Irish nationalism

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Irish nationalism (Irish: Náisiúnachas Éireannach) refers to political and sociological movements and sentiment that embodies a love for Irish culture and language and a sense of pride in the island of Ireland. It also refers to a desire for greater autonomy or independence of Ireland from Great Britain after Britain annexed Ireland in 1801. Today in Northern Ireland, which still remains under British rule (unlike the Republic of Ireland), the nationalist position is often contrasted with that of Unionists. Irish nationalism, today in Northern Ireland, is largely associated with the community of Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland. However, over recent centuries, Irish nationalism included many prominent Irish Protestants who were just as patriotic as many Catholics.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Roots

Ireland has been subject to varying degrees of rule from England since the late 12th century (See Norman Ireland). The Gaelic Irish resisted this conquest through military and other means, but were organised in small independent lordships and did not have a common political goal such as an independent Irish state. Conflict over the English presence was exacerbated by the Protestant Reformation in England, which introduced a religious element to the 16th century Tudor re-conquest of Ireland, as almost all of the native Irish remained Catholic. Another central feature of future Anglo-Irish conflict was the dispossession of Irish Catholic landowners in the Plantations of Ireland and their replacement with a Protestant landowning class from England and Scotland[citation needed]. In addition, the Plantation of Ulster, begun in 1609, "planted" a sizable colony of English and Scottish settlers of all classes into the north of Ireland.

The closest Gaelic lords came to waging an identifiably nationalist campaign against the English presence was the rebellion of Hugh O'Neill in the 1590s (known as the Nine Years War 1594-1603), which aimed to expel the English and make Ireland a Spanish proctorate[citation needed]. However, despite claiming to represent a movement of Irish Catholics against English Protestants, O'Neill's forces were a shifting coalition of clans and lords and many historians see O'Neill himself as being primarily motivated by personal ambition - specifically the securing of his authority over Tyrone in Ulster[citation needed].

A more significant movement came in the 1640s, after the Irish Rebellion of 1641, when a coalition of Gaelic Irish and Old English (Ireland) Catholics set up a de facto independent Irish state to fight the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (see Confederate Ireland). The Confederate Catholics of Ireland, also known as the Confederation of Kilkenny, emphasised that Ireland was a Kingdom independent from England, though under the same monarch. They demanded autonomy for the Irish Parliament, full rights for Catholics and an end to the confiscation of Catholic owned land. The Confederate cause was destroyed in the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland 1649-53 and the old Catholic landowning class was dispossessed permanently.

A similar Irish Catholic monarchist movement emerged in the 1680s and '90s, when Irish Catholic Jacobites supported James II after his deposition in the Glorious Revolution. The Jacobites demanded that Irish Catholics would be a majority in an autonomous Irish Parliament, that confiscated Catholic land would be restored and that the Lord Deputy of Ireland would in future be an Irishman. Similarly to the Confederates of the 1640s, the Jacobites were conscious of representing the "Irish nation", but were not separatists and largely represented the interests of the landed class as opposed to all the Irish people. Like the Confederates, they were also defeated in the Williamite war in Ireland 1689-91. Thereafter, Irish government and landholding were dominated by the largely English Protestant Ascendancy. Catholics were discriminated against under the Penal Laws. (See also Early Modern Ireland 1536-1691)

This coupling of religious and ethnic identity (Roman Catholic and Gaelic), as well as a consciousness of dispossession and defeat at the hands of British and Protestant forces came to be enduring features of Irish nationalism.

[edit] Early nationalism: Grattan to O'Connell

The Protestant dominated Irish Parliament of the eighteenth century repeatedly called for more autonomy from the British Parliament — particularly the repeal of Poynings Law, which allowed the latter to legislate for Ireland. They were supported by popular sentiment that came from the various publications of William Molyneux about Irish constitution independence; this was later reinforced by Jonathan Swift's incorporation of these ideas into Drapier's Letters.[1][2]

Parliamentarians who wanted more self government were known as "patriots", for example Henry Grattan, who achieved substantial legislative independence in 1782-83. Grattan and radical elements of the 'Irish Whig' party campaigned in the 1790s for Catholic political equality and a reform of electoral rights.[3] He wanted useful links with Britain to remain, best understood by his comment: 'The channel [Irish sea] forbids union; the ocean forbids separation'.

It is also argued today that Grattan's movement was not fully nationalist because many of its adherents were descended from the 'colonial minority' in Ireland. However, other nationalists such as Samuel Neilson, Theobald Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet were also descended from colonial families that had arrived in Ireland since 1600.

Modern Irish nationalism with democratic aspirations began in the 1790s when Theobald Wolfe Tone founded the Society of the United Irishmen, first to end discrimination against Catholics, in line with Grattan, and then to found an independent Irish Republic. Tone and most of the United Irish leaders were Protestants and inspired by the French Revolution, wanted a society without sectarian divisions, the continuation of which they attributed to the British domination over the country. They were sponsored by the French Republic which was then the enemy of the Holy See. The United Irishmen led an armed uprising in 1798 (See Irish Rebellion of 1798), which was repressed with great bloodshed. As a result, the Irish Parliament voted to abolish itself in the Act of Union of 1800-01 and thereafter Irish MPs sat in London. (See History of Ireland (1801-1922))

