Dividing Ireland: World War One and Partition

Dividing Ireland World War I transformed the nature of the Irish and Ulster questions. At the beginning of war, the do...

Author: Thomas Hennessey

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Dividing Ireland

World War I transformed the nature of the Irish and Ulster questions. At the beginning of war, the dominant strain within Irish nationalism sought devolved self-government within the United Kingdom. At the end of the war, nationalists determinedly pursued a free Irish republic outside the British Empire. Dividing Ireland by Thomas Hennessey examines this crucial change in the course of Irish history and the resultant realignment of relations between unionists and nationalists. Thomas Hennessey looks at the polarisation of concepts of Irishness and Britishness during the war, and considers the consequences in the present day. World War I not only created new nation-states from the defeated powers, but also led to the secession of southern Ireland from the United Kingdom. The author looks at the extent to which the war led Ulster unionists to reassess their psychological relationship with the rest of the island of Ireland and with the United Kingdom, and the many consequences of this for Northern Ireland. He explains how and why the problems of Ulster have become intractable, and deals with the juncture which irredeemably altered the problem beyond that which had gone for centuries before. Thomas Hennessey is Lecturer in History at Canterbury Christ Church College.

Dividing Ireland World War I and Partition Thomas Hennessey

London and New York

First published 1998 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1998 Thomas Hennessey All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Hennessey, Thomas. Dividing Ireland: World War One and Partition/Thomas Hennessey. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. I. Ireland—History—Partition, 1921. 2. Nationalism—Ulster (Northern Ireland and lreland)—History—20th century. 4. World War, 1914–1918—Influence. 5. World War, 1914–1918—Ireland. I. Title. DA962.H46 1999 941.5082’1–dc21 98–7697 CIP ISBN 0-203-97920-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-415-17420-1 (Print Edition)

For Andy, Agnes and Siobhan—we miss you

Contents

1

2

3

Acknowledgements

vii

Note on terminology

viii

Introduction: The Crown and national identity in the United Kingdom and British Empire

ix

National identity, Home Rule and the Ulster question

1

The Government of Ireland Bill

1

Irish unionism and British nationality

3

Constitutional Irish nationalism and the British Empire

18

Cultural nationalism and Irishness

26

Conclusion

39

Ireland in 1914

41

The eve of war

41

Nationalist reactions

45

Unionist reactions

49

The Irish National Volunteers: southern unionist and nationalist tensions

58

The passing of the Home Rule Bill

67

Conclusion

75

The Great War and national identity, 1914–16

77

Unionism, Britishness and the war

77

The Irish Volunteer split

82

The Irish Party and recruiting

93

Nationalists and conscription

102

Unionists and conscription

109

vi

4

5

6

Conclusion

119

The Easter Rising and aftermath

121

The Easter Rising and cultural nationalism

121

The Rising and the European war

125

The impact of the Easter Rising in nationalist Ireland

134

The 1916 talks and the decline of the Irish Party

139

Irish Unionism and the partition proposals

146

Conclusion

152

Loyalty and the Crown: Nationalist divisions and Unionist-Nationalist rapprochement, 1916–18

155

The rise of Sinn Fein

155

Nationalists and the Crown: Sinn Fein and the Irish Party

162

Nationalist and southern unionist rapprochement

173

Ulster Unionist perceptions of nationalists and the war

189

Conclusion

194

The Irish Convention and the conscription crisis, 1917– 18

197

The Irish Convention

197

Nationalist and Southern Unionist agreement at the Irish Convention

201

Ulster Unionist opposition

207

The conscription crisis

214

The end of the war: towards armed struggle

222

Conclusion

227

Conclusion

229

Notes

235

Bibliography

257

Index

267

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the following for their help in the preparation of this book: Professor Paul Bew, Professor David Harkness, Dr Alvin Jackson, Professor Charles Townsend. I also wish to thank the staff at The British Library; The Military Archives, Cathalbrugha Barracks; National Archives of Ireland; National Library of Ireland; the Public Record Office, London; the Public Record Office, Northern Ireland; Trinity College, Dublin, Manuscripts; University College, Dublin, Archives; Pearse Street Library, Dublin; The Queen’s University of Belfast, Main Library; and the Central Library, Belfast.

Note on terminology

The terms ‘Unionist’, ‘Nationalist’, ‘Loyalist’, ‘Republican’ and ‘Imperialist’, beginning with capital letters, are used in the text to denote a political organisation or association; the use of these terms without capitals refers to the wider community or supporters of these structures.

Introduction

The Crown and national identity in the United Kingdom and British Empire

The premise of this book is that a conflict of national identity lies at the epicentre of the partition of Ireland. In order to appreciate the psychological complexities of that partition it is necessary to understand the diversity of national identity in early twentiethcentury Ireland, the relationship of this to conceptions of the state, and how the First World War radically altered such relationships. While the book is concerned with the opinions of the Irish political elites, wherever possible it focuses on the relationship between these elites and the wider host communities. An attempt is made to focus on the different perceptions of the actors to the same events: for example, the outbreak of war, the Easter Rising and conscription. In each case an assessment is made of the psychological impact on Nationalists and Unionists of concepts such as nation, state and empire. The aim has been to illustrate the vastly different political and communal perceptions which opposing political elites and their supporters had of the same event or events. The first stage in this investigation establishes the conceptual framework within which this study operates. The central concept is that of the nation. Moxon-Browne lists several characteristics to which a group, calling itself a nation, might adhere, including territory, relatively close contact with each other, national consciousness, religion or language.1 But, crucially, as SetonWatson states, a community might possess many of these attributes but not recognise itself as a nation. Although no scientific definition of a nation can be devised, yet the phenomenon exists, forcing Seton-Watson to the conclusion that a nation exists when a significant number of people in a community consider themselves to form a nation, or behave as if they formed one.2 Anderson defines a nation as an imagined political community. It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them or even

x

hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion. All communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact are imagined. Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined. The nation is imagined as a community because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship.3 Eriksen explains that the distinguishing mark of nationalism is by definition its relationship to the state. A nationalist holds that political boundaries should be coterminous with cultural boundaries, whereas many ethnic groups do not seek command over a state. When the political leaders of an ethnic movement make demands to this effect, the ethnic movement by definition becomes a nationalist movement.4 Birch introduces a distinction between national self-consciousness as the awareness of belonging to a nation, and nationalism as the desire for the (Scottish) national community alone to control the state.5 A development of his model is best suited to this study, because Britishness is composed of multiple imagined communities, involving the building of new identities upon older ones. Central to an understanding of the difference between national consciousness and nationalism in the Britannic context is an awareness that the growth of a British identity among Irish Protestants, as well as among Scots and English peoples, did not require the sacrifice of older identities. By the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century a form of British national consciousness appears to have evolved among Irish Protestants. This was a radical change, for, in the late eighteenth century, Protestants in Ireland had exhibited all the characteristics of an Irish nationalist consciousness; that is, they perceived themselves to be a separate Irish political nation and therefore sought self-government from Great Britain. In 1782 this was achieved when the Kingdom of Ireland secured legislative independence from the United Kingdom of Great Britain. However, by 1886, when the first Irish Home Rule crisis began, the descendants of these Protestant Irish nationalists resisted attempts to dissolve the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland formed by the legislative union of the separate Irish and British kingdoms in 1801. Furthermore, in 1886, Irish Protestants now exhibited all the characteristics of a British nationalist consciousness; that is, as a community within Ireland, Protestants wished to be governed by what they now considered their national community—a perceived British nation extending throughout the

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British Isles. This represented a fundamental reconstitution of Protestant identity. Only relatively recently, by Loughlin, has the nature of British national identity within Ulster Unionism been seriously explored academically.6 Bruce, for example, has argued that the Northern Ireland conflict is a ‘religious conflict’, and it is the fact that the competing populations in Ireland adhered, and still adhere, to competing religious traditions which ‘has given the conflict its enduring and intractable quality’.7 Miller, on the other hand, argued that Ulster Unionism has had as its central political ideology a theory of social contract, which reduces political obligation to a simple matter of ethics.8 An insight into how a Britannic consciousness might have been welded to, but did not displace, older national identities is offered by Colley. Exploring eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century Britishness, Colley argues that in looking critically and comprehensively at British patriotism following the Anglo-Scottish union in 1707, it is vital to understand the creation of what must be called British nationalism. In defining Great Britain as a nation, or an imagined political community, and accepting that, historically speaking, most nations have been culturally and ethnically diverse, problematic, protean and artificial constructs, then Great Britain could plausibly be regarded as an ‘invented nation’ superimposed on much older alignments and loyalties.9 What allowed Great Britain to emerge as an ‘artificial nation’ was a series of massive wars between 1689 and 1815 that enabled diverse inhabitants to focus on what they had in common rather than on what divided them, and forged an overseas empire from which all parts of Britain could secure real as well as psychic profits. From the late-eighteenth century to its dissolution after 1945, the Scots, Scots-Irish and Anglo-Irish in particular all played a part in its conquest, exploration and above all government, in numbers quite disproportionate to their domestic populations.10 In Great Britain, the English and Scots contrasted their common Protestantism with the Catholicism of continental Europe, particularly during the series of wars with Catholic France—the ‘Other’. Within Britain it was Catholics who were identified as having attempted to blow up Parliament and King James I in 1605; it had been a French Catholic Queen, Henrietta Maria, with interfering priests, who led King Charles I astray; and the Catholic King James II who attempted to usurp ancient English liberties.11 To understand manifestations of multi-layered national identities it is necessary to be aware, as Robbins is, that human beings differ widely in their ‘belongingness’, which may be limited

xii

to family and immediate locality or extended to region or nation. Most people belong to a plurality of communities, and these allegiances can conflict.12 Cohen explains how individuals within communities are themselves aware of belonging to different entities, and much of social life is involved with the consequences of ‘plural membership’. As local experience mediates national identity, so the elementary structures of belonging with the locality (family, neighbourhood, sect, friendship) mediate the experience of collectivity of community. ‘Belonging’, Cohen writes, ‘is the almost inexpressibly complex experience of culture’.13 Interpreting the concept of identity—in whatever form—involves an understanding that people categorise the social world in a variety of different ways so they might better deal with it, and an important part of people’s identity, their conception of the ‘self’, is linked into social category or group membership called the social identity. Social Identity Theory, originally formulated by Tajfel, is a general theory of group identity, exploring universal psychological principles which are presumed to lie behind all forms of group identity Social Identity Theory assumes that psychological elements are crucial in group behaviour. Identification is, at root, a form of categorisation. For groups to exist, individuals must categorise themselves in group terms. The theory stresses that categorisation is divisive, because categories segment the world. Social Identity Theory describes psychological features which are presumed to be universal and not linked to any particular sociohistorical contexts. Nations, properly speaking, might belong to the modern period, but ‘ingroups’ and ‘outgroups’, ‘groups’ and ‘group identities’, are to be found in all eras. Social Identity Theory recognises that there are different forms of group, such as caste, nation, religion, tribe and so on. Social Identity Theory assumes that individuals have multiple ways of describing and categorising themselves. In different contexts, different identities become ‘salient’. Hutnick claims that self-categorisations ‘act as “switches” that can turn on—or off— aspects of social identity’, as identities are used in ‘salient’ situations. The cues that elicit the switching of identities can be quite subtle and may not even be consciously registered. If the use of a particular identity is intermittent, nevertheless the identity is a constant latency.14 The key point here, for relevance to this study, is not that national consciousness is merely another form of identity—plainly its ability to inspire creative and destructive impulses on a mass scale demonstrates that it is not—but that human identity is by its nature multi-layered. Furthermore, it is often a mass emotional bond and therefore not prone to the nuances which social

xiii

scientists and historians attempt to ascribe to different political concepts. Identifying ‘nations’ is complicated by the use of terms ascribed to sub-divisions of the nation, such as ‘national identity’, ‘patriotism’ and ‘nationalism’. Viroli, for example, explains how in scholarly literature and common language, ‘love of country’ and ‘loyalty to the nation’, patriotism and nationalism, are used as synonyms. The language of patriotism has been used over the centuries to strengthen or invoke love of the political institutions and the way of life that sustain the common liberty of a people. Modern nationalism, on the other hand, was forged in lateeighteenth-century Europe to defend or reinforce the cultural, linguistic and ethnic oneness and homogeneity of a people. This does not mean that patriotism can neglect or despise the traditions of peoples, rather that the crucial distinction lies in the priority or the emphasis: for patriots the primary value is for the free life that institutions permit; for nationalists, the primary values are the spiritual and cultural unity of the people.15 However, Canovan notes that attempts to provide fundamental distinctions between patriotism and actively mobilised nationhood fail to acknowledge that the former is almost indistinguishable from the latter. The notion that patriotism is explicitly based on principles turns out to be just as particularistic as a more overtly national attachment. In fact, where principles do play a large part in the cement of a political community, it seems that they function not us by our forefathers. To suppose that shared principles on their just as ‘the true principles’ but as ‘our principles’, handed down to own would be enough to constitute a political community would be to miss ‘common history’ and ‘a sense of shared fate’. The patriot, in other words, is not dedicated to defend the liberty of just anyone, but specifically of his compatriots.16 Ignatieff defines the fusion of such patriotic and national sentiment as civic nationalism. Civic nationalism maintains that the nation should be composed of all those—regardless of race, colour, creed, gender, language or ethnicity—who subscribe to the nation’s political creed. This nationalism is called civic because it envisages the nation as a community of equal, rights-bearing citizens, united in patriotic attachment to a shared set of political practices and values. Some elements of this ideal were first achieved in Great Britain. By the mid-eighteenth century, Britain was already a nation-state composed of four ‘nations’—the Irish, Scots, Welsh and English—united by a civic rather than an ethnic definition of belonging, that is by a shared attachment to certain institutions: the Crown, Parliament and the rule of law. According to the civic nationalist creed, what holds a society together is not

xiv

common roots but law. By subscribing to a set of democratic procedures and values, individuals can reconcile their right to shape their own lives with their need to belong to a community. This in turn assumes that national belonging can be a form of rational attachment. Ethnic nationalism, in contrast, holds that an individual’s deepest attachments are inherited, not chosen. It is the national community which defines the individual, not the individuals who define the national community. Ethnic nationalism can also flourish within states which are formally committed to civic democracy.17 Heater explains that one form of citizenship is identity. It differs from others in two important regards. In the first place, the exercise of citizenship is crucial for the development of the individual’s moral maturity. The person grows as a social being: judgement requires thought; participation dispels inertia; and consideration of the common good nurtures altruism. A citizen is someone who has political freedom and responsibility. The second particular feature of citizen-identity is the way it overlays the other social identities the individual inevitably feels. A male Hindu of high-caste Indian origin living in London may think of himself as sexually, religiously, socially, racially and culturally different from a Roman Catholic working-class Scotswoman in Glasgow. But they are both British citizens. These other identity-feelings can often generate intense emotions; citizenship can help to satisfy the human need for identity without arousing the perils of such animosities. For, despite the persistence of second-class levels of treatment for many citizens, at least the accepted model is for the status to be egalitarian and all-embracing, not hierarchical and divisive. Citizenship is political identity par excellence; and by emphasising the political virtues of the responsible conciliation of conflicting interests, citizenship helps to tame the devisive passions of other identities.18 Citizenship in the modern state has been defined, by Barbalet, as a concept of status and a set of rights. Any infringement of a right will be perceived by those involved as a uniquely serious matter; directly associated with the idea that rights provide a minimum of social capacities is the notion that the violation of a right is sufficient justification for the use of force in correcting the situation, for this is the ultimate recourse of society in defending itself.19 In the early twentieth century, Britishness had come to embody many of these concepts. It encompassed a civic nationalism which evolved out of a civic patriotism, centred around the institutions of the Crown and Parliament, which was combined with a sense of shared historical experience centred around the expansion of the

xv

British Empire. The concept of the Crown was the key element in defining British nationality, not only within the United Kingdom, but throughout the British Empire as well. All executive power in Britain, and British overseas territories, whether regulated by statute or the prerogative—that is, what remained of the ancient customary or common law powers inherent in the Crown—were exercised in the Crown’s name, by its authority and under its direction and control.20 The Crown was an idea not a territory, the vagueness of the concept being helpful because it accommodated many different outlooks, devoid as it was of a territorial modifier. Historically, the domain of the Crown once referred to less than the United Kingdom, and in the days of Empire much more. In effect, the Crown was a ‘concept of indefinite domain’.21 Crown sovereignty was held to carry with it a uniform law of allegiance. The legal concept of British nationality has rested, historically, upon the concept of the relationship of the naturalborn British subject owing allegiance to the King’s person—all Britons within the British Empire having been born into subjection. Allegiance was originally an essentially personal tie, binding two individuals by mutual assurances of fidelity and protection; this had since evolved into a test of citizenship, a mode of ascertaining to which country one belonged, in which it was the duty of the citizen-subject to be faithful to the head of the nation.22 British subjectship developed from English law’s long-standing reliance on ius soli, the rule of birthplace, to determine who was a subject or citizen. For centuries people have become English by settlement or by birth in the territory; in England no element of culture, except a rudimentary language test, coloured the naturalisation process. From the Middle Ages until the middle of the twentieth century, the concept of ‘belonging’ was expressed in terms of being the king’s subject. Subjecthood signified a personal link. It was a vertical relationship between monarch and individual, not a horizontal one between members of a nation or citizens of a body politic. From this personal link, rights and obligations arose for each party. Originally, the allegiance of a subject served the practical end of self-defence and mutual protection in a physically insecure world. Among Celtic communities of the British Isles, and Anglo-Saxon England, personal loyalty to a king or chieftain as military leader required devotion, the sense of sacred duty, practical service, readiness to risk one’s own life and an idea of personal affection which all came together in fealty. The military feudalism, introduced by William the Conqueror, involved an oath of homage sworn by a man to his lord, in a solemn church ceremony, whereby a contract was agreed. But it was a private

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contract, and if one side broke it the other was released from its obligations. Under feudal law, a person born on that lord’s land was that lord’s subject and owed him allegiance; from the fact of birthplace arose rights and obligations on the part of both lord and subject. By the end of the thirteenth century, the primacy of determining who was the king’s subject had become established. Birth in the king’s ‘ligeance’ made a subject. ‘Ligeance’ had the sense of allegiance, and also of geographical tract. Land and loyalty went together unquestionably Those born outside the ligeance were born aliens.23 Allegiance was considered the work of the law of nature; the law of nature was the law of God and therefore it was believed to have already existed, and statutes and the decisions of judges merely declared it; they could not invent it. Because of the emphasis on land law, it was the feudal aspect of subjecthood, rather the status of those who owed allegiance to the king’s royal authority, that developed into a form of nationality It was taken for granted that everyone in the realm came under the authority of the king-as-king.24 The term ‘British nationality’, now commonly accepted, is of recent origin. Common-law writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries did not speak of nationality. The status of a ‘subject of the King of England’ was that from which modern British nationality sprang. The ‘Crown of Great Britain’, to which British subjects owe allegiance, came into existence in 1707, when the two distinct titles of the King of England and the King of Scotland were merged into one.25 From 1602 until 1707 England and Scotland had been two communities in allegiance to a King who held his Crown by two distinct titles, governed through two distinct executive bodies, and taxed and legislated through two distinct Parliaments. The two kingdoms were placed in the same allegiance by the accession of King James VI of Scotland to the English throne. It was held that Scotsmen born after James had become King of England, as King James I, were entitled to the rights and privileges of English subjects, being born in allegiance to the English King.26 Thus, the lack of a territorial limit to British subjectship was illustrated by the way in which a person could have been the citizen of a particular country, though by birth and parentage belonging to another, if both countries were in allegiance to the same king. For example, persons born in Scotland after King James VI of Scotland succeeded to the English Crown as King James I of England were deemed to have been born in the allegiance of the King of England and were citizens of both England and Scotland (Englishmen were likewise deemed to be

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Scottish citizens also). If, however, the Crowns were severed, the citizenship acquired could be lost. Thus Hanoverians born in Hanover while King William IV was King of Hanover were citizens of the United Kingdom, but they became aliens upon the succession of Queen Victoria.27 The result of the union of the Crowns of the United Kingdom and Hanover, in the same person, meant that those who were born subjects of a king who was at once King of Hanover and King of Great Britain and Ireland, were British subjects. At the death of King William IV his two crowns, according to the different laws of succession which obtained in the two countries, went to different successions: to Queen Victoria in the British Isles, and to the Duke of Cumberland in Hanover. The Hanoverian who was a British subject during the lifetime of King William IV was now an alien, as the Hanoverian heir was no longer British sovereign. He became an alien because the sovereign to whom he owed allegiance was now a foreign sovereign. The Crown had, by accident, been united in one person, but when the union of the two Crowns came to an end, the union of allegiance ceased too: and the allegiance which had come had been due to the King of the United Kingdom, who was not, and could not be by law, Queen of Hanover.28 In the case of Ireland, a legal case had decided in 1669 that Ireland was ‘dominion of the Crown of England’, and not of both Scotland and England, which were distinct kingdoms. Ireland being subordinate to England, the laws of England could bind and have effect there; but England and Scotland could only be united by a ‘Reciprocal Act of Parliament’.29 Allegiance was not confined to the British Isles. The English common law, upon which British subjectship and nationality was based, was deemed to have been carried to the King’s dominions beyond the United Kingdom, being based upon the vague attachment of English law to the persons of Englishmen, at least so long as they did not subject themselves to the law of another sovereign. This process was considered primarily personal, not territorial, and ‘as soon as the original settlers had reached the colony, their invisible and inescapable cargo of English law fell from their shoulders and attached itself to the soil on which they had stood’.30 Thus, any person born in the King’s dominions was considered to be a natural-born British subject; any person born beyond the limits of the King’s dominions was considered an alien. Loyalty to the Crown therefore enabled British nationality to be disseminated on a pan-continental scale. White colonists in the British Dominions, such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, saw no tension in being nationalists in their own countries and

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imperialists in a wider context, a state of consciousness which has been termed a ‘special ambiguity’.31 The unity of the British Empire was real, unlike the period 1714–1837 when Hanover was ruled by British kings but each state was a distinct national unit and the Crown of Hanover was not indissolubly linked with that of the United Kingdom, each being held on a separate tenure. In the case of the white settler colonies, there was no diversity in the tenure of the Crown, for the Dominions had never been wholly separate kingdoms.32 The Crown allowed British national identity to be elastic and to allow the development of multi-layered national identities. A multilayered British identity, such as Scots-Britishness, was possible because the United Kingdom was a composite of older nations, that is communities of people with a distinctive social identity and distinctive political institutions also; to describe the United Kingdom as a multi-national state was to call attention to those things that differentiated its parts.33 The manifestation of a homogeneous British nation was noticeable by its absence. In defining Scottishness, for example, one might make a distinction between national self-consciousness, the awareness of belonging to a Scottish nation, and nationalism, the desire for the Scottish national community alone to control the state. Scots identity was not automatically in opposition to British identity; British citizenship was understood to supplement the primary Scottish nationality.34 Welsh national consciousness, in the absence of any institutional basis—which Scotland retained—had long been less secure, relying upon linguistic and literary qualities in opposition to English cultural dominance.35 The determination of the English to maintain the power, independence and welfare of the British state they created and dominated has been shared by the majority of the peoples of Scotland, Wales and what became Northern Ireland.36 As part of this process, however, it has been suggested that England has virtually seceded from the original concept of Britishness, producing not a dual identity, as with ScotsBritishness, but a fused identity of Greater England, with England equalling Great Britain in the consciousness of the English.37 The nature of Britishness in the United Kingdom and the wider British Empire was flexible enough to accommodate other identities within it. Britishness was assimilative rather than exclusive.38 It allowed for a multitude of identities to develop under its umbrella, providing for different interpretations of Britishness, all defined by their own environmental influences. Britishness allowed an accommodation with other, older and

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newer, identities; but, like all forms of national identity it was not static.

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Chapter 1 National identity, Home Rule and the Ulster question

The Government of Ireland Bill In Ireland, constitutional theory and nationalist ideology met in the demesne of Irish self-government. The emergence of the homerule movement in the 1880s revealed the sectarian nature of Irish politics, particularly in the northern province of Ulster. Until this point, Ulster Protestant voters had been divided between the two major British political parties, the Conservatives and Liberals, while a small section of extreme loyalists identified with Orangism. Most Ulster Catholics, on the other hand, tended to support Charles Stewart Parnell’s Irish Parliamentary Party, commonly called the Irish Party, which in 1885 had seized seventeen of the province’s thirty-three seats at Westminster. The decision of the Prime Minister, W.E.Gladstone, to grant home rule led to the revival of the Orange Order, which had originally been formed in Armagh in 1795 against a background of sectarian faction—fighting. From the 1880s it formed a powerful cross-class alliance of Protestants who feared the implications of home rule.1 The first two Home Rule Bills, in 1886 and 1893, had been defeated in Parliament, and it was not until 1910 that the possibility of home rule returned. Following the 1910 general elections, Herbert Asquith’s Liberal Party relied upon the parliamentary support of Parnell’s successor, John Redmond, to secure a House of Commons majority After the passage of the 1911 Parliament Act, which restricted the ability of the House of Lords to reject Commons legislation, it appeared that the final obstacle to home rule had been removed. It now seemed that Redmond was to secure the goal which had eluded his predecessor. In 1912 the Liberal Government introduced the Government of Ireland Bill, commonly known as the Home Rule Bill, creating an Irish parliament within the United Kingdom. The Irish Parliament was to be bicameral consisting of, first, a forty-member Senate.

2 NATIONAL IDENTITY, HOME RULE AND ULSTER

Under the Bill as finally enacted, the first senators were to be nominated by the Lord Lieutenant, and afterwards to be elected, according to the principle of proportional representation, by the four provinces of Ireland—Ulster, Leinster, Munster and Connaught. There was also to be a House of Commons, consisting of 164 members elected on a constituency basis. Irish representation was to continue at Westminster, but was reduced from 108 to 42. The legislative powers of the Irish Parliament followed from a general grant to make laws for the ‘peace, order and good government’ of Ireland, subject to specified exceptions including defence and trade with any other place outside Ireland. Certain other matters were reserved from its powers, and retained by the Imperial Parliament at Westminster representing the whole of the United Kingdom, including the collection of taxes, the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and the Post Office, each of which was subject to special regulation—for example, the RIC was to be transferred from Westminster to the Irish Parliament after six years had expired from the passing of the Act. Clause 1(2) of the Home Rule Bill stated that: Notwithstanding the establishment of the Irish Parliament contained in this Act, the supreme power and authority of the Parliament of the United Kingdom shall remain unaffected and undiminished over all persons, matters and things within His Majesty’s Dominions. In legal theory the Imperial Parliament had legal sovereignty over all things in the British Empire, and all legislative bodies in that empire were subordinate to the British Parliament. Throughout the Empire the executive government, in its higher branches, was carried on in the name of the Crown through officers whose functions were exercised, directly or indirectly, on behalf of the Crown. There was thus in the Crown a formal expression of imperial unity, and allegiance to the Crown was a common tie between all British subjects in whatever part of the Empire they dwelt.2 In international law the British Empire formed a single unity, or realm, which was represented by the Imperial Crown acting on the advice of the cabinet of the United Kingdom, which was responsible to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Dominions were not sovereign states, and although they had developed self-government, granted through Acts of the British Parliament, the United Kingdom Parliament enjoyed overriding legal supremacy, exercised in particular in accordance with the provisions of the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865. Dominion

NATIONAL IDENTITY, HOME RULE AND ULSTER 3

parliamentary legislation was subject to British government disallowance, meaning the power of the sovereign, acting on the advice of United Kingdom ministers, to annul, within a specified period, an Act passed by a Dominion or colonial legislature, and assented by the Dominion Governor-General or Governor, who was the sovereign’s representative.3 In practice this was very rarely used. The legislative competence of the proposed Irish Parliament was defined in terms identical to those employed by Westminster with relation to its overseas territories. The Act of 1852, which granted a representative constitution to the colony of New Zealand, by its preamble gave the legislature the power to make laws for the ‘peace, order and good government’ of the colony. This phrase was repeated for the Canadian Federal Parliament in the British North America Act 1867, in the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 and the South Africa Act 1909.4 By the early years of the twentieth century the word ‘Dominion’, which had increasingly imported the idea of equality of status with the United Kingdom and hence of legislative independence of Westminster, was already being used to refer to these ‘colonies’. By the end of the Great War this colonial status was nothing more than a matter of form, which was to be confirmed by the Imperial Conference of 1926 when it declared that the United Kingdom and the Dominions were ‘autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in respect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations’.5 ‘Dominion status’ was the expression used to describe the constitutional—as distinct from the purely conventional or legal —positions of the five Dominions, or any one of them;6 indeed the Empire was, from the outset, spoken as something not possessing final form at any given point in time.7 In 1912 the precise nature of the relationship between Westminster and the status of the Dominion Parliaments, and consequently the proposed Irish Parliament, was surrounded in ambiguity, although the Imperial Parliament was legally supreme. It was not clear that a subordinate Irish Parliament would ultimately regard itself as such, or if it did, whether it would content itself with that status. Irish unionism and British nationality Within Ireland the main opposition to home rule came from the predominantly Protestant population, which wished Ireland to be


governed by the Imperial Parliament as it had been since the Act of Union. Politically, the Irish Unionist Party could be distinguished between those living in southern Ireland in the Leinster, Munster and Connaught provinces, and those in Ulster, divided from their southern brethren by class rather than geography.8 The southern provinces were predominantly an agricultural society in which many prominent Southern Unionists were large landowners; in contrast, north-east Ulster, industrialised and export-oriented, accelerated the political strength of the Belfast manufacturing classes, who held sway over a Protestant working class divided into a pliant labour aristocracy, centred on the shipyards.9 The nationalistunionist communal divide was widely considered by contemporaries to occur along religious lines, with the former predominantly Roman Catholic and the latter Protestant; numerically, in Ulster in 1911 there were 890,880 Protestants out of a population of 1,581,969; in the southern provinces there were only 256,699 Protestants scattered among 2,551,854 Roman Catholics.10 The focus of Protestant opposition was the Irish Unionist Party, led by Sir Edward Carson. Carson was born in Dublin and was a member of the Church of Ireland; his main career was law, coming to prominence in Ireland as a crown prosecutor. From 1910 Carson was leader of the Irish Unionist Party, spearheading the anti-home rule campaign. In this he worked closely with James Craig, born in the Belfast suburb of Sydenham, a Presbyterian and Orangeman. From 1911, as a Home Rule Bill establishing a parliament for the whole of Ireland within the United Kingdom made its passage through the British Parliament, Ulster Unionists began to form themselves into an armed militia, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), whose membership was estimated by 1912 to be 100,000. The Ulster Unionist Council (UUC) provided the central structures of Unionist defiance, and plans for a provisional government, should home rule come into force, were laid down and endorsed at a meeting of the UUC in September 1912. The prospect of home rule for Ireland focused Unionist attention on the nature of the relationship between allegiance and national identity in the British Empire. In Unionist Ireland, Britishness and Irishness were in a constant state of flux. The Irish unionist community possessed a dual British-Irish identity, the primacy of Britishness and Irishness for the individual depending upon the social and political context in which each was employed. For Irish Unionists the status of British subjectship was far more than a legal definition. It contained a deep emotional tie to the notion of a Britishness based upon a civic nationalism which


married the state with national consciousness, viewing the British people as a community bound together by a common historical experience and mission, possessing a unique genius for the creation and preservation of constitutional liberty. In terms of identity there were two evident strands within Irish Unionist concepts of Britishness. The first was a British imperial patriotism which placed a greater emphasis on Irishness as a ‘national’ identity and Britishness as an ‘imperial’ identity. This did not automatically mean that the Irish identity would be the primary one, for imperial patriotism might easily provide the greater emotional attachment for an individual. The question as to whether the growing nationalisms in the white settler British Dominions could be accommodated within the British Empire was a problem which alarmed many early-twentieth-century British imperialists. A.J.Balfour, a former Chief Secretary for Ireland, had defined the problem as how to reconcile the principle of nationality, by which he meant the feeling of nationality or the consciousness of a separate history which had been developing among the white settlers in the British Dominions, with an imperial patriotism, not more ardent, but larger in scope, which included not only Great Britain but the whole of the Empire. ‘It is only by following the example that we have set that the future of this Empire can be made absolutely secure’, Balfour concluded: A Canadian, an Australian, a New Zealander, a citizen of South Africa…must have, and they will have, their own feelings of separate nationality. The Canadian is a Canadian. He wants, and ought to want to feel that Canada has its own principles of development and its own future…. Do not let us discourage this feeling of local patriotism.11 In Ireland this perception was summed up by ‘An Ulster Imperialist’, in the Irish Review of March 1911, who attempted to find a linkage between Irishness on the one hand and Britishness on the other. ‘Ulster Imperialist’ highlighted the differences between the various territorial communities which made up the British Empire, and sought to define the meaning of the words ‘Imperialism’ and ‘Nationalism’ and to separate their real, permanent implication from the temporary accidents of existing party politics. Taking the ‘Least Common Denominator as being local patriotism’, ‘Ulster Imperialist’ linked them up with ‘other forms of the same sentiment’ setting out the four most common and best understood varieties of local patriotism in a series comprising parochialism, provincialism, nationalism, and imperialism.


‘Ulster Imperialist’ believed that esprit de corps lay at the root of all human civilisation, as it grew from the family to the tribe, from the tribe to the clan, and so forth. As soon as a man had got beyond mere individual selfishness he found himself taking an interest in the affairs of his own district. To call the result ‘parochialism’ was to use a rather deprecatory phrase for a feeling of ‘public spirit’ of the same kind as, but different in degree from, ‘imperialism’. The first extension of the lowest form of local patriotism could be called ‘provincialism’. From this standpoint Edinburgh looked down upon Glasgow as vulgar, while Glasgow returned the compliment by disparaging an effete Edinburgh; of course, wrote ‘Ulster Imperialist’, this mutual contempt really arose because each city was immensely proud of itself. Similarly, Ulster was convinced that she was the first province in the British Empire, while Leinster, in turn, derided Ulster as an upstart. The second extension of local patriotism, arising out of ‘provincialism’, was ‘Nationalism’. The fusing of parishes made a province, the fusing of provinces a nation. Nationalism arose from a welding of smaller identities, each distinct as long as it was considered under any of the previous headings. Influenced by nationalism, Edinburgh and Glasgow fused, and joined in other fusions—of the Highlands and Lowlands for instance—to form one Scottish Nation. Travelling still further ‘Ulster Imperialist’ arrived at ‘Imperialism’: the next and most natural extension of esprit de corps, but upon a much larger scale. Genuine imperialism was based upon the fusing of separate nations without the loss of their national identity, just as provincialism was a wedding of separate and separable parochialisms. This imperial idea was new, a vision of a mighty brotherhood, sentiment and commerce; the same kind of vision, claimed the author, that Alfred the Great saw when he began to build England out of the heptarchy in the ninth century, or that Brian Boru [sic] saw in tenth-century Ireland. In modern times this was called imperialism and was so new and large that many people failed to understand it. ‘Ulster Imperialist’ considered one cardinal mistake of the English to be the way that they often thought and talked of the United Kingdom and the British Empire as if these were actually the English Kingdom and the English Empire. Worse still, they constantly acted upon that same assumption and so rode rough-shod over feelings of local patriotism that demanded their respect and encouragement if the Empire was to be one in something more than name. Personally, the author wrote:


from the viewpoint of one who consciously adopts all the four varieties of local patriotisms. I am Parochial (literally, being a vestryman as well as a treasurer of our local parish!); I am Provincial, being directly interested in the development of commerce and agriculture in Ulster; I am National, in that I am an Irishman and proud of it, anxious to help Ireland as far as lies within my power…. I am Imperial, glad of my small share in the proudest boast the world has ever heard—‘Civis Britannicus sum’—mark the phrase: it is ‘Britannicus’ not ‘Anglicanus’. Up to this point, ‘Ulster Imperialist’ had used the words ‘nationality’ and ‘nationalism’ in their ‘real’ sense, but he was also anxious to illustrate how widely they differed from political meanings. An Orangeman, for instance, who called any man in Ireland a ‘Nationalist’ usually implied that his opponent approved of dynamite and murder as political arguments; almost everyone understood the term to be synonymous with home rule, because that movement was organised by politicians who had annexed the term ‘Nationalist’. One might believe home rule to be bad or good, but, argued ‘Ulster Imperialist’, it had nothing to do with the existence of nationality. ‘Real Nationalism and political Nationalism’ were two entirely different things, and one had to try and disentangle the permanent meaning from the temporary term; the only way to do this was to analyse the context: Suppose a speaker announces—‘I am an Irish Nationalist, and therefore I vote for the Union’. Politically, the phrase has no meaning; really it conveys—‘I am an Irishman, and I desire the welfare of the old country: I believe the Union is beneficial to the Irish Nation, and therefore I vote for it’…. Contrast this now with another imaginary speaker, who states—‘I am an Irish Nationalist, and therefore I hate all Irish Unionists’. Politically the meaning is obvious, but translate the sentence in terms of permanent Nationalism, and every vestige of meaning disappears.12 Alongside this existed a second expression of Britishness which emphasised the existence of a British nation extending from the British Isles and throughout the British Empire. This view was summed up by Lord Robert Cecil in October 1910 when he stated that ‘If we believe in anything, it is that under the British Crown, though there are many races, there is but one nationality’. Cecil reflected a view widely held by many British and Irish Unionists that


the British nation formed one entity, extending throughout the entire Empire. This mirrored an interpretation of Britishness popularised by Victorian imperial apologists such as John Robert Seeley, Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, who had claimed that it was ‘a striking characteristic of Greater Britain [the Empire] that…it is an extension of the English nationality’ consisting of ‘those tens of millions of Englishmen who live outside of the British Islands…of our own blood, and are themselves united with us by the strongest tie’.13 In Ireland this may be represented as an Irish patriotism co-existing with a British nationalism. As one Irish Unionist explained in 1912: some of the writers on the subject use the word ‘Nationalist’ and its correlatives in a very misleading way. A Nationalist, as the term is used, is a man who holds that the Irish are, or ought to be, a nation distinct from the inhabitants of the adjacent island. The Unionist who thinks that the inhabitants of the two islands should be regarded as forming a single nation is, I think the true Nationalist. The man who would cut up this population into sections, and treat the English, the Scotch, the Irish and the Welsh as many distinct nations is rather a Provincialist, and aims not at union but at separation. He may be called an English Nationalist, a Scottish Nationalist, an Irish Nationalist or a Welsh Nationalist according to the district where he desires to erect a nation…. But the name of Nationalist properly belongs to the man who recognises but one nation, and wishes to keep that nation whole and unimpaired. And I think the majority of Unionists are of this opinion.14 Unionists such as these equated the concept of the nation with the state. This form of civic state nationalism rested heavily upon membership of a polity in which common citizenship rights were extended to all the state’s citizens, and was centred on the institutions of the Crown and Parliament. This, however, did not preclude a deep psychological attachment to the state which extended beyond the political constitution of the body politic to the community of British subjects psychologically united to that politic. Sir Edward Carson had noted how Nationalists expressed faith in the great changes which would remove Ulster’s apprehensions when home rule became a fact; but, said Carson, Nationalists should remember that ‘what was offered to the North was outraging in every respect the sentiment that binds them to this country [Great Britain]… [and] to each other’.15 To the


Nationalist argument that Unionist opposition to Irish selfgovernment was based upon a fear that they would lose their liberty, economic position and religious rights, Ronald McNeill, an Ulsterman representing Cheltham in the Imperial Parliament, replied that deeper than these factors was the fact that home rule was the ‘transference of their allegiance, a degradation of their position’ within the United Kingdom. ‘It is that degradation of that position’ he continued, ‘which they [Unionists] resent and which they will not allow to be perpetrated if they can help it; altogether independent of what may or may not be done in the way of specific legislation [in a home rule parliament] to their disadvantage’.16 Carson argued that it was no answer to say to Unionists ‘You are all Irishmen, go and live together’ with Nationalists; it was absurd, he said, because ‘We consider that we are satisfied that we are one nationality with Great Britain, and we are satisfied to be’.17 Carson claimed ‘England never felt that she was not a nation because there were in the House of Commons Scottish, Irish and Welsh representatives’,18 seeing his Irishness in unity with ‘the great English nation and the great Scottish nation, and the great nations of Great Britain, of whom we claim to be a part’.19 Unionists feared home rule because, as the Belfast News-Letter explained, by contrasting self-government in South Africa with Ireland, the four colonies there that had come together into the Union of South Africa had the only link of a common nationality and sovereign; but an Irish parliament would ‘repudiate the bond of a common nationality with Great Britain, and would be supported in that repudiation by the majority of the Irish people’.20 William Moore, MP for North Armagh, rejected the Irish Nationalist case by declaring: It is easy to say that there are not two nations [in Ireland], but that depends upon what you mean by the expression ‘nation’. It is very easy to say that such and such a people are a nation if they have a definite and defined geographical boundary, but there are other tests of nations. A very good test of a nation in Ireland is the number of people who, if the worst came to the worst are willing to fight for their liberty and their religion…in the province of Ulster you will find a very large proportion of able-bodied men, fully one million Protestants, prepared to fight for their liberty. That is good enough, whether you think them a nation or not. There are several tests of a nation. First there is the test of religious difference…generally…a great difference between people….


