workers took to the streets to demonstrate in what, according to the Skibbereen Eagle,

was “a notable protest against tyranny”, and against the threatened “destruction of business and

danger to life”.(5) The Irish Examiner described the “complete and thorough” observance of the

general strike as having “strikingly indicated the forcible influence which Labour wields in National

affairs” and as “an earnest of the people’s determination to stand by those who are striving for

peace in the country, and of their acquiescence and approval of the attitude of the Irish Labour Party

in regard to the present delicate dilemma”. The demonstrators in Cork are described as manifesting

“a spirit of disciplined loyalty and sympathy to the attitude adopted by the Labour Party”. The whole

tone of the demonstration appears to have been one of condemnation of the “militarism” which not

only threatened to bring further terror and destruction to Ireland, but which was crippling industry

and creating or exacerbating unemployment. Typical of the statements made by the various

speakers was one by a Mr Richard Hawkins who, according to the same Irish Examiner article,

declared that the assembled workers “did not care whether they were Free Staters or Republicans,

the strife would have to cease, no matter whether it was caused by De Valera, Collins, or Griffith,

and their thousands of idle workers would have to be allowed to work and support their families”.(6)

The implication of the attitudes expressed here is that social and economic issues, not the Anglo

Irish treaty and its provisions, were what was concerning most workers, and that there was no

appetite amongst the majority of the working-class for further bloodshed over questions regarding

constitutional arrangements.

Richard English, in Radicals and the Republic, argued that the use of physical force by elite, militarist

groups was not in keeping with the Marxist ideals that had been such a powerful influence on the

views of James Connolly – in spite of the fact that he was eventually to take part in a secretly

planned military operation himself – and that Marxism in general tended to view physical force as

being justifiable only when countenanced by the working masses. It is arguable that the Irish Labour

movement, by rejecting militarism in 1922, was being more true to the socialist republican tradition

than were those who wished to continue the fight against the British and who were prepared to

fight their former comrades in the process.

Nor had the Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress given up on the idea of a workers’ republic.

In an “Address to the Workers of Ireland”, issued immediately after the signing of the Anglo-Irish

treaty, it called on the workers to continue the “struggle against capitalism”. It envisaged the

outcome of that struggle as an Ireland “where all the powers of the State are instantly available to

protect and succour the meanest citizen; where none may be rich until all have enough; where

wealth may not command labour, because labour is supreme”. It went on to state that, whether

Ireland was to be a Free State or a republic, unless it embodied these ideals “it is not a Republic in

the eyes of the workers”.(7)

In the address, the National Executive of the Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress had

already begun to justify its willingness to utilise the new constitutional arrangements which would

be brought into being as a result of the treaty, by pointing to the failure of Sinn Féin to properly 

address the needs of workers – a very different attitude to that which it had taken in 1918: “No such

Republic having been achieved by the party which has been in the ascendant, it is no retrogression

on the part of the Labour Party to avail of the machinery of whatever political instrument may be

fashioned in pursuance of our objective - i.e., the establishment of a Workers' Republic.”(8)

Labour’s decision to “avail of the machinery” of the newly established Irish Free State was a

pragmatic one, prompted by the fact that, in the circumstances of the Irish situation at that time, the

welfare of the working classes, in terms of the need to provide jobs and economic stability – and in,

the minds of the Labour leadership, the very prospect of a “workers’ republic” - was not compatible

with an extremist, militaristic nationalism. This is not necessarily evidence of the type of ideological

incompatibility asserted by Richard English, but it does point to a practical incompatibility in terms of

the historical context of the split over the Anglo-Irish treaty and its consequences.

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST

1. M.J. Phelan, 'Socialism and social reform', Southern Star, 29 November 1913.

2. J. Sweetman, 'Remedy for socialism: plea for Gaelic revival', Irish Independent, 4 November 1913.

3. M. Gallagher, ‘The Pact General Election of 1922’, Irish Historical Studies, 22:84 (1979), pp. 404-421, p. 414.

4. Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress, Report of the National Executive for the year 1921-1922 (Dublin 1922), p. 24, http://centenaries-ituc.nationalarchives.ie/annual-reports/ (Accessed: 14 August 2018).

5. ‘Labour to the rescue’, Skibbereen Eagle, 29 April 1922.

6. ‘Labour’s protest: Cork’s celebrations’, Irish Examiner, 25 April 1922.

7. Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress, Report of the National Executive for the year 1921-1922 (Dublin 1922), pp. 18-20, http://centenaries-ituc.nationalarchives.ie/annual-reports/ (Accessed: 14 August 2018).

8. Ibid.