Two dominant forms of Irish nationalism arose from these events. One was a radical movement, known as Irish Republicanism, which advocated use of force to found a secular, egalitarian Irish Republic, advocated by groups such as the Young Irelanders, some of whom launched a rebellion in 1848.[citation needed]

The other nationalist tradition was more moderate, urging non-violent means to seek concessions from the British government.[citation needed] While both nationalist traditions were predominantly Catholic in their support base, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church were opposed to republican separatism on the grounds of its violent methods and secular ideology, while they usually supported non-violent reformist nationalism.[citation needed]

Daniel O'Connell was the leader of the moderate tendency. O'Connell, head of the Catholic Association and Repeal Association in the 1820s, '30s and '40s, campaigned for Catholic Emancipation - full political rights for Catholics - and then "Repeal of the Union", or Irish self-government under the Crown. Catholic Emancipation was achieved, but self-government was not. O'Connell's movement was more explicitly Catholic than its eighteenth century predecessors[citation needed]. It enjoyed the support of the Catholic clergy, who had denounced the United Irishmen and reinforced the association between Irish identity and Catholicism. The Young Irelanders when members of the Repeal Association, used traditional Irish imagery such as the Harp and located his mass meetings in sites such as Tara and Clontarf which had a special resonance in Irish history.

[edit] Repeal Association & Young Ireland

In the late 19th century, Irish nationalism became the dominant ideology in Ireland, having a major Parliamentary party in the Parliament of the United Kingdom at Westminster that launched a concerted campaign for Repeal of the Act of Union or self-government. This period also saw the emergence of militant republican movement called the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) or Fenians, with an off-shoot named Clan na Gael in the United States, founded by exiled members of the Young Irelanders.

The Great Famine of 1845-49 caused great bitterness among Irish people against the British government, which was perceived as having failed to avert the deaths of up to a million people.[citation needed] Clan na Gael, led by John Devoy organised Irish veterans of the American Civil War to attack Canada, with the intention of demanding a British withdrawal from Ireland. The Irish Republican Brotherhood was set up in Ireland at the same time.

In Ireland itself, the IRB tried an armed revolt in 1867 but, as it was heavily infiltrated by police informers, the rising was a failure.[citation needed]

[edit] Land League

Mass nationalist mobilisation began when Isaac Butt’s Home Rule League (which had been founded in 1873 but had little following) adopted social issues in the late 1870s – especially the question of land redistribution.[citation needed] Michael Davitt (an IRB. member) founded the Irish Land League in 1879 during an agricultural depression to agitate for tenant's rights. Some would argue the land question had a nationalist resonance in Ireland as many Irish Catholics believed that land had been unjustly taken from their ancestors by Protestant English colonists in the 17th century Plantations of Ireland.[citation needed] Indeed, the Irish landed class was still largely an Anglo-Irish Protestant group in the 19th century. Such perceptions were underlined in the Land league’s language and literature.[citation needed] However, others would argue that the Land League had its direct roots in tenant associations formed in the period of agricultural prosperity during the government of Lord Palmerston in the 1850s and 1860s, who were seeking to strengthen the economic gains they had already made.[citation needed] Following the depression of 1879 and the subsequent fall in prices (and hence profits), these farmers were threatened with rising rents and eviction for failure to pay rents. In addition, small farmers, especially in the west faced the prospect of another famine in the harsh winter of 1879. At first, the Land League campaigned for the "Three Fs" - fair rent, free sale and fixity of tenure. Then, as prices for agricultural products fell further and the weather worsened in the mid 1880s, tenants organised themselves by withholding rent during the 1886-1891 Plan of Campaign movement.

Militant nationalists such as the Fenians saw that they could use the groundswell of support for land reform to recruit nationalist support, this is the reason why the New Departure - a decision by the IRB to adopt social issues - occurred in 1879.[citation needed] Republicans from Clan na Gael (who were loath to recognise the British parliament) saw this as an opportunity to recruit the masses to agitate for Irish self government. This agitation, which became known as the "Land War", became very violent when Land Leaguers resisted evictions of tenant farmers by force and the British Army and Royal Irish Constabulary was used against them. This upheaval eventually resulted in the British government subsidising the sale of landlords' estates to their tenants in the Irish Land Acts authored by William O'Brien. It also provided a mass base for constitutional Irish nationalists who had founded the Home Rule League in 1873. Charles Stewart Parnell (somewhat paradoxically, a Protestant landowner) took over the Land League and used its popularity to launch the Irish National League in 1882 to campaign for Home Rule.

[edit] Cultural nationalism

An important feature of Irish nationalism from the late 19th century onwards has been a commitment to Gaelic Irish culture. A broad intellectual movement, calling itself the Celtic Revival grew up in the late 19th century largely initiated by artists and writers of Protestant or Anglo-Irish background who were concerned with furthering Ireland's individual native and cultural identity. Other organisations for promotion of the Irish language or the Gaelic Revival were the Gaelic League and later Conradh na Gaeilge. The Gaelic Athletic Association was also formed in this era to promote Gaelic football, hurling and Gaelic handball at the expense of English sports such as association football, rugby union and cricket.

Curiously, most of the Cultural nationalists were actually English speakers and their organisations had little impact in the Irish speaking areas or Gaeltachtaí, where the language continued to decline.[citation needed] (A similar contemporary phenomenon can be seen in the Basque Country, where the early Basque nationalists such as Sabino Arana were not native Basque speakers.)[citation needed] However, these organisations attracted large memberships and were the starting point for many radical Irish nationalists of the early twentieth century.