But more than that, they are divided by historical distinctions and the country of their origin. What is their [Ulster Protestant] history? Practically every one of them…comes from Scotland and England…. It cannot be said that when they landed they were Irish. You will find the Scotch dialect still spoken in the counties of Antrim and Down, and the Scotch traditions preserved there. And you will find the purest English spoken in Antrim and Armagh. Their ideals are the ideals of the whole British nation. They are not Irish in that sense and England and Scotland form part of their ideals. Their ideals are Imperial ideals…we have been abused…as West Britons. We are West Britons…we regard the term Briton as the emblem of liberty. We have prospered under it and we will take nothing less. And instead of the sentimental humbug about Ireland’s well-being…we maintain our own ideals because we are connected with Britain by ties of blood…religion and history; and we object to being swallowed up in the claim that…we should come into his [Redmond’s] fold because we live in Ireland.21 Co-existing with this Britishness was a positive identification with Irishness. As the Lord Primate, Dr Crozier, argued at the 1912 General Synod of the Church of Ireland: I absolutely deny the right of any of my fellow-countrymen the exclusive right to be called patriots. Ireland is as dear to us members of the Church of Ireland as to the so-called Nationalists. Irish interests are as much our care, Irish prosperity is to us at least as precious (Applause). Speaking therefore as one who loves his country and his fellowcountrymen of all creeds and classes, I would very heartily put before you and before any of my countrymen…these important considerations (1) There is a popular clap-trap cry which means so little, or may mean so much—the cry of ‘Ireland a nation once again’. But when we come to examine it in practice, how utterly absurd it is! Ireland never was a nation, and never can become a nation, without an army… navy…with no… or limited control over the Excise and Customs…. (2)…. The real fact is that we share in common a great world-wide dominion, and we are justly proud in the position we occupy in directing the destinies of millions of our fellow-subjects…. Our King and Parliament rule over about one-fourth of the entire population of the world…. This is the heritage into which we have been born—freemen of the


greatest empire on which the sun has ever shone and with a great price we have helped to win this freedom (Applause). Wherever the flag of Great Britain and Ireland waves, there Irishmen have won honour and fame for their native land. The mention of India recalls what the Empire owes to Irishmen like Gough… Napier… Lawerence and Roberts, or to statesmen like Nicolson… Montgomery… Lord Mayo and Lord Dufferin (Applause). Irish soldiers have proved their dauntless courage at Tartan Hill, at the Tugels, in Ladysmith or Mafeking, while men steeped to the hips in treason [Nationalists] howled in triumph at their death, and have since erected statutes to the traitors who fought against them (Hear, hear). Shall we surrender all this national greatness in order to become a petty province of England and Scotland, a humble vassal of Great Britain…a colony of the Imperial Crown?22 Unionists, such as John Chambers, MP for South Belfast, accused Nationalists of denying them the right to be Irish;23 this was a qualified Irishness though, for, as the Belfast News-Letter admitted, the existence of Irish nationality, by which it meant an Irish political community separate from the British political community, would be an admission that Irish national government had to be conceded.24 This was the crucial distinction between Irish Unionists and Nationalists in defining their Irishness. The Unionist claim to be descended from settlers constituting a different ethnic origin meant that their expression of Irishness was territorial, that they were Irish by fact of their having been born on the island of Ireland. This can be described as akin to an identification with a semi-regional Irish identity. The sense of imagined political community was reserved for the people of the entire United Kingdom. The impulse of Lord Lansdowne, the leader of Southern Unionism in the House of Lords, was to see the ‘Irish nation one and undivided, and to see that one and undivided nation remain under the British flag’.25 Lord Barrymore, chairman of the Southern-based Irish Unionist Alliance, saw no reason why Ireland could not be a nation in the ‘same way that Scotland was and continued to be a nation’ under the Union.26 Even in the north-east of Ireland there was little evidence that an Ulster consciousness among Protestants there had evolved into a distinctive national consciousness to rival that of Irishness or Britishness. There was, however, an awareness that Ulster Protestants constituted a distinct community within Ireland and the British Isles, coupled with a belief that Ireland was divided along racial or ethnic lines. Asking ‘What is Ulster?’ Andrew


Horner, MP for South Tyrone, answered ‘It is a people not a place. We are a nation sprung from British stock, different in origin, in religion, in character and habits, in every ideal of life [to Irish Nationalists]…. But we love our country just as much as they [Nationalists]do’. As Horner explained: We hear a great deal of the false sentiment of Ireland a Nation. There never was an Irish Nation. We Ulstermen also have sentiment, but it is pride in the greatness of British Imperial citizenship—pride in the share we have taken in peace and war, in science and art, in Government and colonisation, in everything that went to the building of this Empire—pride in the memories of great deeds done by our forefathers, both for and against the British Government.27 The liberal Unionist, Thomas Sinclair, writing in 1912, claimed there had never been a homogeneous Irish nation as Irish Nationalists claimed. On the contrary, Ireland ‘consists of two nations. These two nations are so utterly distinct in their racial characteristics, in their practical ideals, in their religious sanctions, and in their sense of civic and national responsibility’ that they could not live harmoniously side by side unless under the evenhanded control of a ‘just’ central authority, which he defined as the Imperial Parliament. Ireland, he believed, consisted of two units ‘which owe their distinctive existence, not to geographical boundaries, but to inherent and ineradicable endowments of character and aims’, and if Nationalist Ireland claimed to choose its own particular relation to the British Constitution, the same right undoubtedly belonged to the Unionist unit.28 However, it should also be noted that many Unionists, particularly those outside Ulster, rejected the ‘two nation’ theory, emphasising the primacy of an Irish national identity within a Britannic patriotism. For example, the Irish Times in 1912 refuted those Unionists who claimed that there were two nations in Ireland, arguing that there was one Irish nation, and although on the home rule question the nation was divided against itself yet the ‘spirit of our nationhood can and ought to be satisfied with Ireland’s present position in the Union and…Empire’.29 Where nearly all Irish Unionists united was in their intense hostility to the cultural nationalism of the Gaelic Revival, associated with the Sinn Fein movement. Ronald McNeill claimed, in 1912, that the Gaelic Revival, by emphasising the Irish language and customs in place of the English language and civilisation, would be nothing more than an ‘amicable and harmless lunacy’


were it not for the fact that behind it was a symptom of the ‘desire for a separate and distinct nationality in Ireland’. McNeill was not in any way condemning the study of the Irish language by scholars or antiquarians, which was a totally different thing from trying to impose it as an ‘unnatural exotic study’ upon the bulk of the Irish population. McNeill liked to think that every Irishman was steeped in the spirit of Irish nationality, as Sir Walter Scott had been in the spirit of Scots nationality, provided they combined that spirit with the robust good sense of Scott, who exhibited the romantic, literary and sentimental side of Scottishness with his adherence to the House of Hanover. McNeill noted that a similar Sinn Fein-type process had been at work in Bohemia, where the Czech language was revived, as in Ireland, by a small group of intellectuals or literary men, and forced upon the people for the political purpose of stimulating a separate nationality.30 He echoed fears of the poten tial use of language for the allocation of jobs in a future Irish government’s public departments, which was ‘entirely foreign to the country, and foreign to every part of the Empire’.31 Similarly, William Moore thought that the Gaelic Revival was a part of a political propaganda for the purposes of cutting the ‘last link and driving everything that is British and Imperial out of the country’. The Irish language was to be run in competition with English, which the unionist community spoke and which their fathers before them spoke; indeed Moore supposed that he, like hundreds or thousands of others, never had any ancestors from England or the Scottish Lowlands that spoke a word of Irish.32 As James Craig speculated, a Gaelic Ireland would be cut off from all forms of intercourse and sympathy which knitted not only the United Kingdom, but also the British Empire together.33 The Irish Times summed up Unionist opposition to this definition of Irishness when it explained that the Irish term ‘Sassanach’ was felt by many Unionists to apply to Irish Protestants as well as Englishmen.34 It asked: What is the contest between ‘Irish Ireland’ and ‘English Ireland’…. It is a thing out of which all reality went one hundred and fifty years ago. Will the ‘imitation Englishman’, of an ancestry that had no Irish, become a good Irishman merely because he sets to and learns the language? One might as well say he would become a good Frenchman by learning French. It is, indeed, fit and proper that such inhabitants as pretend to culture shall…study [it] in its rightful position…. But when Gaelic Leaguers raise the race distinction…[they]


provoke those in this country who have reason to hold English tradition…character…and…names in respect.35 The determination of the Irish Unionists, and in particular those in Ulster, to remain a part of the United Kingdom was demonstrated in the lengths to which they organised for civil war in Ireland. The concept of loyalist rebellion in Ireland actively demonstrated the psychological integration of Ulster Unionists into the concept of Britishness, rather than a conditional attachment to it. In September 1912, on Ulster Day, 218,206 Ulstermen signed an ‘Ulster Covenant’—and 228,991 Ulsterwomen a parallel document of support—declaring: Being convinced in our consciences that Home Rule would be disastrous to the well-being of Ulster as well as the whole of Ireland, subversive of our civil and religious freedom, destructive of our citizenship, and perilous to the unity of the Empire, we…men of Ulster, loyal subjects of His Gracious Majesty King George V…do hereby pledge ourselves in solemn Covenant throughout this time of threatened calamity to stand by one another in defending ourselves and our children our cherished position of equal citizenship in the United Kingdom, and in using all means which may be found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament Ireland…. God save the King.36 Charles Craig, MP for South Antrim, in claiming that the Imperial Parliament had no right to expel Ulster Unionists from their place within the British nation, argued that: There has been a good deal of talk about nationality…and bringing together two peoples who ought to have been one. All that is absolutely wasted upon me. I am quite content to be as I am. My fellow-countrymen in Ulster are proud to be Ulstermen; they are proud too, to be members of the great British Empire. We do not want any change; we say in the first place, you have no right to thrust us out from union with this country [Great Britain]. Even the most extreme will admit you [the Government and the Nationalists] have no right to say that we no longer belong to Great Britain.37 The News-Letter believed that in a free country men still refused to bend to the autocracy of a monarch or a cabinet. The former, it argued, held the high place which Providence had committed to


his charge, that he might govern his people righteously; to the latter, office was entrusted so that they might work the people’s will for the welfare of all, and not bargain away the splendid heritage of the past at the price of a faction’s vote.38 Carson had defined the Unionist duty, as citizens, as to obey the law; but there was also a correlative duty on government not to tamper with the rights of citizenship, for the subversion of political status, inherited as a birthright, was not government, but revolution.39 He declared that ‘If it be treason to love your King, to try to save your Constitution, to preserve your birthright, and your civil and religious liberty, then I glory in being a traitor’.40 As the Reverend C.Cullimore pointed out, the unionist community’s ancestors had put King William on the throne and made Ireland ‘the turning point in the history of the British Empire, and it is not too much to say that Ireland, England, the whole British Empire is a debtor to Derry’,41 while the News-Letter observed how the Battle of the Boyne stood for a ‘great national struggle upon the success of which were based the civil and religious liberties, which not only we in Ireland, but the people of Great Britain, now enjoy’.42 Unionists perceived their membership within the United Kingdom as an inalienable and inherited right, which no government had the authority to cast away. The News-Letter explained how: Unionists held…that their claim to remain under…the Imperial Parliament is an inalienable right of their citizenship which no Government of any time has the right to deprive them of. There need be no mistake about this, it is the position which Ulster has taken up all along; it is the heart and the essence of what has come to be called the Ulster Question. It goes deeper and further than any question of what Party is in power…. It is indeed fundamental, for it goes right down to the principle of nationhood. In other words, Ulster’s resistance to Home Rule is founded upon recognition of and loyalty to the nationhood of the United Kingdom. Our loyalty to that nationhood we hold in common with people of England… Scotland and Wales, and it cannot be denied that Ulster has given the best of her sons to its service. It makes us none the less patriotic Irishmen any more than it does Englishmen and Scotsmen to their countries. Can the same be said for Irish Nationalists? Most certainly it cannot. Their conception of nationality is opposed to ours both in object and in spirit; it is confined to Ireland alone, and it is hostile to the unity of the Kingdom, therefore it is hostile to the conception of nationhood to which we are loyal. Therein lies


the right of Ulster to resist…since it would be a severance against their will of a loyal people from their nationhood, which no Government has the right to do.43 Irish Unionists rejected the assurances of the Irish Party that home rule would be the final Nationalist demand, fearing that the concession of an Irish parliament would be the first step in the ultimate secession of Ireland from the British Empire, and the breaking their allegiance with the King which would deprive them of their status as British subjects. Unionists were concerned about the nature of a grant of general power, by the Imperial Parliament, to an Irish parliament which would, they feared, open the possibility of Dominion-style independence from Westminster. Ronald McNeill noted that an unwritten constitution, such as Britain’s, contained a great number of rights and powers which had ceased to be practically operative, but which had not been specifically repealed by Act of Parliament: for example, the inherent power of parliamentary supremacy over the American colonies continued to reside in the Imperial Parliament, under Lord North during the American War of Independence, but had little practical effect. The Solicitor-General had aroused Unionist fears by stating that the degree of independence to be set up in a subordinate Irish parliament did not depend upon any specific instrument or Act of the Imperial Parliament, but grew, over time, by development and evolution, as had been the case for all the self-governing Dominion Parliaments. This alarmed Unionists, for while the Canadian Parliament’s powers were originally derived from an Act of the Imperial Parliament, they pointed out that the Imperial Parliament would not dare interfere in the affairs of that legally subordinate legislature. In Canada it was the central Canadian Parliament which had the power to overrule the Canadian provincial parliaments, and this is what Irish Unionists wished to see with regard to an Irish parliament—a real ability for the Imperial Parliament to overrule an Irish parliament. Irish Unionists feared that the proposed Irish Parliament would be equal to the Imperial Parliament, as they considered the Canadian Parliament to be, despite the alleged legal supremacy of the Imperial Parliament over it.44 Consequently, Sir Edward Carson warned that even if the words ‘subordinate Parliament’ were inserted into the Home Rule Bill, the Irish Parliament would not consider itself subordinate.45 To illustrate this the News-Letter recalled how, in South Africa, the Natal Government had demonstrated the worthlessness of the Imperial Parliament’s supremacy when, as the former prepared to


execute a group of natives, the Imperial Government at Westminster interfered, resulting in the resignation of the Natal Government. The Imperial Government was forced to back down and the News-Letter concluded that if the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament could not save the Natal natives’ lives, what reason was there to suppose that it could save Irish Protestant lives, on the grounds that a legal supremacy that could not be enforced was no protection at all.46 Irish Unionists further feared that a home rule parliament would produce a confessional, Roman Catholic state. Again, the role of the Crown was central. The Act of Settlement 1700 provided that the holder of the Crown had to be a Protestant and could not marry a Catholic. Presbyterianism—the denomination of the majority of Ulster Protestants—and Roman Catholicism represented an ideological schism within Christianity of fundamental proportions. In particular, the sacramental role of the priest was seen by Presbyterians as hindering the right of individuals to approach God directly, by controlling access to religious knowledge, and exerting a powerful influence over political institutions on the society in which it operated.47 For Irish Unionists this fear was confirmed by the considerable involvement of Catholic priests in local Nationalist politics before the 1912–14 home rule crisis.48 As James Craig wrote ‘At every stage in life from the cradle to the grave the Roman Catholic Church intervenes, exhorting and commanding her adherents to have no intercourse with Protestants…. Ireland was the most priest-ridden country in the world’.49 The Reverend Samuel Prenter, a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, argued in 1912 that: The contention of the Irish Protestants is that neither their will nor their religious liberties would be safe in the custody of Rome. In an Irish Parliament civil allegiance to the Holy See would be the test of membership, and would make every Roman Catholic member a civil servant of the Vatican. That Parliament would be compelled to carry out the behests of the Church. The Church…claims to be above Civil Law, and the right to enforce Canon Law whenever she is able.50 This theological controversy manifested itself in the realm of home rule politics with the pronouncement of the Papal decree Ne temere in 1908, which declared that mixed Protestant-Catholic marriages not celebrated before a Catholic priest were invalid. There was a public outcry in Ireland when, in 1910, Alexander


McCann, a Catholic married to a Presbyterian in a Presbyterian church, was informed by a priest that his marriage was invalid. When his wife refused to go through a Catholic ceremony McCann left her, and their two children disappeared.51 The ‘McCann Case’ appeared to confirm Protestant fears of Catholic religious loyalty to a foreign power. Constitutional Irish nationalism and the British Empire Throughout the 1890s and 1900s, John Redmond, as leader of the Irish Party, had adopted a conciliatory tone towards the Irish unionist community. He was initially very reluctant to rely on the British state to pressure that community into line, and gave primacy to resolving Ireland’s internal divisions. In 1898 he declared ‘What has been the real stumbling block in the way of the English people granting us Home Rule? It has been the fact that Ireland herself has been divided upon this question of Home Rule into two camps, and that many thousands of the Irish people have held aloof from the national movement’. But, in 1910, Redmond abandoned this principle in frustration, and gave primacy to a policy of gaining the support of the British state for home rule.52 He was assisted in this enterprise by his two most senior colleagues, John Dillon, a veteran home ruler who represented East Mayo, and the rising star of the home rule movement, Joseph Devlin who, from 1904 until 1916, dominated Nationalist politics in Ulster. Devlin’s political rise was closely associated with the revival of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a Catholic secret society, which he converted into a personal power base within the home rule movement after 1905. All Irish Nationalists saw in the island of Ireland, because of its distinctiveness, the thought of the ‘homeland’, a discrete geographical entity.53 According to Redmond, the case for home rule was both a sentimental and a practical one. Referring to the former, he declared that ‘Ireland is not a British province or an English shire, but a nation, with a strongly marked individuality, differentiating it from England, Scotland, or Wales…[which is an] impossibility to suppress or…ignore’.54 Jeremiah MacVeigh, MP for South Down, explained how ‘Nationality may be only a sentiment, but sentiment rules the world…. The impulse of Nationality comes from higher than earthly powers, and is indestmctible’.55 Redmond shared the view of Nationalists throughout Ireland that the ‘spirit of ascendancy’ was the core of Unionist resistance to home rule. This allowed Nationalists to declare, as Redmond did, that there


was ‘no Ulster question’.56 Protestant ascendancy over Catholics in Ireland, argued John Dillon, ‘is the spirit of Ulster Unionism. They want to be top dog’.57 To the Unionist claim for self-determination for ‘Protestant Ulster’, that the four predominantly Protestant counties of Armagh, Antrim, Down and Londonderry, should be excluded from the jurisdiction of a home rule parliament, Redmond answered that the argument could not hold good unless it was admitted that the four counties formed a separate nationality from the rest of Ireland. If they were to be logical in exception, continued Redmond, Belfast should be excluded alone; but in that case, what was to be done about the 100,000 members of the nationalist community in Belfast—were they to have separate treatment inside Belfast? For Redmond, the whole island of Ireland constituted the unit of national self-determination. ‘We claim’, explained Redmond, ‘that Ireland is a nation, made up of many races…. We are not dealing with the case of a few counties of Britain that happen to be separated from this island [Great Britain] by a few miles of water…. This idea of two nations in Ireland is to us revolting and hateful. The idea of us agreeing to the partition of our nation is unthinkable…and we would resist most violently as far as it is within our power to do so’.58 Defining Ireland’s future position within the British Empire, Redmond considered Arthur Balfour’s thoughts on the desirability of national sentiment in the self-governing Dominions co-existing with a wider imperial patriotism as ‘a precise summary…of our [Nationalist] ideals’.59 The result of home rule, in the words of Canon Murphy, a prominent Redmond supporter, would be to ‘strengthen the tie between England and Ireland, to make the Union a real Union and not the sham Union that it has been up to the present time. The tie between our country and England up to the present has been the tie of the handcuff’.60 Redmond pointed out that Parnell had accepted that under an Irish parliament Irishmen would continue to be subjects of the United Kingdom. The British monarch would continue to be Ireland’s monarch—the link that would still attach Ireland to Great Britain—and peace would be established when Ireland was treated as a nation, or at least as a free colony like the other Dominions.61 To accommodate the unionist community’s loyalty to King and Empire, Willie Redmond, MP for East Clare and John Redmond’s brother, argued that even in the bitterest times of Nationalist agitation the Irish people had not been disloyal to the Crown. The Crown had, on certain occasions, he explained, not been presented with addresses or approached in the same manner as in Britain because it had been found that whenever loyalty was


expressed to the throne it was unscrupulously and unfairly used as a British argument that the Irish were so contented that they did not really want home rule. He argued that whatever lingering disaffection and disloyalty there might be in Ireland would entirely disappear as a result of home rule.62 John Redmond described the Unionist Party’s charge that Nationalists were inherently disloyal to the Crown and Empire as the most dishonest and ridiculous of all cries. Redmond defined loyalty as loyalty to one’s motherland, to a free constitution; to a government which protected industry, property, lives and liberty; to a monarchy which was the guarantee of such a constitution and government; and to a sovereign who, in his person, was its head and representative. Redmond asked if Englishmen remembered Ireland’s past suffering through its loyalty to British sovereigns? Under King James I, the Catholic Irish fully submitted to the ‘Gaelic King’ who came to the English throne; they were rewarded by ‘persecution, proscription, and whole-sale plunder’. When his son, King Charles I, came to the throne, English and Scottish disaffection drove the King from the throne and saw him beheaded; Catholic Irishmen did not rebel, but took to the field for him, and as a result, suffered slaughter and plunder. When King James II succeeded to the throne, again it was the English who rebelled and the Catholic Irish who stood loyal, once more suffering the penalty of confiscation and persecution.63 Replying to the Unionist inquiry as to why Irish patriotism had not developed in the same manner within the Union as Scotland’s had, Redmond answered that Scotland, in contrast to Ireland, had been dealt with in a spirit of reasoned consideration. When the Scottish and English Crowns were united under the Stuarts, Scotland provided the monarch; in Ireland, Britain was engaging in an attempt to extirpate all traces of the old kingly houses, and even of the people themselves.64 The union of the Scottish and English Parliaments in 1707 was, Redmond said, a treaty freely made between two independent states. Scotland was not excluded from English colonial trade, while Ireland, after the Anglo-Irish Union, lost the right to protect and foster her industrial life. The Church of Scotland derived great security and, generally, the respect paid to Scottish institutions after union meant that Scottish affairs were under Scottish control; in Ireland, the Protestant Church of Ireland was not the church of the Irish people and Ireland was governed in accordance with English notions, applied by English officials.65 In August 1902, on the occasion of King Edward VII’s coronation, Redmond had summed up the aspirational loyalty which home rulers sought to embrace. Then he had stated:


The Monarch of this mighty Empire is being crowned, and there are assembled in London representatives from all parts of the Empire to acclaim Edward VII as the Constitutional Monarch of these realms. There is only one absentee— Ireland…in Ireland Edward VII is not a Constitutional Monarch. No English Monarch has been a Constitutional Monarch of Ireland since the Union, and… Nationalist representatives of Ireland renew the protest…against the destruction and…usurpation of the Government of our country by England. We claim that Ireland is not bound, morally or legally, by any laws which are not made by the Sovereign, Lords and Commons of Ireland. We specifically deny the moral or legal and constitutional right of the English Parliament to legislate for Ireland…. Never for one single hour since the Union was passed has Ireland been a constitutionally governed country. Never for one hour has the Sovereign of England been the Constitutional Sovereign of Ireland. Ireland, in effect, has since 1800 been governed as a Crown Colony…. Never…has the English Government of Ireland obtained the assent, or approval, or confidence of the people of Ireland…. Never… has the British Constitution been in force in this country, whose own Constitution was destroyed…we hear English Statesmen asking why Ireland is not loyal…loyal to what?… The [Irish] Constitution is suspended.66 Redmond pointed out that when Queen Victoria ascended the throne, Canadians were in armed rebellion against England; but fifty years on, the grant of Canadian home rule made Englishmen hardly believe that Canada was ever disaffected. In Canada, as in Ireland, Redmond accepted that there were two races and religions; but the concession of freedom produced complete loyalty, and Canada, divided only by an imaginary line from the greatest republic in the world, had not moved towards separation from Britain because of the tie of free imperial association.67 The idea of a ‘Union of Hearts’ between the Irish and British peoples had always been implicit in the home rule movement, although home rulers were, in the main, careful to reserve this concept for British, rather than Irish consumption in the 1880s. But Redmond now sought to give a more dynamic meaning to the concept, to make it not merely a form of assurance to Britain that she was doing the right thing, but a positive Irish commitment to the welfare of Britain, the Union and the Empire. For example, in County Clare in 1913, Willie Redmond told his audience that:


thirty years have seen the grievances of Ireland removed one by one, and today sees the representatives of Ireland in the face of the outstretched hand of friendship from Great Britain no longer bitter, but ready and willing on the basis of the Home Rule Bill to enter the future on the terms of friendship and goodwill for all time with the people of England, Scotland and Wales, and the whole Empire. The Union of Hearts was not only to be one between Britain and Ireland, but also involved the clearest and most unequivocal statement of Nationalist Ireland to the concept of a united Irish nation. John Redmond affirmed that ‘Ireland for us is one entity. It is one land…. Some of the most glorious chapters associated with our national struggle have been associated with Ulster—aye, and with the Protestants of Ulster—and I believe here today, as a Catholic Irish man…that I am as proud of Derry as of Limerick’. ‘Our ideal’, he continued, was for a: self-governing Ireland of the future, when all her sons, of all races and creeds, within her shores will bring their tribute, great or small, to the great total of national enterprise, national statesmanship, and national happiness.68 The grant of home rule would produce Britannic loyalty. Willie Redmond compared Irish Nationalists with the Boers in South Africa who had not contented themselves with merely denouncing British rule, as Irish Nationalists were accused of doing, but who had come out under arms and for three years fought Britain. Who, he asked, was now prepared, in 1912, to say that the Boers had not been entitled to fight for their liberty, and who would now argue that the Boers were not entitled to their liberty and rights? The postwar South African settlement, granting Dominion selfgovernment, had been declared by A.J.Balfour as a dangerous and disastrous thing for the Empire, but Willie Redmond claimed it had been justified by the results. Claiming that the whole Empire was in favour of home rule, he asked: Why is the Empire in favour of Home Rule? For two reasons: in the first place the people of the Empire have seen Home Rule working at home. They have seen in every part of the Empire disturbance, disloyalty, and rivalry give way to unity, brotherhood, and friendship amongst men of all classes…all religions, once they came to sit together side by side in national and local Parliaments of their own. The Empire, too,


is in favour of Home Rule because the Empire has seen what effect Home Rule has upon Irishmen there…. There is no Parliament in Australia…Canada…in any part of your Empire, where Irishmen like ourselves of the same flesh and blood, the same sentiments, the same history and traditions, the same deep religious feeling, are not to be found among the most loyal, the most able, the most contented, and the most respected in the British Empire. Why? Because there they find there are no traditions of prejudice against them, either on account of their race or creed.69 As Sir Thomas Esmonde, MP for North Wexford, emphasised ‘We Irish people have no rooted antipathy to the Empire. The Empire is quite as much our Empire as yours. As a matter of history Irish brains…valour, and…genius have done quite as much to build up this Empire…[as] either British genius or…intelligence. But we must be allowed a proper position in the Empire’.70 Redmond was a political nationalist. The goal of political nationalists was Ireland’s normalisation among the nations of the world by the regaining of her independent statehood. The nationalism of the political nationalists was very much that of the ‘assimilationalist’ variety. Its leaders were long immersed in British political and cultural life, securalist in their outlook and admiring of its liberal democratic ideals. They were driven towards an ethnic consciousness by the British response to the rise of Fenianism and the agrarian agitations in Ireland, which appeared to have an inherent anti-Irish Catholic bias in the metropolitan centre. Only by the return of an autonomous Irish legislature, they believed, could this bias be nullified. They wished for an Ireland modelled on British liberal lines to be given its proper status as a partner in the British imperial mission. Political nationalists conceived of the nation largely in legal-historical and constitutional terms, and rested their case on arguments first expounded by William Molyneux and Jonathan Swift in the eighteenth century. The destruction of Ireland’s native parliament by the Act of Union, they claimed, was an illegal act of usurpation, fostering only enmity between the British and Irish peoples and divisions within the Irish nation. The restoration of an Irish parliament was thus essential not only for the reaction of a self-reliant and industrious nation but also for the reconciliation between the British and Irish peoples within the Empire.71 According to John Redmond, what nationalist Ireland wanted was ‘so moderate, so reasonable, so commonplace’ in view of the experience of nations and especially of the British Empire that,


once understood, all fears and arguments of honest opponents would vanish. What Ireland wanted, he claimed, was ‘responsible government’, that the government of every purely Irish affair would be controlled by the public opinion of Ireland, and by that alone. He did not seek any alteration of the constitution or supremacy of the Imperial Parliament, but merely asked that the Irish be allowed to take their place in the ranks of those other portions of the Empire—some twenty-eight in number—which in their own purely local affairs were governed by free representative assemblies. Redmond claimed that the nineteenth-century Irish Nationalist leader, Daniel O’Connell, had come to a similar conclusion, giving up his previous demand for a return to the preUnion sovereign, co-ordinate (that is equal) parliament, which existed within the Kingdom of Ireland, for a statutory subordinate parliament, leaving the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament untouched, such a body to be invested with strictly limited powers over purely Irish affairs. This, Redmond claimed, had also been the policy of previous home rule leaders such as Isaac Butt and Charles Stewart Parnell; for example, Gladstone’s 1886 Home Rule Bill established a subordinate Irish parliament and Irish executive, reserving to the Imperial Parliament the following matters: the Crown; peace and war; the army, navy, militia and volunteers; defence; foreign and colonial relations; dignities; titles of honour; treason; trade; the post office; and coinage. The Irish Parliament would also be forbidden, by the Imperial Parliament, from making any laws respecting the endowment of religion in the restraint of educational freedom, or relating to customs and excise. Parnell, claimed Redmond, had understood the difference between a coordinate and a subordinate parliament, although he would have preferred the former. By ‘Imperial Supremacy’, Redmond accepted that he and Parnell had understood that the Imperial Parliament: can interfere in the event of the powers which are conferred by this bill being abused under certain circumstances. But the Nationalists in accepting this bill, go, under an honourable understanding not to abuse those powers; and we pledge ourselves in that aspect for the Irish people, as far as we can pledge ourselves, not to abuse those powers, and to devote our energies and our influences…to prevent those powers being abused. The Imperial Parliament will have at command the force which it reserves to itself, and it will be ready to intervene, but only in the case of grave necessity arising.


