Nation States: The Cultures of Irish Nationalism

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Most of the United Irish leaders were Catholic and Presbyterian 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 the Irish Rebellion of , which was repressed with great bloodshed.

Two forms of Irish nationalism arose from these events. One was a radical movement, known as Irish republicanism.

It believed the use of force was necessary to found a secular, egalitarian Irish republic, advocated by groups such as the Young Irelanders , some of whom launched a rebellion in The other nationalist tradition was more moderate, urging non-violent means to seek concessions from the British government. Daniel O'Connell was the leader of the moderate tendency. O'Connell, head of the Catholic Association and Repeal Association in the s, '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.

Irish nationalism

Catholic Emancipation was achieved, but self-government was not. O'Connell's movement was more explicitly Catholic than its eighteenth century predecessors. The Repeal Association used traditional Irish imagery, such as the harp , and located its mass meetings in sites such as Tara and Clontarf which had a special resonance in Irish history. 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 self-government.

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The Great Famine of —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. The Irish Republican Brotherhood was set up in Ireland at the same time. In Ireland itself, the IRB tried an armed revolt in but, as it was heavily infiltrated by police informers, the rising was a failure. Mass nationalist mobilisation began when Isaac Butt 's Home Rule League which had been founded in but had little following adopted social issues in the late s — especially the question of land redistribution.

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.

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Such perceptions were underlined in the Land league's language and literature. In addition, small farmers, especially in the west faced the prospect of another famine in the harsh winter of 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 mids, tenants organised themselves by withholding rent during the — 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 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 Charles Stewart Parnell somewhat paradoxically, a Protestant landowner took over the Land League and used its popularity to launch the Irish National League in as a support basis for the newly formed Irish Parliamentary Party , to campaign for Home Rule. An important feature of Irish nationalism from the late 19th century onwards was a commitment to Gaelic Irish culture.

A broad intellectual movement, the Celtic Revival , grew up in the late 19th century. Though largely initiated by artists and writers of Protestant or Anglo-Irish background, the movement nonetheless captured the imaginations of idealists from native Irish and Catholic background.

Nation States: The Cultures of Irish Nationalism -

A frequent contributor, the poet John McDonald 's stated aim was "to hasten, as far as in my power lay, Ireland's deliverance". The Gaelic Athletic Association was also formed in this era to promote Gaelic football , hurling , and Gaelic handball ; it forbade its members to play English sports such as association football , rugby union , and cricket.

However, these organisations attracted large memberships and were the starting point for many radical Irish nationalists of the early twentieth century, especially the leaders of the Easter Rising of such as Patrick Pearse, [20] Thomas MacDonagh, [21] and Joseph Plunkett. The main aim was to emphasise an area of difference between Ireland and Germanic England, but the majority of the population continued to speak English. The cultural Gaelic aspect did not extend into actual politics; while nationalists were interested in the surviving Chiefs of the Name , the descendants of the former Gaelic clan leaders, the chiefs were not involved in politics, nor noticeably interested in the attempt to recreate a Gaelic state.

At local branch level, Catholic priests were an important part of its organisation. At the time, some politicians and members of the British public would have seen this movement as radical and militant.

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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 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 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.

The first two Irish Home Rule Bills were put before the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in and , but they were bitterly resisted and the second bill ultimately defeated in the Conservative's pro- Unionist majority controlled House of Lords. Following the fall and death of Parnell in 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 to Only after the passing of the Local Government Ireland Act 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 , returning to its former strength in the following September general election.

O'Brien's attainment of the Wyndham Land Act the culmination of land agitation since the s abolished landlordism , and made it easier for tenant farmers to purchase lands, financed and guaranteed by the government. By , 75 per cent of occupiers were buying out their landlords' freehold interest through the Land Commission , mostly under the Land Acts of and Sheehan , who followed in the footsteps of Michael Davitt, the landmark and Labourers Ireland Acts, where the Liberal government financed 40, rural labourers to become proprietors of their own cottage homes, each on an acre of land.

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 some form of Home Rule for most of Ireland was guaranteed.

This was shelved on the outbreak of World War I in August A new source of radical Irish nationalism developed in the same period in the cities outside Ulster. 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 , 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. 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 In , 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 they formed the Ulster Volunteers , an armed wing of Ulster Unionism who stated that they would resist Home Rule by force.

British Conservatives supported this stance. In addition, British officers based at the Curragh indicated that they would be unwilling to act against the Ulster Volunteers should they be ordered to.

Nation States

In response, Nationalists formed their own paramilitary group, the Irish Volunteers , to ensure the implementation of Home Rule. It looked for several months in 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 World War I in , 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. The Irish Volunteer movement was divided over the attitude of their leadership to Ireland's involvement in World War I.

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 from the main movement and formed the National Volunteers , and were among the , Irishmen who served in Irish regiments of the Irish 10th and 16th Divisions of the New British Army formed for the War. Within this grouping, another faction planned an insurrection against British rule in Ireland, while the War was going on.

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