[edit] Home Rule beginnings

Although Parnell and some other Home Rulers, such as Isaac Butt, were Protestants, Parnell's party was overwhelmingly Catholic. At local branch level, Catholic priests were an important part of it organisation. Home Rule was opposed by Unionists (those who supported the Union with Britain), mostly Protestant and from Ulster under the slogan, "Home Rule is Rome Rule."

At the time, some politicians and members of the British public would have seen this movement as radical and militant. Detractors quoted Charles Stewart Parnell's Cincinnati speech in which he claimed to be collecting money for "bread and lead". He was allegedly sworn into the secret Irish Republican Brotherhood in May 1882. However, the fact that he chose to stay in Westminster following the expulsion of 29 Irish MPs (when those in the Clan expected an exodus of nationalist MPs from Westminster to set up a provisional government in Dublin) and his failure in 1886 to support the Plan of Campaign (an aggressive agrarian programme launched to counter agricultural distress), marked him as an essentially constitutional politician, though not averse to using agitational methods as a means of putting pressure on parliament.

Coinciding as it did with the extension of the franchise in British politics — and with it the opportunity for most Irish Catholics to vote — Parnell's party quickly became an important player in British politics. Home Rule was favoured by William Gladstone, but opposed by many in the British Liberal and Conservative parties. Home Rule would have meant a devolved Irish parliament within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The first two Irish Home Rule Bills were put before the British House of Commons in 1886 and 1893, but they were bitterly resisted by an alliance of Liberal Unionists and British Conservatives.

Following the fall and death of Parnell in 1891 after a divorce crisis, which enabled the Irish Roman Catholic hierarchy to pressure MPs to drop Parnell as their leader, the Irish Party split into two factions, the INL and the INF becoming practically ineffective from 1892 to 1898. Only after the passing of the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 which granted extensive power to previously non-existent county councils, allowing nationalists for the first time through local elections to democratically run local affairs previously under the control of landlord dominated "Grand Juries", and William O'Brien founding the United Irish League that year, did the Irish Parliamentary Party reunite under John Redmond in January 1900, returning to its former strength in the following September general election.

[edit] Transformation of rural Ireland

The first decade of the twentieth century saw considerable advancement in rural economic and social development in Ireland where 60% of the population lived.[citation needed] The introduction of local self-government in 1898 created a class of experienced politicians capable of later taking over national self-government in the 1920s. O’Brien’s attainment of the 1903 Wyndham Land Act (the culmination of land agitation since the 1880s) abolished landlordism, and made it easier for tenant farmers to purchase lands, financed and guaranteed by the government. By 1914, 75 per cent of occupiers were buying out their landlords' freehold interest, mostly under the Land Acts of 1903 and 1909.[4] O'Brien then pursued and won in alliance with the Irish Land and Labour Association and D.D. Sheehan, who followed in the footsteps of Michael Davitt, the landmark 1906 and 1911 Labourers (Ireland) Acts, where the Liberal government financed 40,000 rural labourers to become proprietors of their own cottage homes, each on an acre of land. "It is not an exaggeration to term it a social revolution, and it was the first large-scale rural public-housing scheme in the country, with up to a quarter of a million housed under the Labourers Acts up to 1921, the majority erected by 1916",[5] changing the face of rural Ireland.

The combination of land reform and devolved local government gave Irish nationalists an economic political base on which to base their demands for self-government. Some in the British administration felt initially that paying for such a degree of land and housing reform amounted to an unofficial policy of "killing home rule by kindness", yet by 1914 some form of Home Rule for most of Ireland was guaranteed. This was shelved on the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914.

A new source of radical Irish nationalism developed in the same period in the cities outside Ulster. In 1896, James Connolly, founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party in Dublin. Connolly's party was small and unsuccessful in elections, but his fusion of socialism and Irish republicanism was to have a sustained impact on republican thought. In 1913, during the general strike known as the Dublin Lockout, Connolly and James Larkin formed a workers militia, the Irish Citizen Army, to defend strikers from the police. While initially a purely defensive body, under Connolly's leadership, the ICA became a revolutionary body, dedicated to an independent Workers Republic in Ireland. After the outbreak of the First World War, Connolly became determined to launch an insurrection to this end.

[edit] The Home Rule crisis 1912-14

Home Rule was eventually won by John Redmond and the Irish Parliamentary Party and granted under the Third Home Rule Act 1914. However, Irish self-government was limited by the prospect of partition of Ireland between north and south. This idea had first been mooted under the Second Home Rule Bill in 1894. In 1912, following the entry of the Third Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons, unionists organised mass resistance to its implementation, organising around the "Ulster Covenant". In 1913 they formed the Ulster Volunteers, an armed wing of Ulster Unionism and the sectarian Orange Order who stated that they would resist Home Rule by force. British Conservatives supported this stance and Randolph Churchill coined the slogan, "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right". In addition, British officers based at the Curragh indicated that they would be unwilling to act against the UVF should they be ordered to.

In response, Nationalists formed their own paramilitary group, the Irish Volunteers, to ensure the implementation of Home Rule. It looked for several months in 1914 as if civil war was imminent between the two armed factions. Only the All-for-Ireland League party advocated granting every conceivable concession to Ulster to stave off a partition amendment. Redmond rejected their proposals. The amended Home Rule Act was passed and placed with Royal Assent on the statute books, but was suspended after the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, until the end of the war. This led radical republican groups to argue that Irish independence could never be won peacefully and gave the northern question little thought at all.