For Redmond the settlement of the Irish Question, on the basis of home rule, so far from being new, in fact dated from O’Connell in 1832, and was quite consistent with every demand made by Parnell. Redmond argued that: The one thing essential for us to be perfectly clear about is this: that while we are willing that a new Constitution should be so framed as to fit in readily with a general system of Federalism later on, we must get our Constitution at once, and must not be asked to wait until other portions of the United Kingdom have made up their minds to obtain Parliaments for themselves. In England I know of no such desire for Home Rule at all, which is perhaps quite natural considering the fact that England possesses an overwhelming and permanent majority in the existing Parliament at Westminster. To ask Ireland, therefore, to postpone her claim until England, Scotland and Wales were all ready to enter into a Federal arrangement, would be preposterous. Ours is the most urgent case. For Ireland it is a matter of life and death, and we cannot wait. I repeat we have no objection to… Federalism, which in reality, is nothing more or less than we have been demanding for Ireland for 30 years.72 The ultimate federation of the British Empire was a goal to which many British and Irish Unionists aspired. The standard model envisaged for such an Imperial Council of Empire would see the establishment of a parliament containing the representatives of the people of the British Isles and the British Dominions. Redmond accepted the legitimacy of this aspiration, but argued that the requirements of Nationalists in Ireland could not wait for such a development. He claimed to have been in favour of Imperial Federation all his life, and publicly welcomed a declaration that Irish home rule was the first step in such a scheme of federation. There was nowhere in history, he argued, where the system of federation had necessarily to be carried out at one and the same time with reference to all the states to be federated; not in Canada, where new provinces and provincial parliaments were being added to the federation; nor in Australia, where the Imperial Parliament had passed legislation creating new states that had since been brought into a new Australian confederation. Redmond claimed that there were no two federal constitutions in the Empire that were exactly alike.73 One of the principal Unionist criticisms of the 1912 Home Rule Bill was that it conferred powers inherent in the Crown’s prerogative,


to a legislature of King, Senate and people, in a separate island, and that part of the Crown’s prerogative could not be bestowed elsewhere without bestowing sovereignty to that new parliament, so that the Imperial Parliament would be unable to enforce its legal supremacy, and interfere in Irish affairs. Therefore, it was argued, the Bill was inconsistent with the federal principle. This was rejected by John Dillon, who pointed out that in the United States, sovereignty lay within each individual state, producing a federation of sovereign states. Dillon argued that the usual foundation upon which a federal constitution was based revolved around sovereign states coming together to form a single community Therefore, he argued, there was absolutely no foundation to the theory that it was impossible to have a federal system unless there was absolute conformity of all the constituent states.74 Redmond reminded the House of Commons that during the 1886 home rule debates he took exception to the proposed exclusion of Irish MPs from the Imperial Parliament. The inclusion of forty-two Irish MPs at Westminster, co-existing with an Irish parliament, was an anomaly which could only be tolerated if a complete system of British or imperial federation was to be set up. The Home Rule Bill, he believed, did not act as a barrier to further federation because nowhere in the Empire was there a cast-iron standardised federal system. Therefore, a home rule constitution for Scotland or Wales need not be the same as Ireland’s.75 He accepted the principle, stated by Isaac Butt at the genesis of the home rule campaign in 1873, that ‘For all Imperial purposes the two countries [Ireland and Britain] would continue to be a “United Kingdom”, and to constitute in the face of other nations one Imperial State…. The sovereignty of both kingdoms would continue and would be declared indissolubly united’.76 Cultural nationalism and Irishness Within Nationalist Ireland the main opposition to Redmond’s policy of rapprochement with the British Empire came from a group of ‘advanced’ Nationalists centred around the Sinn Fein language movement which had come into existence in 1905, the creation of Arthur Griffith. Griffith, the son of a Dublin artisan, from 1899 addressed the Dublin public in his weekly publication the United Irishman, which was renamed Sinn Fein (Ourselves) in 1905, and was the base from which the Sinn Fein political movement gradually crystallised in 1906. The movement preached the doctrine of self-reliance, and adopted a policy which was known as the Hungarian policy of passive resistance. It had as its chief


objects the building up of Ireland intellectually and materially, and the regaining of the political independence of Ireland. Attracting conflicting groups of revolutionaries, militant constitutionalists and literary romantics, the political movement was unable to mount a serious political challenge to the Irish Party until 1914. The divide between Redmond and the leaders of the Sinn Fein movement was of fundamental proportions, between Redmond’s politcal nationalism and Sinn Fein’s cultural nationalism. Political nationalism had as its objective the achievement of a representative national state that would guarantee to its members uniform citizenship rights, and tended to organise on legalrational lines, forming centralised apparatuses in order to mobilise different groups against the existing polity. Cultural nationalists regarded the state with suspicion, believing instead that the glory of a country came not from its political power but from the culture of its people and the contribution of its thinkers and educators to humanity. The aim of cultural nationalism was, rather, the moral regeneration of the historic community or, in other words, the recreation of its distinctive national civilisation.77 Cultural nationalists perceived the nation in organic terms, portraying Ireland as a living personality— Cathleen Ni Houlihan—whose individuality had to be cherished in all its manifestations. Gaelic revivalism took on the characteristics of a religious movement in which Irish names, language, literature, sports and manufactures were to be adopted and their English equivalents renounced. Its goal was the inner regeneration of a spontaneously evolving decentralised community led by an elite of public-spirited men and women. Gaelic revivalists were driven into politics to counter the anglicising effects of the state, particularly in the field of education. But they conceived of political involvement in non-party terms. For membership of the nation was defined not by birth or by religious or political affiliation, but by an active participation in the nation’s cultural, economic, social and political development. Cultural nationalists constituted, above all, an educational movement intending to restore communal solidarity by permeating all institutions of national life.78 The growth of cultural nationalism in Ireland can be observed through the medium of the Gaelic League, which was the central institution in the development of the post-1916 Irish revolutionary elite. Most of the 1916 leaders and most of the leading figures in independent Ireland had been members of the League in their youth, and had imbibed versions of its ideology of cultural revitalisation. The League was inaugurated in 1893, and was formally dedicated to the preservation and revival of the Irish


language, and the celebration and resuscitation of traditional dress, dances and customs. Twenty years after its foundation, it had become a mass movement, with an emphasis on youth, comprising 100,000 members and 1,000 branches. The League attempted to avoid politics, which allowed it to be preserved from the attentions of the police who took very little interest in it, and because most of its branches were run by National Teachers and Customs and Excise officers who were forbidden to engage in normal political activity However, between 1893 and 1915 the League was turned not just to political purposes, but to insurrection.79 The League appealed not only to those who wished for cultural reform, but also to those who wished to raise Irish political consciousness. It attracted many whose objectives were political, including the insurrectionary Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). The League grew rapidly in the first years of the new century, partly because of the impact of the Boer War on public opinion.80 The intellectual foundation for cultural nationalism was provided by the scholarly work of Eoin MacNeill, who has been described as the architect, organiser and philosopher of the Gaelic League, and who channelled the resurgent forces of the Roman Catholic Church in its support. MacNeill launched himself into Irish scholarship to establish Ireland’s origins as a unique teaching nation, exemplified in a golden age of learning, which if now in decay still possessed the means of its own regeneration. He helped found the Gaelic League, and was its secretary, editor of the Gaelic Journal and An Claidheamh Soluis, and a publisher, teacher of Irish and writer of language textbooks. The popularisation of cultural nationalism, through propaganda journals, was done by D.P.Moran and Arthur Griffith who, more than anyone else, succeeded in making cultural nationalism the dominant ideological force in Irish society between 1900 and 1906. Moran was the ideologue of a liberal, industrial Catholic nation. More than any other figure he was responsible for broadening the language campaign into a general Irish-Ireland movement. Ireland and Britain, he argued, were involved in a war, which he defined as ‘The Battle of Two Civilisations’. Beginning with the first contact of English and Gaelic civilisation in the twelfth century this would continue whether or not Ireland had home rule. Moran repudiated the aspirations of previous Nationalists to construct a neutral national identity that could bridge the gap between the religious and political communities in Ireland.81 ‘In the main’, he alleged, ‘non-Catholic Ireland looks upon itself as British and as Anglo-Irish’ and those non-Catholics who wished to throw in their lot with the Irish


nation ‘must recognise that the Irish nation is de facto a Catholic nation’.82 Drawn into the Sinn Fein movement was the revolutionary IRB organisation. The IRB was a physical-force organisation dedicated to securing Irish independence by force. In the late 1870s the IRB entered into agreement with Parnell’s constitutional Irish Party, called the New Departure, on the understanding that Parnell was secretly committed to the IRB’s goal of complete independence from Britain. However, Parnell’s defeat and death in 1891 ended any lingering faith the IRB might have had in constitutional action. For the IRB nothing had changed, and so the decision was made to return to physical-force nationalism. A deep-rooted suspicion of constitutionalists was maintained by Irishmen in the United States, notably John Devoy who orchestrated, from New York, the rededication of the IRB to physical force and rebellion, which culminated in the 1916 Rising. Between 1880 and 1922 few IrishAmericans visited Ireland and the effects of the expansion of local government and land reforms were not witnessed by them. They believed that Irish MPs were corrupt and that the people of Ireland were ready to rise up against British rule. The 1873 IRB oath and constitution declared the IRB’s Supreme Council to be the ‘sole Government of the Irish Republic’, and its president to be ‘President of the Irish Republic’. The genesis of these claims were the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition, in the nineteenth century, to secret societies and Church teaching on justified rebellion.83 From 1910, the main IRB journal in Ireland was Irish Freedom edited by Bulmer Hobson, and later by Sean MacDermott and Joseph Mary Plunkett, all members of the IRB Supreme Council. Hobson, a Belfast Protestant, occupied an important position in the Gaelic League and, with Denis McCullough, set up the first Dungannon Club, issuing the ‘Dungannon Club Manifesto to the Whole People of Ireland’ in 1905. Dungannon Clubs spread across Ulster, meeting violence and hostility from both Orangemen and the Irish Party’s Hibernians.84 The cultural nationalism of Sinn Feiners meant that they had rejected Redmond’s attempts to locate a self-governing Ireland within the British Empire. As one cultural nationalist wrote in Irish Freedom in January 1912, the nation was a superior and more natural entity than empire, and there could be no accommodation between the two. The essence of an organic nation, argued the writer, could be found in the nation’s language. Race and nationality were considered to have little in common: the same race could comprise different nationalities, while the same nationality could comprise different races under it. For example, the Spanish and Portuguese were


examples of two divisions of the same race, living side by side, but not only forming separate nationalities but speaking different languages also. Race did not determine language, rather it was nationality Ireland as a geographical unit was something permanent, which the centuries had not changed and which was perhaps the most potent thing in determining Irish individuality. The existence of different types of human beings could be attributed to the contrast of physical conditions as surely as could be the existence of different animal and plant types. Members of the same race, if placed in different parts of the world and subjected to different climatic considerations, different distributions of water and land, of hill and plain, would develop different characteristics which would tend to make of them ultimately separate nations. New manners and customs, new modes of thought and outlooks would arise to harmonise with the new physical conditions. New modes of thought would demand a new medium of expression, and consequently the language would change, so that even in a very short time the Canadian French had diverged from the French of France and the American English from the English of England. According to this writer these changes were inevitable, ordained of nature herself and ‘he would be very foolish who sought to counteract them’. In Ireland this had been brought to consummation centuries before, and a national mind and being had been achieved in perfect accord with the physical surroundings, making Ireland a distinct nation. National differences were the work of nature for nature’s ends; national diversities existed for the beautification of the world’s soul and the higher moral perfection of humanity. Nature did not create different nations with different thoughts and languages so that men might destroy them, for each had a predetermined function to fulfil in the world’s development; and so each should faithfully fulfil that function by availing itself of its own civilisation, its own mind and soul, expressing itself in the only medium in which it could find adequate or true expression: its own language. A nation which had abandoned its own national outlook and followed in the wake of another nation retarded the progress of all humanity towards the realisation of Truth and the perfection of Happiness, for that nation had betrayed its trust; consequently: the loss of our language, which is but the outward and visible sign of the loss of our national life, of our nationality, is not merely, as some have called it, a mistake; it is a sin, a crime against God and nature, and one which, wherever it has been


committed in the world’s history, has always been visited with the direst penalties upon the offending nation.85 ‘No language, no nation’ was accepted as a truism by Sinn Feiners on the basis that the ‘essence of a nation consists in a common civilisation, not in a political unity’. Political unity and independence were requisites of a nation’s development and progress, but a nation might, as in the case of Ireland, remain a nation even though enslaved. A captive Ireland in the grip of England had remained a nation in spite of the passage of centuries; had Ireland lost its distinctive Irish civilisation it would have remained nothing but an English province. A distinctive civilisation, it was argued, was to a nation what a personality was to an individual man, comprising a distinctive outlook on life, national characteristics, modes of thought, customs, habits and manners of speech. It was the ‘product of what we have been, it constitutes us what we are, and is the shaper of what we will be’, exemplified in literature and language. An Irish-speaking Ireland would remain distinctively Irish until the end of time, but an English-speaking Ireland would become English in mind, life, outlook, ideas and modes of thought. In a similar fashion had the German tribes of the Ostrogoths and the Lombards in Italy become Italian; the Celts and the Franks in France become French; and the Slavs in Prussia become German. In Ireland, the soldiers of Cromwell had become Irish and many Irishmen had become English by accepting English speech, the mental impress of their conquerors. If Ireland was not to become a sort of Hibernian England, then Irishmen had to be Irish in heart, mind and speech. The island would remain, but the Irish nation would exist only as long as they participated in a distinct Irish civilisation; otherwise their descendants might claim to be ethnologically of the race, but nationally they would be English or hybrid.86 Another writer committed to the Irish-Ireland ethos, Patrick Pearse, argued that to claim independence as the indefeasible right of Ireland was to claim everything for Ireland, all the spiritual exaltation and all the worldly pomp to which she was entitled. Independence included spiritual and intellectual independence as well as political independence, but true political independence required spiritual and intellectual independence as its basis or it tended to become unstable, a thing resting merely on interests which changed with time and circumstance. Pearse made a distinction between spiritual and intellectual independence, corresponding to the distinction which existed between the


intellectual and spiritual in man. The soul was not the mind, he believed, but it acted by way of the mind and it was through the mind that one got glimpses of the soul. It was possible to speak of a national mind and a national soul, and to distinguish one from the other. Pearse could not convince himself that there was actually a mystical entity which was the soul of Ireland and expressed itself through the mind of Ireland, but he believed that there was really a spiritual tradition which was the soul of Ireland, the thing that made Ireland a living nation, and that there was such a spiritual tradition corresponding to every true nationality. This spiritual thing was distinct from the intellectual facts in which chiefly it made its revelation, and it was distinct from them in a way analogous to that in which a man’s soul was distinct from his mind. Like other spiritual things it was independent of the material, whereas the mind was to a large extent dependent on the material. Pearse speculated that spiritually the United States and England were one nation, while intellectually apart, and he was sure that spiritually the Walloons of Belgium were one nation with the French, and that spiritually the Austrians were one nation with the Germans. The spiritual thing which was essential to nationality seemed to reside chiefly in the language, if language was understood to include literature and folklore, as well as sounds and idioms preserved chiefly by language. But it also revealed itself in all the arts, institutions, inner life, and actions of the nation. If nationality could be regarded as the sum of the facts, spiritual and intellectual, and freedom as the condition which allowed these facts full scope and development, it would be seen, argued Pearse, that both the spiritual and the intellectual facts, nationality, and the physical condition (freedom) entered into a proper definition of independence or nationhood. Freedom was a condition which could be lost and won and lost again; but nationality was a life which, if once lost, could never be recovered. A nation was a stubborn thing, very difficult to kill; but a dead nation did not come back to life, any more than a dead man did.87 Arthur Griffith also believed that the loss of the national language would equate with the demise of the Irish nation. The ethics of Sinn Fein attracted cultural nationalists regardless as to their views on the format that a new Irish state should take—for example, whether it should be republic or a monarchy These ethics dictated that the Irishman who did not speak Irish was, against his will, a representative of English domination, whereas every word of Irish spoken, every letter addressed in Irish, was a blow against that domination, an awakening of the foundations of


that stronghold. In Griffith’s view, the key to the whole Sinn Fein philosophy was that every Irish person’s own self was the Irish nation, and that each one of them had to be the Irish nation in miniature; to de-Anglicise Ireland they had to de-Anglicise themselves first.88 Within the IRB, cultural nationalists such as Bulmer Hobson and leaders of the 1916 insurrection, men like Sean MacDermott and Joseph Mary Plunkett, accepted as a matter of course the main themes of the Sinn Fein doctrine. They repudiated the idea that Ireland’s right to nationhood and selfgovernment rested upon an Act of the British Parliament, as was the case for the Home Rule Bill or all the self-governing Dominions, and referred to all British legislation for Ireland as wrong and immoral on the basis that it was foreign intervention in their country; this was a fixed principle,89 for the Irish dependence upon England was, they believed, an intellectual dependence.90 Sinn Feiners, said Irish Freedom, stood exclusively for the ‘Nation’ as opposed to its perceived antithesis ‘Empire’. They stood for a principle of ‘untrammelled growth’, a growth from within, not a change forced from without, for a people free and glad to see other people free, not themselves constituting a parasite growth living expensively at the cost of those who were weaker than they.91 Patrick Pearse explained how: The nation is a natural division, as natural as the family and as inevitable. This one reason is why a nation is holy and why an empire is not holy. A nation is knit together by natural ties, ties mystic and spiritual, and ties human and kindly; an empire is at best held together by ties of mutual interest and at worst by brute force. The nation is the family in large; an empire is a commercial corporation in large. The nation is of God; the empire is of man—if it not be of the devil.92 For Sinn Feiners, every advance in history had been a national advance, a national achievement of all that was best in literature, poetry, painting, sculpture, music. Empires revealed only a barren record of conquest and massacre. Nations on the other hand had given civilisation and all that civilisation meant. Thus they considered themselves nationalists, not for some vague emotional sentiment, as did the majority of the Irish people, but on an intellectual basis also.93 Sinn Feiners stood for Ireland, not a portion of any empire, but as a self-reliant, free Ireland with ‘no sins upon its soul, no stains upon its banner’.94 If Redmond were to have his way, argued Irish Freedom, the loyalty of the Irish people would not be to Ireland but to the British Empire, their allegiance


would ‘not be to Cathleen ni Houlihan but to George V’, and their aim would not be to recreate and continue Irish civilisation but to bolster up England’s private empire, to be loyal to a monarch not King of Ireland but usurper of it.95 Pearse argued that the Irish Party had done evil and was bankrupt in policy, credit and words: They have conceived of nationality as a material thing, whereas it is a spiritual thing. They have made the same mistake that a man would if he were to forget that he has an immortal soul. They have not recognised in their people the image and likeness of God. Hence the nation to them is not at all holy, a thing inviolate, a thing that a man dare not sell or dishonour on pain of eternal perdition. They have thought of nationality as a thing to be negotiated about as men negotiate about a tariff or a trade route, rather than as an immediate jewel to be preserved at all peril, a thing so sacred that it may or may not be bought into the market places at all or spoken of where men traffic.96 Yet, while cultural nationalists within the Sinn Fein movement could agree on the organic nature of the Irish nation, their emphasis on the primacy of this interpretation meant that for many of them, unlike political nationalists, the final conception of a selfgoverning state was secondary. This did not mean that cultural nationalists thought the embodiment of an Irish state unimportant; rather, it allowed the development of differing visions of an Irish state to co-exist within the umbrella of cultural nationalism which was united in opposition to the project of Redmondism and British cultural influences. These divisions between cultural nationalists formed the basis of the split that led to the Irish Civil War in 1922, based upon which form of Irish state, whether a monarchy or a republic, would best safeguard the Irish cultural nation from British cultural and political interference. D.P.Moran, for example, had, from early in the century, advocated a policy of accommodation with the British Crown. His journal, The Leader, argued that the only rational action that Nationalists could take was to acknowledge the British Crown. The chief enemy of Ireland, Moran considered, was not England, but her ‘Faithful Garrison’, the Unionists, who used the King for their own party gain, and Nationalists who had played into their hands. A rational attitude would have been Nationalist addresses acquiescing in the Crown, but briefly referring to Irish national wrongs.97 Moran did not believe in a ‘Union of Hearts’, considering it was impossible for Britain and Ireland to understand each other


culturally, although he did not desire total separation from the Crown, instead believing in a workable and honourable ‘peace treaty’ in which England and Ireland could be friends, allowing the latter to develop her own national individuality.98 Home rule could be welcomed, however limited, in that it would concentrate the Irish mind on Ireland, and away from English cultural influences; ‘but a permanent state of non-Home Rule would kill Irish Ireland… under Home Rule it will have a fair chance to go on and conquer’.99 Arthur Griffith, on the other hand, regarded imperial Britain as the ‘Anti-Christ’ of nations, organised on the principles of Manchester liberalism and devoted to the commercial conquest of the world. By the Act of Union, according to Griffith, Britain had degraded Ireland from its potential role as co-ruler of the Empire to the level of an agricultural colony. Griffith’s objective was to unite Catholics and Protestants on grounds of Ireland’s inherent rights to great-nation status. By 1902, Griffith devised a programme for the parliamentary withdrawal of Irish MPs to Ireland, the declaration of an Irish state, and passive resistance to the British state, using the existing powers and resources of Irish local government. Publishing these ideas in 1904, as a pamphlet entitled The Resurrection of Hungary, he caused a sensation, selling 30,000 copies.100 Griffith, as with Redmond, denied the moral right of the British Parliament to legislate for Ireland. He argued that the Renunciation Act of 1783, which renounced the right of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain to legislate for the Kingdom of Ireland, was still on the British Statute Book, was still the law, and that constitutionally no power existed, or had existed since 1783, in the British Parliament to legislate for Ireland. The Act of Union, Griffith claimed, was unconstitutional, a fraud that was never valid. The old Irish Parliament, argued Griffith, had no legal power to terminate itself, as it had done in agreeing to the Anglo-Irish Union, for Irish MPs were the trustees of a power proceeding from the Irish people and bound in law to deliver that trust back into the hands of its owners. Quoting John Locke, he claimed that a legislature could not transfer law-making into other hands because it was delegated from the people, and that no authority except the King, Lords and Commons of Ireland had the power to legislate for Ireland. For Griffith the old Irish Parliament had a contemporary legal existence, as in 1783.101 Therefore: (1) There is no constitution actively existent in Ireland today, and therefore, no law which an Irishman is legally or morally bound to obey.


(2) The whole constitutional history of Ireland’s relations with England support the first proposition. (3) The present so-called Constitutionalists are…absolutely unconstitutional. (4) That we can adopt a constitutional position that is unassailable from any point of view; that will strengthen our hands in the development of the policy, and without yielding a single iota of Ireland’s right to absolute independence will make it, if anything, more powerful.102 Griffith wished to see the dissolution of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the restoration of the Kingdom of Ireland and a separate Kingdom of Great Britain. Dual Monarchy, as this policy was called, accepted that it had been a feature of Irish society that Irishmen had yielded allegiance to kings even when these monarchs had little claim to their respect and affection; therefore, republican ideals were not indigenous to Ireland but had been imported from France and America. Two sovereign states might, it was argued, be subject to the same prince without any dependence of the one on the other and each retaining its free sovereign right as a nation. The King of England might be ‘elected’ as King of Ireland by the free will of the Irish people who would yield him loyalty as King of Ireland, not as King of England. This did not admit the ‘preposterous’ position advocated by some Nationalists that the King of England under the Union was de facto and de jure King of Ireland.103 The Kingdom of Ireland had been a separate kingdom from that of the Kingdom of Great Britain, and its establishment would have ended the Empire’s status as a single realm. The First Article of the Act of Union had declared that the ‘said Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, shall…for ever after, be united into one Kingdom, by the name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland’. The restoration of the Kingdom of Ireland would create a situation where there would be two crowns in the Empire, rather than one common Crown. Therefore the British King could, as he had been prior to the Anglo-Irish Union, be the King of Great Britain, and the King of Ireland separately, although the same person. This would create the separate status of British subject and Irish subject within a ‘Brito-Hibernian’ Empire. The Irish would therefore be a separate nationality from Britons, Canadians, New Zealanders, Australians and South Africans, who would continue to constitute British subjects owing allegiance to the British King. For Griffith a Briton was a native of England, Scotland or Wales. Thus, there were four million British subjects in Ireland and 400


million British subjects in India, but there were no Britons in either country outside the governors and speculative immigrants. Griffith was distinguishing between the legal sense of Britishness and the emotional, or nationalistic definition of Britishness. Griffith claimed the phrase Civis Britannicus sum could not be Anglicanus without excluding Scotland and Wales, nor could it be ‘Britannicus’ without excluding Ireland. Griffith marked in this phrase the recognition of English, Scots and Welsh people as British citizens and the relegation of ‘that part of the United Kingdom called Ireland’ to the status of British subjects. For Griffith the phrase implied that the British Empire was Britain’s possession and that Britain and Ireland were distinct entities, the one imperial ruler, the other subject nation. The kingdom was the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, but the empire was not the Empire of Great Britain and Ireland but the British Empire. Turning to his analysis of Dual Monarchy, Griffith considered the title ‘Austrian Empire’ to have been a denial of Hungary, and the title ‘British Empire’ to be a denial of Ireland. He noted that there was no longer an Austrian Empire but an ‘Austrio-Hungarian’ Empire, while there remained a British Empire, not a ‘Brito-Hibernian Empire’. Griffith argued that in the nineteenth century there had been no ‘Hungarian Imperialists’ to boast that they were citizens of the Austrian Empire, and that while the British Empire existed, the majority of Irishmen would not boast that they were citizens of it; their instinct, if not their reason, would inform them that such a boast was a denial of their country’s right and dignity. Many might be charmed by the idea of equal partnership with Britain in the Empire, but none, he believed, would swap the name of Irishman for that of British subject. An acceptance of the British Empire was an acceptance of English ascendancy.104 Griffith argued that until those in Ireland who cherished the imperial idea translated it into ‘Hiberno-British’ instead of ‘British’, they would find no audience outside the ranks of those who had consistently identified the Empire with the suppression of Irish Nationalism. When imperial ists were prepared to so translate their vision Griffith predicted that they would find Nationalist Ireland willing to discuss their views.105 Irish republicans, on the other hand, such as the leadership of the IRB, were not impressed with formal renunciations by British governments, as demonstrated by the 1782 Renunciation Act, which had not been carried into practical effect, setting ‘as our aim an independent Irish Republic, not because we were doctrinaire Republicans, but because we did not see how complete independence could take any other form in Ireland’.106 Dr Patrick


McCartan claimed that Griffith had never been hostile to a republic or republicanism, but favoured the restoration of the Kingdom of Ireland because he had realised that a republic did not appeal to the Irish masses because they thought its attainment impossible.107 Republicans took their model of an Irish state from Wolfe Tone who, in 1798, had advocated the creation of an Irish republic. Patrick Pearse summarised Tone’s republican teachings as: 1 The Irish Nation is One. 2 The Irish Nation, like all Nations, has an indefeasible right to Freedom. 3 Freedom denotes Separation and Sovereignty. 4 The right to National Freedom rests upon the right to Personal Freedom, and true National Freedom guarantees true Personal Freedom. 5 The object of Freedom is the pursuit of the happiness of the Nation and of the individuals that compose the Nation. 6 Freedom is necessary to the happiness and prosperity of the Nation. In the particular case of Ireland, separation from England is necessary not only to the happiness and prosperity but almost to the continued history of Ireland, inasmuch as the interests of Ireland and England are fundamentally at variance, and while the two nations are connected England must necessarily predominate. 7 The National Sovereignty implied in National Freedom holds good both externally and internally, i.e., the sovereign rights of the Nation are good as against all other nations and good as against all parts of the Nation. Hence— 8 The Nation has jurisdiction over lives and property within the Nation. 9 The People are the Nation.108 Tone had taught that there could be no half-way house between Ireland and England as a permanent solution, for there were only two alternatives facing Ireland—enslavement or freedom. In Pearse’s view Dual Monarchy was only a ‘temporary expedient’.109 Dual Monarchy was deemed to be a proposition which would place Ireland in the position formally held by the English garrison, of a ‘Colonial Nationality’, deriving its nationhood from England, binding its national claim to the limits of that constitution, and claiming nationhood, not as a right, but on England’s recognition of that right.110 Republicans concluded that any connection with Britain held inherent dangers because Irish self-government would


not have its permanency guaranteed by the free nations of the world, for what England gave, England, the moment she willed it, could take away again. For example, eighteen years after passing the Act of Renunciation by the British Parliament, Britain extricated herself from the international complications which had forced it from her, callously questioned her own solemn treaty and tore it up, leaving Ireland bound more drastically to her through the Act of Union.111 ‘Constitutionalists’ became the primary focus for the republicans’ derision, who argued that: where the Constitutionalist has damned himself, and confused the issue, is that while only a Constitutionalist, he has persisted in calling himself a Nationalist, although the basic principle of his policy is an acceptance of a connection with England on terms which leave England still master of Irish essentials; and this is what constitutes the criminality of Constitutionalism. It sets up to be Nationalist in principle whilst it is less than Nationalist in policy, in aim and in practice; it abrogates, in the name of the Irish Nation, the rights of the Irish Nation; it sets up a banner labelled ‘The Irish Nation’ and leads its followers into a ‘Home Rule,’ which will leave ‘Imperial Supremacy’ untouched, and bear its proportion of ‘Imperial Taxation’; a Home Rule which regards it an honour to sit in the ‘Imperial Parliament’, and will, apparently, beg for that honour from its masters.112 Conclusion The nature of Britishness in the early twentieth century, based upon a common allegiance to the British Crown, meant that it was flexible enough to accommodate a wide variety of outlooks and identities. Both Irish Unionists and Irish Nationalists, of the home rule variety, might feel able to accommodate an Irish and British identity, but the essential difference between Unionist and Nationalist perceptions of their Irishness was that the former possessed a Britannic identity of which their Irishness was a component part, while the latter saw their Irishness as the primary identity, with only an aspiration to the adoption of a British imperial identity. Nationalists could quite easily dispense with notions of Britishness, whereas Unionists, because it was an integral part of their psychological make-up, could not. Redmond and his followers believed that in pledging allegiance to the British Crown and Empire they were demonstrating that Irish Nationalists could be, and wanted to be, loyal British subjects. They rejected


Irish Unionist claims that all Nationalists were inherently disloyal and sought to establish an Irish republic. Within the Sinn Fein movement, which, it should be stressed, also included home rulers, the political elite which divided between dual monarchists and republicans rejected the Home Rule Bill because it would mean that Ireland would have self-government within the United Kingdom; home rule schemes in Canada, Australia and South Africa, although they established Dominion self-government outside the United Kingdom, were still within the British Empire. All those born within the Empire’s territory, whether Australians, Canadians, Irishmen or Scotsmen, were British subjects; there were no Australian subjects as distinct from British subjects. For republicans all links with the British Crown and Empire had to be severed. Establishing an Irish republic would remove any notion of subjectship and therefore the basis of a dual British-Irish identity. A similar result would arise from the restoration of a separate Kingdom of Ireland which would have ended the Empire’s status as a single realm. This would create the separate status of British subject and Irish subject. If either of these ideologies were to become the dominant strain in Irish Nationalist state formation then any ambiguity between notions of Britishness and Irishness would be swept away. But, as the third Home Rule Bill continued on its passage into law, such political philosophies remained the preserve of the margins of Irish Nationalism. As long as they remained so, Irish Unionists would not have to choose between their Britishness and Irishness however much they distrusted the declarations of Redmond’s aspirational imperialism.

Chapter 2 Ireland in 1914

The eve of war The partition of Ireland as a possible solution to the Ulster crisis was first mooted in June 1912 when Thomas Arar-Robartes, a Liberal backbencher in the House of Commons, proposed an amendment to the Home Rule Bill excluding from its scope the four Ulster counties with Protestant majorities—Antrim, Down, Londonderry and Armagh. The Unionists opposed the measure on principle, but Carson and his supporters voted in favour on tactical grounds.1 By November 1913, Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had won the Cabinet’s agreement to the idea of the temporary exclusion of the four ‘Protestant’ counties from the operation of the Home Rule Bill, followed by their automatic inclusion after five or six years. In February 1914, in a meeting with Redmond, the Prime Minister, Asquith, had outlined the Government’s difficulties, emphasising the risk of the King being forced to intervene and dismiss the Government. Asquith indicated that the Government intended to make an offer to the Unionists so generous that its objection would deprive them of their moral support. Redmond objected strongly, but a month later he backed down and agreed to Ulster counties voting themselves out of the home rule area for a period of three years on condition that this would be the ‘last word of the Government’. Within a week he had been pushed into agreeing that the exclusion should last for five, then six years. By March 1914, Asquith was forced to admit to the House of Commons that if the Home Rule Bill were passed as it stood, there would be a risk of civil war in Ireland. He proposed an amendment which would allow the electorate of each Ulster county, together with Belfast and Londonderry city, to vote on whether it wished to opt out of home rule for a period of six years. Carson rejected the matter out of hand, but he conceded that he would

42 IRELAND IN 1914

take the offer seriously if the time limit were removed, declaring that Ulster would not accept a sentence of death with a stay of execution for six years.2 After Carson’s rejection of the six-years’ compromise, British army authorities were instructed to reinforce troops in Ulster. The military authorities decided, because of widespread sympathy within the army for the Ulster Unionist cause, that officers whose military homes were in Ulster need not be involved in any measures which might result in their fighting friends and relatives, but that they might ‘disappear’ for the course of any operations. General Paget, Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, delivered a confused version of these instructions to his senior officers, implicitly giving those who could not claim Ulster residence a choice between obedience or dismissal without pension. The result was that the War Office’s plans for possible operations against Ulster came to be seen as plans for an offensive. After consultations, General Gough and fifty-seven of his cavalry officers stationed at the Curragh declared that while they were prepared to maintain order in Ulster they would prefer to be dismissed than to be involved in starting hostilities. After the Curragh crisis, the Government had little confidence that it could use the army to crush a UVF rising. On 25 May 1914, the Home Rule Bill passed through the Commons for the third time and needed only the King’s signature to become law. The Government held firm and offered to the House of Lords an Amending Bill identical to that rejected by Carson on 9 March. In July, the Lords returned the Bill after modifying it by proposing the exclusion of all nine Ulster counties, forever. Later that month, a round table meeting of two leaders from each of the British and Irish parties met in Buckingham Palace, at the invitation of the King. Despite protests from Carson and the leader of the British Unionist Party, Andrew Bonar Law, the discussions dealt only with the question of which area was to be excluded, with no talk of how long such exclusion would last. Redmond argued that there were more Catholics in the Ulster counties of Londonderry and Armagh than there were Protestants in Fermanagh and Tyrone, and over 100,000 more Catholics in the four ‘Protestant’ counties than there were Protestants in the five ‘Catholic’ counties, so making the Government’s compromise an advantage to Unionists rather than Nationalists. But Carson rejected this asking how ‘men in one county are going to abandon men in another county just because there may be a majority here or a majority there’. Carson insisted that what he (mistakenly) termed the six Ulster plantation counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone, should be excluded

IRELAND IN 1914 43

after they had voted en bloc and not by county. He further demanded that the excluded area should have complete administrative control, leaving the ‘management of all local affairs within the area practically in the hands of the majority’. Redmond rejected this, and after Asquith’s suggestion of a division along parliamentary constituencies was rejected, the three-day conference broke up without agreement. Political tensions increased with the paramilitarianism of Irish Nationalism. In 1913, Professor Eoin MacNeill, in an article entitled ‘The North Began’ in An Claidheamh Soluis, called for a Nationalist equivalent of the UVF. At a meeting, on 11 November 1913, MacNeill with present and future IRB members, including Bulmer Hobson, Sean MacDermott and Patrick Pearse among others, considered the formation of such an organisation. Consequently the Irish National Volunteers were formed at a meeting under the chairmanship of MacNeill in Rotunda Rink, Dublin, on 25 November 1913. As the movement grew to rival the UVF in numbers, Redmond was forced to act against the new Volunteer leadership, and suggested in a letter to the Freeman’s Journal of 10 June 1914 that twenty-five of his nominees should have seats on the Provisional Committee of the Volunteers. This was reluctantly agreed to on 16 June 1914, but the tensions now inherent in such an organisation meant that the potential for schism was great. The political situation was transformed by the importation of a large shipment of arms for the UVF, when the Clydevalley landed 35,000 rifles and 2.5 million rounds of ammunition at Larne, Donaghadee and Bangor, under the direction of General Sir William Adair and Captain Wilfred Spender, making the threat of civil war more likely. Nationalist opinion was further inflamed when, following an attempt to land arms for the rival Irish National Volunteers, British soldiers opened fire on a hostile crowd at Bachelor’s Walk in Dublin, killing three and wounding thirty-seven. Following the killings, Asquith decided upon a final compromise. He would repeat his offer of county option but allow for continued exclusion after the end of the six-year period, making partition permanent. However, European events cast a shadow over Irish affairs. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinard saw the Great Powers slide into a general war. Only hours before he was due to present his new partition proposals to the House of Commons, Asquith was invited by Bonar Law to a meeting in which the latter proposed that the United Kingdom should preserve domestic unity to cope with the developing European situation, and that both sides should agree to solve the Irish question. After

44 IRELAND IN 1914

consulting with Redmond and several Cabinet colleagues, Asquith agreed.3 On 3 August 1914, the day before the British Empire declared war on the German Empire, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, both employed the phrase ‘the one bright spot’ to describe the political truce now pertaining in Ireland due to the European situation; the former reflected how ‘God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform’ regarding the apparent ‘settlement of Irish strife’, while the latter informed the House of Commons of his opinion that ‘the one bright spot in a very dreadful situation is Ireland. The position in Ireland—and I should like this to be clearly understood abroad—is not a consideration among the things we have to take into account now’.4 With Joseph Devlin in Belfast and John Dillon in Dublin, it fell to John Redmond at Westminster to determine the attitude of the Irish Party towards the impending war. Two days earlier the Prime Minister’s wife had written to Redmond, appealing to him to seize the ‘opportunity of his life of setting an unforgettable example to the Carsonites’. If Redmond were to offer the Irish National Volunteers to the British Government, or to the King, she believed it would ‘strengthen the claim of Ireland upon the gratitude of the British people’. In response, Redmond rose on 3 August 1914 to tell the House of Commons: In times past, when this Empire has been engaged in these terrible enterprises, it is true—it would be the utmost affectation and folly on my part to deny it—the sympathy of the nationalists of Ireland, for reasons to be found deep down in centuries of history, has been estranged from this country. Allow me to say…that what has occurred in recent years has altered the situation completely…a wider knowledge of the real facts of Irish history, has, I think, altered the views of the democracy of this country toward the Irish question, and today I honestly believe that the democracy of Ireland will turn with the utmost anxiety and sympathy to this country in every trial and every danger that may overtake it…. There are in Ireland two large bodies of Volunteers…. I say to the Government that they tomorrow may withdraw every one of their troops from Ireland. I say that the coast of Ireland will be defended from foreign invasion by her armed sons, and for this purpose armed Nationalist Catholics in the South will be only too ready to join arms with the armed Protestant Ulstermen in the North. Is it too much to hope that out of this situation there may spring a result which will be good, not

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merely for the Empire, but good for the future welfare and integrity of the Irish nation?5 Nationalist reactions Redmond’s speech helped to assuage Nationalist opinion in Ireland, which had been outraged by the Bachelor’s Walk shootings. The Nationalist provincial press exhibited support for Britain’s role in the conflict, regarding it as a just war caused by German aggression. However, it was the fate of the Home Rule Bill which dominated Nationalist thoughts. The Nationalist and Leinster Times, predicting that the war would be short, sharp and decisive, felt that England and France entered into it with clean hands, and accepted that Ireland’s destiny was mixed up with that of the British Empire, and that Redmond’s speech had done more for a ‘really United Ireland’ than any of his predecessors in national leadership.6 However, the newspaper clarified this with the opinion that the Irish National Volunteers should remain as they were, and not become a British militia or territorial force.7 It pointed out that the nationalist community could have adopted a policy of ‘passive neutrality’ towards the war, but for the great change that had taken place during the last decade, namely the ‘Entente Cordiale’ between the Irish and British peoples. This, it believed, was why Irish soldiers in the British army had answered the call to arms and why the Irish National Volunteers were ready to join with the Ulster Volunteers in defending Ireland’s shores. Thus, when Redmond had made his ‘generous and statesmanlike’ offer, it was felt in Nationalist Ireland that all controversy on the Home Rule Bill would cease and, without any further wrangling upon the part of the Unionists, it would be placed upon the Statute Book.8 The Drogheda Independent adopted the attitude that although war was horrible, there were even worse things; the ambitions of Kaiser Wilheim II compelled nations to confront his legions and to assert their own people’s rights as against his unwarranted aggression. The Independent claimed to be of the ‘peace party’, but not to the extent of letting the Kaiser play the world’s arbiter and overlord, for there had been no option for England, France or Russia, but to declare war upon Germany, and the sympathy of every rational Irishman would be with them in this conflict. In this context, Redmond’s offer was considered to be the practical manifestation of the ‘union of hearts’ and the beginning of Young Irelander Thomas Davis’s dream that the ‘Union of Orange and Green’ would present to the world the ‘vision of a United Ireland’.9