[edit] The First World War and the Easter Rising

The Irish Volunteer movement was divided over the attitude of their leadership to the First World War. The majority followed John Redmond in support of the British and Allied war effort, seeing it as the only option to ensure the enactment of Home Rule after the war, Redmond saying "you will return as an armed army capable of confronting Ulster's opposition to Home Rule". They split off and formed the Irish National Volunteers, and were among the 180,000 Irishmen who served in Irish regiments of the Irish 10th and 16th Divisions of the New British Army formed for the War.

A minority, mostly led by members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), refused to support the War and kept their arms to guarantee the passage of Home Rule. Within this grouping, another faction planned an insurrection against British rule in Ireland, while the War was going on. Connolly, the labour leader, first intended to launch his own insurrection for an Irish Socialist Republic decided early in 1916 to combine forces with the IRB. In April 1916, just over a thousand dissident Volunteers and 250 members of the Citizen's Army launched the Easter Rising in the Dublin General Post Office and, in the Easter Proclamation, proclaimed the independence of the Irish Republic. The Rising was put down within a week, at a cost of about 500 killed, mainly unengaged civilians[citation needed]. Although the rising failed, Britain’s General Maxwell executed fifteen of the Rising's leaders and arrested some 3000 political activists which led to widespread public sympathy for the rebel’s cause. Following this example, physical force republicanism became increasingly powerful and, for the following seven years or so, became the dominant force in Ireland, securing substantial independence but at a cost of dividing Ireland[citation needed].

The Irish Parliamentary Party was discredited after Home Rule had been suspended at the outbreak of World War I, in the belief that the war would be over by the end of 1915, then by the severe losses suffered by Irish battalions in Gallipoli at Cape Helles and on the Western Front. They were also damaged by the harsh British response to the Easter Rising, who treated the rebellion as treason in time of war when they declared martial law in Ireland. Moderate constitutional nationalism as represented by the Irish Party was in due course eclipsed by Sinn Féin — a hitherto small party which the British had (mistakenly) blamed for the Rising and subsequently taken over as a vehicle for Irish Republicanism.

Two further attempts to implement Home Rule in 1916 and 1917 also failed when John Redmond, leader of the Irish Party, refused to concede to partition while accepting there could be no coercion of Ulster. An Irish Convention to resolve the deadlock was established in July 1917 by the British Prime Minister, Lloyd George, its members both nationalists and unionists tasked with finding a means of implementing Home Rule. However, Sinn Féin refused to take part in the Convention as it refused to discuss the possibility of full Irish independence. The Ulster unionists led by Edward Carson insisted on the partition of six Ulster counties from the rest of Ireland[6] stating that the 1916 rebellion proved a parliament in Dublin could not be trusted.

The Convention's work was disrupted in March 1918 by Redmond’s death and the fierce German Spring Offensive on the Western Front, causing Britain to attempt to extend conscription to Ireland unwisely linked with immediate implementation of Home Rule. This "dual policy" was extremely unpopular, opposed both by the Irish Parliamentary Party under its new leader John Dillon, the All-for-Ireland Party as well as Sinn Féin and other national bodies. It resulted in the Conscription Crisis of 1918. In May at the height of the crisis 73 prominent Sinn Féiners were falsely arrested on the grounds of an alleged "German Plot". Both these events contributed to a widespread rise in support for Sinn Féin and the Volunteers [7]. The Armistice ended the war in November followed by elections.

[edit] Militant separatism and Irish independence

In the General election of 1918, Sinn Féin won 73 seats, 25 of these unopposed, or statistically nearly 70% of Irish representation on a "first past the post" voting system, but a minority representation in Ulster. They achieved a total of 476,087 (46,9%) of votes polled for 48 seats, compared to 220,837 (21,7%) votes polled by the IPP for only six seats, who due to the "first past the post" voting system did not win a fair share of seats [8]. Unionists (including Unionist Labour) votes were 305,206 (30,2%) [9]

The Sinn Féin MPs refused to take their seats in Westminster, 27 of these (the rest were either still imprisoned or impaired) setting up their own Parliament called Dail Éireann in January 1919 and proclaimed the Irish Republic to be in existence. Nationalists in the south of Ireland, impatient with the lack of progress on Irish self-government, tended to ignore the unresolved and volatile Ulster situation, generally arguing that unionists had no choice but to ultimately follow. On September 11, 1919, the British proscribed the Dáil, it had met nine times, declaring it an illegal assembly, Ireland being still part of the United Kingdom. In 1919, a guerilla war broke out between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) (as the Irish Volunteers were now calling themselves) and the British security[citation needed] forces (See Irish War of Independence).