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The Longford Leader took the view that whatever the ultimate effect of Redmond’s speech, it had at least been applauded by all sections of Irish opinion. Bad as British rule was, the nationalist community did not want to exchange it for German rule, which was described as the most autocratic, bureaucratic and tyrannical rule in the world. Ireland did not want land confiscation again, nor German occupation, which would mean the extermination of the Irish race at the slightest provocation, whereas the implementation of home rule would end national jealousy between England and Ireland.10 The Dundalk Democrat credited Redmond with a ‘splendid day’s work for Ireland’ which had dispelled some mistaken notions about Irishmen. The ‘Orangemen’s bias’ had been proved to be ‘unnatural’, and foreign nations had been mistaken if they had counted upon Ireland’s disloyalty.11 Whatever of Ulster, said the Democrat, the war had drawn Unionist and Nationalist together outside that province.12 The Clare Champion, while pointing out that England had as much to lose by peace as war—the time being opportune for a strong if not deadly blow to Germany’s aims of a ‘spot in the sun’ as a Great Power—drew hope from the possibility that in the change of Europe’s face, Irish Unionists and Nationalists would have it within their power to change not only Ireland, but win by ‘National unity’ a greater measure of Irish selfgovernment.13 The Cork Examiner contented itself that Redmond’s intervention in the House of Commons ‘should end forever the mischievous and malicious Tory allegations that under Home Rule Ireland could not be depended upon in the event of England being engaged in a foreign war’ and convince all British Unionists that ‘when they rely on Ireland’s honour they can rest assured that she will keep her compact’.14 The Examiner nevertheless realised that while it was ridiculous to suggest that Unionists would become home rulers or that North-South political differences would cease, it was at the same time safe to say that all Irishmen would be brought together and many misunderstandings removed. If Irishmen could work together to defend their shores, could they not help to regenerate Ireland and work for her welfare under an Irish parliament?15 The Clonmel Nationalist believed that England’s difficulty had proved Ireland’s ‘golden opportunity’. Redmond’s action had ‘spiked the opposition guns, and won thousands of new friends for Home Rule’.16 By one bold stroke he had ‘confounded rabid irreconcilables’, bound friend and foe together in Ireland, convinced the British Empire of Ireland’s sincerity and fitness to take her place amongst the nation’s of the earth, so that England

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now recognised the benefit of doing justice to Ireland since ‘Orange and Green were carrying the day’.17 According to the Nationalist, within the vision of a new Ireland, the Irish National Volunteers were not only to protect Ireland from invasion, but also to protect and maintain her rights as a self-governing nation under home rule, being a citizen army, permanent in peace and war.18 The Enniscorthy Guardian, while acknowledging that British rule in Ireland had been anything but desirable and rightly denounced, accepted that Nationalists should be concerned with the present, and so British rule, with all its faults, was much more preferable to German rule.19 The Guardian was shocked at the reported German outrages in Belgium, and while similar acts had been perpetrated on Ireland by England in the past, it recognised that ‘civilisation had not advanced so far in those days as at present’.20 Granted that although the Allies were fighting in defence of a great principle— unlike Britain in the Boer War—it was also true that many within the nationalist community could not, in a few brief weeks, entirely forget the wrongs that had been inflicted by England in the past: ‘It would take many years to bring about a complete oblivion of Ireland’s past wrongs’,21 and therefore, although the war did not ‘evoke as much enthusiasm and activity in Ireland as some people expected it would, the overwhelming majority of the people are rightly anti-German’. The Guardian hoped that Redmond’s ‘chivalrous action’ would be adequately requited by the immediate placing of the Home Rule Bill on the Statute Book, for the Irish Party had acted an ‘extremely generous’ part and the question was now whether this would be reciprocated.22 The Limerick Leader decided that Redmond’s speech was a ‘master stroke of tact, patriotism and statesmanship’, rendering a service to both Ireland and the Empire, making home rule inevitable and producing a situation in which North-South unity would be likely in the near future.23 Never in her history had Ireland been so united, as bitter foes had been turned into friends and a vast amount of hostility to home rule had been removed, proving that the ‘artificial’ differences between Irishmen were not great when analysed.24 Redmond, the Wexford Free Press claimed, had illustrated to the English people that Ireland was not opposed to England or her Empire, but to the system of government by which England governed Ireland,25 demonstrating, said the Western People in Mayo, that Ireland was ready to stand by England and the Empire as a ‘full brotherhood of loyalty and confidence in which Nationalist and Unionist Volunteer fusion

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would see the creation of Ireland’s National Army, protecting her honour and rights’.26 But, as the Kerryman reflected, the war had produced ‘strange bedfellows’, and ‘had the extraordinary effect of patching up old feuds centuries old’, although Irishmen had not, so far, received any undue provocation to fall in love with England. Nevertheless, there was ‘not a man in the country—even we feel sure, the most extreme of patriots—who would not support England…in the struggle now on. We want no sauer-kraut’ the newspaper concluded.27 The Sligo Champion put the attitude of Nationalist Ireland in context: This war…is not of Ireland’s making. Ireland had nothing to do with the outbreak of war; against her will she finds herself interested in the issues of the struggle. Ireland is a subject state in an Empire in which, so far, she has not yet been granted a definite place. To pretend that we are profoundly interested in the fortunes of that Empire would be absurd. Like any other we are prepared to defend our shore against invasion. We do not want a multiplicity of enemies in Ireland. We have the English here already.28 The aspirational nature of the Nationalist imperial identity was summed up by the Ulster Guardian, which believed that, after the granting of home rule, Nationalists would become, and ever would remain, loyal to the British connection, ready to ‘spend and be spent on behalf of British citizenship, once that citizenship had been acknowledged to be, as today it is…compatible with loyalty to Irish citizenship and Irish nationality’.29 As one Catholic priest, the Reverend Dr Foley, explained at a public gathering, he looked forward to the day when he would see school children saluting not only the Irish national flag, but the Empire’s flag, the Union Jack, also. The Irish people had no grievance against the Australian, Canadian, South African or Indian peoples, said Foley, and he believed that all Irish grievances against the British parliament and king had been rectified, except one—home rule. Therefore: as soon as that last grievance was removed…he believed there would be no hesitation on the part of the Irish people acknowledging and saluting that flag, and in becoming as loyal citizens of the great British Empire as are to be found in any part of her world-wide dominions. In that event he would have no hesitation in saluting that flag himself, and he hoped

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and believed that in a short time, the mass of the people… would be not alone loyal in substance as they were bound to be, even at present, [but] also in sentiment, which they would hardly expect to be until they had got the treatment that had made loyalty a passion and almost a religion with some of their friends at home and beyond the water. Sprung as he was from the ranks of the people, whilst he fully recognised his obligation to ‘honour the King’, and to obey the laws of the country…he did not, and could not yet share in that passionate sentimental loyalty to which he referred.30 Unionist reactions Within Irish Unionism a marked division began to develop between the Southern Unionist and Ulster Unionist political elites in their responses to Redmond’s offer to unite the two volunteer organisations. The Southern Unionist newspaper, the Leitrim Advertiser, confidently declared that, after Redmond’s speech, the Irish Question ‘no longer exists in the face of the European difficulty’.31 This signalled a perception among many of the Southern unionist community that Redmond had demonstrated his Britannic loyalty, and thus many Unionists mistook the mood of Nationalist Ireland for a dilution of its demand for home rule, instead preferring to focus on the imperial aspects of the speech. They were encouraged in this by anecdotal evidence, such as the widely quoted statement, alleged to be that of an Irish Party MP, that ‘We are all Britishers today’.32 Redmond’s speech answered the hopes of many Southern Unionists that the Irish Party was indeed sincere in its professions of loyalty to King and Empire. A Cork Unionist asked if the Irish National Volunteers could now declare themselves ‘Nationalists in the true sense of the word’, and commit themselves to defend Ireland, for ‘We are sick of the talk of…“Ireland for the Irish”, being “governed by aliens” etc., etc. The real question of to-day is Are the National Volunteers now prepared to prove themselves loyal subjects of the Crown and Empire?’33 Initially many Southern Unionists convinced themselves that Nationalists could. The mood in Sligo, for example, appeared to many Unionists there to be an illustration of this change of Nationalist mood. During the first week of the war, at Sligo Town Hall, a meeting of prominent local Unionists and Nationalists appeared to symbolise the new rapprochement between the two factions. The predominantly Nationalist crowd sang the song of

50 IRELAND IN 1914

national freedom ‘A Nation Once Again’ and ‘God Save the King’. Alderman Foley, a Nationalist, told the crowd that ‘they were all Unionists now in the common cause of their country (cheers)’ standing side by side to drive the enemy away from their shores. This elicited the response from a Unionist, the Reverend Canon Ardill, who, to further cheers, claimed that ‘there was a sense where they were all Nationalists, because in his opinion, there could be no [better] definition of a Nationalist than those who were prepared to assist the dependants of the man who had gone to fight the battles of his country’.34 James Stanford, a retired officer in the Connaught Rangers, contrasted the current public reaction with that which he had encountered, in Sligo, during the Boer War: for years Sligo has been Nationalist in everything, and I may say, without hesitation, that every campaign in which England was involved, the majority of Sligo people were in sympathies with the enemies of England—aye, yes, even if it was the Devil himself that England’s Cabinet…had declared war against. But what do I see in this campaign? Nationalist and Unionist as one man arrayed against the deadly foe of France…. I would not have taken notice of the above part of the state of feeling of the inhabitants but for the fact that I accompanied a few comrades of mine to the [rail] Station who were recalled to the colours…. On return…I saw Nationalists and Unionists cheering everyone who they thought might be called out. I may say it was a pleasant surprise to me, for I then remembered another mobilisation, where there was booing and groaning wherever the Queen’s uniform was seen.35 The Church of Ireland Gazette expressed its belief that the common call of the ‘higher patriotism’ for the ‘protection of the Mother Country’, that is the United Kingdom, had taken hold,36 and so the war had revolutionised the Irish nation’s outlook. A newer and brighter spirit was detected by the Gazette, with Nationalist antipathy to the British army no longer apparent, and Tommy Atkins, as could be seen all over Ireland, had been taken to heart.37 Even the hard-line Irish Protestant was in a charitable mood, accepting at face value the new zeal for England amongst Irish Nationalists, although it stated that not everyone who now cheered for the National Anthem was a loyal subject. Nevertheless, it found the change in attitudes ‘remarkable’ as a large number of Nationalists appeared to have shaken off the ‘shackles of seeming disloyalty’, largely, it stated, because of the policies of successive

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Unionist Governments, and the realisation that personal safety and property rights were secure under the aegis of the British Empire and Union Jack.38 The Kilkenny Moderator described Ireland’s attitude as ‘phenomenal’, indicating a unity and purpose among all classes which had never existed at any previous period; ‘There was in fact, but one mind and one heart in regard to England in her present conflict with Germany It is not merely an indifferent or apathetic assent to this English war policy. The Irishman is earnest, determined, enthusiastic—it may be said fanatically loyal to England in this gigantic struggle’, based upon an intelligent understanding of German domination, the paper concluded;39 the war had done this with ‘magic celebrity’.40 The Church of Ireland Gazette interpreted Nationalist loyalty as similar to the Unionist definition of Irishness, within a primary Britannic framework, emphasising how the United Kingdom, composed of English, Scots, Irish and Welsh nationalities, was evidence of how four historical entities acted as members of one body, their ‘essential unity the work of centuries, which forged the parts into a working whole’.41 Indeed, this interpretation of Irishness enabled some Southern Unionists, such as Samuel Howard, while writing to the Irish Times, to refer to Redmond as a ‘great British statesman’. Howard based this assessment upon Redmond’s loyalty to the Crown, stressing that ‘Loyalty to King and country in this rugged and awful crisis is either above or below price. It is either purchasable or it is not worth purchase’.42 Similarly, the Bishop of Ossory thanked Redmond for his deliverance of British national unity: We are all in the same peril, we who are the King’s subjects. We are concerned with our duty to our common country. Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotchmen—Roman Catholic and Protestant—Churchmen and Dissenter—Unionist and Nationalist—North and South—we are all in the same peril. And, thank God, we are all united in our determination to play our part in the defence of home and fatherland. We do not agree on many large questions, but all our differences must be laid aside in the presence of a common danger and a common opportunity. The man who prefers his party to his country at this crisis, whatever be his political creed is no patriot…. I speak as a Unionist and as a bishop of the Irish Church when I say that the leader of the Nationalist Party, who represents the Roman Catholics of Ireland, has acted as a true patriot and a wise statesman in his efforts to bring Irishmen together…. Please God, the association of brave

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Irishmen, with brave Englishmen, of Unionist with Nationalist Volunteer in duty, in danger, in death, whatever the issue of the war, will help to promote a real fellowship in national sentiment. For ‘greater hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends’.43 In Ulster the reaction of Unionists there could not be more different. The Belfast News-Letter reported with alarm rumours of a political agreement between the Government and the Irish Party. This agreement, it said, would involve the Home Rule Bill immediately receiving the Royal Assent, with unspecified amendments, to accommodate Unionists, to be introduced at some future date; the second phase of the deal would involve the operation of the Bill being deferred as long as possible to allow consultations to take place. This, said the News-Letter, was very unsatisfactory from the Unionist view as they had pledged to use everything in their power to resist the Bill becoming law. Patriotism required Unionists to support the Government in the present crisis, but there was also an obligation on the Government to refrain from doing anything which would exasperate Unionists. The News-Letter suggested extending the parliamentary session until the end of March 1915 to ensure that the Home Rule Bill would not come into operation until after a general election for, if the Bill became law, Redmond would be ‘master of the situation’ and would be free to vote against any proposed Amending Bill designed to accommodate the Unionists. The News-Letter warned that the real significance of Redmond’s speech was that if his offer of home defence was accepted by the Government, the Irish National Volunteers will…be fully armed, and they will retain their arms after the emergency is over. Consequently, if the Unionists come into power, and if they propose to repeal the Bill…Mr Redmond would be able to say that he would use his Volunteers to make the government of Ireland by the Imperial Parliament impossible. Ireland would have to be reconquered, and the Government would have to perform the disagreeable duty of fighting against the force which had been entrusted with the defence of Ireland…. In his speech…Redmond referred to the organisation of the…Volunteers in 1778 to defend the country against invasion, and he expressed the hope that history might repeat itself. But only four years later the Volunteers were used to extract the independence of the Irish Parliament. Is it in this respect that he wishes history to repeat itself? Does he mean that a few years after the Irish

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Parliament has been established it will demand independence, and enforce it by the threat to use 150,000 armed Volunteers?44 In this atmosphere Sir Edward Carson moved to quell any doubts among unionist army reservists as to whether they should return to their regiments, instructing them to answer ‘immediately His Majesty’s call, as our first duty as loyal subjects is to our King’.45 Carson informed his supporters that, for the present at least, the question of partition had been postponed and would not be brought forward again until the Government and the Opposition were of the opinion that it was a proper course to take, in the interests of the United Kingdom and Empire. Until then, ‘our position is unprejudiced and remains unchanged’.46 Despite these reassurances, Unionists in Ulster were aware that beneath the enthusiasm shown to the Government, ‘a very tense and keen’ party struggle had been raging over the fate of the Home Rule Bill. Unionists believed that the war meant that all contentious political issues should be put to one side for its duration.47 Thus, the Derry Standard considered Irish Party pressure on the Government to place the Home Rule Bill on the Statute Book to be as ‘infamous a suggestion…as that made by Germany in regard to the British attitude towards France and Belgium’, with the Nationalists seeking a party triumph rather than putting the interests of national safety first.48 The Armagh Guardian assailed the Irish Party whose members, it claimed, had previously out-vied one another in hatred of England, but who were now loyal and willing to defend Ireland because they were ‘afraid’ of Germany.49 This perception was confirmed in Ulster Unionist perceptions when the Irish Press Agency, the Irish Party’s publicity wing, stated that home rule was a more important issue for Nationalists than the war, an attitude which the Armagh Guardian called a ‘cowardly confession’.50 The self-image of Ulster Unionists, when they contrasted it with Nationalists, was summed up by the Northern Whig which believed that: Because the Unionist party are too patriotic and too honourable to embarrass the Government or to fail their country in a time of danger their very patriotism and honesty may be used against themselves…. What an outrage it would be therefore to insist upon passing such a measure at the present time in the knowledge that Ulster’s proven patriotism and loyalty would hinder her from making trouble. What about the much-boomed and newly discovered Nationalist loyalty?

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Is it too flimsy and unreal that it cannot stand a few months delay? In that case it cannot be worth much.51 Uncertainty regarding the fate of the Home Rule Bill was beginning to affect recruitment for the British army in Ulster. The Armagh Guardian claimed that thousands of unionists were willing to serve overseas if the Government acted honourably and the Bill were ‘hung up’, meaning its operation would be suspended for the period of the war, because they were unprepared to leave Ulster to the Nationalists, ‘undefended’.52 To ascertain the state of feeling among the UVF as to conditions under which they would serve in the army, a series of option forms were distributed among Ulster Volunteers asking them to state their preference: for military service anywhere in the United Kingdom; for foreign service; or in Ulster only.53 A correspondent for the Northern Whig reported that the returns showed a large number favouring service anywhere in the United Kingdom while a ‘goodly number’ opted for foreign service, although this was conditional upon the political ‘truce’ not being broken. A prominent member of the UVF explained the dilemma facing Ulster Volunteers: For more than two years…we have worked hard, given up our leisure, our recreation, and our home enjoyment in order to be ready to defend our homes and liberties from threatened aggression—in order to try and keep our status as citizens of the United Kingdom under the British Parliament. We have trained in spite of difficulty, covenanted in spite of ridicule, armed in spite of proclamation, because we were determined that whoever tried to fasten the Nationalist fetters upon us, and to deprive us of our place in Britain, would have to conquer us first. Now, that spirit is not a spirit that can be obliterated even by the influence of this great war. The UVF is willing to offer itself up on Britain’s altar, and in doing so it will have the blessing of Ulster behind it. But, as is only natural, its members seek an assurance that the heritage to preserve which they have laboured assiduously for two years, the heritage for which they have sacrificed much already, and are prepared to sacrifice all, shall not be quietly alienated from them while they are fighting Britain’s battles…they feel they have the right to the same considerations and the same protection that any ordinary volunteer receives when he joins the colours. To him an actual assurance is given that his status as a citizen shall not suffer, and a moral assurance that

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those dependent upon him shall not be allowed to want…. The suggestion that the… Bill should be put on the Statutebook at the present time is an infamous one. It would be a gross injustice that Ulster loyalty should be tested by the cruel question whether it will be called to the flag or false to the Covenant; whether it will hang back in hesitation at this supreme national moment, or chiefly acquiesce in the perpetration of the crime to prevent which it had enrolled and armed its sons. The Ulster Volunteers are ready and anxious to rally to the flag in defence of the country, but they want an assurance that when they return from the war, the flag for which they have fought and the country which they have helped to defend will still be theirs.54 This choice left Ulster Unionists, according to the Derry Standard, in a position of ‘much cruelty—they must either submit to a grave injustice with a sense of wrong or injustice…or take steps which could only disturb the national unity at a most critical moment’.55 A.H.McCelland summed up the sense of anger among Unionists when he wrote to the News-Letter, complaining that it was enough to ‘make one’s blood boil and to stiffen one’s back like a bar of steel’ to hear of the plans over home rule, while their king, country, soldiers, sailors and allies were busy day and night, yet they could not have peace at home.56 ‘Die Hard’, as ‘an ordinary man in the street’, believed that Redmond spoke for himself and not for the majority of the nationalist community, writing ‘Fancy Ulster Protestants uniting with the “National Army”, the object of which is to obtain by force all that is necessary to make “Ireland a nation”’.57 ‘R.A.L.’ thought that Carson must have been disgusted at the haste of some Southern Unionists in applauding Redmond for his so-called loyalty, and uniting with the Irish National Volunteers, not ‘to fight for a British Empire, not to fight for a United Kingdom, not to fight for England, not to fight for the Union Jack, but to fight for a united Ireland and to defend her shores against a foreign foe—England’.58 A ‘True Irish Patriot’ agreed that it would be a ‘serious blunder’ to allow large numbers of Ulster Volunteers to leave at the present time, on the grounds that ‘If the empire needs defence it must be admitted that our own section of the empire in its perilous position has a first claim on our defending powers’; for there was a foe among them, a ‘subtle, treacherous foe, whose published boast was England’s difficulty was Ireland’s opportunity’. Or, as ‘Justitia’ reminded UVF members, by signing the Ulster Covenant, they had pledged themselves to do their utmost to keep Ulster for the Empire and it was because ‘I

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feel intensely that it is quite as much an Imperial question to retain Ireland for the Empire as to fight foreign foes abroad that I write’; therefore, was it fair to leave Ulster at the mercy of men who would rejoice to hear of a German army marching in triumph across England?59 The Northern Whig, in admitting that recruiting for the army had not been brisk, laid the blame at the Government’s feet: Considering the position, can anyone feel surprised that a feeling of bitter resentment should have grown up against such a betrayal of Ulster? What claim for help has any Government upon people whose most valued rights they are taking away? This question has been asked by many an Ulster Volunteer. For men who are forcibly deprived of their citizenship in the United Kingdom to be asked to assist in defending that kingdom was felt by many to be a piece of insolence not easily forgiven. What baser or blacker treachery could there be than to betray men under the guise of a truce? It is no better than firing under the shelter of the white flag. What name is too harsh for the guilt of those who would take the very moment when men are being asked to fight for their country to deprive them of that citizenship in that country?60 Carson privately admitted that the recmdescence of Protestantism during the home rule crisis had gone so far that some Ulster Protestants did not see why they should be fighting against Germany, a Protestant power, and that it had had to be shown to them that Germany was one-third Catholic, compared to the United Kingdom’s population of one-tenth Catholic; as one Unionist correspondent wrote, ‘who would not prefer the rule of the German Emperor to that of John Redmond?’, adding that the anti-Protestantism of Nationalists was such that, were Britain fighting any other than Protestant Germany ‘there would have been no talk of [Nationalists] standing side by side’ with England.61 In reply, one Unionist felt obliged to point out to colleagues that: The phrase ‘Protestant Germany’ requires very considerable modification, as Germany is not Protestant in the sense in which Great Britain is Protestant. The Roman Catholic population in Germany is very large, and to a very considerable extent controls the Government. Many of the heads of German States are Roman Catholics, and the late German ambassador in London, Prince Lichnowsky, was of

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that denomination. Moreover, Austria, the ally of Germany is the strongest supporter of the Papacy in Europe, and within her dominions Protestants suffer from several civil disabilities. Austria in the past has been very largely associated with the prosecution of Protestants, and it is well to remember that Philip of Spain, the patron of the Inquisition, was a member of the same family as is the Austrian Emperor. In this war the Kaiser is not fighting for Protestant principles, but is fighting for the lust of conquest. He is exactly the 20th century representative of Louis XIV, whom our own William III fought for so long…. Every Orangeman, therefore, who volunteers for service in England’s army in this combat is taking that part which the founder of the Order would have taken had he been alive to-day.62 A small number of pre-war Unionist speeches, which were a constant source of embarrassment, had made reference to the preferability of Ulster being ruled as part of the German Empire rather than coming under home rule, and were used by home rulers as evidence of Unionist disloyalty to the Crown. But, as Sir James Stronge, Grand Master of the Orange Lodge of Ireland, explained: Of course I was…ashamed of the pre-War Germanising speeches made by a few members of our party. (I think that James Craig is the only one of them who can be said to be of any political importance.) If they had known the Germans as they know them now they would have sought a more legitimate illustration for their argument. We all believe (& still believe) that Home Rule implies eventually an Irish Republic anti-British in sentiment, and I can’t, even now, say that I would prefer to live under an Irish Republic to living under a German Empire. I would emigrate rather than live under either. The context of the very speeches complained of would show that the speeches were thoroughly British in sentiment, and their subsequent actions confirm the same. But at that time they might say without disloyalty that if they have to choose between Queen Victoria’s grandson & (say) President ‘TP’ [O’Connor, a senior Irish Party MP] they preferred to submit to the former.63 The Northern Whig referred to the fact that there was little enthusiasm throughout the United Kingdom for war with Germany, ‘to which we are bound by strong ties of blood and friendship’.

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The Whig described how, in the days of Frederick the Great, Prussia would have been blotted out as a European state had it not been for the assistance of England. These, the newspaper said, were memories not easily forgotten, but it was Germany that had chosen now to forget them, and she now held the sword at England’s throat. The real issue was clear: whether Germany was to be allowed to impose her will on Europe, and particularly on England.64 In this vein, R.S.G.King of Limavady urged action as an Ulster Unionist and Volunteer, emphasising that it was the duty of every loyalist to render unquestionably to their country whatever service, military or otherwise, that may be in his power. This duty, argued King, existed quite independently of the conduct of the Government or of the Irish Party. Whatever pledges might be broken, whatever steps might be taken to establish an Irish parliament, it would be none the less ‘our duty and our privilege first of all to save our country from our outside enemies…. This is no time for claiming our rights, or for exacting the fulfilment of obligations. The supreme duty for all at the present time is to relieve our rulers, whatever we may think of them, from any necessity of attending to home politics, and…to render every service…whatever the cost, to our glorious and beloved Empire’.65 J.A.Wensly claimed that while opinion among Ulster Volunteers appeared to be veering strongly to the view that, no matter what action the Government took, it was plainly the Volunteers’ duty to place their services at the disposal of the country, their leaders at Westminster remained ‘as silent as the Sphinx’.66 As a future MP, Hugh O’Neill, wrote, ‘We have waited long enough, and it is time we were told exactly where we stand’.67 The Irish National Volunteers: southern unionist and nationalist tensions At this time tensions between Ulster Unionists and Southern Unionists were heightened by the influx of Southern Protestants into the Irish National Volunteer organisation. Captain Bryan Cooper, a former Unionist MP, saluted Redmond’s ‘magnificent’ speech by declaring that he was immediately enrolling with the Irish National Volunteers, and urged every physically fit member of the unionist community to do the same in order to ‘show the world that Irishmen can forget their quarrel and stand united against a common danger’.68 Lord Castletown and Lord Mayo proclaimed that they were anxious to associate themselves and provide equipment for the Volunteers in ‘defence of the Empire and their country’,69 while Lord Oranmore and Browne emphasised his hope

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that Irishmen would sink their differences, under the direction of the War Office, for the ‘defence of our native land and the Empire’.70 These sentiments were echoed by Lieutenant-Colonel St Leger Moore, a former commander in the South of Ireland Yeomanry, who offered his services to defend ‘our country, and to uphold the honour of our King and our Flag’.71 These actions produced considerable debate among Southern Unionists as well as between Southern Unionists and Ulster Unionists. The focus for Unionist agitation in the southern provinces, the Irish Unionist Alliance (IUA), after receiving a request from Carson opposing Unionist involvement in the Irish National Volunteer movement, decided that it was unwise to take any public stance on the issue until it was known what the Government was going to do with the Home Rule Bill. The IUA Secretary, R.J.Herbert Shaw, informed Lord Donoughmore, an IUA member who had become president of the Irish National Volunteers in Clonmel, that the IUA Committee expressed the general opinion that Unionists should, for the time being, abstain from taking any active part in the Nationalist organisation.72 But, for Unionists like Donoughmore, their duty was clear: I have noted with profound regret the attitude of our Committee towards the Irish National Volunteers—I cannot possibly concur in this, as I consider it the duty of every Irishman to leave party politics aside for the moment and to do all that he can to join hands with anyone else who offers to do his best in the defence of our portion of the Empire. In the crisis the whole of our Imperial existence is at stake. The National Volunteers have offered to take their part; I have already subscribed to them; I intend to assist in every way in my power.73 Donoughmore resented the criticisms of Ulster Unionists, arguing that they did not understand what a large number of Southern Unionists were doing: If we are now trying to help our country…we do so with the knowledge that if, after the war, politics go wrong from our point of view, we in the South will be the individuals to suffer. For the moment however we feel that Imperial interests must be our only concern, and if the efficiency of the Irish Volunteers can lighten the task of the Imperial navy and army, it is our duty to support them. This attitude is perfectly understood by all concerned.74

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However, some Southern Unionists, such as J.Mackay Wilson, urged the IUA policy of caution. Wilson based his argument upon the superficial nature of Irish Party loyalty. ‘Even if we give Mr. Redmond full credit for his somewhat belated effort of loyalty to the Empire’, he argued: Can Mr. Redmond speak for the great bulk of the Volunteers? If France were England’s enemy, would we have a similar call to arms by Irish Nationalists? Surely, if the National Volunteers are to be recruited as guardians of these shores, some oath of allegiance to the King or some other test of loyalty will have to be administered? Once equipped with arms, Mr. Redmond would naturally (and who would blame him) use their extra power as a lever to carry a Home Rule Bill. All I suggest is that Irish Unionists wait a little. There are many ways we can help the cause of Empire, to which we have always been so devoted, and even be well-wishers of the National Volunteer movement without being too closely identified with it. Every Irish Unionist will hold out the hand of fellowship…provided always it is not called on for any terms or conditions, and that all controversial political differences be sunk for the time being in the face of the grave dangers we are suffering from.75 Within Nationalist Ireland there were also dissenting voices. The most vocal opposition to Redmond’s home defence policy came from the Sinn Fein movement. Arthur Griffith warned Nationalists that an England victorious in the war would be more powerful than at any time since the middle of the nineteenth century, and would treat Ireland’s claim to nationhood dismissively. On the other hand, he feared that if England lost, and Ireland was identified with her cause, Ireland would share in her punishment.76 The analysis of Eoin MacNeill was that the Home Rule Bill was to be placed on the Statute Book ‘under a distinct understanding that the enemies of Home Rule will have a further and full opportunity to defeat the measures, altogether’. Only when the Bill was on the Statute Book would the decisive stage of the campaign be reached, and the defence of Ireland would begin. ‘There is not much likelihood of a German invasion of our shores’, he pointed out, ‘But there is every certainty of an English invasion of our rights and liberties’.77 Once signed, claimed Griffith, the Bill could see the calling of an Irish executive within forty-eight hours, and this would be a test as to whether the Bill, though signed, was intended to be

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implemented. An Irish government in being would see all sections of Nationalist opinion support it, but home rule on the Statute Book solely would be a sham if a home rule government was nonexistent.78 In Sinn Fein, Griffith advocated a Nationalist policy of strict neutrality towards the war: Ireland is not at war with Germany. She has no quarrel with any Continental Power. England is at war with Germany…. What has Ireland to defend and whom has she to defend it against? Has she a native Constitution or a National Government to defend? All know she has not. All know both were wrested from her by the power to whom Mr. Redmond offers the services of Nationalist Ireland. All know that Mr. Redmond has made his offer without receiving a quid pro quo. There is no European Power waging war against the Irish people. There are two European Powers at war with the people who dominate from Dublin Castle. The call to the Volunteers to ‘defend Ireland’ is a call to them to defend the bureaucracy entrenched in that edifice…. Our duty is in no doubt. We are Irish Nationalists, and the only duty is to stand for Ireland’s interests, irrespective of the interests of England or Germany or any other country…. Germany is nothing to us in herself, but she is not our enemy.79 In Irish Freedom the IRB leadership declared ‘Germany Is Not Ireland’s Enemy’, and argued that Redmond’s policy was not a proposal to defend Ireland at all, for England was not going to withdraw her troops from Ireland, because England knew that if this were to happen the Irish National Volunteers would hold the country, not alone against Germany, but against ‘anybody else who attempts to interfere with it’. The IRB claimed that the anti-German and pro-English feeling which had appeared in certain parts of the country was a ‘manufactured and a transient feeling’ and only a continuation of the attempt to ‘paint Imperialism on the Nation’. The IRB felt themselves to be the true inheritors of the Nationalist mantle, pointing out that the only enemy Ireland ever had was England: In battle, and in torture, and in prison, in all kinds of indignities, the unstained flag of the Irish Nation has been borne aloft by the men whose tradition we carry on. They have thrown themselves against the pirate flag in every generation and died that this country might live. At any time, by accepting the Empire and the Union Jack, as Mr. Redmond

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does, they could have gained the applause of England. They would not have it and neither will we…. If any bastard nation be set up here, in return for Ireland’s soul, there are men still… who will go out against the flag of it as cheerfully as against the pirate flag… for John Redmond one word—Judas.80 Within the Irish National Volunteers, discontent from the rank and file focused on the ‘dumping of officers of pronounced Unionist views’ on country corps by the Volunteer Executive in Dublin. The appointment of such officers who, under certain circumstances might demand the right to withdraw their services, was considered unsatisfactory enough for one Volunteer to state that ‘Those who put England’s interests before Ireland’s are clearly not desirable Volunteers’.81 D.P.Moran’s journal, the Leader, warned that a section of Unionists was joining the Volunteers believing that the ‘mere Irish had become Britons and vice versa’. Both had misread the situation and would shortly realise that ‘Ireland stood for a distinct national entity’.82 The Enniscorthy Guardian cautioned unsuspecting people: not to delude themselves with the idea that there is now a complete fusion of Orange and Green in Ireland. There is no such thing. Orange will never mix with green unless green waters down its colours so as to suit the Orange view…. Note that so far, though Mr. Redmond has been holding out the olive branch for years…the other side has not yielded a single inch. They laud Nationalists and pat them on the back for having yielded thus far, in other words for having given them some thing. They take that something willingly, but they give us nothing for it…they do not say they will withdraw their opposition to Home Rule, that they will endeavour to join us… to improve the measure for the benefit of Ireland…. No, they will take all, but will give us nothing in return. It was ever thus with them…. When the war has finished they will be their old selves again—the same bitter opponents of popular selfgovernment, and demand that the Amending Bill be proceeded with to whittle down Home Rule. There will never be a fusion of Orange and Green unless we are able to compel…through force of circumstances, the Orangemen to take their place under the green flag…. Young men of Ireland, be aware of the alluring smiles and cheap applause of the Tories and the Orangemen! See that you will get something in return for what you give.83

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Increasingly, tensions came to the fore throughout August and September 1914. For example, in County Clare, retired British army officers could not bring themselves to join what they considered a ‘guerrilla’ force in which it seemed that many of the leaders appeared in open sympathy with the enemy, and accused the Volunteer Executive in Dublin of not clearly endorsing Redmond’s speech. These former officers demanded a definite right of resignation to cover the eventuality of the Volunteers being employed ‘otherwise than against Germany’.84 Unionists also insisted that there had to be some relationship between the Volunteers and the War Office, or at least some form of oath of allegiance to the King, if not both.85 For example, E.G.StewartCroswait, Rector of Littletown in Thurles, County Tipperary, proposed a local corps of sharpshooters, particularly for ‘gentlemen of leisure’ who had not seen their way to joining a corps which had in its foundation a ‘political bias’. Such a corps as he proposed, in his definition would be ‘non-sectarian and nonpolitical’, for the only oath to be taken would be to the King and Empire.86 Sir William Mahon, of Catlegar, County Galway, welcomed the rumoured extension of the territorial army system to Ireland, again on account that it would embody loyalty to the King and defence of the Empire.87 The significance of an oath of allegiance for Unionists was summed up by Lieutenant-Colonel de Burgh in County Kildare, who, in attempting to form a loyal corps, stressed that there was ‘no place for neutrals or half-hearted men among the subjects of the King’,88 and that ‘it was not enough that we should be loyal at heart. We should have the courage…and patriotism to openly declare our loyalty’ for they would then find the Empire consolidated by combined effort and sacrifice which would have had the effect of erecting ‘loyalty to their King into something like a religion’.89 Lord Meath requested written assurances from Redmond on the question of an oath so that, in giving his support to the Irish National Volunteers, as His Majesty’s Lieutenant for the County and City of Dublin he ‘would in no way fail in his duty to H.M. the King’. Meath, anxious to support and to encourage efforts to raise forces for the defence of the ‘British Islands’, was prepared to do so ‘as long as I am assured that such forces acknowledge allegiance to King George, and [are] prepared to pay respect to His Majesty in the usual manner required of British troops’, especially as he was hearing rumours of dissension amongst Nationalist leaders on this matter.90 However, as Redmond demonstrated in his terse reply to Meath, the question of the oath, let alone the issue of War Office control, posed problems for the Irish Party.

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Redmond expressed surprise at Meath’s request for clarification, and respectfully declined to give a written assurance, instead pointing out that the Irish National Volunteers were to be sanctioned by His Majesty’s Government, and that Meath ought ‘really to decide for yourself under the Circumstances, the same as anybody else, what is your Conception of your duty to the King’.91 As Meath had informed Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, most Dublin City and County Unionists were at a loss as to what course they should follow; they did not want to unite their fortunes with any party organisation, and were waiting in the hope that the Government would make their duty easier by organising a corps of the Irish National Volunteers for home defence. Any further delay would, feared Meath, mean the increase of two armed party organisations, including the UVF, outside the control of the Government. Meath was anxious that if the war was prolonged, Ireland could be drained of all her regular forces and probably her police as well, raising the possibility of the two Volunteer forces engaging in civil strife against either each other, or against England, should she try to suppress them. But, he believed, if England took control of them now, she would have at all times in Ireland an effective force to keep the peace and defend the country, and so, after home rule became a fait accompli, she would not have to send over regular English, Scots and Welsh troops.92 But, there was considerable opposition within the Irish National Volunteer movement to the extension of War Office control over their organisation. The Irish Volunteer, the movement’s official journal, emphasised what impact the official sanction of the Volunteers and the introduction of an oath to the Crown might have in relation to traditional Nationalist values. The question of the hour which every man in the Volunteer ranks had to answer for himself, and of which there could be no middle course, was if they were prepared to co-operate with the British army in defending the British Empire: Co-operation with the British Army involves at least three things:1 That the Irish Volunteers come under the control of Lord Kitchener and the British War Office. 2 That an oath of allegiance to King George be taken by each Volunteer. 3 That the flag to be defended be the Union Jack and that the training and equipment will be according to War Office regulation.