The campaign created tensions between the political and military sides of the nationalist movement. The IRA, nominally subject to the Dáil, in practice, often acted on its own initiative. At the top, the IRA leadership, of Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy, operated with little reference to Cathal Brugha, the Dáil's Minister for Defence or Eamon de Valera, the President of the Irish Republic - at best giving them a supervisory role.[citation needed] At local level, IRA commanders such as Dan Breen, Sean Moylan, Tom Barry, Sean MacEoin, Liam Lynch and others avoided contact with the IRA command, let alone the Dáil itself.[citation needed] This meant that the violence of the War of Independence rapidly escalated beyond what many in Sinn Féin and Dáil were happy with.[citation needed] Arthur Griffith, for example, favoured passive resistance over the use of force, but he could do little to affect the cycle of violence between IRA guerrillas[citation needed] and Crown forces that emerged over 1919-1920. The military conflict produced only a handful of killings in 1919, but steadily escalated from the summer of 1920 onwards with the introduction of the paramilitary police forces, the Black and Tans and Auxiliary Division into Ireland. From November 1920 to July 1921, over 1000 people lost their lives in the conflict (compared to c.400 up to then).

At the same time, in Ulster in the north east, a sectarian war broke out, when in July 1920, loyalists, aided in some cases by the Ulster Special Constabulary, attacked the Catholic/Nationalist population in reprisal for IRA actions. This conflict, which ran roughly from the summer of 1920 to the summer of 1922, claimed a further 550 lives, of whom 58% were Catholic civilians. Nationalists portrayed this as "pogrom" and the Dáil organised a boycott of goods from Belfast in response.[citation needed]

[edit] Dividing Ireland

Meanwhile the British tried to solve the conflict on the basis of Home Rule with the introduction of a Fourth Home Rule Act. This was largely dictated by Unionist leader Sir Edward Carson and simplified by Sinn Féin's abstentionism from Westminster. Carson secured Home Rule for six Ulster counties as Northern Ireland, and Lloyd George also granted Home Rule for 26 of Ireland's 32 counties as Southern Ireland under the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. However this settlement of limited self government was no longer acceptable to Irish nationalists, who believed themselves to be the legitimately elected government of an independent all-Ireland Irish Republic. Following the elections of May 1921 the parliament of Northern Ireland first sat on 7 June.

The 1920 Act allowed for a Council of Ireland that would enable cross-border links to be established, with a target of island-unity after 50 years (1971).

The fighting in the South was ended on 11 July 1921 with a truce between the IRA and British forces. A political settlement between the Dáil and the British was reached in the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed in December 1921 after months of negotiations, but violence in the North continued. The Treaty offered "Southern Ireland" considerably more independence than was on offer in Home Rule, for instance, control over its own armed forces and police, control over taxation and fiscal policy, a flag and the evacuation of British troops out its territory. It would remain linked as a dominion under the British Crown within the British Commonwealth. The formula used for this was the 'Crown-in-Ireland, acknowledging the democratic will but retaining a powerless sovereign in London. The Sinn Féin signatories of the treaty conceded the abolition of the Irish Republic declared in 1919 and confirmed the partition of the island into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland.

The Second Dáil ratified the treaty on 7 January 1922 and the subsequent general election on 16 June endorsed their majority decision, the results of the elections: pro-Treaty Sinn Féin 58 seats, anti-Treaty Sinn Féin 36, Labour 17, Farmer's Party 7 and Independents 10, or 239,195 votes for pro-Treaty candidates, anti-Treaty 132,161 votes and others 247,082.[10] But this was not acceptable to many republicans. They argued that the electorate only accepted the Treaty as a result of the British threat of an escalating war if they did not. At the time of the Treaty, the main issue dividing Irish nationalists was whether the new Irish Free State would be fully sovereign. Anti-Treaty partisans argued that it could never be but Michael Collins, who had led the team that signed the Treaty, argued that the it gave Ireland the opportunity to create a fully independent state. Significantly, while the majority of the Dáil cabinet were in favour of the Treaty, its president Eamon de Valera and two ministers, Cathal Brugha and Austin Stack were opposed and resigned in protest.

The Partition of Ireland was not the major dividing issue arising out of the Treaty, for three reasons. Firstly, the Treaty created a Boundary Commission that would determine the border with Northern Ireland by 1925. It was widely believed among nationalists that this would cede large parts of Northern Ireland to the Free State. Secondly, the IRA, both pro- and anti-treaty factions, organised by Michael Collins, was already organising clandestine military operations against the Northern state by early 1922. Thirdly, the Northern Irish government and parliament had been functioning already for six months.

Collins tried to negotiate a compromise between the pro- and anti-treaty factions, for example proposing a constitution with no mention of the British King, but any changes to the Treaty were vetoed by the British as it had just been negotiated in good faith. The IRA Executive disavowed the authority of the Dáil in April 1922, claiming it had broken its oath to defend the Irish Republic. In July 1922, under pressure from the British to deal with armed anti-treaty IRA units who had occupied public buildings in Dublin, Collins attacked the dissident IRA units. The Irish Civil War then broke out between the newly recruited Free State Force (composed of a of pro-treaty Irish Republican Army members and many new recruits, including thousands of Irish veterans of the First World War), and those IRA members (a substantial majority of that organisation) led by Liam Lynch who did not accept the Treaty. The Anti-Treaty side were supported by Eamon de Valera, former president of the Republic. The Free State government ended the anti-treaty republican resistance by May 1923, when the Anti-Treaty side called a ceasefire. The civil war cost more lives than the war against the British and the atrocities committed by both sides created a deep well of bitterness within Irish nationalist politics. Another effect of the Civil War was to confirm the partition of Ireland, as the divided and distracted IRA had to cease its operation against Northern Ireland along the border. In addition, after Michael Collins' death in August 1922, at the hands of Anti-Treaty fighters, the Free State quietly dropped his aggressive policies towards the Northern state.

[edit] The Free State

The Civil War caused a split in Irish nationalism. In many ways, this represented the continuation of the division that had always existed between Catholic nationalists and radical Republicans. The Free State position was represented by Cumann na nGaedheal (later re-named Fine Gael). The Free State, in its early years was intensely conservative in social and economic spheres and fearful of republican subversion. Government decisions were generally co-ordinated[citation needed] with the Catholic Church hierarchy and the hierarchy of the Church of Ireland even up until recent times; the Catholic Church was always[citation needed] very[citation needed] influential in government circles and in Irish society at large. (See also History of the Republic of Ireland)

In 1925, the Boundary Commission, set up to review the border between Northern Ireland and the Free State, compiled its report. The report was leaked to the press and its findings were shocking to nationalist Ireland. Instead of cedeing large areas of the North to the Free State, the Southern state would receive only a small part of South Armagh and Fermanagh and would lose part of eastern Donegal. To prevent this report being published, the Free State gvoernment of WT Cosgrave instead signed a treaty with the British government, recognising the border of 1921 and in return cancelling their obligation to pay part of the British national debt. In effect, this marked the effective recognition of Northern Ireland on the part of the Free State.

As a result in March 1926 Sinn Fćin voted to continue abstentionism from the Däil , Eamon de Valera resigning as its leader, in May setting up a new party called Fianna Fáil out of the defeated anti-Treaty IRA and in 1927 entered parliamentary politics. Up until the late 1930s, street violence between pro and anti treaty groups was still common, especially between the pro Free State Blueshirts and the IRA. The remnants of the IRA considered themselves to be the only rightful inheritors of the Irish Republic of 1919 - still in their eyes existing in opposition to the British imposed Free State. After the creation of a mainstream republican party in Fianna Fáil, they had little support. They launched a bombing campaign in England in the 1940s and a guerrilla campaign against Northern Ireland in the 1950s. Both were failures.

The Free State was, on all sides, intensely nationalistic. One manifestation of this was the introduction of compulsory Irish language in education and for all civil and public servants. It was the goal of all nationalists to re-introduce Irish as the spoken language of the country. However, this never achieved success and many Irish language activists argue that the language has become merely a token of Irish identity for Irish governments. In theory, after De Valera passed a new constitution in 1937, the Irish state was also committed to a United Ireland - i.e. the annexation of Northern Ireland. Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution of Ireland stated that the territory of the Irish state included the entire island of Ireland. However, like the restoration of the Irish language, commitment to a United Ireland remained largely confined to rhetoric. Indeed, de Valera's government interned and executed IRA members for armed attacks on the Northern state. In 1940 de Valera was promised a unified island if he would join in the Second World War against the Axis powers, but he declined.

The Irish Free State left the British Commonwealth in 1949 and declared itself to be the Republic of Ireland.

[edit] Northern Ireland

In Northern Ireland itself, the Catholic or nationalist community was a minority in a Protestant and Unionist state. However, most northern nationalists did not support militant republicanism before The Troubles of the 1970s. In 1918, they had largely voted for the moderate Nationalist Party rather than Sinn Féin and continued to vote for moderate or constitutional nationalist party (which was, however, very different from the "Home Rule" Nationalist Party that existed until 1918) until the political turmoil of the late 1960s. The Nationalist Party began to be seen as an irrelevance after the launching of a Civil Rights campaign to end discrimination against Catholics in the late 1960s (see Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association). However, the Civil Rights agitation ran into Unionist and Ulster Volunteer Force resistance as some Unionists claimed NICRA was merely another face of the IRA and violence broke out, leading to a thirty year conflict known as the Troubles.

The IRA, which had become increasingly reformist and Marxist oriented in the late 1960s, split into the Official IRA and Provisional IRA. The "Officials" ceased armed activity in 1972. The Provisionals or "Provos" launched a guerrilla or terrorist campaign against the state of Northern Ireland, with the aim of creating a new Irish Republic that would include all 32 counties of Ireland. Their armed campaign lasted into the late 1990s. (see History of Northern Ireland).

Thereafter, northern nationalists voted mainly for the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP)- a moderate nationalist and social democratic party. The SDLP, led by John Hume advocated power-sharing with Unionists within Northern Ireland. While many northern nationalists came to support the Provisional Irish Republican Army, whom they perceived as their defenders, especially in the early years of the Troubles, Sinn Féin, their political wing, did not do well in election until the 1980s. In fact, many Provisionals despised "politics" and saw their "armed struggle" as being above electoral politics. The 'struggle' also stopped new investment and tourism across the whole island, at a time of high unemployment, inflation and recession.

Sinn Féin candidates began to displace the SDLP from some nationalist constituencies after the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike. During the Hunger Strikes, the imprisoned IRA man Bobby Sands was elected to the British Parliament in the Fermanagh / South Tyrone by-election on an "Anti H-Block" platform. The turnout for the contest was 86.9 per cent and Sands obtained 30,492 votes and Harry West, the Unionist candidate, obtained 29,046 votes. A by-election was held in Fermanagh/South Tyrone to elect a Member of Parliament (MP) to Westminster to the seat that became vacant on the death of Bobby Sands. Owen Carron, who had been Sands' campaign manager, was proposed by Sinn Féin. Carron won the by-election with an increased number of votes over the total achieved by Sands.[11] This awakened the Sinn Féin leadership under Gerry Adams to the possible gains they could make in future elections and by an unarmed political strategy. However, it was not until 1994 that the Provisionals called off their campaign. Since the IRA ceasefire of 1994, Sinn Féin have become the largest nationalist party in the Northern Ireland. They have also won an improved share of votes in the Republic of Ireland.