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Conscience being the first duty of a soldier in the Irish Vohunteers, co-operating with the British Army and under War Office control, we must, as loyal soldiers of the Empire, serve, in any part of the world against people at war with the Empire. If used only for Home Defence they must, if ordered, shoot any Irishman who may be considered enemies of the Empire. These are the two choices for…Volunteers—control by the English War Office or control by an Irish authority. Cooperation… [is] what Irish Unionists, and all Englishmen desire for the… Volunteers. This course is in strict accord with Unionist principles and traditions, and English desires. It will bind together the Irish and English peoples, will cement the union of the two nations so firmly as to make them one, will tend to strengthen the British Empire and to maintain English industrial supremacy. For seven hundred years such a course as co-operation with the British Army…has been considered by the Irish people as opposed to Irish Nationalist principles and to Ireland’s interests. Many Irishmen, now, however, consider the time has come for changing these principles. It is up to the…Volunteers to say if this is so. Are we to change what for seven hundred years have been considered principles of Irish nationality? For seven hundred years the Irish nation has looked upon England as the enemy. Are we now to consider her our friend, to be henceforth her willing companion in arms, to look upon her enemies as our enemies, her friends as our friends, to accept the Union Jack as our Flag? It is for each…Volunteer to give the answer—‘Yes’ or ‘no’. ‘Yes; we are willing to co-operate with the British Army, to serve under the English War Office, to break with Irish Nationality as understood by every Irish patriot from Hugh O’Neill to Parnell’. Or ‘No, we will fight only under an Irish authority, continue the old tradition, cling to the old faith, and act up to the principle of every Irish leader for seven hundred years, given to us in the words of Daniel O’Connell—‘England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity’—to achieve freedom. There are two paths. Irish Volunteers make your choice. For Ireland alone or for Ireland with the British Empire.93 Tensions between Southern Unionists and Nationalists were now developing into open schism. For example, when Lord Dunsany called at a public meeting for the Volunteers to accept War Office control, the Irish Party MP, Patrick White, publicly dissented and

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reassured the crowd that the movement would remain under the control of Redmond and the Volunteer Provisional Committee.94 Dunsany subsequently expressed his indignation at the situation, claiming that in Europe nations were united against German aggression, but in Ireland alone were defenders disunited. He asked how it could be humiliating for Ireland to link with the War Office when her harvest, her homes and her women were being saved by the British navy alone—‘Alone, because we are too busy with politics to defend ourselves’.95 For Nationalists, the Irish National Volunteers were primarily a political organisation established as a counterweight to the UVF and with the goal of gaining a home rule government in Ireland. Southern Unionists, on the other hand, hoped to use the Volunteer movement in the interests of the British state, subordinated to the War Office and as a source of possible recruits for the new armies being raised in Britain. One Southern Unionist considered that: In connection with the recruiting question, I think much good work might be done with these [Nationalist Volunteer] people. At present their only role seems to be of Defenders of their beloved country, but as Ireland cannot be invaded in force until our own country is destroyed, it is next to impossible that the Germans will ever get there, in which case the splendid material which the Irish Volunteers certainly contains, will be lost to us unless we can persuade a proportion of them to enlist for service abroad. We have our South African experience to go on as to the shortage of men, and should not now be forgotten.96 Any advocacy of such a course in public was liable to meet with outright opposition from the local Volunteer Committees. For example, when Captain W.A.Persce suggested that the best place to defend Ireland’s interests might be within Kitchener’s ‘New Armies’, the local Volunteer Secretary of Peterswell Corps issued a stinging rebuke: For your information, I desire to point out that the Volunteer movement was founded to maintain the rights common to all the people of Ireland…. By the sentiments expressed…you prove conclusively that you regard England as your country rather than Ireland. If England was our country, we would now be in the French trenches fighting the enemies of England. As you profess to be an Englishman, holding a military title in the British Army, your place should undoubtedly be at the

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front. Or is your title of captain a mockery, a delusion, and a fraud?97 Increasingly Southern Unionists and Imperialists felt themselves unable to continue their association with the Volunteers, and a steady stream of resignations ensued. Lord Fingall summed up his disillusionment in his letter of resignation, stating: I joined the Volunteers in cordial sympathy with their avowed object to ‘secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to all the peoples of Ireland without distinction of creed, class, or politics’. But when the European war broke out this object assumed a different aspect. The best way to defend the rights and liberties of Ireland…is…to induce every man willing to serve to join Lord Kitchener’s army…. I find, to my great regret, that opinion in the…Volunteer Force is sharply divided both upon enlistment…abroad and…the necessary steps to enable Volunteers to render efficient service at home…. It is with genuine regret that I find that I have no opportunity of real service in the position…appointed me.98 The passing of the Home Rule Bill As the debate concerning the relationship between the two Volunteers organisations and the War Office continued, the fate of the Home Rule Bill had still to be decided. Carson had agreed, in Craig’s phrase, to ‘face the music’ in Ulster and, on 28 August 1914, he unconditionally assented to put all the UVF at the War Office’s disposal for drilling, with an assurance of 35,000 recruits to go abroad. Carson felt that he had little alternative, in light of the deteriorating situation at the Front. A few days before this offer, his friend Joseph Fischer, journalist, barrister and one time editor of the Northern Whig, had written to him, arguing that Carson had to sacrifice his domestic concerns, because the: French and British are being rolled back in Belgium, and even if the morning’s news be better than to-day’s, it will still be clear that there is a supreme crisis for the Empire and for Europe…. If you have made terms, territorial or temporal, well and good: if you have secured none, it may be that we shall have to fight for Ulster again after the war is over. But I entreat you, terms or no terms, to rise to the occasion, and to declare before all Europe to-morrow that every drilled Ulster

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Volunteer is a soldier of the Empire and is ready and willing to obey Lord Kitchener’s orders at a day’s notice.”99 Politically, Ulster Unionists faced little alternative but to accept the passing of the Home Rule Act into law. A memorandum by a senior Unionist, Hugh de Fellenburg Montgomery, explained their dilemma. The Ulster Unionist leaders had found, when the European crisis became acute, the political ground in Great Britain cut from under them. British public opinion required that the threat of civil war had to cease and that the Irish trouble should be settled at any cost and on any terms. To continue urging the Unionist cause would have had no effect except to set British electors against them, including many who would otherwise have been friendly In this atmosphere the Unionist leadership concluded that the British public was ready to accept the ‘ambiguous utterances’ of Redmond as honest offers of loyalty and, under these circumstances, it was decided that the best and only chance of gaining the British electors’ ear after the war was to give vigorous and effective support to the Government, a position in harmony with feelings of their loyalty to the King, the Kingdom and the Empire. The hope was that the rallying of Ulster Unionists to the flag in Kitchener’s army would have its effect on British public opinion, and when the first excitement about the war had cooled down, British electors would begin to examine the newly professed Nationalist loyalty, and discover how little it was worth, so allowing Unionists to displace the Government and repeal the Home Rule Act.100 Thus, when he returned to Ulster, Sir Edward Carson urged Ulster Volunteers to enlist in the new 36th (Ulster) Division, which would be specifically recruited in Ulster, and which would become the symbol of Protestant Ulster’s commitment to King and Country. At a special meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council in the Ulster Hall, Belfast, on 3 September 1914, Carson defined the attitude that the UVF should take, declaring: England’s difficulty is not Ulster’s opportunity. (Cheers). England’s difficulty is our difficulty—(renewed cheers)—and England’s sorrows have always been and always will be our sorrows (Hear, hear). I have sometimes seen it stated that the Germans had hit upon an opportune moment owing to our domestic difficulties to make their bullying demand against our country. They little understand for what we were fighting. We were not fighting to get away from England; we were fighting to stay with England, and the Power that attempted

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to lay a hand upon England, whatever might be domestic quarrels, would at once bring us together—as it has brought us together—as one man…. If we are betrayed whilst we are acting loyally to our country, the infamy will not be ours…. We do not seek to purchase terms by selling our patriotism… on the question of Home Rule we stand where we have always been. (Cheers). It will never be law in our community. (Renewed cheers). We will postpone active measures in the interest of the country and the Empire, but when the country is once again safe we will then assert our powers as before…. I find almost the whole world engaged in a war…which threatens the existence of our nation, a war which may in its results be fraught with such an outcome that, were we to be unsuccessful, the work of centuries would be undone…if our Empire goes, if our United Kingdom has to hang its head in shame, the very groundwork of our ideals would be shattered. And, therefore our duty is clear. Our country, our Empire is in danger. We have never yet been beaten. We never will. (Cheers). We have got to win and we will win. (Renewed cheers). And under these circumstances, knowing that the very basis of our political faith is our belief in the greatness of the United Kingdom, and our Empire, to our Volunteers, I say without hesitation: Go and help save your country. (Loud and prolonged cheering)…go and win honour for Ulster and for Ireland. (Renewed cheers).101 The Ulster Unionist decision to encourage UVF members to enlist added pressure on Redmond and the Irish Party to demonstrate a similar commitment to the war effort. However, the divisions within the Irish National Volunteer movement meant that, at the very least, Redmond would have to secure the passing of the Home Rule Bill into law before he could go beyond his offer of home defence. Redmond insisted that the Liberal Government should honour its pledge and put home rule on the Statute Book. On 28 August 1914, Redmond had warned the Prime Minister that the passing of the Bill into law had become the touchstone to the Irish nationalist community’s mind of the Government’s sincerity in the promise of justice to Ireland. If these hopes were disappointed, Redmond claimed he would be faced in Ireland, and among Irish-Americans, with a desperate situation in which he would be powerless, with opinion ranged against England. The Irish Party, he warned, would be compelled to protest in vigorous terms, regardless of the effect on the Irish people’s temperament,

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gaining the support of the Labour Party and a majority of the Liberal Party in Great Britain.102 The time lapse between his Commons speech on 3 August, and the passing of the Home Rule Bill into law on 17 September, came to be regarded by Redmond as a fundamental error on the part of the Government. Uncertainty as to the Government’s intentions towards home rule and the organisation of the Irish National Volunteers for home defence allowed intra-Nationalist tensions within the Volunteer movement to foment. Tensions between Southern Unionists and Nationalists were brought to a head by an Irish Volunteer editorial which declared: England’s relations with Germany are a matter of indifference to us…. England’s war is not our war, except in so far as it offers Ireland a unique opportunity to achieve freedom…. In our unthinking past we helped England to starve and slay the peoples of half the world. Without Irish arms the Boer Republic would still be in existence and the people of India free. Irish arms painted the map of the world in the interests of English commerce, and the Judas price of it all was the patronising contempt of a few cockneys [in the music halls] …. We have no empire to defend. We have no colonies for our foreign trade. If India is robbed or blackman’s tombs blown to the sky we get nothing, except purchase, the right to maintain at our own expense some of those who have helped England. We pay our share for a Dreadnought to protect English trade, but the money that builds it is spent in England…. Volunteers our Empire is Ireland; our flag is Ireland’s. Salute the colours!103 This editorial led Captain Talbot-Crosbie, who had been appointed Chief Inspecting Officer for the Irish National Volunteers in County Cork by the Provisional Committee Executive, to attack the Irish Volunteer.104 He had privately come to the conclusion that the Volunteers were militarily ‘hopeless’, possessing no arms, no instructors, no funds and an unwillingness to be trained by Unionists or anybody apart from home rule supporters. Considering the Provisional Committee in Dublin to be unrepresentative and obstructive in not co-operating with the War Office,105 Talbot-Crosbie made a public appeal to establish exactly where the Volunteers stood, asking ‘Are we to co-operate with the British troops or are we going to follow the Committee, with its chimerical schemes for the establishment of an independent Irish Republic?’ Personally, as soon as the Home Rule Bill was on the

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Statute Book, he was prepared to offer himself for overseas war service, and called upon the Cork City Corps to follow either his or the Provisional Committee’s course. With the greatest war in the world now being waged, Talbot-Crosbie believed it was time for a soldier to know on which side he was fighting.106 Replying for the Drainbough Irish National Volunteers Corps, John Sweetman, a prominent Sinn Feiner, attacked Talbot-Crosbie, arguing that the Germans had other things to do than sail around England and through the British fleet while they had France and Russia to contend with; therefore: If the Irish Volunteers were to put themselves under the English Government they would lose all chance of helping to form a prosperous Irish nation in the future. No one will ever object to Captain Crosbie, or any other lover of England, offering himself as he says he will to the British Government for war service, but they expect Irish Nationalists to sacrifice their lives for the English Empire. They have done that in the past too much, and it is time for them to think of Ireland.107 In Cork, a circular to the City Volunteers there, warned: VOLUNTEERS STAND FAST! CAPTAIN TALBOT CROSBIE VERSUS THE PROVISIONAL COMMITTEE AND THE IRISH VOLUNTEER ORGANISATION. The Volunteer organisation has been formed to maintain the rights and liberties of every Irishman on Irish soil…. There has been no friction except the measures caused by Captain Crosbie in secretly offering the services of the Cork City Corps to the British War Office UNCONDITIONALLY and without the authority of a single member…. Volunteers do you realise what this means? It means that the Volunteers were offered…to fight for the Union Jack anywhere and for any cause…. Captain Crosbie… must not be allowed to misuse…[his] position… by acting as a recruiting sergeant for the British Army…. We have a precedent for stating that if you agree to Captain Crosbie’s proposal, a wire will be immediately sent to the British War Office stating that you are ready to embark for the continent as part of the British Expeditionary Force.108 In this atmosphere Talbot-Crosbie was called to account before the Cork City Corps and had no choice but to retract his call and agree to go no further than Redmond’s original speech.

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Given the increasing tensions between Unionists and Nationalists, Redmond warned Asquith that postponing the passing of the Home Rule Bill indefinitely would be interpreted in Ireland as ‘an indefinite hanging up of the Bill, a betrayal of our hopes, as a sham; in short, it is a proposal to which we would have to give our strenuous opposition, and that we would be compelled to oppose by the universal judgement of our own people as well as by our own’. Redmond explained to Asquith that: The present condition of Ireland is peculiar and unprecedented. It is difficult to exaggerate the intensity of the sympathy which is now felt for England and of enthusiastic approval of her cause in entering the war with Germany. No Irishmen ever expected to see any such feeling in our generation…. But all this splendid temper may be destroyed if there be any postponement of the Home Rule Bill… the placing of the Bill has come to be the touchstone to the Irish mind of the sincerity of the promise of justice to Ireland by the British people and the present Ministry. If these hopes were disappointed I should be faced in Ireland and America by a situation which would be desperate and against which I would be powerless. All the old suspicions would be revived.109 It was not until 8 September that Redmond was brought the reassuring news that a Cabinet Committee, meeting the previous day, had decided that the Home Rule Bill should be placed on the Statute Book at once, subject to Redmond’s agreement that the operation of the Home Rule Act would be postponed for a ‘definite period’, that course to be taken without any further adjournment. Verbal assurances would also be given that an Amending Bill would be introduced in the next parliamentary session and honestly proceeded with until passed into law or disposed of.110 On 15 September, Asquith announced his terms to the House of Commons. Home rule, he said, would become law, but a Suspensory Bill, preventing its operation until the end of the war, would be attached to it. Asquith assured the Opposition that the Home Rule Bill would not come into operation until Parliament had the fullest opportunity, by an Amending Bill, of altering, modifying, or quali fying its provisions in such a way as to secure the general consent both of Ireland and of the United Kingdom. Furthermore, in a pledge which was noted with dismay in Nationalist Ireland, Asquith, agreeing that the Ulstermen had been put at a disadvantage by the ‘loyal and patriotic action which they

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have undertaken’, gave the Ulster Unionists a solemn undertaking that the ‘employ ment of force, any kind of force, for what you call the coercion of Ulster is an absolutely unthinkable thing…that is a thing we would never countenance or consent to’. In the ensuing debate, Redmond rejected Andrew Bonar Law’s assertion that the Irish Party’s offer of support for the war was conditional upon any bargain. He protested that his speech on 3 August had been an appeal to the UVF to allow the Nationalists the honour of sharing with them the defence of Ireland. The offer had not been taken up by the Government and, consequently, he concluded that recruiting had not been as fast as it could have been. Redmond denied that Ireland had sent proportionately fewer recruits to the Colours than other parts of the United Kingdom, and dismissed anti-recruiting posters and articles in the ‘advanced’, or ‘Sinn Fein’, press as the work of a ‘little group of men who were all through, and who are to-day, the bitterest enemies’ of the Irish Party. Redmond pointed out that, for the first time, certainly for over a century, ‘Ireland feels that her interests are precisely the same as yours. She feels and will feel that the British democracy has kept faith with her. She knows that this is a just war’. Redmond admitted, however, that ‘the test has come sooner than I or any one of us expected’, although he emphasised that ‘the test will be honourably met’ and that he would be ‘personally dishonoured if I did not say to my fellow-countrymen… that it is their duty, and should be their honour, to take their place in the firing line in this contest’. In conclusion, Redmond accepted that when the United Kingdom was endeavouring to create an army it was ‘absurd’ that under those circumstances a new government and parliament could be established in Ireland. For himself, the two principles which mattered to him above all were that ‘not a single sod of Irish soil and not a single citizen of the Irish nation’ should be excluded from Irish self-government, and that no coercion should be applied to any county in Ireland against its desires. On 18 September 1914, Redmond and his MPs attended the House of Lords to witness the Royal Assent to the Home Rule Bill. As the jubilant Irish members returned to the Commons, an Irish flag was produced and a chorus of God Save the King rang out, led by Will Crooks, the Labour leader. As it ended Crooks cried out ‘God save Ireland’, to which Redmond called back And God save England too’.111 With the placing of the Home Rule Bill on the Statute Book, the Ulster unionist community’s sense of disappointment and uncertainty manifested itself in displays of disaffection, such as walking out of churches when ‘God Save the King’ was played.112

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The disquiet amongst Unionists was such that the Ulster Unionist leadership urgently reassured their supporters that the King had had no choice but to sign the Bill in the circumstances. It was claimed that, before the war, the King had been in a position to refuse to place the Home Rule Bill on the Statute Book in a perfectly constitutional manner, by dismissing his present advisers, appointing other ministers and so forcing an immediate general election. But the Government, it was claimed, made use of the European crisis to deprive the King of any such power by requiring him to assent to the Home Rule Bill. With the British people being unanimous in their determination that during the European crisis there should be no change of ministry or general election, coupled with an arrangement that any parliamentary seat made vacant would be uncontested by the party not in possession of it, and with party organisations everywhere in Great Britain having joined to promote recruiting, for the King to have refused to assent to the Bill when the Prime Minister insisted was out of the question. The Ulster Unionist leadership stressed that if the King had refused he would have risked the ruin of his Kingdom and Empire by disorganising all the organs of government at a time when unity and continuity of administration was vitally important to the safety of the realm. The only result of a general election would have been the return of the present Government with an increased majority, destroying any chance of a Unionist government for a generation. No loyal subject, Tory, Orangeman or Die-Hard, could have advised him to do such a thing. Thus, the unionist community was encouraged to hold the King free of all blame in this matter while protesting in the strongest manner against the conduct of the minister on whose advice he was forced to act.113 Carson issued a manifesto, reassuring his supporters that, despite the actions of the Government, Unionists must have one aim in mind: To the loyalists of Ulster. By an act of unparalleled treachery and betrayal the Radical [Liberal] government, at the dictation of their Nationalist allies, have announced their intention of passing into law, without discussing the amending bill which they themselves introduced, the detestable Home Rule Bill, which we are pledged to resist at all costs…. ‘Our country first’ is and always has been our motto. We must, therefore, not withstanding this indignity, go on with our preparations to assist our country, and strain every nerve to defeat its enemies. I once more promise to go straight on with you in the fight, strengthened by the belief that Great Britain will

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never forgive the base treachery of the government. We will not have Home Rule. Never.114 Conclusion The enthusiasm which gripped Ireland at the beginning of World War I obscured the nuances which divided Nationalist and Unionist perspectives on the importance of the conflict. Nationalists, while acknowledging that the war was a just war resulting from German aggression, saw the fate of the Home Rule Bill as their primary concern. Redmond’s offer of the Irish National Volunteers for home defence was, for many Nationalists, the limit of what Nationalist Ireland could offer to Britain, which, because it was in excess of what any Nationalist leader had previously offered in peace and war, had aptly demonstrated Nationalist Ireland’s imperial loyalty It was duly expected that the British Government, and British and Irish Unionists, would recognise this and implement home rule. On the other hand, most Unionists saw the war as the central question facing Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Even for those Unionists who feared Catholic dominance, these sentiments illustrated not a dilution of Britishness, or a preference for German rule in favour of British rule, but that the strength of the religious factor in Irish politics was sufficient for some Ulster Protestants, before the outbreak of the war, to consider any alternative to Catholic domination. While Redmond’s offer to merge both paramilitary movements in Ireland provided an immediate way for prominent Southern Unionists to demonstrate their Britannic patriotism by offering their services to the Irish National Volunteers, Ulster Unionists, geographically secure in their northern citadel, could afford to be more circumspect in their judgement of Nationalist declarations of hostility. Both sections of Unionism feared the military potential of the Irish National Volunteers. This led many Southern Unionists to insist on War Office control or an oath of allegiance to the King. The hostility of Nationalists to these proposals illustrated the fundamental psychic divergences of Irish political ideologies.

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Chapter 3 The Great War and national identity, 1914–16

Unionism, Britishness and the war Despite their anger with the Government, the unionist community in Ulster distinguished between the actions of a transient British government, which had displayed little loyalty to them, and their place within the British national community. The Northern Whig, for example, believed that the war had forced domestic differences out of sight with the result that a ‘united [British] nation stands foursquare to its foes’, and while the peril lasted it should be realised that no parties and no divisions could be tolerated for ‘criticism of those in high places is no longer a duty, but a crime against the community’. Whatever commands were given, concluded the Whig, and however hard they might press upon them as individuals, they had to be loyally obeyed for ‘we are not now free agents but rather the crew of a ship caught in a tornado, whose only hope of safety lies in prompt obedience to the orders of their officers’.1 This patriotism was given substance by the Reverend James Grubb of Belfast, who, in a sermon, described how: There were many things stronger and deeper than reason, and such were faith, conviction and consciousness. Love of country was innate and spontaneous. It was born with them; it was an instinct put into them by God; it was natural, divinely implanted, and needed no apology. There were many things which strengthened patriotism. Their country is the country of our forebears. The Swiss sings of his mountains, the Italian of his lakes, the English of his village and hedgerows, the Scotch of his heather-clad hills, the Irish of his green isle. They should also be prompted…towards the patriotic spirit by their nation’s history—its religious, intellectual, political and military history. The magnificent gallantry of their soldiers and sailors…ought also to stir them

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up to greater and grander conceptions of patriotism. The perception of the mission and destiny of their nation ought to stimulate their patriotism. The British nation in spite of her sins and shortcomings, was the greatest force of righteousness in the world, and downfall would be a worldwide calamity. Patriotism was innate and spontaneous. It was ineradicable and could not be destroyed, an emotion that persisted…. Go to the British trenches and they found the son of the peer, the heir to a great name and tradition. Although fatigued, cold and wet, ask him what he is doing and why he is there. He would reply: ‘My King and country need me to battle for her liberty’. The Commoner was also there. But amidst his hardships ask him why he is there, his reply would be: ‘My King and country prompt me’. This patriotism was an exacting ideal, and an expensive devotion…. Love of country inspired service for the maintenance and protection of her honour. The English nation had ever stood for freedom and liberty. They that speak the tongue of Milton must be free. The world could not do without liberty. The gallant deeds of the heroic past ought to inspire them to nobler and purer sacrifice in the present crisis of their nation.2 When the Belfast Evening Telegraph reported that it had been ‘years since this old land of ours was so stirred’,3 the Northern Whig added that: In no part of the Empire has the present crisis been met with greater equanimity than in Ulster. Our people have risen to the occasion splendidly; their calmness and fortitude have been entirely in keeping with the best traditions of the province… of the courage of the province there was never any question. Ulster has given of her best in the service of the Empire in the past, and will again. What she has helped so signally to build up she will fight to preserve. In every corner of the world her sons have lain down their lives for the flag. High on the role of British honour are such proud names as those of the Lawrences, of Nicolson, and of White, and in this hour of stress these are potent in inspiration. The call of the Empire that is now resounding from shore to shore will nowhere be answered more ardently than in Ulster.4 The Tyrone Constitution felt that the patriotism of Ulster was only now being reawakened in England due to the sense of national peril; indeed ‘It was not only for herself that Ulster has all along

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being fighting [since 1912], but for the Empire as well’,5 a fact that many now realised, since: The fight for the Union Jack in Ulster has now become a bigger thing. It is a question of sacrificing to keep the old flag of Empire, and from all parts of the King’s dominions come the tidings of men and money. If the old country suffers we all suffer whether we be settled in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, or any other spot where the British flag of freedom flies.6 These opinions were reflective of Unionism throughout Ireland. ‘The British Empire’, declared the Irish Times, ‘has become a living reality’, and the ‘daughter nations’ of the Dominions were demonstrating their loyalty: Canada and Australia by equipping expeditionary forces of some twenty-thousand men each, and South Africa by undertaking its own defence so that imperial troops might be released for service elsewhere. This imperial unity, argued the Irish Times, was also proved by the ‘subject races’ in India where, by mid-August, twenty-five thousand men had been recruited for the British army, evidence that, as in the United Kingdom, so in the outer reaches of the Empire, divisions of party or of race had disappeared at the ‘higher call’.7 Throughout the Indian Empire all classes and creeds had proved their loyalty to the British Raj, for Britain’s rule in India was based not upon military prestige, claimed the Irish Times, but upon a ‘trust’ that would not now be betrayed.8 The beliefs which underlay Unionist patriotism were, as the Reverend David Miller of Armagh stated, simply that the British imperial race had ‘always known how to colonise—they had simply governed wisely, gently and generously, all the many peoples under their sway. They had given freedom, governed wisely’.9 The Belfast Telegraph exalted the sense of common sacrifice now evident, illustrating how: The Empire is to be cemented anew by the hardest and longest lasting of cement, the blood of her sons spilt in the battlefield. From every corner of the world comes the answer to the call, the rallying to the flag. War is a disastrous, a horrible thing; but it has its finer side, and the flame of sacrifice that has swept the Empire end to end is something we shall remember to the end of our lives.10 The resurrection of a patriotic spirit was noted by the Derry Standard which saw ‘no evidence of decadence but regenerating


influences’,11 a point taken up by the Protestant Bishop of Meath who described how: War was a dark cloud, but it was a cloud with a silver lining, bringing out in glorious relief some of the noble points of human character. The call for self-sacrifice was just what our nation wanted. It had been felt that as a nation we were rapidly drifting into a state of materialistic luxury and selfindulgence, which if unchecked, might be our undoing. What a wonderfully bracing effect the last fortnight had had upon every part of the Empire!—What unity there was in the face of the common enemy!12 Resistance to what was perceived as German aggression went to the very heart of the unionist community’s perception of the British national myth, with its notions of freedom, liberty and fair play. The Right Reverend Elliott, the Bishop of the Kilmore, Elphin and Armagh dioceses, believed that the United Kingdom’s involvement in the war was motivated by a sense of honour and good faith and not by any selfish motive, for already having a sixth part of the Earth’s surface, Britain wanted no new territory, she already being so wealthy that she lent to all nations and borrowed from none. Britain’s object was to protect the weak, ‘to help to right those who suffer wrong’, and to guard herself from a similar tyranny at some future time.13 Likewise, Dr D’arcy, Bishop of Down and Connor and Dromore, told his congregation: The British Empire was a great world-wide dominion, in the van of human progress, possessing enormous wealth, due to its leadership in enterprise and commerce. All this is true. But these are not the greatest things. The chief glories of Great Britain are greater than these. British rule stands on the whole for justice and mercy. No doubt there have been many imperfections, many failures. But still it is true that the spirit of fair play, that is justice, and the spirit of pity for the suffering and the needy animate British law and administration all the world over. Great Britain stands for human liberty. Her free institutions, which have been the natural outcome of her free spirit, have served as models for the whole modern world. Her great self-governing colonies all the world over are proof of this. Great Britain has shown herself the champion of the oppressed. She led the way in the liberation of the slaves and the suppression of the slave trade. It is but one instance out of many in our history. Now, I


say, Great Britain must be ready to give herself and all her resources at the present time if she is to be true to all that she stands for in the world. Let us try to be fair. The German people are a great people. The world owes much to their genius and thoroughness. Their energy and determination are magnificent. At one time they led the world in the struggle for liberty. But another and a very terrible spirit has entered into their leaders. Atheism, materialism, and greed have taken possession of them. A philosophy which is the negation of the spirit of Christ is dominant among them. The principal teacher of that philosophy proclaims that Christianity is a religion for slaves, that might is right, that the old rule must be challenged, and in the future must be. ‘Thou shalt not love thy neighbour as thyself’…. Justice and mercy have no place in the German world-policy…. Solemn treaties are but ‘bits of paper’. We see murder and outrage let loose on a people who were not anyway involved in the original quarrel. We see villages and cities and the harvests of the country-side given to the flames. We see an unoffending [Belgian] population subjected to every horror; men, women, and children shot down without mercy…. German militarism has broken through all law and mercy…. Let us then remember that in this war Great Britain and her allies are fighting for the liberation of the German people as well as for the freedom of the world. On our part it is a war for righteousness, for the triumph of mercy and loving kindness, for the liberty of mankind, for the deliverance of the oppressed.14 Alongside the moral aspect of Britain’s intervention in the war lay what the Northern Whig described as the ‘real issue’—whether Germany was to be allowed to impose her will on Europe, and England in particular. It appeared to the Whig that Germany had been playing a ‘double game’ with ‘unscrupulous audacity and determination’. The Austrian attack on Serbia had been hatched in Berlin in order to precipitate a war in which Germany would pose before the world as the injured party; but Serbia’s real offence had been that she had barred the way to German predominance in the Balkans, the Dardenelles and the sea and land routes to India and Egypt. The invasion of Belgium and Luxembourg, in the Whig’s view, was to provide an outlet to the English Channel, so as to menace the home waters of Britain, gain control of food-carrying routes and separate the heart of the British Empire from the ‘daughter nations’ overseas. Furthermore, Germany had undertaken to conquer France in order to pave the way for


domination of isolated England.15 The Derry Standard explained to its readers that Britain could not afford to see France beaten to her knees because the imposed peace terms might include a French entry into a German alliance, with French attitudes hostile towards the friend, Britain, who had deserted her; facing such a continental alliance, Britain would find herself without a friend in Europe.16 Thus, the News-Letter warned that were Germany to emerge victorious in the war she would be able to do what she liked with Belgium and Holland, resulting in their virtual absorption into the German Empire;17 Britain, said the News-Letter, had never entered into a war more reluctantly and only then after the last resources of diplomacy had been exhausted.18 But now Britain was fighting, as the King had told the members of the departing British Expeditionary Force, for the honour and safety of his empire, and therefore in their own defence. With France crushed, Russia humiliated, Belgium and Holland annexed, Germany at a bound would rival and outstrip Britain as a sea power—‘Very quickly we would share the fate of France. This is no imagining’.19 At the very least, predicted the Derry Standard, the British nation would be faced with the burden of maintaining an enormous naval fleet for the foreseeable future.20 The Irish Volunteer split Nationalist Ireland’s reaction to the war was far more cautious. Within the Irish National Volunteer movement the seeds of dissent, which had been sown when Redmond offered the organisation for home defence, developed into open schism after the passing of home rule. This was directly the result of Redmond’s proactive support for the war effort, illustrated by his decision to encourage members of the nationalist community to enlist for overseas service in the British army. On 16 September 1914, Redmond had issued a manifesto which read: The democracy of…Britain listened to our appeal, and have kept faith with Ireland. It is now a duty of honour for Ireland to keep faith with them. A test to search men’s souls has arisen. The Empire is engaged in the most serious war in history It is a just war, provoked by the intolerable military despotism of Germany It is a war for the defence of the sacred rights and liberties of small nations and the respect and enlargement of the great principle of nationality…. It is a war for high ideals of human government and international relations, and Ireland would be


false to her history, and to every consideration of honour, good faith, and self-interest, did she not willingly bear her share in its burdens and its sacrifices.21 Redmond claimed a right for any new Irish recruits to be kept together as a unit, officered as far as possible by Irishmen, and composed, as far as possible, of county battalions in an ‘Irish Brigade’ so that ‘Ireland may gain national credit for their deeds, and feel, like so many other communities of the British Empire, that she too has contributed an army bearing her name in this historic struggle’. Redmond appealed to members of the nationalist and unionist communities to bury domestic differences so that: as our soldiers are going to fight, to shed their blood, and to die at each other’s side, in the same army, against the same enemy, and for the same high purpose, their union in the field may lead to a union in their home, and that their blood may be the seal that will bring all Ireland together in one nation, and in liberties equal and common to all.22 The manifestation of Redmond’s policy of rapprochement with British and Irish Unionism, through common martial sacrifice, was made in a speech to Irish National Volunteers at Woodenbridge, when he told them: it would be a disgrace forever to our country and a reproach to her manhood and a denial of the lessons of history if [the] young [men of] Ireland confined their efforts to remaining at home to defend the shores of Ireland from an unlikely invasion, and shrinking from the duty of proving in the field of battle that gallantry and courage which has distinguished our race all through its history (cheers). I say to you therefore, your duty is twofold…account yourselves as men, not only in Ireland itself, but wherever the firing line extends, in defence of right, of freedom and religion in this war (cheers).23 In advocating such a radical change in nationalist attitudes towards the British army and the Empire, Redmond was influenced by the ethics of the war and his desire to see the creation of a common sense of Irishness, among ordinary nationalist and unionist soldiers, forged through common sacrifice on the battlefield. In private he admitted the benefits that could occur


politically from his stance, although he was also careful to emphasise the moral duty of Ireland in the war: If…we seized the opportunity to stab her [England] in the back, the Home Rule settlement would not be worth an hour’s purchase, and would I believe, be torn up by the whole of the English people, and the chances of Irish constitutional freedom would be destroyed for a century or perhaps forever. But I must record the fact that over and above this consideration, I have been, from the first, moved by considerations of honour. I believe that Ireland would have been dishonoured before the world if she took such a course as this, and, if I acquiesced in such a course, I certainly would have been guilty of the most solemn public declarations extending over…my whole public life. When I took the course that I did in the House of Commons, I had to act without consultation with my colleagues, at a moment’s notice, and on my own responsibility, I quite realised the risks of the position, but I had not a moment’s hesitation in making my mind up to what I should do; and in the event of the course that I adopted not being approved by my colleagues and the country, I would have felt it my duty immediately to resign my position in public life.24 Redmond believed that the war offered an opportunity to build trust between the unionist and nationalist communities, and he hoped that if a home rule settlement could be postponed for some months, ‘it is quite possible that one much more satisfactory could be reached; and it is even possible that the policy of exclusion [partition] might be dropped by universal consent’. If the National Volunteers could succeed in inducing the UVF to combine with them, ‘there might be such alleviation of the present bitter feeling as would induce the Ulster Volunteers to fall in with their countrymen. Though this might appear unlikely at the present moment, I strongly believe that it is not impossible’. Redmond believed that the feeling in Ireland against partition was growing stronger every day, and he was influenced in this belief by the influx of Southern Unionist peers into the National Volunteers. It was his ‘firm conviction that exclusion has many enemies even in Ulster, and that it was adopted as the best battle-ground for destroying Home Rule rather than on its own merits’.25 Redmond’s vision encompassed a united Ireland within a British Empire of autonomous nations defending national liberty from


aggressive imperialism. As he told an audience in Belfast, on 25 October 1914: I say let us Irishmen of all politics and of all creeds put aside those differences which have been dividing us in the past and… unite to perform in a common duty which we owe to our common country, namely of defending Ireland an autonomous nation within that Empire and to take our stand by the side of self-governing Canada…Australia…New Zealand…[and] South Africa, and to recognise that we like they, are at least an autonomous portion of the Empire and that this Empire now belongs to them (loud cheers) and it is our duty, wherever Ireland—autonomous Ireland—is attacked, through that Empire…to join hands with the Irishmen of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa…. When that duty has been successfully and triumphantly performed, when we have helped, by the valour of our sons to bring this war to a successful end by standing shoulder to shoulder, by fighting side by side upon the battlefield with our countrymen of all parties and creeds, then let us hope that when that day comes that never again will the old cursed causes of differences be able to divide us (cheers).26 The main Nationalist, and anti-Redmond, newspaper, the Irish Independent, supported the Irish Party leader’s stand and hoped Ireland would present a united front regarding the war. It believed that Irish unity could be attained by showing the world that the ‘Nationalist of the South is as ready as the Orangemen of the North, the Catholic of Quebec, or the Boer of the Transvaal to stand in the line with the rest of the Empire to defend the liberty of the small nations and resist barbarism’.27 As one Irish Party supporter explained in the National Volunteer: Unionist Ulster must be won to the side of Ireland…. It [enlistment] is in the internal sense a policy of appeasement…. It is more than probable that out of the present international cataclysm Ireland will succeed in snatching the priceless gem of essential union; but that can only be done by the exercise of wisdom, tolerance, patience, and loyalty on the part of the Nationalist majority. Little by little, those who have…been opposed to the National claims of Ireland will feel breaking in on their consciousness the light of a new truth—that they are bound to the rest of their own countrymen by the ties of not only nature, but of a common interest, a common


responsibility, and a common danger; that in the ultimate result, the destiny of Ireland is one and indivisible.28 With the ‘old Union dead’, fighting for England meant, as one Irish Party MP said, that a new union of hearts, binding together the English, Irish and Scottish nations, was to be inaugurated, ‘never to be broken’.29 The basic assumption of this philosophy was summed up by a Redmond supporter, who described how ‘We all attacked England in the past when we had cause to. England has since changed, and now her difficulty is our opportunity to help and show good-will like men’.30 Redmond drew parallels between Ireland and South Africa, noting how the imperialist speeches of the latter’s leaders, General Botha and General Smuts, formerly bitter enemies of England, emphasised how free institutions had turned South Africans into loyal comrades and fellow-citizens of the Empire. Redmond claimed that ‘Ireland has been transformed from “the broken arm of England” into one of the strongest bulwarks of the Empire’.31 Stephen Gwynn called upon Nationalists to ‘Keep your loyalty to the past, cherish the memories that can inspire you; but forget your hates; hatred is barren. Bury the hatchet and take up the rifle, for Ireland first, but for England also, and for the cause of freedom throughout Europe’.32 An Irish Party supporter who enlisted echoed the feeling of many who did likewise, when he claimed: We have a covenant, by act of the legislature, which will…have the King’s signature appended to it. It is impossible for Great Britain to institute an entire change in the legislative and administrative machinery of one section of the United Kingdom at a time like this. But the covenant is there. We are bound by it to fight for England, as for ourselves, in a just cause. He argued that when the day for giving effect to the covenant came, ‘English Unionists’, no less than ‘English Home Rulers’, would be faced with the practical acceptance and concrete fact that Redmond’s brother and son, both of whom had enlisted, were, and may have died, in the service of the British army. This view held that Redmond’s offer had broken the core resistance to home rule in Britain, proving that ‘even Irish Catholics may be loyal subjects and deserving of the right to manage their own affairs’.33 In Dublin, at the Mansion House on 26 September 1914, the Prime Minister, having taken up Redmond’s offer to address Irish