In 1998, both Sinn Féin and the SDLP signed the Belfast Agreement, which instituted power sharing within a devolved government in Northern Ireland. Sinn Féin says that its long term goal is still a United Ireland. The Belfast Agreement has yet to be fully implemented.

Note that Ulster nationalism is not a part of the phenomenon of Irish nationalism but rather a different take on the status of Northern Ireland.

[edit] Present

In Northern Ireland today, nationalist is used to refer either to the Catholic population in general or the supporters of the moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party led by Mark Durkan, to distinguish them from Sinn Féin voters, known as Irish republicans. Often the term republican is applied to those who advocate the complete independence of Ireland from Great Britain and are prepared to use force to achieve it. The term nationalist is often used to refer to a more moderate political tradition, which favours an independent, united Ireland but which uses parliamentary methods. However, from a broad point of view, these are all elements of Irish nationalism.

The parties widely recognized as representing the moderate nationalist tradition include Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the SDLP. The main party currently representing Irish republicanism is Sinn Féin.

[edit] Ideology of Irish nationalism

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Irish nationalism has historically been pre-occupied with Ireland's relationship with Britain. It has also been concerned with the historical oppression of Catholics, who are identified as the native Irish people, by Protestants, who are identified with the British presence in Ireland. However, the ideology of Irish nationalism and particularly Irish republicanism has always expressed the view that it is not hostile to Protestantism or Protestants in Ireland as such and that it recognises them as fellow Irishmen. Some former nationalist ideologues such as D. P. Moran or Daniel Corkery held ambivalent and exclusive views.

Today, the relevance of traditional Irish nationalist ideology mainly concerns the status of Northern Ireland, which is still part of the United Kingdom, but which has a substantial nationalist minority who would prefer to be part of united Ireland. For historical reasons outlined above, almost all nationalists in Northern Ireland are Catholics. The traditional nationalist view of Northern Ireland was that it was created artificially out of the only part of Ireland that had a Protestant and Unionist majority. According to this view, the last time that an all Ireland election happened was in the December 1918 election, when a majority of seats (73 out of 105 seats) with 46,9% of votes in Ireland went to Sinn Féin and for Irish independence. This view has been outmoded somewhat by the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which was supported by the Irish government and both Sinn Féin and the SDLP. Moreover, it was passed by popular votes in referendums North and South. This agreement stipulates that the status of Northern Ireland cannot be changed without the expressed consent of a majority within Northern Ireland. In theory, northern nationalists are now committed to "power sharing" in Northern Ireland with unionists, with a long term goal of a united Ireland achieved with unionist consent. Some nationalists have voiced the hope that Catholics will outnumber Protestants in the coming decades, with the result that a majority inside Northern Ireland will favour a United Ireland.

In the Republic of Ireland, the idea of Irish nationalism has changed dramatically since the Free State era, particularly since the 1960s with growing prosperity signalling new economic and social priorities, as well as a changing relationship with the North. Up to 1985, extreme republicans did not recognise the legitimacy of the Irish state (an attitude that dates from the Irish Civil War) and refused to take their seats in the Dáil (Lower house of the Irish Parliament). However, Sinn Féin has now rejected this attitude and it is held only by the small Republican Sinn Féin party. Irish Governments have stated since the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 that they will respect the will of the people of Northern Ireland to decide its future. However, this agreement also stated that the Irish government had a legitimate role in Northern Irish poitics as "advisor". In 1998, as part of the Good Friday Agreement, articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution, which laid a territorial claim to Northern Ireland, were removed after a referendum.

Some of the divisions of the Irish Civil War are still apparent in southern Irish nationalist politics. Fine Gael, whose predecessors founded the Free State, largely view Irish independence as having been achieved, whereas Fianna Fáil the descendants of the Anti-Treaty Republicans of the Civil War, interpret the state's history somewhat differently. However, both parties aspire towards a United Ireland

Irish nationalists, on the whole, have not viewed integration into the European Union (EU) as a threat to Irish sovereignty. Several reasons can be advanced to explain this. Firstly, Ireland has been a net beneficiary of EU funds. Secondly integration into the European project has meant that Ireland is less dependent on Britain, economically and politically. A feature of nationalism in many modern European countries is a hostility to foreign immigration - for example Front National of Jean Marie Le Pen in France. At present, this is not true of Irish nationalism, despite large and rapid immigration into Ireland in recent years. Currently, no major Irish nationalist party campaigns explicitly against immigration.

This does not however mean that there is no anti-immigrant sentiment in Ireland. In 2004, Ireland revoked, in a referendum, a clause in the constitution added in 1998 that said that anyone born in Ireland was automatically an Irish citizen. The concern of the Irish government was that this was subverting the control of immigration by entitling any couple who had a child to stay in the country, regardless of their legal status. This referendum has drawn criticism from some human rights bodies, including Amnesty International as it has led to a situation where Irish citizens are being deported, with their parents, to countries where they may have no right of citizenship.

[edit] Criticism of Irish nationalism

The Irish nationalist attitude that Protestants are fellow Irishmen has been criticised because most, but not all, Protestants in Northern Ireland consider themselves British and do not consider themselves Irish in any significant way. A 1971 study found that only 20% of Protestants named "Irish" as the way they thought of themselves.[12]) Since then, this percentage has fallen. Four polls taken between 1989 and 1994 revealed that when asked to state their national identity, over 79% of Northern Ireland Protestants replied "British" or "Ulster" with 3% or less replying "Irish".[13] A 1999 survey also revealed that 78% of Protestants felt "Strongly British". Furthermore 51% of Protestants felt "Not at all Irish" and 41% only "weakly Irish".[14][15] Data from other studies up to 2006 confirms the predominantly British identity of Protestants.[16].[17][18]

The polls also show that not all Catholics consider themselves to be Irish and some consider themselves British to a certain degree.

(It should be noted that there have not been practicable definitions or a definitive descriptive criteria entered of what the terms "British", "Irish", or "Ulster" are for the statistical purposes of these polls. However, the polls are accurate indicators of how people choose to define their own identity.)

The 1984 report of the New Ireland Forum recognised in Paragraph 4.9.1 that Unionists generally regard themselves as being British, but also stated that they generally regard themselves as Irish[19] This statement must be considered dubious in view of the 1999 survey showing that 51% of Protestants felt "Not at all Irish" and 41% "weakly Irish".

The text of the Belfast Agreement, endorsed by the Irish nationalist parties SDLP and Sinn Féin and the government of the Republic of Ireland, recognises this, marking an official acceptance by Irish Nationalist parties of the validity of alternative loyalties. Pragraph 2.1.vi states that (the participants endorse the commitment made by the British and Irish governments... that they will) "recognise the birthright of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both, as they may so choose, and accordingly confirm that their right to hold both British and Irish citizenship is accepted by both Governments and would not be affected by any future change in the status of Northern Ireland.".[20]

The official acceptance by Irish nationalist parties of the validity of the British and non-Irish identity of many unionists does not necessarily reflect an ability or willingness in the Irish nationalist community of Northern Ireland to acknowledge the same. A 1997 publication by Democratic Dialogue financed by the Central Community Relations Unit of the Northern Ireland Office stated that "It is clear that many in Northern Ireland are willing to tolerate the Other's cultural identity only within the confines of their own core ideology...most nationalists have extreme difficulty in accepting unionists' Britishness or, even if they do, the idea that unionists do not constitute an Irish ethnic minority which can ultimately be accommodated within the Irish nation...." Discussion may be hindered by the lack of a definition of "Irishness" which commands cross-community support. The 1997 publication stated that "Irishness is a highly contested identity, subject to fundamentally different nationalist and unionist perceptions which profoundly affect notions of allegiance and group membership.".[21]

The inability and/or refusal of Irish nationalists to accept the British and non-Irish identity of many unionists has been a contributing factor in alienating them from the idea of a United Ireland.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Jonathan Swift: Volume III by Irvin Ehrenpreis
  2. ^ Jonathan Swift and Ireland by Oliver W. Ferguson
  3. ^ Kelly, J. Henry Grattan (Dundalgan Press 1993) pp.27-35 ISBN 0-85221-121-X
  4. ^ Ferriter, Diarmaid, The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000 (2005) pp. 38+62
  5. ^ Ferriter, Diarmaid, The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000, (2004) pp 159
  6. ^ ME Collins, Ireland 1868-1966, page 240
  7. ^ Sovereignty and partition, 1912-1949, p. 59, M. E. Collins, Edco Publishing (2004) ISBN 1-845360-40-0
  8. ^ Sovereignty and partition, 1912-1949, p.62, M. E. Collins, Edco Publishing (2004) ISBN 1-845360-40-0
  9. ^ B.M. Walker Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801-1822
  10. ^ Diarmaid Ferriter The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000 pp 254
  11. ^ *[1]
  12. ^ Richard Rose, Governing without consensus: an Irish perspective, London 1971
  13. ^ in, Social Attitudes in Northern Ireland: The Fifth Report
  14. ^ Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey
  15. ^ Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey
  16. ^ Institute of Governance, 2006. "National identities in the UK: do they matter?" Briefing No. 16, January 2006. Retrieved from http://www.institute-of-governance.org/forum/Leverhulme/briefing_pdfs/IoG_Briefing_16.pdf on August 24, 2006. Extract: "Three-quarters of Northern Ireland’s Protestants regard themselves as British, but only 12 per cent of Northern Ireland’s Catholics do so. Conversely, a majority of Catholics (65%) regard themselves as Irish, whilst very few Protestants (5%) do likewise. Very few Catholics (1%) compared to Protestants (19%) claim an Ulster identity but a Northern Irish identity is shared in broadly equal measure across religious traditions."Details from attitude surveys are in Demographics and politics of Northern Ireland.
  17. ^ [2] University of York Research Project 2002-2003 L219252024 - Public Attitudes to Devolution and National Identity in Northern Ireland
  18. ^ [3] A changed Irish nationalism? The significance of the Belfast Agreement of 1998, by Joseph Ruane and Jennifer Todd
  19. ^ 1984 report of the New Ireland Forum
  20. ^ Text of the Belfast Agreement
  21. ^ Report by Democratic Dialogue

[edit] Irish nationalist organisations (1791-present)

19th Century

20th century

[edit] See also