Party supporters, was given an enthusiastic reception. Sharing a platform with Redmond, Asquith gave a clear pledge that he wanted to see the raising of an Irish Brigade, or Irish Army Corps, which would allow Irish soldiers to retain their collective Irish identity rather than become absorbed in some ‘invertebrate mass’ and ‘artificially’ distributed into units which had no national cohesion or character. While he could not say what precise form of organisation the Irish National Volunteers would be turned into, Asquith believed that they would become a ‘permanent, an integral and characteristic part of the defensive forces of the Crown’. In a phrase which was taken by many Nationalists as a pledge not to impose conscription upon Ireland, Asquith said ‘What we want, what we ask, what we believe you are ready and eager to give, is the freewill offering of a free people’.34 On the eve of Asquith’s visit the members of the original Provisional Committee issued a manifesto attacking Redmond, declaring that ‘Ireland cannot, with honour or safety, take part in foreign quarrels otherwise than through the free action of a National Government of her own’. They repudiated the claim of any man to offer up ‘the blood and the lives of the sons of Irishmen and Irish-women on the service of the British Empire, while the National Government, which speaks and acts for the people of Ireland, is not allowed to exist’. Redmond announced that, owing to the publication of the minority manifesto, he had taken steps to request the majority of the Provisional Committee, his nominees, to meet and recognise the governing body of the ‘National Volunteers’, the name by which the pro-Redmondite section of the Irish National Volunteers was now to be known; those who remained loyal to the original Provisional Committee became known as the ‘Irish Volunteers’. Of the numbers enrolled prior to the split, totalling 180,000, not more than about 11,000 adhered to the original Provisional Committee, with the vast majority declaring themselves loyal to Redmond. On 25 October 1914, a convention of the Irish Volunteers, under the presidency of Eoin MacNeill, was held in Dublin where they pledged: 1 To maintain the right and duty of the Irish nation henceforth to provide for its own defence by means of a permanent armed and trained Volunteer Force. 2 To unite the people of Ireland on the basis of Irish nationality and a common national interest; to maintain the integrity of the nation, and to resist with all our strength any measures


tending to bring about or perpetuate disunion or the partition of our country. 3 To resist any attempt to force the men of Ireland into any military service under any Government until a free National Government of Ireland is empowered by the Irish people themselves to deal with it. 4 To secure the abolition of the system of governing Ireland through Dublin Castle and the British Military power, and the establishment of a National Government in its place.35 Eamonn Ceannt of the Provisional Committee argued that the fallacy of Redmond’s recruiting argument was the assumption that England had ever redressed an Irish grievance before the Irish people had made clear their determination to take the law into their own hands. For example, Irish land was wrested from ‘English planters’ not by pious resolution, but by organised illegality; Church of Ireland disestablishment was accomplished by the Fenian conspiracy; Catholic Emancipation was won when Wellington perceived civil war; and the placing of home rule on the Statute Book was due to the Irish National Volunteer threat. Ceannt believed that Ireland owed no gratitude to England, pointing out that home rule was not yet a fact, and that Ireland needed all her men either to stand up to an England victorious in war, or to demand her national rights from a beaten England.36 The Provisional Committee also opposed Redmond’s policy on the fundamental point of participation in the life struggle of the British Empire. Patrick Pearse argued: We say definitely no. In taking that stand we are taking the historical Irish national position. Ireland has never accepted duties or responsibilities within the British Empire. The demand now made upon her, the demand that she should send out her young sons to fight the Empire’s battles, is a demand that has never yet been made upon her by her national leaders. The making of that demand constitutes a departure in national policy. Upon those who make the demand lies the onus that new circumstances warrant a new and grave departure. Upon those who call Ireland to take up duties and responsibilities within the Empire lies the onus of proving that Ireland’s status as a subject country has changed. But it has not changed. The British military occupation of Ireland still continues. A British Chief Secretary still rules Ireland from Dublin Castle…. The doors of the Irish Parliament are still closed. No Irish Government responsible


to the Irish people exists. Our sovereign rights as a nation are still denied. Our status is the same as it was ten years ago. In these circumstances our attitude towards the Empire must remain unchanged. To abandon that traditional national attitude is to bbandon [sic] our national rights.37 A ‘Fenian’, in the Irish Volunteer, asked if Irish Nationalists were now to join in the singing of ‘God Save the King’, to fly the Union Jack over their houses—a reference to Redmond displaying one above his—or to ‘glory in the deeds of the Redcoats’. ‘Can you really still call yourself an Irish Nationalist and follow such a leader?’, the writer asked.38 Arthur Griffith put the cultural shock of Redmond’s policy in perspective when he stressed how: The Union Jack we know was first seen in the world on the 1st January 1801, when it was hoisted over Dublin Castle to signify the passing of Ireland as an independent state. The Union Jack as a standard for these countries is an invention of William Pitt and Lord Castleragh. The Irishman who fights under the Union Jack fights for the Act of Union—fights for the evil work…and the perpetuation of the evil work of the man who plotted and the men who carried the Union.39 A fundamental difference between the political elites of the amorphous Sinn Fein movement and the Irish Party revolved around the relationship between the Irish nation and the British Empire. Eoin MacNeill asked if Britain, France and Russia—imperial powers themselves—were really fighting against militarism. Taking Britain first, he described her dominance of the seas, and her claim of right to dominate them, as naval militarism by a navy that in the past had destroyed Irish commerce. The only reason South Africa was not under British militarism was because it had become evident that in at least every generation the Afrikaner would be able to put the resources of British militarism under perilous strain; yet British militarism still held India, Malta, Cyprus, Gibraltar and other vantage posts on the world’s highways. In one century, thanks to British militarism, Ireland had lost more men, trade and industry than Belgium had lost in all modern wars. ‘If it is Ireland’s duty to fight against militarism’, remarked MacNeill, ‘we need not go to France’.40 For MacNeill, the war was a ‘War of Empire, a war for… empire’. He identified three kinds of sovereign state: the national state which was held together by the bond of national sentiment; the federal state, held together by the bond of political agreement;


and the imperial state, held together by the bond of military power. By ‘empire’, MacNeill meant a centralised political power which enabled a single autocrat and his advisers, or a small group of statesmen acting in concert, to control the forces and resources of many countries and millions of people, thereby allowing those in control, if they so desired, to commit those they controlled to a course of hostility towards other countries. Despite it being a democratic age, with the most powerful ministries and rulers having to take account of the wishes of the democracy, MacNeill concluded that as far as international relations were concerned, this was ‘empty talk’, for he thought only half of the democracy ‘civilised’, the other half still being full of the ‘tribal hatreds and prejudices as any community of savages’. Where these hatreds were not in a state of activity, they were only sleeping and were easily awakened and stimulated. They were the raw materials out of which imperial statesmen created warlike preparations and ultimately war itself. MacNeill saw the origin of the war in the very existence of empire.41 As ‘Fiach Duubh’ told readers of the Irish Volunteer, not only the British Empire but any empire was iniquitous, the very idea accursed, with the writer considering slavery the most supreme crime committed against an innocent human being, and empire as slavery applied to a nation, it being the supreme crime of which any combination of human beings was capable.42 In a similar fashion Seamus O’Haodea argued that: the principle of Empire and the principle of Nationality…are not one and the same programme, but two programmes absolutely and intrinsically opposed, and mutually destructive to each other. To be a Nation, Ireland must work out in her own way, be it good or bad, the welfare of the native race, along the lines of her own superior culture. To be part of the British Empire, the Irish people must rid themselves of all their obnoxious idiosyncrasies of thought and speech, and having handed over the leading strings of their destiny to an alien and hostile government, must submit their minds to the degrading influence of third-class British culture and their souls to those moral standards of honesty and truth of which this present Parliament has given us so livid a headline. God Made Nationalities; men and women, mostly bad men and women, made Empires, not by improving on God’s plan, but by assailing it. Only on natural, that is national, lines of progress can the men and women of a race develop character enough to understand and live up to that culture…. Empires


begin in violence and rapine, are kept together by crime, and end in debauchery. That Ireland may embrace Mr. Redmond’s new doctrine of British Imperialism, she must renounce forever her God-given heritage of native Christian culture, accept an alien civilisation impressed upon her by ‘brute force’, and submit her racial characteristics to the steamroller of Imperial uniformity.43 In contrast, the Irish Party focused upon the justice of the war. Prussian militarism, it was claimed, sought to crush the right of small nations such as Ireland to a separate national existence. The Irish Party’s view was that Britain, unlike during the Boer War, was acting as a champion of small nations. This moral theme was taken up by Stephen Gwynn, the Irish Party’s MP for Galway City, who had taken a commission in the Connaught Rangers. There were certain things for which a nation had to fight or cease to be a nation, argued Gwynn. Ireland, he admitted, did not yet see that her national existence and right to choose her own way of life was involved in the outcome of the war, confessing that ‘no man [in Ireland] would dare to admit in public the argument of which I have just spoken’. Gwynn was addressing what he termed Ireland’s ‘moral obligations’; the question he asked Irishmen was ‘Are you for or against Belgium?’, a small nation whose resistance was crushed, its government driven out, its independence forfeited. He drew attention to the widespread German butchery of civilians who had attempted resistance, and to this he added the catalogue of towns destroyed and plundered, and the ‘policy of terror’ that had seen nearly two million people fleeing from Belgium. Gwynn asked what was Ireland’s attitude to be; was she to acquiesce in a sister state’s annihilation, or, as part of the Empire, at war on Belgium’s behalf, did the war have her full support? In Gwynn’s view, as it was German policy to terrorise by ‘calculated barbarism’, it was consequently the business of ‘civilised Europe’ to prevent this, and Ireland had to participate in ‘enforcing the code of Christendom’. If Ireland submitted to seeing Belgian liberties deprived then, Gwynn concluded, ‘we are not ourselves worthy of liberty as a nation’.44 For many of the Irish Party the war represented a desperate fight to preserve the Christian life of Europe from Prussian militarism. Hugh Law, MP for Donegal, believed that an older, more idealistic and liberal Germany existed, but that this was now silent, lost amid the current German opinions formed in early youth in Prussian-ruled state schools and military academies.45 This now dominant German world-view had been influenced, thought Law,


by Prussian ideas such as those of the great German historian, von Trieitschke, and General von Bernhardi, his disciple. Law analysed their writings in terms of the duty of the state towards its citizens, and the duty of the state towards other states or peoples, as an explanation for German actions in initiating the war. Von Trieitschke and von Bernhardi, argued Law, believed that the individual existed only for the state, and that the state had no obligations towards its own subjects, or any other being, human or divine. The highest moral of the state was to increase its power. The individual was to sacrifice himself for the higher community of which he was a member, as the state itself was the highest conception in the wider community of man. Natural rights, whether in domestic or foreign affairs, did not exist; instead, only those rights existed which were sanctioned by the state. Nor did the Christian duty of sacrifice for something higher exist but for the state, because there was nothing higher in the world’s history. Christian morality, wrote Law, based upon the law of love—‘Love God above all things, and thy neighbour as thyself’— could hold no significance for the relation of one country to another since, in the Prussian philosophy of the state, its application to politics would lead to a conflict of duties. The love which a man showed to another country would imply a want of love for his own countrymen, such a system ultimately leading him astray. Von Bernhardi, wrote Law, had argued that the relations between two states had often to be termed a latent war, previously waged through peaceful rivalry. Such a position justified the employment of hostile methods that were cunning and deceptive. If the state wished to retain a surplus population, which the mother country could no longer feed, then the only course left was to achieve the necessary territory by war. Might was at once the supreme right and the dispute as to what was right was decided by decision of war. War gave a biologically just decision, since its decisions rested upon the very nature of things. If the interests of the state demanded it, it was the moral and political duty of the statesmen to bring about war. According to Law this concept of the state, which acknowledged no rights against itself, and which was excused from all obligations of Christian morality, was manifested in Prussia-Germany. Autocracy, anti-nationalism and militarism, were cognate ideas, inseparably interwoven in that state’s structure. The doctrines of von Treitschke, concluded Law, were the ‘doctrines of the Devil’.46 In defining the ‘Doctrine of the Devil’, T.M.Kettle, a poet and former Irish Party MP, and himself soon to enlist, focused on the philosophy of the German state, listing violence as a


character istic,47 of which he regarded von Treitschke the preacher.48 Kettle focused upon Nietzschean philosophy, which defined the motive behind life as a sort of metaphysical symbol which Nietzsche called the Will-to-Power. The whole task of life was to impose one’s will upon others, with the aim to evolve the Superman; life was a struggle of all against all, in a world divided into nations and classes, meaning the struggle for the victory of some nation or fashion of government over another. Kettle saw Prussia as the embodiment of this philosophy. The first step towards this Elysium was ‘War, and again war’.49 For Kettle, Nietzsche regarded the mass of humanity as a sweating negligibility while, on the subject of God, Nietzsche had the Superman merely kill him, referring to the Christian concept of God as the deity of the sick as spirit, and one of the most corrupt concepts of God that had ever been attained on earth. Kettle concluded that this view came from the same centre of corruption, the Will-to-Power, which was a long-drawn out ‘Metaphysics of Bullying’, and nothing less or more. Between Prussianism and Civilisation, Kettle concluded, ‘there is not room on earth for the two’.50 Law echoed Gwynn when he stated that if Ireland stood for anything as a distinct entity it was for the twin principles of nationality and democracy, for the principle in international politics that no race, people or language should enslave another, and for the domestic political principle that no individual, class or section should lord over the rest.51 The supreme answer of democracy to the militarists, wrote Kettle, was the resolution of the Allied peoples to go on with the war against Prussianism day after day, year after year. Despite Nietzsche and Bernhardi ‘democracy does not so soften men that they will not die for their ideals. They will do more than die, they will conquer’.52 The Irish Party and recruiting Throughout the Great War, recruiting in Ireland lagged behind that in Great Britain and, within Ireland, recruitment among Catholics lagged behind Protestants. Given the historic nature of Nationalist Ireland’s relationship with the British Empire the level of Catholic enlistment into the British military appeared impressive. However, the debate on the constitutional future of Ireland also meant that the issue of recruitment became the litmus test of the Irish Party’s claims that Irish Nationalism and British Imperialism were compatible.


Redmond campaigned for the establishment of an ‘Irish Division’ for recruits from the nationalist community, to fight alongside the Ulster unionist community’s 36th (Ulster) Division. But, as Catholic recruitment steadily declined throughout 1915, Redmond held that the War Office had deliberately hindered enlistment in Ireland because it was unsympathetic to Irish Nationalism and home rule. Redmond had insisted to Augustine Birrell that the success of any effort to make recruiting in Ireland popular depended upon giving encouragement to the National Volunteers. Matters were complicated for Redmond when Lord Kitchener publicly declared himself ‘greatly disappointed’ at the progress of recruiting in Ireland. Redmond responded by arguing that the population of Great Britain was 40,900,000 against Ireland’s 4,390,000 and, of every 1,000 of the male population between ages twenty and fortyfive, Ireland contributed 26.7 to the regular army, as against 26.5 from Great Britain. The proportionate quota from Ireland for Kitchener’s first 100,000 men would, argued Redmond, be 9,500 men; but Kitchener’s request for an Irish Division would mean double that quota. ‘This seems to be a calculation based upon Ireland’s generosity’ commented Redmond. He pointed out that the situation of a thickly peopled manufacturing land, Great Britain, and that of a thinly peopled agricultural country, Ireland, were very different; in the former the dislocation of commerce and industry, caused by war, favoured recruiting, whereas in agricultural districts the case was reversed, and work in the fields had to be doubled, with more men needed for tillage. Under such circumstances it was inevitable, argued Redmond, that Kitchener should be ‘greatly disappointed’. ‘It is not only, as we are told, the passing of the Home Rule Bill, to be put in force at some unknown future date, and with unknown amendments, which will solve the military difficulty of Ireland. The real remedy is the organisation of an Irish Army, trained on its soil, with its national character recognised. Nothing less than that will prevent disappointment’.53 By the end of 1914 it had become clear that the War Office had no intention of turning the National Volunteers into an ‘Irish Army’ for home defence. Redmond was forced to concentrate on turning the new 16th (Irish) Division into a focus of Irish national pride. In November 1914, Redmond submitted a memorandum to the Cabinet on the position of Irish recruiting. He strongly urged that steps should be taken to address questions which had arisen in Ireland regarding alleged obstacles deliberately put in the way of Irish recruiting by the War Office. Redmond’s proposals included granting permission for special regimental colours to be given to the battalions of the 16th (Irish) Division; permission to wear a


special badge in the caps of the men, as had been given to the Ulster Division and the Welsh Division; a full and satisfactory statement to be made on the availability of army chaplains; and for Irishmen who had enlisted in Great Britain to be allowed to transfer to the Irish Division. Redmond felt convinced that if these measures were implemented the 16th (Irish) Division would be rapidly filled up, and that it might be possible to start a further division.54 However, the rapid disillusionment with Redmond’s prorecruitment policy among the nationalist community begs the question as to how committed that community was to Redmond’s recruiting campaign. As the Redmondite National Volunteer admitted: it is not easy in a moment to reverse the mental attitude which has been the product of 114 years of Castle rule…. Young men especially, who have gloried in the traditions of Irish patriotism may not…be able to realise with electric suddenness that Emmet…Tone…Fitzgerald and Mitchel would never have played the role they did in Irish history, if they were offered the chance that we have…of building up a nation of prosperous, self-respecting, self-governed freemen. Tone would have been loyal to England, if England allowed him…. The brightest names on the role of Irish patriots are those… who would have been the glory of the Empire if they had been allowed to work for the greatness of Ireland as a unit in that Empire.55 The imagery used by the Irish Party to encourage recruiting drew heavily upon the unionist community’s historical myths rather than those of nationalists. The inherent contradiction of this was illustrated in a poem, by Stephen Gwynn, which attempted a linkage between the glories of the Irish regiments of the British army with the exploits of nationalist Ireland’s exiles, the ‘Wild Geese’, who had fought in foreign armies having, in nationalist mythology, had to flee English oppression in Ireland: From Fontenoy, from Lamden, the message runs again, Once more the fields of Flanders are strewn with Irish slain, And once again, oh! once, again, the herald thrills to tell How gloriously an Irish charge avenged the brave who fell…. Must English fill the Rangers’ ranks? Welsh pad the Munsters’ line?


Where stood the Dublin Fusiliers, Scots give the counter sign? Or when the Inniskilling faint, shall Sikhs the trench re-man? Pathan and Gurkha finish what the Irish Guards began?…. They fought for Louis, fought for James, for every despot’s throne: Shall we not fight who may defend a freedom like our own?….56 D.P.Moran’s Leader highlighted this contradiction, stressing that while it backed Redmond and his nominees over the Volunteer split, the Irish Party had ‘somersaulted’ and, without the people’s sanction, had taken it upon itself to become a recruiting sergeant for the British army. This was a policy which the Leader believed nationalist Ireland would not sanction, claiming that even had the nationalist community been able to exercise home rule for five minutes it would have been difficult to materialise gratitude in the form of recruiting; if there had been home rule for ten or twenty years it would have been reasonable for them to expect to take up an extra special load of the Empire’s burden, but Ireland’s ‘thinking people’ had not yet recovered from the shock of the Irish Party’s request. The Leader warned: We think the Irish Party are asking the Irish people more than the Irish people will agree to give, and in so far as the Irish Party have led England to expect a great host of gratituderecruits from Ireland, we think they have made a reaction of feeling against them in England inevitable. We have only received a bird in the bush.57 A survey of police reports, which monitored National Volunteer attitudes, chronicled the lack of enthusiasm among the rank and file for enlisting in the British army. For example, in September 1914 the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) County Inspector for King’s County reported that, when the fear of a German invasion had retreated, any inclination there had been among the National Volunteers to enlist had disappeared.58 In August 1914, the RIC District Inspector in Cork West Riding reported that the Volunteers accepted Redmond’s Commons speech of 3 August 1914, but ‘They are not at all disposed to go beyond this’.59 In September 1914 it was reported that young men in Galway East Riding who were not previously ‘Sinn Feiners’ now called themselves such as a justification for not enlisting. After all, concluded the RIC District Inspector, for years they had been taught that British soldiers were the ‘worst criminals in the world’ and so could not be blamed.60


They were in favour of Redmond’s policy ‘except in that of recruiting’.61 In October 1914, William O’Malley, the local Irish Party MP, had held a recruiting meeting at which the attendance was three hundred; the number who subsequently enlisted was ‘zero’. Instead, in a conscription scare, forty-five men fled from the district and emigrated to the United States.62 By February 1915, although ‘Sinn Fein’ was faring quite badly, the County Inspector felt that ‘public opinion is in favour of the Allies, not from any love of England, but because of fear of the Germans’.63 At a meeting in Tuam, which had Richard Hazleton, MP for North Galway, as its chief speaker, a local priest, Father Byrne, called upon the nationalist community to stay at home and not to fight for England overseas, although he emphasised that the nationalist community was no friend of Germany either.64 Even in Redmond’s home county of Waterford the people as a body were said to be quite willing to pass resolutions in support of his recruiting policy, until it came to the point of doing anything definite, thinking the war a distant event.65 Results from recruiting rallies were poor. In Roscommon, at a meeting attended by Irish Party MPs John Dillon, J.O’Dowd, L.J.Doris and William Duffy, there were seven bands and 4,000 attending, but no enlistments. Again, later in the same month, a similar meeting of 1,200, at which Irish Party MPs John Hayden, J. Fitzgibbon, William Doris, Willie Redmond, and P.O’Brien attended, saw no recruits.66 In January 1915 there were two recruiting meetings held, with 100 and 700 persons attending respectively, which met with more success—one man enlisted.67 By March 1915 it could be ascertained, in a pattern repeated throughout the country, that of 262 recruits from Roscommon, not one of the farming class had enlisted;68 instead, 200 farmers’ sons had fled to the United States in October 1914 during a conscription scare.69 Aside from socio-economic factors inhibiting recruiting, many within the nationalist community did not feel that they had any political liberties to fight for overseas. There was no home rule government and the threat of the Amending Bill remained. Redmond had hoped that the moratorium on home rule for the war’s duration might lead to a very different Amending Bill from the one envisaged. In September 1914 he accepted that the two things he claimed to care about most in politics—no partition of Ireland and no coercion of unionist Ulster—were incompatible; but in the months ahead, through Catholic and Protestant Irishmen fighting together on the battlefield and drilling at home together, he hoped to resolve this by cultivating conciliation, suppressing sectarian strife and hatred in Ireland, and producing agreement


among Irishmen.70 John Dillon also sought to reassure the nationalist community in September 1914 that the next twelve months would witness an atmosphere favourable to negotiation and agreement, for now that the uncertainty of the Home Rule Bill’s fate had been removed, Ulster Unionists would realise that the scheme must come into operation. This, he argued, would add a new aspect to the problem, allowing Dillon to hope that the partition proposals might be dropped by general consent.71 He added that the extent to which any Amending Bill would injure or modify home rule depended, in his view, entirely upon the common-sense of the Irish people in the next six months: if they listened to the Irish Party’s critics and wrangled among themselves, then he warned that Carson would be master of Ireland; but, if their ranks were united and they followed Redmond, Dillon was confident that, before Christmas 1915, Ireland would be in the hands of an Irish national government.72 Redmond, however, was forced to reassure the nationalist community that the Irish Party’s support for recruiting was dependent on the implementation of home rule. Sir Walter Nugent MP emphasised that ‘as long’ as Britain treated Ireland fairly ‘there would not be a more devoted or more loyal part of the United Kingdom’,73 while Dillon stressed ‘I am England’s friend in this war, and so long as she stands by that [Home Rule] Bill’.74 Joseph Devlin summed up the conditional nature of Irish Party support for the war effort when he described the Home Rule Act as representing: a solemn treaty of peace and goodwill among the nations, and those who would attempt to treat it as a mere ‘scrap of paper’ would be essaying a moral infamy not less odious than the German Emperor committed in violating the neutrality of Belgium (hear, hear). Of one thing…the Irish people can rest assured and that is in the face of the declaration of the… Liberal and Tory leaders on the sacredness of treaties, and on the rights of small nationalities, there will be no disposition on the part of either of the two great British Parties to perpetrate upon Ireland, when peace has been restored, an infamy which would be greater than that which they have denounced to the world as the justification for involving Great Britain in the greatest war of all time.75 But, despite Irish Party assurances that ‘Carsonism is dead’, the statement of a senior UVF commander, General Richardson, illustrated that such optimism was misplaced. Richardson had


advised any Ulster unionist waverers for the front to remember the events of the Curragh Mutiny, telling them that the army would come again to Ulster’s aid, after the war, when the UVF’s ranks were reinforced by 12,000 returning soldiers, allowing unionists to ‘relegate Home Rule to the devil’. This forced Dillon to admit publicly that nationalists might have to meet and defeat a military plot against home rule at the war’s end.76 Redmond was forced to reassure a gathering of National Volunteers that their ‘primary duty is the defence of Ireland, of her liberties, her rights, and her newly-won Constitution’.77 The continuing political uncertainty, from the date of the Irish Volunteer declaration until the end of October 1914, was reflected in the decline in National Volunteers numbers to about 165,000, and an increase in the number of those following Eoin MacNeill, which rose to 13,500, including over 2,000 in Dublin. From that time the shrinkage of the National Volunteers continued steadily and although, by the time of the Easter Rising in April 1916 there was still nearly 105,000 on the nominal rolls, they had been for a long time, except in a few places, wholly inactive. The Irish Volunteers also diminished rather than increased in strength until the middle of October 1915. From then until the middle of December 1915, the Irish Volunteers, estimated to be 11,400 strong, increased by some 2,000 men in the provinces, this increase synchronising with the special effort then being put in by the Department of Recruiting in Ireland to get men for the Colours. The British authorities in Ireland believed that the impetus given to the Irish Volunteers was carried on by the fear of conscription being applied to Ireland. When the Military Service Bill, introducing conscription in Great Britain, was not applied to Ireland, the authorities noticed that the ‘malcontents’ shifted their emphasis onto the question of the overtaxation of Ireland.78 It was estimated that the army lost 50,000 men by the activities of the Sinn Fein movement. In the case of one journal, Griffith’s Nationality which was supposed to have a circulation of 4,500, it was found that the actual circulation was 8,000, with the paper going from hand to hand.79 By April 1916, it was estimated that the ‘Sinn Fein Irish Volunteers’ stood at 15,200 of which the majority were actually enrolled as Irish Volunteers, and the remainder, though they called themselves National Volunteers, looked upon Eoin MacNeill as their head.80 Indeed the authorities, in the opinion of the Under Secretary at Dublin Castle, Sir Matthew Nathan, ‘did not know at the time who were loyal and who were disloyal; the boundary line was a very hazy one’.81


Stephen Gwynn, reflecting upon the movement in nationalist opinion, recalled that during the early stages of the war nationalist Ireland had been enthusiastic for the Allies’ cause, with a belief that the war would be short and Ireland’s part in it would secure home rule. At this time, according to Gwynn, MacNeill’s Sinn Feiners were simply ‘snowed under’, and dumbfounded by what they saw around them. However, the first chance for critics to attack the Irish Party arose in the early summer of 1915 with Lloyd George’s taxation proposals; when the proposals were withdrawn the advanced Nationalists claimed that it was they who had secured the victory.82 The limited financial provisions of the 1914 Home Rule Act provided the focus of this discontent. Many Nationalists were alarmed at the increasing financial burden of the war. Discontent with the burden of taxation became a source of public debate, and an agitation began for a revision of the Act’s financial powers along the lines of the Dominion parliaments, which could set their own levels of taxation and erect custom barriers, even against British goods. The first soundings of unease with the Act’s financial provisions became apparent after Lloyd George’s war budget of November 1914, which saw income and super tax doubled, and duties imposed upon beer and tea. The fact that the beer duty was payable on the standard barrel, and the lighter the beer the bigger the margin retained by the brewer, meant that because stronger beer was no longer drunk by the public, except in Ireland, the Irish consumer would be paying proportionately a higher share of the duty than British consumers. The Irish Independent warned that if the extra taxes continued for a generation or two this would inter fere substantially with the livelihood of Irish farmers and the financing of home rule.83 Lloyd George’s drink proposals, in late April 1915, advocated that the duty on spirits be doubled and a supertax imposed of 36/- a barrel on beer above a specific gravity of fifty-three, which affected practically all Irish beer. This new taxation, claimed the Independent, seemed to be deliberately graduated so that Irish breweries would be compelled to shut down, while English concerns would be left practically untouched. The Independent warned that the demand for Irish barley would be seriously reduced, badly hitting the Irish farmer and the whiskey distilling industry, one of Ireland’s few that were left, whereas the doubling of the spirit tax would make scarcely any difference to England. The whole scheme of home rule finance would be affected, argued the Independent, for if one of the principal sources of Irish revenue were to be closed the loss would have to be made up in


another direction, with some other industry being made to supply the deficiency It took no extensive process of elimination to conclude that Irish agriculture would have to bear the increased burdens.84 The Independent argued that, war or no war, the financial provisions of the Act were disappointing; it pointed out that Lloyd George’s proposals could have been introduced by another British Chancellor of the Exchequer and passed by the British House of Commons even with home rule in operation. The only power of an Irish parliament would be to vary taxes by the addition of more taxes; in other words ‘if the British Parliament does not go far enough in the direction of destroying…Irish industries by… taxation the Irish Parliament may complete the operation; but it can do nothing whatever to mitigate the evil’.85 Without fiscal autonomy for the Irish Parliament, the Home Rule Act ‘was not a “charter of liberty”’ as Redmond claimed it was.86 These reservations were again raised by the war budget of September 1915 which envisaged the ‘dead weight’ of British national debt at £2,200,000,000 by the close of the financial year, the existing revenue being £272,000,000. With increased taxation bringing an extra £115,000,000, the anticipated revenue was £387,000,000 for the full year, with increased taxes and duties on incomes and items such as tea and spirits once again. This budget meant, said the Irish Independent, that war taxes would add enor mously to Ireland’s financial burden and relatively affect her more severely than Britain. It was known that Ireland had contributed 5. 61 per cent of the total UK revenue in the last peace year, and that by the next year there would be a revenue increase of £189,000, 000. Five per cent of that would amount to £9,450,000 which meant that the total revenue raised had been only £156,537,689; it was therefore calculated that Ireland had contributed £9,621, 000. The UK’s income tax had been roughly trebled. In the case of Ireland, the Independent found that the extra yield on the basis of the proportion of 1913–14, namely 3.13 per cent of the total, meant it obtained practically the same figure. Assuming there was no reduction in consumption, the two war imposts on tea would come to £840,000; similarly in the case of sugar, the increase would be £1,000,000, these three items accounting for nearly £5, 000,000. Beer, tobacco and other taxes would add substantially to that figure, all of which went to the British Treasury, and was not to be laid aside for the Irish Parliament.87 The financial cost of the war was increasingly bringing the question of the financial provisions of the 1914 Home Rule Act under intense Nationalist scrutiny, and a campaign aimed at devolving greater financial


freedom to an Irish parliament became a central element in criticism of the Irish Party, principally through the pages of the Irish Independent. Nationalists and conscription From the spring of 1915 political pressures in Great Britain concerning the conduct of the war began to undermine the Irish Party’s position back in Ireland. John Dillon traced the terminal decline of the Irish Party from the moment the Liberal Government merged with the Unionist Opposition to form a coalition administration in May 1915. This saw Andrew Bonar Law, A.J.Balfour and Carson join the Cabinet. Dillon felt that from this point the Irish Party steadily and rapidly lost its hold on the people. The average man, claimed Dillon, and a vast number of the Irish Party’s loyal supporters, believed that the Irish Party was now in an extremely weak bargaining position and that Carson had proved himself more than a match for Redmond.88 With the announcement of the coalition, Dillon described the state of public feeling, in June 1915 as ‘very bad’, but he hoped to pull it around again;89 by July 1915, although he considered the state of Ireland to be slowly improving, it still remained the worse he had known since 1900.90 On 18 May 1915, Sir Matthew Nathan had conveyed the news to Redmond that the Government was to be reconstructed as a coali tion, with Unionist and Labour members, which would cease when the war ended. Nathan was anxious that Redmond should join the new administration, but Redmond replied that the ‘principles and history of the party I represent make the acceptance of your offer impossible’, and he was convinced he would not have been inside its ranks for a month before he would have been obliged to resign, having done mischief in Ireland and England. He urged Asquith not to include Carson since, from the Irish Party’s point of view, it would do ‘infinite harm, and make our efforts far more difficult’. As Redmond explained, Carson’s inclusion would signal to the Irish people the installation in power of the ‘leader of the Ulster revolters who, the other day, was threatening hostilities to the forces of the Crown and the decision of Parliament. It will arouse grave suspicion, and will most certainly enormously increase the difficulties of my friends and myself’. He strongly expressed the opinion that the government of Ireland should be left untouched. If it was sought to carry the coalition into Irish government, by supplanting the existing office holders with Unionists, the ‘greatest confusion would arise here [Ireland] in the public mind,


and a state of perturbation, suspicion, and, I think, indignation would ensue’.91 The extent of nationalist concern at the formation of the coalition was illustrated by the Roman Catholic Bishop Fogerty of Killaloe, a staunch Irish Party supporter, who declared ‘Home Rule is dead and buried and Ireland is without a national party…. What the future has in store for us God knows. I suppose conscription, with a bloody feud between people and soldiers’.92 These sentiments were echoed in the Nationalist provincial press. The Roscommon Herald argued that it would be idle to deny that Carson’s inclusion in the Cabinet meant the ‘death and burial’ of home rule, and warned that the new government might enforce conscription upon Ireland.93 The Connaught Telegraph admitted that it was now inevitable that the nationalist community would alter its attitude towards the Government—‘They would be more than human if they did not view with some misgivings even the temporary inclusion of…Carson’.94 The Leinster Leader explained that the Liberal Government had ceased to exist, and there was now a question as to whether the Liberals would be in a position to redeem their pledges to Nationalist Ireland after the war. The prospect of the Home Rule Act coming into operation now seemed a remote one and, with its passage having been exploited and served its purpose, it looked set to disappear into the ‘limbo of defunct Liberal legislation’.95 These attitudes led the Enniscorthy Echo to claim that it had never trusted Asquith: He was always too free with his promises and too slow in performance. Every tap of the Orange drum gave him the shivers, and he kept delaying the Bill from session to session and from day to day And then, when he could delay it no longer, he started cutting down the measure. Bad as it was before, he made it worse. Readers will remember the fright he got into over the Curragh affair, when he forgot that for every officer opposed to Home Rule there were a hundred of the rank and file in favour of it. With his tongue in his cheek he used to denounce Carson, but now Carson is to be his colleague in the new Cabinet. And, in those days of the Ulster campaign, simple people in Ireland imagined that Carson was ruining his career when he declared his attention to break every law. If it were an Irish Nationalist…he would be in Kilmainham Jail. But, instead of being a prisoner, Carson is Attorney-General of England! It will be his duty to punish the law-breakers!96


The Irish Party’s problems continued to mount throughout 1915. Stephen Gwynn had noted how, in the spring of 1915, a change of feeling became gradually more noticeable amongst the Irish people, whereby it seemed that England was failing to recognise the new growth of the nationalist community’s loyalty. The ‘extraordinary attitude’ of the War Office was slowly turning Irish enthusiasm into indifference, though not yet hostility Fears grew that the Government was intending to impose conscription. According to Gwynn, the principal objections to conscription among the nationalist population were that England had shown no gratitude for the Irish recruits obtained, that their lives were being thrown away by incompetent leaders, and their military achievements boycotted in dispatches from the front. In the autumn of 1915 it was the issue of conscription which had become the sole topic of conversation in rural districts, leading to a stampede of young men to North America. Sinn Feiners, who in Gwynn’s view were mainly young men who saw every Government measure against them under the Defence of the Realm Act—such as the repression of radical Nationalist newspapers and the deportation of agitators—saw this as evidence of the Imperial Parliament’s intention to conscript them. These young men pointed out that England was beaten in every field of war, and that Carson and the Unionists were England’s dictators.97 This viewpoint touched a chord within the wider nationalist community. The Irish Independent voiced some of these concerns when it complained that it was only from private letters and occasional interviews with wounded soldiers that the Irish public had learned anything of the gallant conduct of the Irish regiments like the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in Flanders, or the 10th (Irish) Division at Gallipoli, for there had been no official recognition of Irish bravery.98 Redmond considered it a scandal that, up to the moment of withdrawal from the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in late 1915, there had been no detailed dispatch from the force commander as to what had occurred regarding Irish regiments during the campaign. He thought it unworthy of the Government that men who had faced untold of sufferings and showed unparalleled heroism should have been left without any official dispatch recording their deeds.99 The Irish Independent added that there was ‘bitter disappointment’ over the Gallipoli withdrawal, which was a sorry end to the victory promised six months previously and a beggarly return for the sacrifice of so many Irish lives.100 In the ‘disastrous expedition’ hundreds of the 10th (Irish) Division’s lives had been sacrificed, yet there had been no official acknowledgement of their heroism, and whoever was responsible


for this appalling blunder had ‘recklessly sacrificed’ Irish lives.101 The Independent balked at the total Dardenelles casualty list, which, up to 11 December 1915, stood at 112,921, including 25, 279 killed, 75, 191 wounded and 12,451 missing, practically onethird of the Western Front’s entire casualties.102 The belated publication of dispatches, while establishing that Irish gallantry had been ‘magnificent’, also proved to the Independent that an almost impossible task had been set to unseasoned troops.103 Dennis Gwynn, Redmond’s biographer and at that time editor of New Ireland, recalled that, from the 1914 retreat at Mons, during which the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers had suffered severe casualties in an epic last stand while acting as rearguard to the British Expeditionary Force, an impression had grown in nationalist Ireland that Irish troops were being used for the most arduous tasks. So, when reports of the Gallipoli enterprise were made public, indignation spread through Ireland when it was found that the Irish regiments were not mentioned by name, although practically every other British regiment was fully honoured.104 John Dillon expressed his anger at the squandering of Irish lives, coupled with what he believed was an incessant British demand for more Irishmen, when he told the House of Commons: The fault lies not with the want of men, and surely to God not with the bravery of the men who have volunteered, but it lies with the higher direction of the War. It lies with the officers who led our regiments at Suvla without artillery or a single gun, and who hurled themselves to death on the slopes of those hills which they would have carried, and which would have enabled them to get to Constantinople had they been decently led…. Before you send conscripts to the War in Flanders or in the Balkans we must democratise the British Army, and have some assurance that we shall have men to lead us who will not lead us to death…. No, it was not the men who have been found wanting, but the leadership, the brains of the officers, the artillery and the guns…. What is the use of throwing a vale over…proceedings and turning round now and saying it is the slackers at home?…it is the incompetent officers in the field…. The worst of it all is that… there is no confidence… that the officers guilty or responsible for these disasters will be withdrawn. We have…only too good reason to suspect and fear that the British Army to-day, as it has been in the past… [is] permeated with society interest. Any man who has got a good strong pull in London society…


may blunder and blunder again quite safely, and spill the blood of gallant men owing to his incompetence.105 Coupled with resentment at the perceived snubbing of Irish troops, it was steadily becoming apparent, throughout 1915, that the Government was edging towards conscription. The first stage, a National Register, involved a canvass of all men between the ages of nineteen and forty-one who remained in civilian life in Great Britain. A Cabinet Committee under Walter Long was commissioned to draft a report for the conscription of all single men, and this was accepted by the Cabinet on 28 December 1915, with a Military Service Bill placed before Parliament on 5 January 1916. The vote on the first reading, on 6 January, saw 403 vote for the Bill and 105 against, the opponents including the Irish Party, thirty-four Liberals and eleven Labour MPs. By the second reading opposition had dwindled with only the Irish Party abstaining, since Ireland was excluded from the Bill, and witnessing 431 voting for and 39 against. On 27 January 1916 the Military Service Bill received the Royal Assent.106 Conscription completely undermined the Irish Party’s position in Ireland. In an attempt to reassure the nationalist community in June 1915, the Irish Party’s organ the Freeman’s Journal had supported Redmond’s personal view that the people of Great Britain were opposed to conscription, and that any attempt to break up the voluntary recruiting system would wreck British national solidarity. Conscription, being similar to Prussian militarism, would be resisted by the ‘liberty-loving’ people of the British Isles.107 The Freeman emphasised that the National Register was compulsory in Britain but not Ireland—a ‘fundamental’ difference.108 It pointed out that there was no obligation to fill out any forms distributed in Ireland under the National Registration Act, nor any penalty for not filling in the forms in the limited number of districts where the Lord Lieutenant had put the Act into force. The reason, claimed the Freeman, for its ‘limited’, but ‘useless’, extension to Ireland was to appease the Coalition Government and show that Ireland’s total exclusion did not apply; an ‘amusing’ situation.109 But such assurances increasingly appeared to be ignoring the obvious movement of British opinion in favour of compulsion, a factor compounded by the actions and views of Redmond himself, who appeared increasingly out of step with the feeling within the nationalist community and even with his political colleagues. Dillon was opposed to conscription in any form because, as he explained in 1916, he remained ‘convinced and unshaken’ in his


conviction that the push for conscription was the outcome of a conspiracy to completely break up the Asquith Government and substitute it for a ‘Germanised and Prussianised’ administration.110 Dillon believed that the gravest issue before Parliament was whether Britain’s two-hundred-year unbroken policy of not sending great armies to the continent was to be totally abandoned, allowing a section of the country ‘which is saturated to the marrow of their bones with Prussian principles’ to impose upon Britain the same yoke which brought Germany and the world to its present catastrophe. He believed that conscription would fracture British domestic unity and lead to the loss of the war. He argued that Britain’s strength lay in her fleet and finance, pointing out that even in the Napoleonic and French Revolutionary Wars the continental British army never exceeded 50,000. Dillon warned that a great victory was not always a great blessing to a nation, citing Prussia’s 1870 victory over France as a curse to Germany because that war had been fought in pursuit of militarism and domination, and, when Prussia had conquered her enemies, she had showed them no mercy. He cautioned Britons not to find themselves, in victory, another Prussia, a huge continental power with over a million soldiers, the world’s greatest fleet, and its richest nation, bringing ‘upon ourselves the hatred of mankind’.111 Dillon opposed conscription on the grounds that it would mean the ‘introduction of Prussianism’, the sacrifice of the individual to the state, and the ‘erection into a kind of a God of military efficiency over the freedom of the people’.112 From a domestic political viewpoint, Dillon feared that Redmond did not fully realise what his position in Ireland would be if the Cabinet decided in favour of conscription for Great Britain.113 On the other hand, T.P.O’Connor, the Irish Party’s only MP representing a British constituency, believed that Redmond was fully aware of the dangers associated with British conscription, the difference being, by October 1915, that Redmond felt that conscription was not imminent,114 and counted on the introduction of a universal conscription bill creating a formidable opposition of the Labour Party, the Irish Party and sections of the Liberal Party.115 By November 1915, however, O’Connor had realised that opinion in the House of Commons was steadily moving towards conscription, practically throwing the responsibility for resisting it upon the Irish Party. ‘It looks…as if the alternative…was to lose Ireland or to lose England’, concluded O’Connor, after observing the gloom in Britain concerning the Serbian and Gallipoli campaigns over which the fall of the Government was considered possible.116 Given this situation


O’Connor warned that an Irish Party intervention against conscription in Britain might strike the British people as inopportune and seriously wound Asquith.117 There was also Redmond’s attitude to consider, with O’Connor arguing that fighting any conscription bill to the bitter end might result in the choice of either losing Redmond as the Irish Party’s leader or making a perfunctory protest and keeping him coupled with the exclusion of the measure in Ireland. As O’Connor explained to Dillon, ‘He [Redmond] feels so strongly about the war…that he may feel himself unable to take up the same attitude as you do; and your attitude, according to what I read in the Irish papers, seems to be the only attitude which will satisfy Irish opinion’.118 Redmond did indeed reject Dillon’s concerns, instead taking the view that the conscription question was one of necessity and not of principle. No man, he argued, could deny that, if the Germans landed on the Kent or Irish coasts, his objection to the principle of conscription should be allowed to prevent him from making a fight to defend his country’s shores. Thus it was a question of degree, not principle, as to whether men should be forced to meet the foe at Calais, instead of Kent. If it could be shown that voluntary recruitment had broken down and that compulsion was the only means of raising the men needed to end the war, then Redmond ‘knew of no man who would allow his personal predilections against Conscription to stand in the way of a course which had become necessary to the very life of the country’. But he also argued that the onus of proof lay with those who proposed conscription, and until this was done, he remained hostile to it for England. Ireland, he thought, was in a ‘fortunate’ position, having been told how many men had been raised and how many were wanted, officially 50,000. The three things Ireland had been asked to do, said Redmond, were to provide the necessary drafts for the old Irish regiments, to raise three entirely new divisions, and to help keep the reserve Irish battalions at full strength, allowing him to conclude that Ireland was in a much better position than Britain, he having no doubt that Irish requirements could be met.119 Redmond explained the differences in numbers of recruits between Great Britain and Ireland by emphasising that the change in Ireland’s relationship with the Empire had been so rapid that men in Britain were apt to forget the difficulties the Irish Party had had to face. Redmond used the example of General Botha, the South African leader who had quelled a pro-German Boer rebellion and then gone on to deliver the Empire’s only military success so far with victory in German East Africa, to illustrate his point. Botha had telegraphed the Irish Party leader, concurring with the latter’s


description of his military success as the ‘fruit of a policy of liberty and the recognition of national rights in this part of the Empire’. The Irish leader pointed out to the House of Commons that Botha too had had to face serious—white—‘racial animosity’ and ‘bitter national memories’ between Britons and Boers in South Africa—‘he had to face his Sein [sic] Feiners’. Redmond asked the Commons if any fair-minded man thought that General Botha could have over come those difficulties if the war had broken out immediately after the recognition of South Africa’s national rights and before they had been put into operation. ‘I honestly believe’, said Redmond, ‘in my own heart that…Botha’s difficulties were in reality small compared with the difficulties that my colleagues and I had to face in Ireland’. It was now true to say that for the first time the overwhelming sentiment of the Irish people was with the Empire, and the incalculable value of this had been felt in every one of the Dominions and in the United States. Redmond appealed to Parliament to: Trust us to know…the best methods of getting recruits for your Army. Do not attempt to drive a people who have already gone far, and who have gone further than yesterday you could have hoped or believed. Do not weaken the hands of men who are straining every nerve to allay suspicion and to arouse enthusiasm in the cause amongst their…countrymen. Do not carp…and…belittle Irish effort.120 Unionists and conscription It has been argued that the unionist concentration upon the war effort in the Southern provinces helped weaken Unionist sentiment.121 However, it would be more accurate to state that while opposition to home rule may have declined among some Southern Unionists, imperial sentiment remained as strong as ever. The Home Rule Act 1914 would still see Irish MPs represented at Westminster, and although the Union would be altered, it was not to be broken. Many members of the Southern Unionist community became convinced that their dual allegiance, to Ireland and the Empire, could be accommodated by Irish selfgovernment. Two factors influenced the rapprochement between moderate Unionists and moderate Nationalists. The first was the role played by the Irish Party during the war, as part of the Southern Unionist political elite came to see the Irish Party’s commitment to the war effort as evidence that Redmondites were sincere in professing


their loyalty to King and Empire. The second was the embracing, by the Irish Party, of the status of British subjectship, by willingly giving their allegiance to the Crown. As early as December 1914 the Irish Times, in stating that it respected and admired Redmond’s attitude of debt to the Empire for the granting of home rule, admitted that England would be inclined to show favour to the Irish Party for giving her the greater cause for gratitude when the post-war Irish settlement was considered.122 Reflecting upon the Gallipoli campaign the Irish Times believed that the process of imperial unity begun by the Canadians at Ypres and continued by General Botha in South Africa, was completed by the Australians and New Zealanders in Gallipoli. But, there too, Ireland had found the solution to her ageold troubles. The name of Gallipoli, the Irish Times believed, would be uttered with tears in hundreds of Irish homes for years to come. From university, shop and plough, gallant young Irish lads had gone into the jaws of battle, and proved themselves faithful and dauntless heirs of their race’s traditions. Posterity would realise that in Gallipoli, Australians and Irishmen were fighting not only to beat the Turk but to consolidate a mighty Empire and to create a united Ireland.123 The Irish Times saw this Irish heroism in Britannic terms, comparing it with the tradition of Irish soldiers holding the line at Waterloo, of English, Scots and Irishmen fighting together at Flanders and Ypres, offering proof that ‘Britons still knew how to die for their country’.124 The newspaper remembered the laughing lads who had marched along Dublin quays and thought of the hands that would never be clasped again, consoling itself by venturing to say: that even the bitterest loss in this campaign has been worth the while—worth it for the soldier himself, for his loved ones, for Ireland. The soldier has died the finest of all deaths in the finest of all causes…. His death is a message of hope to his country…. Unionists and Nationalists…a little more than a year ago…were preparing to kill one another. To-day many of them have died for one another. When this war is ended we shall resume our political controversies in a new Ireland. The Unionists and Nationalists who fought at Ypres and stormed the hill at Suvla have sealed a new bond of patriotism. The spirits of our dead Irish soldiers will cry trumpet-tongued against the deep damnation of internecine strife in Ireland…. Of those who will never come home we can truly say, as the Spartans said of their dead…their tombs are altars, their lot glorious and beautiful.125


J.H.Bernard, the Church of Ireland Bishop of Ossory, echoed similar elements, in September 1915, when he looked to the post-war Irish situation. Although no one could predict what the political situation would be, Bernard supposed that no reasonable man would be unaffected by the fact that the ‘best of Ireland’s blood’ had been poured out in the common cause of King and Country. Bernard drew no distinction between Unionists and Nationalists, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians or Churchmen, for the ‘same grass grew over their graves in far-off fields’. In Kilkenny, where he spoke, Bernard had noticed a coming together in a common sorrow of the unionist and nationalist communities, and he did not forget that the first Irish chaplain killed at the front was a Roman Catholic chaplain to the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Bernard hoped that the memory of these things might soften the bitterness of political antagonism, although he stressed that this did not mean that one side or the other should abandon old convictions; but it was now unthinkable, he thought, that Irishmen would draw the sword against Irishmen after the war, although he realised that it would not be easy to compose these differences, demanding as it would, patience and the absence of old party shibboleths.126 Such sentiments were welcomed by supporters of the Irish Party, but outraged many Ulster Unionists. So, whereas in 1915 the Freeman’s Journal found J.H. Bernard’s comments ‘remarkable’, seeing in them a common theme enunciated in Redmond’s speeches,127 and a recognition that the ‘community of sacrifice and grief is established’ among nationalists and unionists,128 the response of the Belfast News-Letter to the speech was to inquire as to what was meant by ‘old party shibboleths’. Certainly, the Union was not a shibboleth, and perhaps Nationalists, were Bernard to inquire, would tell him that home rule and ‘Ireland a nation’ were not either. What then was to be abandoned? asked the News-Letter. The Kaiser thought Belgian neutrality was a shibboleth, but Asquith and his colleagues thought it was worth fighting for; like-wise Ulstermen believed that the British Constitution’s maintenance was a duty no less sacred than Belgium’s neutrality.129 The Northern Whig claimed that Redmond and home rule could not be credited with the presence of so many Irish soldiers at the front, for it could not be forgotten that in previous wars, when there was no home rule scheme, Irishmen were to be found fighting for the Empire.130 Indeed, the Whig claimed that the 10th (Irish) Division had hundreds of Englishmen in it, while the 16th (Irish) Division was minus a whole brigade, and its reserve battalions were also full of Englishmen.131 The Whig attacked the Irish Party’s claim to political ownership of the 10th


(Irish) Division, and it described reports in the British press that the division was 90 per cent Catholic and Nationalist as ‘ridiculous’.132 The facts, according to the Whig, were that, since its formation, at no time had the 10th been composed of more than 25 per cent Catholics or even 50 per cent Irishmen; the Whig only wished that it were possible to call the 10th ‘Irish’.133 The Lord Primate of Ireland’s son, chaplain to the division, supplied figures (shown here in Table 3.1) which were taken as genuine, and enabled Ulster Unionists to sneer at ‘This…Division which the Nationalists always talk about as if it consisted exclusively of R.C. Home Rulers’.134 The lesson of Gallipoli, for the Northern Whig, was not the achievement of a sense of bonding between nationalist and unionist Irishmen, but between Britons and their kin in the Dominions: from a political point of view it may prove to be the beginning of a new era in the history of the British Empire. On Anzac beach and the barren slopes beyond it the sentiment that bound Australia to the Motherland has been sealed forever with the blood of her best sons…. The Australians and New Zealanders have shown what they are willing to do for us, and in the new world which will emerge after the war it must be our business to ensure that this service does not go unrewarded. The only fee these countries ask is that they will be permitted to share with us the task of guiding the destinies of the Table 3.1 10th (Irish) Division religious census (November 1915)

Source: Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Hugh de Fellenburg Papers D627/429/8.


Empire…. If this war has taught us nothing else it has taught us to value loyalty.135 Unionists were also becoming increasingly alienated by Nationalist hostility to conscription. Continuing political uncertainty about the fate of the Home Rule Act was affecting the levels of recruiting in Ulster. During the early autumn of 1915 the Lord Mayor of Belfast had discovered that when he was trying to secure the necessary draft-supplying reserve for the 36th (Ulster) Division, his energies were suddenly brought to a standstill. A sort of ‘atmospheric wave’ had spread over Protestant Ulster. The prevailing opinion was that: We had sent the best of our manhood to the front; the Catholics of the South and West have contributed substantially less; if we now send what remains of our available men…we shall be left defenceless against a possible, and even probable, Nationalist invasion of our province; and our wives, our children, our homes, our industry, our religion, will be at the mercy of our hereditary foes.136 Increasingly, the state of recruiting in Ireland, coupled with the conduct of the war at Westminster and the continuing necessity for more men, began to dominate the Irish Unionist Party’s actions. The fundamental difference between the Ulster Unionist and the Irish Party’s position on conscription and the conduct of the war was that for the latter the alleged blunders of British commanders and politicians cost the lives of members of another nation, the Irish; for Unionists, however, any blunders in the conduct of the


war were at least committed by those they considered part of their national group, the British. From the Unionist perspective this meant that issues such as conscription were really about the prosecution of the war to a successful conclusion whatever the cost. At the beginning of July 1915, Sir Edward Carson, together with Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson, who had returned from the British General Staff in France to criticise the Government’s conduct of the war, met with the former Irish Unionist Party leader, Walter Long, and Andrew Bonar Law, to discuss the worsening military situation. Wilson got Carson, Long and Bonar Law to agree to oppose the further sending of troops to Gallipoli, and to send all troops to France. Carson accepted Wilson and Kitchener’s view that the war would be a long, sad, stern process, which could not be won by any trick or diversion, but must be fought to the finish in the fields of France and Flanders. On 9 July 1915, at a speech at the Guildhall, London, Carson reminded his audience that Britain’s primary duty to her allies was to see the matter through with them ‘at whatever cost’. With the Germans still occupying Belgium and a considerable portion of France, Carson argued that ‘There is no use in abusing the Germans…. That won’t kill one of them. Recollect that upon the signing of a decree…men of any class and of any age in Germany go to the colours. We have to set up against that our voluntary recruiting…it is now on its trial…if it fails does anybody for a moment think that we ought to hesitate to apply compulsory service?’ A month later, speaking ‘solely his own opinions’ as he was still a cabinet minister, Carson declared ‘At the present time every man and woman in France and Russia is at war. What I want is that every man and woman in this United Kingdom and Empire should be at war’.137 Carson increasingly became the focus of British Unionist discontent with the war’s prosecution, and he believed that the only way to win the war was to introduce conscription throughout the United Kingdom. On 2 November 1915, Carson expressed his concerns to the House of Commons. Replying to Asquith’s defence of the Government’s performance in directing the war, Carson spoke of the situation after fifteen months of conflict, and called for free debate in Parliament. He wished to assess whether what appeared to be grave military miscalculations could have been


avoided, whether Britain’s resources in men and materials were being used to the best advantage, and whether, above all, the machinery of government for carrying on the war was the most adequate and effective that could be devised. Carson diagnosed the problem as one of cabinet government which, however useful in peace time, was an organisation and machine utterly incapable of carrying on a war under the present circumstances. Carson illustrated his point by the example of Gallipoli, which had ‘hung around our necks like a millstone’, and fixed upon what Asquith had said earlier, that the Cabinet had very often to determine questions exclusive of naval and military considerations. Carson recalled the miscalculations which had plagued the Dardenelles campaign, such as the naval expedition and the landing of troops, which had cost 40,000 casualties, and the Sulva Bay landings which resulted in a further 40,000 casualties. He accused the Cabinet of being unable to make up its mind, meeting spasmodically and debating fruitlessly. Carson therefore called for a small number of competent men, sitting from day to day, and availing of expert advice. He felt so strongly on the matter that he resigned from the Coalition Government. In his letter of resignation Carson had protested to Asquith with regard to the apparent abandonment of Britain’s ally, Serbia. For Carson, military support for Serbia was a matter of honour, and he could not understand ‘how England can now abandon Serbia to her fate without national dishonour’, fearing that ‘The loss to our prestige will be incalculable, and a very grave menace will threaten our Eastern Empire’.138 Carson’s interventions in the House of Commons were chiefly concerned with the causes for which he had fought within the Government. On 22 November 1915 he argued strongly for conscription, and at the same time, criticised the procrastinations over Gallipoli. ‘What the country wanted to know’, he said, ‘was if nothing was being done from August 10th to December 20th [1915], why we had left these men in a kind of hell there, sometimes losing men by sickness at the rate of a thousand a day while somebody was making up his mind’.139 By March 1916 it was strongly rumoured that Carson could face the possibility that he would become Prime Minister in the near future, with many men on both sides of the House turning their thoughts to this. Bonar Law had confided to Redmond, on 15 March 1916, that he was convinced the present political situation could not continue, with the possibility of the Government being beaten at any moment in the House of Commons, and he was quite certain that, if there was anyone to lead an opposition, the coalition would be driven from


office. Bonar Law thought that if Carson had the health and desire to take up the leadership of an opposition he could drive the Government from office in a very short time. Carson continued to denounce the Government’s procrastination on conscription, asking ‘Is not the sword unsheathed of which we have so often heard?…. The Government ought not to have asked themselves, “Whom can we get with convenience? Whom can we draw along with us? Whom can we please?” They ought to have asked themselves the one sole question, “What is necessary to fulfil and complete the policy which we have announced to the world, to our Colonies, to our Empire and to our Allies”’.140 Carson despaired of Britain’s performance in every theatre of war. He recounted, in January 1916, how the Russian military experience in the Galian campaign, which, in the summer of 1915, it had been hoped, would see millions of men invading Germany and Austria, had instead seen the Russians driven back. The sight of millions of men on the defensive, which Britain had relied on to relieve pressure on the Western and Eastern theatres, led him to conclude that whatever was sufficient before, in the nature of armies, could not be sufficient in these circumstances. Carson, having watched, throughout the autumn of 1915, the number of recruits decreasing, week by week, asked why Britain had left the Dardenelles where ‘so much blood and so much treasure had been spent?’ The reason, he supposed, was because Britain had not the men to go through with the undertaking. When he looked at the march through Serbia, Carson saw that that nation had got little assistance until it was too late, and he again reasoned that this was because the Government had not the men. On the question that industrial disruption would be caused by conscription, Carson asked ‘What does it matter so long as we win the War; and what would anything matter if we lost the War?’141 Carson cared little for the dynamics of the conscription question; what he did care about was whether it was possible to keep a sufficient military force in the field and, if so, how. If it could not be done by voluntary means, it had to be done by conscription. The necessity of this had been conveyed to him by military men who told him that many British field battalions and divisions were depleted, conveying the false impression that a much larger force was in the field. Furthermore, he was informed that the army was unable to keep up the reserves for these battalions. Carson had been given an instance of three divisions of thirty-six battalions in the Near East reduced to 11,000 men, meaning that instead of 900–1,000 strong battalions these were reduced to 350 men each. As he looked on the various stages of


the war, Carson could not say that the Allies were in any position to carry victory in the East or West. With vast armies and munitions they had failed to break through the German lines, which he believed was the only way to victory; the lesson was that ‘you must get men and men and men, and munitions, munitions, munitions, until you carry it through to the end and drive the Germans back over the Rhine’.142 The Government’s reluctance to apply any form of conscription to Ireland outraged Carson and his supporters. All sections of the Irish Unionist leadership were convinced of the need for such a move. On 3 November 1915, J.Mackay Wilson, brother of Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson, had written to Carson from Ireland warning him that ‘If my information is good, it goes to show the existence of a gigantic conspiracy over here, headed by Redmond, Devlin and Dillon, and abetted by certain high officials in the Castle, which would result in a differentiation being made as regards Ireland, if and when National Service comes on…. It would be absolutely fatal if Ireland were left out of the scheme’.143 Carson concurred. In the Commons, referring to Redmond and himself as ‘old opponents—I do not use the word enemies’, Carson assured him that ‘nothing would be more likely to bring us together on some kind of common platform than that we should find Ireland and Scotland and England absolutely unanimous in what they think is necessary for the carrying on of the war’.144 Irish Unionists continued to protest against Ireland’s exclusion from conscription, because, as the Ulster Unionist MP Sir John Lonsdale explained, the Government had no right to exclude any part of the United Kingdom, such as Ireland, from the ‘duties of a great Imperial obligation’.145 Lonsdale claimed that Ulster’s demand was that there should be no separation between Ireland and Great Britain on this or any other question: ‘We want to stand in with the United Kingdom…to share all the obligations as well as the rights of citizenship’. Carson complained that in all their political squabbles the one question on which they were all agreed — whether there was home rule throughout the United Kingdom, for Ireland alone, or ‘Empire Confederation’—was that the elementary question of the defence of the realm, of the army and the navy, was not one of party politics but of great imperial necessity, and to treat any portion of the United Kingdom as a separate entity was to give up the whole idea of unity at all, establishing chaos in matters of high imperial policy at the very centre and heart of the Empire.146 Psychologically, Ireland’s exclusion from conscription threatened to leave a deep impact upon Ulster Unionism’s relationship with


Nationalist Ireland and their common Irishness. Captain Hugh O’Neill MP believed, in January 1916, that: I do not know how any Irishman, who is fond of his country, as I am, will ever again be able to hold high his head in the company of a Frenchman, a Russian, or an Italian, or any of our other Allies, or for that matter, before an Englishman, or a Scotsman, or a Welshman. I feel very strongly that this is a matter of keen disgrace to Ireland. Ireland under this [conscription] Bill is being humiliated. It is being treated as a thing apart, as a thing unworthy of consideration to share equally with the Allies in a great cause…. This Bill brands an Irishman forever as an outcast, an inferior being, a selfish egotist, a compatriot of men who refused to undertake joint sacrifice with the other Allies in this War.147 Carson asked Nationalists how Ireland was to be looked at in England. He was receiving letters, daily, of the most insolent and sometimes scurrilous character, from Englishmen calling him a coward and accusing him of preventing Irishmen from being included in the same dangers as they were. Was it tolerable, he asked, when the British working classes were giving so many soldiers to the King in the field, to say to the woman who has lost a husband and one child already in the war, as he had discovered in a letter he had received, ‘that if she had two more sons she must give these two, although a woman under similar circumstances with her husband and three children in Ireland would not be asked to suffer at all’?148 Carson felt that ‘in my heart…when the hour of victory comes…we who are Irishmen will feel ashamed to remember that we expected others to make sacrifices from which we provided our own exclusion’.149 Captain James Craig summed up Ulster Unionist feeling on the matter: My…words to my Nationalist…country-men are these: It has always been a pride to a man, no matter what part of the country he came from, to say he was an Irishman. If he was travelling abroad and he was taxed with the question as to where he came from, he would not hesitate to say in the past that he was an Irishman. But if Ireland, if the Irish nationalist representatives…refuse to come forward and take their fair share…alongside…the rest of the Kingdom, then I say for my part if this victory is gained it will be no pleasure to me to call myself an Irishman, and in future it will either have to be a Britisher or an Ulsterman.150


Conclusion The reactions of Unionists and Nationalists to the outbreak of war illustrated the underlying allegiances which governed their respective relationships with the British Crown and Empire. Unionist Ireland received Britain’s declaration of war in a manner which demonstrated its psychological integration into a British patriotism. Irish Unionist rhetoric expressed a tirade of British patriotic fervour, in contrast to a more sober assessment of the justice of the war by Nationalist Ireland. Unionist support for Britain’s involvement in the war was unqualified, demonstrated through the automatic acceptance of the righteousness of British actions. Nationalists, on the other hand, either opposed British participation, or offered support on the grounds of securing home rule; despite Redmond’s conviction that the war was a crusade against German imperialism, it also became clear, as the Irish Party chairman recognised, that the war had come too soon to allow an imperial patriotism to develop among the nationalist community. ‘Sinn Feiners’, in contrast, did not accept the morality of the war. They articulated doubts about the legitimacy of the war, if not outright hostility, and called for Irish detachment or neutrality The Provisional Committee believed that Redmond had squandered a good bargaining position with the British Government and claimed that it was they who represented true Nationalist values, based upon not trusting Britain, the traditional enemy. While Redmond called upon the nationalist community to safeguard Irish liberties by enlisting in the British army, he was vulnerable to the charge from Eoin MacNeill’s supporters that he had not exercised sufficient leverage in actually securing the operation of a home rule parliament from the Government. Instead, nationalist Ireland was left with a suspended Home Rule Act and the prospect of an Amending Bill diluting the measure further or even partitioning Ireland. The Coalition Government offered the real prospect that home rule would never be implemented; Redmond, in turn, could not join the coalition because it would have been seen in nationalist Ireland as the ultimate illustration of his assimilation into British imperialism. With the prospect of conscription in Britain being extended to Ireland the Irish Party was in an extremely vulnerable position; fortunately for Redmond there was no alternative focus for this mounting disaffection.

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Chapter 4 The Easter Rising and aftermath

The Easter Rising and cultural nationalism It is a commonly held view that a sense of blood sacrifice was the primary motive in the minds of those men who carried out the Easter Rising of 1916. But the insurrection was not the first example of this mentality during the war. In September 1914 a plan had been hastily prepared to prevent Asquith and Redmond from speaking at the Mansion House recruiting rally in Dublin. Some twenty members of the Irish Volunteer Provisional Committee met and decided to carry out what was described as a coup d’état, on the night before the rally, by forcibly seizing the National Volunteer Headquarters in order to declare Redmond’s nominees expelled from the original Volunteer Executive. According to one IRB member, Pearse Beasley, it was James Connolly, the socialist and syndicalist, who persuaded senior IRB men Tom Clarke and Sean MacDermott to take such a desperate action. Connolly wanted two hundred men ‘who were ready to die’ and fight to the last man, so as to prevent the building being occupied by Redmond’s supporters. According to Beasley some members of the IRB opposed this on the grounds that it would be misunderstood in Ireland and around the world as ‘mere rioting’. MacDermott had told Beasley that although the IRB were not in a position to hold an insurrection ‘we must do something’. In contrast, Thomas Ashe, another leading IRB member, informed MacDermott ‘I am ready and willing to die for Ireland without a moment’s hesitation. But this isn’t dying for Ireland’. In the event, only eighty fully armed men turned out, and when scouts reported that the Mansion House was guarded, Connolly, Clarke and MacDermott eventually decided that the enterprise should be cancelled.1 More elaborate plans for an insurrection began to foment in 1915 when an Advisory Committee, consisting of the majority of

122 THE EASTER RISING AND AFTERMATH

Commandants and Vice-Commandants of the Irish Volunteers, was set up by the IRB leadership. This Committee was gradually dropped, and in its place a secret Military Council was constituted. An Executive, which constituted the Supreme Governing Body of the IRB when the Supreme Council was not in session, secretly placed the whole Irish Volunteer movement under the Military Council’s authority, and gave it the absolute discretion to make peace and war. The Military Council originally consisted of Joseph Mary Plunkett, Eamonn Ceannt, and Patrick Pearse, with Tom Clarke and Sean MacDermott ex-officio members. James Connolly and Thomas MacDonagh were later co-opted onto the Council.2 The question as to whether the IRB even had the legitimate right to initiate an insurrection was debated within the inner councils of the Brotherhood. Dr Patrick McCartan asked other IRB members, in January 1916, ‘who are we…to call a rising. Before you commit a nation to war, you should have the support of the people. We haven’t the support of the people. We should gain that first’.3 But, for a key number of IRB men, the stance taken by Redmond represented an insult to Ireland’s nationhood. The essence of blood sacrifice and the salvaging of Ireland’s honour was recorded by IRB member Charles Travers, when he encountered Thomas MacDonagh and Patrick Pearse just prior to the insurrection, set for Easter 1916. The former told him ‘The soul of a nation is more important than the body’ and that the ‘soul must be preserved’. Pearse, however, had decided to carry on with the rising despite hearing of the cancellation of the Irish Volunteers’ all-Ireland mobilisation by Eoin MacNeill who, on discovering the plans, had feared it would be a debacle. Pearse explained to Travers that ‘We shall serve the soul of the nation, Eoin MacNeill will preserve the body. The body will later respond when the soul is revived. We are both right’.4 According to Patrick Duffy, a section leader in the Dundalk Irish Volunteers, the majority of the Volunteers did not know of any planned rising and regarded the movement in the ‘nature of a threat’ to the British Government, in the manner that the 1782 Volunteer movement had been. Although Duffy thought that they would have resisted a government attack on the Irish Volunteer organisation, or any attempt to conscript them, the membership ‘did not contemplate any aggressive action’.5 To ensure that the Irish Volunteers did turn out for an Easter mobilisation, the cover for the rising, the rebel leaders sought to create a climate of crisis regarding the Government’s intentions. When Gerry Byrne, an IRB member, and a lieutenant in the Dublin Irish Volunteers, met Pearse two weeks before the rising, the latter told him that he had

THE EASTER RISING AND AFTERMATH 123

reliable information that the British were going to make a wholesale collection of arms across the country, and that the Irish Volunteers were to resist this.6 The deception employed on the Irish Volunteer rank and file by the insurrection’s leaders brought forth intense criticism from within the IRB. Bulmer Hobson, a senior member of the IRB, accused Pearse, who was declared President of the Irish Republic during the rising, of being ‘a sentimental egotist, full of anxious Old Testament theories about being the scapegoat for the people, and he became convinced of the necessity for a periodic sacrifice to keep the national spirit alive. There was a certain strain of abnormality in all this’. Hobson had, early on in his republican career, realised the complete impracticality of uprisings on the 1798 model of open insurrection, and the 1873 version of the IRB Constitution had been amended to prevent ‘pitiful’ demonstrations, as happened in 1867, stating that the IRB would ‘await the decision of the Irish Nation as expressed by the majority of the Irish People as to the fit hour of inaugurating a war against England’. Hobson’s subsequent criticism of the 1916 Rising reflected these principles, claiming that there ‘were no plans’ of a kind that ‘could seriously be called military’. Hobson did not oppose physical force nationalism, having himself rejected ‘constitutionalism’ as leaving all advantages to England, for it was the English who determined the law and it was the Irish who were ‘predetermined to obey it’. Instead, Hobson had looked to Fintan Lalor’s mid-nineteenthcentury writings in which Lalor had proposed to defeat the effects of the Great Famine by adopting a method of guerrilla warfare, which was best suited to Irish conditions. According to Lalor, England’s power was entrenched and fortified, while the Irish could not organise, train or discipline their own forces to any point of efficiency. Therefore, Irish forces had to ‘draw English forces out of position, breaking up its mass, its trained line of march and manoeuvre, and disorganising and undisciplining it, so as to oblige it to undertake operations for which it was never constructed’. Hobson’s aim was to win independence by a condition of passive resistance and guerrilla warfare, if the opportunity arose, and he had frequently to reassure enrolling IRB men that they would not be ordered out for an insurrection that would merely be a demonstration, and devoid of popular support, before these men were willing to take the IRB oath.7 But, for Pearse, patriotism was measured not by the formula in which it was declared, but by the service which was rendered. Pearse believed that his country was owed all fidelity and asked always for service, and sometimes asked, not for something


ordinary, but for a supreme service. In each generation Pearse believed that while there had been men who had shrunk from the ‘ultimate sacrifice’, there were other men who had given that sacrifice with ‘joy and laughter’, men who were the ‘salt of the generations, the heroes who stand midway between God and men’. Patriotism was in large part, for Pearse, a ‘memory of dead men’ and a striving to accomplish some task left unfinished by them.8 The rebellion of Robert Emmet in 1803 was judged a complete and pathetic military failure, yet Pearse believed that it had left to Irishmen the memory of a sacrifice Christ-like in its perfection, in which Emmet had redeemed Ireland from acquiescence in the Union with Britain.9 His attempt, in Pearse’s eyes, had not been a failure but a triumph for that ‘deathless thing we call Irish Nationality’.10 Even before the Great War, one Volunteer recalled Sean MacDermott, in the summer of 1914, telling a Volunteer meeting that the separatist nationalism of Tone and Emmet was almost dead, that the generation now growing old was the most decadent generation nationally since the Norman invasion, and that the Irish patriotic spirit would ‘die forever unless a blood sacrifice’ was made in the next few years. The spark of Irish nationality that was still left was put down by MacDermott to the result of the Manchester Martyrs’ sacrifice half a century before, and it would be necessary ‘for some of us to offer ourselves as martyrs if nothing better can be done to preserve the Irish national spirit and hand it down unsullied to future generations’.11 James Connolly, leader of a small paramilitary force, the Irish Citizen Army, held similar views and wrote that ‘slavery is a thing of the soul’. Connolly asserted that: before a nation can be reduced to slavery its soul must have been cowed, intimidated or corrupted by the oppressor. Only when so cowed, intimidated or corrupted does the soul of a nation cease to urge forward its body to resist the imposition of the shackles of slavery; only when the soul so surrenders does any part of the body so consent to make truce with the foe of its National existence. When the soul is conquered the articulate expression of the voice of the nation loses its defiant accent, and taking on the whining colour of compromise, begins to plead for the body. The unconquered soul asserts itself, and declares its sanctity to be more important than the interests of the body; the conquered soul ever pleads first that the body may be saved even if the soul is damned.


For generations this conflict between the sanctity of the soul and the interests of the body has been waged in Ireland. The soul of Ireland pleaded revolution, declared that no bloodletting could be as disastrous as a cowardly acceptance of the rule of the conqueror…. But such supreme moments passed for the multitude, and the nation as a nation sank again into its slavery, and its sole articulate expression to reach the ears of the world were couched in the fitful accent of the discontented but spiritless slave—blatant in its discontent, spiritless in its acceptance of subjection as part of the changeless order of things.12 Connolly, in his analysis of socialism in Ireland, accepted the validity of concepts of nation and race. In his works Labour in Irish History and The Re-conquest of Ireland, he acknowledged that ‘God made Ireland a Nation’.13 Like Pearse he argued ‘no nation is conquered until its mind is conquered, until it accepts defeat’,14 recognising that ‘the man or woman who scoffs at [national] sentiment is a fool…sentiment is often greater than facts, for it is an idealised expression of fact—a mind picture of truth as it is seen by the soul unhampered by the grosser dirt of the world and the flesh’.15 The Rising and the European war Aside from the cult of blood sacrifice, the Easter Rising also owed a considerable debt to the fact that the United Kingdom was involved in a major European war. According to Sean McEntee, an Irish Volunteer who fought in the rising, the IRB, in August 1914, had decided on an insurrection against British rule in three eventualities: if a German army were to invade Ireland; if England were to attempt to enforce Irish conscription; or if the war were coming to an end and a revolt had not already begun.16 When McEntee met Thomas MacDonagh shortly before the rising, the latter expressed concern that an impending closed session of Parliament was to be for the consideration of an armistice, and MacDonagh feared that the Government would sue for peace before a rising could take place.17 As Connolly wrote in January 1916, the coming year might see Britain once more at peace with the world, and the Irish nation finally relegated to the ‘status of a gallant tradition’, for with England at peace and in possession of one million armed men, the Irish Question would trouble her as little as did the rivalries of Lancashire and Yorkshire.18 But if there was an Irish rebellion during the war then extreme nationalists,


such as MacDonagh and Connolly, believed that the claim of Ireland to nationhood would be recognised and Ireland would at least be represented at the envisaged post-war peace conference. McEntee recalled that plans for the rising were influenced by the fact of the war. The plans included an expected landing of 20,000 German arms with an appropriate quota of machine guns; a sufficiency of officers, NCOs and machine-gunners to act as advisers; and at least one submarine in Dublin harbour.19 Certainly Pearse expected to put up a greater fight than was actually the case when he announced to besieged insurgents during the rising that he was satisfied that they should have accomplished the task of enthroning, as well as proclaiming the Irish Republic as a sovereign state ‘had our arrangements for a simultaneous rising of the whole country, with a combined plan as sound as the Dublin plan has proved to be, been allowed to go through’.20 Two weeks before the insurrection, Donal O’Hannigan, an IRB member in Eamonn Ceannt’s Volunteer Battalion, had met Pearse to receive instructions. These were to mobilise the Irish Volunteers from the Tara area in County Meath on Easter Sunday, upon the completion of which the Proclamation of the Irish Republic was to be read. The Volunteers were then to be marched to Blanchardstown where they would make contact with Dunboyne Volunteers, and both were to seize the railway at Blanchardstown and cut the line in order to prevent British artillery coming from Athlone Barracks. The Fingal Battalion (5th Battalion Dublin Brigade) was to contact them on their left flank, and Kildare Volunteers on the right flank, thus forming a ring around Dublin. O’Hannigan himself was to proceed to Oldcastle in County Meath to release German prisoners there, among whom were German army reservists, including artillery men, for an expected German artillery consignment. The Irish Volunteers were also expected to capture British artillery at Athlone and to use the freed German prisoners to man the guns. Pearse told O’Hannigan that there was a good supply of guns and ammunition, including artillery pieces, and troops being sent by the Germans. Pearse explained that the object, in taking a line around the city, had been to prevent an attack on the city from the rear; to prevent reinforcements from reaching Dublin; to maintain a supply of food for the Irish Volunteers and people there; and to hold lines of retreat open to the west of Ireland, in the event of evacuation being forced upon them. Pearse laid particular stress upon this final point for, when outside Dublin, guerrilla tactics were to be adopted and the Volunteers were to fight their way towards the River Shannon.21


German assistance was crucial to the insurrection’s success. Dr Liam O’Briain recalled encountering Sean MacDermott, as a prisoner in Richmond Barracks, saying ‘We were certain the Germans would be here’22 while Pearse, in a letter to his mother, wrote ‘The help I expected from Germany failed; the British sunk the ships’.23 Only days before the rising, the German Embassy in Washington received a request from the IRB’s Irish-American supporters requesting an air raid and a naval attack on England to coincide with the insurrection, followed by a landing of troops and munitions and some officers, perhaps from an airship.24 The British recorded that on 24 April 1916, the day the rebellion broke out in Dublin, a Zeppelin raid was made on East Anglia, while on the following day a German naval raid was made on Lowestoft and Yarmouth, and a Zeppelin raid on Essex and Kent. These were interpreted by the British as the German diversions requested by the rebels.25 The concept of an alliance with the German Empire was not new. It had initially been developed in Bulmer Hobson’s IRB newspaper, Irish Freedom. An 1911 article entitled ‘When Germany Fights England’ listed the options the IRB saw for Ireland. It predicted an Anglo-German war within the coming decade as ‘very probable’, because England, which was the richest country in the world due to her empire’s trade, barred Germany, late into the race, from imperial expansion. Irish Freedom saw England’s chances of victory as not wholly certain if her navy, not in action since Nelson’s time, was as inefficient as her army was in South Africa. Ireland, it believed, could not wait for England or Germany to decide their line of action for them. Ireland had to pursue her own policy. Ireland would not be a negligible quantity, for England would need every man it could get, and Germany would need to detach every man she could from England, so recruits from Ireland over the coming decade might be the deciding factor. If Ireland helped England win she would have gained absolutely nothing; if Ireland helped England, and England lost, the position would be worse, for England would take food from Ireland and Germany might take the fight to Ireland. England would be beaten, not broken, but would have to pay for the war. Ireland could not remain neutral for she would be dragged in after England, sharing in her ruin if she lost, and would then receive hostility from both Germany and England; the former because she equated Ireland with England, and the latter because no German occupation could be permanent—she might lose her colonies but a nation she would remain—and she would take her revenge upon Ireland. An alternative policy would be to support Germany, which would be


throwing Ireland’s destiny on the chances of war. If Germany lost, Ireland would be defenceless from England. If however, Germany won, political independence for Ireland might be obtainable with a European guarantee, Ireland having secured a German guarantee before giving her support. If Germany attempted to retain Ireland herself, then England would be helpful in expelling Germany; it was, therefore, in Germany’s interests for Ireland to be independent.26 Hobson sought to develop this treatise, and in 1913 he asked Sir Roger Casement, an Irish Protestant with a distinguished diplomatic career, to write a memorandum on the position Ireland might adopt in a war between Germany and Britain. Hobson, at the beginning of 1914, took this memorandum to New York, and with the help of John Devoy, leader of the extreme Clann na Gael organisation there, gave it to the German Ambassador, Count von Bernstorff. Both Hobson and Casement believed an Anglo-German war was imminent, and wanted to secure a commitment that a German victory would result in an independent Ireland. The IRB approved of the general purport of the document.27 Casement developed the arguments of the strategic importance of Ireland in a series of articles which he wrote between 1911 and 1915. He considered that the Pax Britannica had been achieved, not by the ethical superiority of the English race but by the favourable geographical position from which the English had been able to develop and direct their expansionist policies, by barring the seaways and closing the tideways of central and north-eastern Europe. Without Ireland, Casement argued, there would be no British Empire. The vital importance of Ireland was understood by British statesmen, claimed Casement, because the policy of subduing and exploiting Ireland had been the aim of every English government, from King Henry VIII onwards, whereas Ireland’s vital importance to Europe had not been understood by European statesmen. Casement did not rule out a military defeat of Britain by Germany, but argued that in order for this to be realised Ireland had to be detached from the British Empire, for to leave a defeated England in possession of Ireland would not be to settle the question of equal German rights at sea, or in world policy, but to postpone the settlement to a second and possibly greater encounter. If Germany were to profit permanently from victory she would have to ensure that the seas would not be closed again. Casement, assuming for the sake of argument that Germany annexed Ireland, maintained that it was not at all clear that she would, or even could, injure Ireland more than Britain had done—for to what purpose and with


what end would she do this? An Ireland annexed to the German Empire would be administered as a common possession of the German people, and not a Prussian province. The analogy would not be between Prussia and her Polish provinces, but between Alsace-Lorraine and the German Empire. The paramount objective of German administration of an overseas Reichland of such extraordinary geographical importance would not be to impoverish and depress her new-born possession but to enhance its exceeding strategic importance by vigorous and wise administration, to create an Ireland satisfied with the change and fully determined to maintain it, as was the case with AlsaceLorraine, which had been granted a local parliament and the presence of an imperial prince. Casement did not think annexation likely, but saw, if it did occur, international pressure, outraged at the annexation of part of the United Kingdom, pushing Germany to erect an independent, neutral Irish state, guaranteed by the Great Powers.28 Casement, with the approval of Devoy’s Clann na Gael organisation, travelled to Germany at the beginning of the war to enlist German support for an Irish Brigade to fight against Britain. There he met Baron von Strumm, head of the political department of the German General Staff, and informed him of his hope for an independent Ireland, something which von Strumm told him that Germany had no objection to. But, worryingly for Casement, von Strumm pointed out that while he fully expected Germany to win the war against France and Russia, he did not know how far she could prosper in her fight with Britain towards the point of ‘imposing’ conditions on her. There was no immediate or even probable prospect of the German fleet gaining a final victory over the British fleet so as to clear the seas and render the transport of men and arms to Ireland possible. Von Strumm explained that Germany had attempted no intrigue in Ireland prior to the war’s outbreak because they had expected to keep England neutral.29 Much to Casement’s consternation, Count Gebhard Blucher, an old acquaintance from Africa, informed him that Germany’s leaders were not enthusiastic to be at war with England, instead preferring English ‘friendship’.30 Casement pushed for an Irish Brigade, coupled with German moral and material assistance, to be formed from Irish soldiers or other natives of Ireland now prisoners of war in Germany, with a view to securing Irish national freedom. The object of the Irish Brigade was to fight solely in the cause of Ireland, and under no circumstances was it to be employed or directed to any German end. Casement proposed that, in certain circumstances, the brigade


should be sent to Ireland with efficient military support and with an ample supply of arms and ammunition to equip the Irish Volunteers, these circumstances arising in the event of a German naval victory. Should this not prove the case, Casement advocated the deployment of the brigade as a volunteer corps attached to the Turkish army, in an effort to assist the Egyptian people to drive Britain out of Egypt.31 Casement believed that were Turkey to break through to the Suez Canal it could herald the British Empire’s downfall, for ‘with the Canal gone, Egypt goes—+with both gone I look for…an outbreak in India as must tax “the Empire” to its limit, +with Germany at the port of Calais…I do not think John [Bull] can spare many men, ships or guns for India’. Casement predicted that, to hold India, England would have to appeal to Japan, which would spell her ultimate eviction from Asia. ‘Once India falls the whole house collapses—for it is chiefly on India+her plunder their Colonial scheme of robbery depends’, he concluded.32 John Devoy, however, firmly opposed this scheme, believing that fighting for the Turks would be ‘a fatal cry’ in Ireland.33 In the end, the only thing that Casement could console himself with, ‘for all my sacrifice (+folly)’ was the ‘Treaty’ of 20 November 1914. This, he believed, had justified his efforts, and he considered it a recognition of ‘Ireland a Nation to the world’, its value being to the cause of Irish liberty in the future.34 The declaration read: The German Government…takes this opportunity to give a categorical assurance that the German Government desires only the welfare of the Irish people, their country, and their institutions. The Imperial Government formally declares that under no circumstances would Germany invade Ireland with a view to its conquest or the overthrow of any native institutions in that country Should the fortune of this great war…ever bring in its course German troops to the shores of Ireland, they would land there, not as an army of invaders to pillage and destroy, but as the forces of a Government that is inspired by goodwill towards a country and a people for whom Germany desires only NATIONAL PROSPERITY AND NATIONAL FREEDOM.35 As Dr Solf, the Minister for German Colonies, had told Casement, the declaration was an entirely new departure in German foreign


policy, for until that statement Germany had never said or done anything that implied a desire to meddle in another country’s internal affairs.36 However, as Count Blucher explained to Casement, Gottlieb von Jagow, the Secretary of State, had told him that ‘They (the German Govt) were not going to “make themselves ridiculous” +say things they had no intention of carrying out or attempting’. This, Casement confided to his diary, was what he had guessed all along.37 It was now clear that the Germans did not take Casement’s fanciful designs for the Irish Brigade and German intervention seriously However, Casement had not been alone in attempting to enlist German help. Joseph Mary Plunkett, representing the IRB’s Military Council, had secretly travelled from Dublin to Berlin in 1915 with a strategical sketch for a general uprising in Ireland involving German assistance. In a memorandum, ‘Germany’s Future World Policy’, Plunkett explained why he thought that Germany should be interested in an alliance with an independent Ireland: A World Power must have a World Policy. Whatever the outcome of this war the German Empire is now a World Power: that is to say a Power on whose continued existence… whose welfare and…whose policy the fate of the nations of the Earth depends. For not only may any portions of the globe become…the future German ‘Spheres of influence’ as they have…of other great Powers…but even those places that it may be in Germany’s interest to avoid interference with will for the future look naturally to Germany to influence the actual or possible dominating Powers.38 In Berlin, Plunkett delivered the Military Council’s plan for an insurrection to the German Foreign Ministry. Plunkett was granted a meeting with the German Chancellor, Bethman Hollweg, who agreed to arrange for a cargo of arms and ammunition to be sent to Ireland with, if possible, a number of German officers. The Germans were planning a big offensive on the Western Front and were interested in the possibility that a rising in Ireland might prove helpful.39 The Military Council’s plan envisaged substantial German military assistance. Plunkett argued that, with troops in Ireland having been reduced to 37,000, British forces there did not constitute an army, nor even a garrison, but a small number of scattered garrisons and many large training camps which were not equipped for the occupation of Ireland, much less to resist a German invasion. The Irish Volunteer leadership recognised that its organisation, in its present unarmed, unequipped, and partly


trained state, would be unable to bring any considerable military operation to a successful conclusion without help from an external source. Even their plan for dealing with an insurrection in Dublin depended upon relief coming, or a diversion of British forces being brought about by the end of a week, or at most ten days, after hostilities began. Moreover, when it was considered that their forces were spread out all over Ireland and were in contact with larger British forces, the IRB had decided that it would be impractical to prepare a general mobilisation for concentration on any given point. Therefore, while hoping for the co-operation of German forces and supplies, but being in complete ignorance of the form that co-operation might take, the number of forces sent to assist, the place of landing, or the ultimate objective, the IRB had come to the decision that there were three things they could immediately set about: 1 The reinforcement of the (German) landing forces both with trained and untrained Volunteers. 2 The disruption of the means of transport where it might be used by the British, at strategic points. 3 The seizure and occupation of the capital city of Dublin, the arrest of British officials and military officers, the placing of a guard over the banks and British commercial interests and if possible the installation of a military Governor. It followed from the state of British forces, argued Plunkett, that Ireland could be taken by a coup de main; with the Irish Volunteer forces reinforcing an invading German army by causing transport disruption, the blowing up of already-selected railway points, bridges, canals and viaducts, as well as the prearranged taking of the capital. Plunkett claimed that these plans allowed the project to ‘assume the appearance of feasibility’ as far as the internal campaign was concerned. He envisaged German forces, with arms for 40,000 Irish Volunteers, coming up the Shannon and disembarking at Limerick, a city with large food resources. The British forces there, if indeed there were any at present, were only a few hundred, entailing no necessity for any military blow to be struck there. Messengers in motor cars would immediately leave with news of the invasion and in a few hours Dublin’s Irish Volunteers would know of it and an all-Ireland signal would be given. The Irish Volunteers and a ‘large number of the population of Kerry and Clare’ would be the first to arrive at Limerick and offer their services.


According to Plunkett, Ireland was an ideal country for creating tactical problems: there were wild mountains north, south, east and west, with even the central plain of the midlands being no plain at all in the military sense. Large stretches of bog-lands were practically impregnable to an army, even in the summer, while in other seasons they could be counted on as obstacles. Meath and the surrounding counties were cut up by hedges, ditches and stone walls every few hundred metres. Cavalry was thus of very little use for operations in Ireland. The country was entirely suitable for a kind of guerrilla or irregular warfare. The training of the Irish Volunteers had been directed to that end, to producing a high degree of mobility and developing individual initiative, together with accurate shooting. Plunkett looked back to the 1798 Irish rebellion to illustrate the potential for military success. Had the French commander of the invasion force, General Humbert, arrived with 12,000 instead of 1200 men, and with a supply of arms and ammunition for the men ready to join him, he could have held the greater part of Ireland and established a provisional government. While English rule was more efficient in 1915, Plunkett claimed that the population was still opposed to that rule. If 12,000 German troops with armaments could be landed in the west of Ireland, it was ‘certain’ that their success would be far more remarkable than that of the French General’s, who had twice defeated superior British forces. Plunkett believed that a victory over the British army in Ireland would have a great impact on the course of military operations in the general theatre of war, on public opinion in the world at large, and on the morale of the British Government. In 1798 what had happened in Ireland was entirely withheld from the outside world; but, in 1915, a diversion of even a minor kind would shock British pride throughout the world. If the landing forces were sufficiently strong the task of expelling and overcoming them would tax the military and moral resources of Britain to the utmost.40 The IRB proceeded with its plans for rebellion despite the limited German response. Joseph Plunkett’s father, Count Plunkett, had been asked by his son to travel to Rome to deliver a message to the German Embassy in Berne. This message, dated 5 April 1916, was addressed to Casement: 1 The Insurrection is fixed for the evening of next Easter Sunday. 2 The large consignment of arms to be brought into Tralee Bay must arrive there not later than dawn of Easter Sunday. 3 German officers will be necessary for the Irish Volunteer forces. This is imperative.


4 A German submarine will be required in Dublin Harbour. The time is very short, but it is necessarily so; for we must act of our own choice and delays are dangerous.41 However, the insurrection suffered a fatal blow when the Germans, doubting the ability of the IRB to mount any serious military challenge to the British, merely sent a small arms shipment, no troops and no submarine. The ship baring the arms, the Aud, was intercepted and found to contain Casement who, on hearing of the plans for the rising, had travelled to Ireland to try and prevent it. The insurrection was dealt another blow when Eoin MacNeill, on discovering the plans for rebellion, issued a countermanding order on the eve of the insurrection. The impact of the Easter Rising in nationalist Ireland The rising itself was quickly suppressed, with British forces in England swiftly and effectively transferred across the Irish Sea. After the surrender of the rebel forces the British military authorities, under General Sir John Maxwell, court martialled and executed fourteen of the insurrection’s leaders, including Pearse, Connolly, Clarke, Plunkett, Ceannt and MacDonagh; Casement was executed in August 1916. The combination of the executions and the introduction of martial law throughout Ireland contributed to a deterioration in the Irish Party’s position. Joseph Devlin, in a memorandum to his colleagues, warned that house searching and arrests, in districts where no disturbance had taken place, were greatly and needlessly embittering the country. They had already resulted in the arrest of many Irish Party supporters, carried out in the most provocative manner, accompanied by undignified and insulting circumstances which infuriated the men arrested and their friends and relations. Released prisoners from England had been arriving in Dublin, giving sensational accounts of illtreatment, shockingly bad food, and indignities to which the prisoners were being subjected. There was also the circulation of rumours concerning secret shootings and murders by the British military which, without any question of inquiry or investigation, had ‘inflamed things to a horrible extent…it is persistently stated that a large number of prisoners were secretly massacred’.42 Following the rising the Irish Party’s political fortunes declined dramatically. However, Richard Mulcahy, later an Irish Republican Army commander in the Anglo-Irish War, did not believe that it was the post-rising executions which dramatically altered the nationalist community’s opinion in favour of the rebels. Instead, he


explained the surge in support for the Sinn Fein movement after the rising as due to the role the insurrection played as a catalyst. ‘A detonator is a small thing which detonates latent and powerful forces that are there’, Mulachy wrote, and the rising ‘altered and… detonated the whole strength of the people’.43 While the majority of the nationalist community initially exhibited disapproval of the rising, there was also a latent sympathy with the rebels’ ideals. As Augustine Birrell commented: The spirit of what to-day is called Sinn Feinism is mainly composed of the old hatred and distrust of the British connection, always noticeable in all classes and in places, varying in degree and finding different ways of expression, but always there, as the background of Irish politics and character. This dislike, hatred, disloyalty (so unintelligible to many Englishmen) is hard to define but easy to discern, though incapable of exact measurement from year to year. You must assume it is always there and always dangerous.44 This latent sympathy was reflected in the Natonalist provincial press. The Cork County Eagle, while agreeing with Redmond that the rebellion was treason to home rule, decided that ‘in apportioning the responsibility [for the rising]…it is manifestly impossible to make any clean-cut division by which right can be plainly observed on one side and wrong on the other’, and went on to say of the executed leaders that ‘Whatever we may think of the folly which prompted them to their mad enterprise, no one will deny at all events that they had the courage of their convictions’.45 The Kilkenny People declared itself fed up with moral platitudes, particularly from Irish Party MP Matthew Keating who described the rebels’ German alliance as one ‘between an angel and a demon in the cause of virtue’. The People claimed to know nothing about demons although ‘we prefer to be “on the side of the angels”, but if our public men have nothing to say in favour of brave if misguided men who fought and fell, let them be sparing of their censure… and extend to them the charity that [Robert] Emmet prayed for, “the charity of silence”’. Who, asked the People, had first spoken of a German alliance but Sir Edward Carson’s supporters, for, as the Bishop of Killaloe had stated, Carson was the cause of the rebellion, and ‘No British officer refused to shoot the men who were goaded to the madness of insurrection by his insulting taunts’.46 The Dungannon Democrat, while urging the nationalist community to show unity behind the Irish Party, and calling the


rebel leaders visionaries, still considered ‘their feet in Ireland’ even if ‘their heads were in the clouds’. Insane as the rebels were, the Democrat found their fate a ‘sad one’, and extended its sympathy to the rank and file who were to be pitied for having been ‘gulled and poisoned by pro-Germanism’, and asked for the fullest possible mercy to be shown to them.47 The Drogheda Independent recalled that despite the Irish people’s condemnation of the rising, they also had a keen sense of justice, separating the leaders from their dupes,48 while the Connaught Telegraph believed the Irish people held ‘no resentment in their hearts against those responsible for the tragedy of Easter week. They realise what was at the back of it all, and are fully convinced that it was a German plot to embarrass England’. The sadness, for the Telegraph, was that nationalists had to contemplate with satisfaction the suppression of an attempt to free Ireland from England’s grasp, and must look on unmoved at the terrible spectacle of their countrymen executed and transported to Britain for internment.49 The Connaught Tribune, while noting the ‘ugly’ features of the revolt, such as pro-Germanism and the socialist elements, nevertheless considered the rebel army ‘brave men’,50 who had not taken life wantonly; their passion had been Ireland a nation, and the Tribune, analysing the rebels’ Proclamation of the Republic, asked if anyone could say that its aims were sordid.51 The Tribune’s explanation for the change in nationalist attitudes to the rising, away from hostility and towards open admiration, was that ‘blood [is] thicker than water’.52 This was echoed by the Longford Leader, which described how ‘the double dose of original sin with which all Irishmen are accredited by their British rulers, was…expiated in a policy of wholesale executions, transportations, arrests and imprisonments— a policy which stirred to its depths the feeling of all Irish hearts against British Brutalities in Ireland’.53 The Limerick Echo focused upon the widespread predicament of the dependants of the men who fought and fell in Dublin, and required urgent material assistance, noting ‘People view the rebellion from many standpoints, but one cardinal fact remains: that men risked their all in the cause of the motherland. Ireland will not permit widowed mothers, [and] fatherless children…to suffer hunger’.54 The Derry Journal, while calling the rising an ‘insane endeavour’ and an ‘evil action’ against the Irish people, drew a distinction between the firm and effective suppression of rebellion and vengeful punishment. The Journal compared General Botha’s response to what it described as a more wicked and dangerous rebellion in South Africa, involving no executions, and


warned that harshly applied punitive measures ‘will most assuredly cause embit terment and upset the national stability’.55 The Fermanagh News, comparing the South African precedent with the aftermath of the rising, found it difficult to understand the continuing arrests, with men being dragged to prison, whose only offence was that they belonged to Sinn Fein when it was a ‘pastoral organisation’. If the rising proved anything it was that as a whole Ireland was peaceful; but, warned the newspaper, a continuance of the ‘reign of terror’ would cause a revulsion of feeling, which already existed, and would grow rapidly: a few more shootings and round-ups ‘might precipitate a real rebellion in which the Sinn Fein party would have no part’.56 In the House of Commons, John Dillon added legitimacy to the rebels’ cause when he asked why the insurgents could not have been treated as their counterparts in South Africa had, and criticised the imposition of martial law and its effect on the nationalist population. Referring to the executions, Dillon declared ‘it is not murderers who are being executed; it is insurgents who have fought a clean fight, a brave fight, however misguided, and it would be a damned good thing for you if your soldiers were able to put up as good a fight as did those men in Dublin—three thousand men against twenty thousand with machine guns and artillery’.57 The Roman Catholic Bishop of Limerick, Edward O’Dwyer, refused General Maxwell’s request that he discipline two of his priests who showed sympathy with the rebels, replying ‘You took good care that no plea for mercy should interpose on behalf of the poor young fellows who surrendered to you in Dublin…. Personally, I regard your action with horror, and I believe that it has outraged the conscience of the country’. N.Canon Murphy, in Kilkenny, summed up the attitude of many of the nationalist community when he wrote: from every quarter we have the same account; that the poor foolish young fellows made a clean and gallant fight. There were no stags or skulkers amongst them. They stood by each other to the last. Hence a great wave of sympathy has gone out to their memory from every true Irish heart. And we do not relish the denunciatory resolutions published in the Freeman every day. We should leave these things to the bitter enemies of Ireland…. They loved their country not at all wisely, but too well…. May God grant rest, light and peace, to our fallen Volunteers!58


As Hugh Law was to tell the House of Commons, the root of the changing attitude was the belief that England was a foreign country, and ‘You raised the issue there after those men were shot, the definite issue of English versus Irish’,59 a factor which stirred subterranean reactions. The significance of this cannot be underestimated; for example, the experience of one Irish soldier who fought against the Dublin rebels illustrates this point, when he expressed, in a poem, the complexities of the emotions he felt during the quelling of the insurrection: My Father was out with the Fenians His Father in forty eight A bare legged Gassoon [boy] by the roadside I learned the lesson of hate But when England cried ‘Bygones be bygones’ The future the past shall redeem With justice+freedom for Ireland Hate melted away like a dream…. Then the Huns rose+Belgium went under And gladly I answered the call…. But when on short leave from the trenches To the harbour of Kingstown I came I heard the Sinn Feiners had risen…. My heart gave a jump at the thought I would for with the boys in the Rising And fight as my forefathers fought…. And the thought went as quick as it came…. So I helped to put down the Sinn Feiners My God it was a pitiful work…. Invading my own native town Where my Mother+Father were living And shooting my Countrymen down I was proud of the boys while I fought them For I knew to a surety they Were true in their hearts to the old land…. I saw a white face at the window…. Not seventeen years at the most…. He saw me+pointed his rifle And loosed off in defiant style…. I cannot lie here and be shot…. As a ball that was meant for a German Went home in an Irish boys breast Poor boy he was fighting for freedom


When that ball from my gun set him free…. He fought+died for the old land And He in the heaven above Will fight hard+pray hard For the Land that both of us love60 The 1916 talks and the decline of the Irish Party The rising forced the Irish Party to seek an agreement with the Government in a desperate effort to secure its position and restore calm to the country. On 25 May 1916, Asquith advised the House of Commons that Castle Government in Ireland had broken down and the time was opportune for a new approach. John Dillon took what he called a ‘radical’ view of this situation, arguing that Ireland had to have a ‘genuine’ home rule government or the Irish Party would have to wash their hands of all responsibility for the government of Ireland and make a general attack on the British Government, for ‘any middle course will…be fatal to the existence of the Party— and…the Constitutional Movement’.61 The feeling in Dublin, he reported, was ‘embittered and savage to a horrible degree’, it being difficult to exaggerate the seriousness of the situation.62 T.P. O’Connor told Dillon that he was of the opinion that if the Irish Party lost this occasion of settling the home rule question, the chance might not recur ‘in my time or yours’. A consensus was reached among O’Connor, Devlin and Redmond, who all agreed that to let the occasion pass would be fatal. O’Connor felt it would be hopeless to enter into active criticism of the Government because the Irish Party would lose all it had gained by its attitude towards the war, confirming to the British the opinion, started by Sinn Fein, that Ireland was irreconcilably hostile. Redmond, Devlin and many of the rank and file to whom O’Connor had talked were of the opinion that without reaching an arrangement now the Irish Party was ‘dead’, and that Ireland would be led by a party consisting partly of men with Sinn Fein tendencies and partly of a ‘new brass band’ with semirevolutionary tendencies. This was a prospect none of them could contemplate without horror and despair. Furthermore, the failure of a settlement meant American estrangement, possibly the election of a pro-German Congress there and the loss of the war. O’Connor felt personally that a settlement was so vital that the terms were a subsidiary question, although recognising that this was not an attitude which could be taken by the Irish Party. At the same time he could not see how the Irish Party could avoid making


similar concessions as they were willing to make at the Buckingham Palace Conference before the war.63 Lloyd George, Minister for Munitions, was tasked by Asquith with producing a new home rule settlement. The proposed heads of a settlement, which he persuaded Redmond and Sir Edward Carson to agree to, involved the 1914 Act being brought into operation as soon as possible, with it not applying to the excluded Ulster counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone, including the parliamentary boroughs of Belfast, Londonderry and Newry. The excluded area was to be administered by a British Secretary of State. It was also understood that at the end of the war there should be an Imperial Conference, consisting of the Dominion heads of government, with a view to bringing the Dominions into closer co-operation with the Empire’s government, and permanently settling the Irish Question.64 During the negotiations with Lloyd George, the Irish Party had been led to believe that the partition proposals were to be of a temporary nature, with the final settlement of the Irish Question to be arrived at after the war. It was on this basis that Devlin and Jeremiah MacVeagh MP asked their followers in Fermanagh and Tyrone, at a specially convened conference in Belfast, to surrender their rights as a political majority in those counties. The terms which Devlin laid before them were: 1 The arrangement was to be temporary. 2 Twenty-six counties would be given an Irish Parliament in full working order at once. 3 The six counties temporally excluded would be controlled by the Imperial Parliament pending a final settlement. 4 During the interval the Irish representation at Westminster would be retained in full strength. 5 There would be no separate Parliament for the six counties.65 Few supported the proposals with any conviction. The Cork County Eagle felt that a native Irish parliament, free from the friction of an unwilling, enforced Ulster, would allow a probationary period for Ireland to prepare to take a worthy place in the Empire, ultimately producing a situation in which Ulster would appear before the proposed Imperial Conference asking it to ‘wed her in an indissoluble union with Nationalist Ireland, old enmities forgotten, evil memories wiped away’.66 Although Joseph Devlin still thought partition ‘unthinkable’, and that any Nationalist devoted to the ideal of Ireland as a nation would reject the removal of any part of Ulster from the ‘Fatherland’, he recognised


that for fifty years north-east Ulster had been ‘becoming steadily more Protestant and less Irish’. Devlin feared that if the Irish Party rejected a partitioned home rule Ireland, Nationalists would have to wait fifty years for another chance to secure home rule, only to be faced with the prospect of an almost completely ‘Anglicised Ulster’.67 Very few Nationalists were prepared to confront the logic of Ulster Unionist resistance to home rule. The old home ruler, Vesey Knox, supported the partition proposals on the grounds that the essence of nationality was community of thought; nationality did not depend on the territorial possession of a whole island, a whole continent, or even all that had in time past belonged to the nation. This, he believed, was the mistake Germany had made in annexing Alsace and Lorraine. Knox thought that a partitioned Ireland would produce a homogeneous, pastoral, Catholic, Irish Ireland, with the small Protestant population becoming steadily more Irish.68 Ironically, it was Father Michael O’Flanagan, soon to become vicepresident of a revamped Sinn Fein movement, who presented a view of the reality facing Irish Nationalism, which no Nationalist politician could publicly acknowledge: We can point out that Ireland is an island with a definite geographical boundary…. National and geographical boundaries scarcely ever coincide. Geography would make one nation of Spain and Portugal; history has made two nations of them. Geography did its best to make one nation of Norway and Sweden; history had succeeded in making two of them. Geography has scarcely anything to say to the number of nations upon the North American Continent; history has done the whole thing. If a man were to contrast a political map of Europe out of its physical map he would find himself groping in the dark. Geography has worked hard to make one nation out of Ireland; history has worked against it. The island of Ireland and the national unit of Ireland simply do not coincide. In the last analysis the test of separate nationality is the wish of the people. A man who settles in America becomes an American by transferring his love and allegiance to the United States. The Unionists of Ulster have never transferred their love and allegiance to Ireland. They may be Irelanders, using Ireland as a geographical term, but they are not Irish in the national sense. They love the hills of Antrim in the same way as we love the plains of Roscommon, but the centre of their patriotic enthusiasm is London, whereas the centre of ours is Dublin.


We claim the right to decide what is to be our nation. We refuse them the same right…. After three hundred years England has begun to despair of being able to make us love her by force. And so we are anxious to start where England left off, and we are going to compel Antrim and Down to love us by force.69 Among all shades of Nationalist opinion the unpopularity of any form of partition was widespread. Nationalists could not accept ‘the geographical definition that “Ireland is three parts of Ireland and one part Great Britain”’;70 or, as K.Roantree O’Shiel of Omagh, wrote in the Irish Independent: Ireland is a compact, perfect nation, bound on all sides by the broad Atlantic, and no one has a right to confine or alter those natural boundaries, but God…. Once we assent to the theory of partition, either actively or passively, we cease to believe in Ireland’s national entity. We cannot give away that which we have not to give. We Irishmen, living in this country at present, have only a passing or a life interest in the land of Ireland. We hold it in trust for our children and our children’s children until the end of time…. If we once admit this theory of exclusion for minorities…there is no knowing how far, or into what absurdities, it will carry us. For if the Protestant Unionists of Ulster are a homogeneous entity with a right to a separate existence then so are the Turks of Greece, the English of South Africa, the Jews of England, and the huge Irish Home Rule population of North Britain.71 Opposition to the partition proposals crystallised amongst the Roman Catholic Church’s hierarchy On 8 June 1916, a meeting was held at Omagh in Ulster at which letters were read from the Catholic Bishops McHugh, McKenna, MacRory and O’Donnell. McHugh protested against any proposals that would be inconsistent with the ideal of ‘Ireland One and Undivided’. McKenna claimed that partition would be the ‘grossest insult to the spirit of Irish nationality. It would be utterly subversive of the National ideals’. MacRory expressed opposition to the exclusion of Ulster or any part of it. Only O’Donnell appeared more flexible, stressing the need for a joint conference of leading Nationalists in the threatened area. What the bishops feared most was the creation of a Protestant-dominated Education Office in the partitioned area, for, as McHugh wrote, what caused more alarm than ‘the voluntary surrender of the National ideal’ was the


‘perilous position in which religion and Catholic education would be placed were those proposals…reduced to practice’.72 In July 1916, McHugh took the initiative in the launching of a loosely coordinated Anti-Partition League, which became the Irish National League (INL). Its policy, as outlined by its main theorist, F.J.O’Connor, was that of aversion to any form of partition, the advocation of parliamentary attendance and ‘independent opposition’ in the House of Commons, backed up by a ‘militant agitation’ and the demand for self-government along Dominion lines. Dismissing Redmond’s view that the Ulster unionist community should not be coerced into a united Ireland, O’Connor argued that they ‘must cease to regard themselves as an English garrison…. If the Unionists choose to remain English…they cannot be permitted to blight our national life’.73 In basic philosophy though, there was little to distinguish the INL from the Irish Party, and its influence never extended beyond its Tyrone-FermanaghDerry base, so that although forty-two branches were established during August-October 1916, twenty were in Tyrone, and only six were added in the following three months.74 Ultimately, it was absorbed by the resurrected Sinn Fein movement, in October 1917, supplying six of the Sinn Fein executive.75 Anger at the partition proposals spread rapidly throughout Nationalist Ireland during June and July 1916. Writing in the Irish Independent, C.Lehane wrote that ‘Ulster’, or the proposed six excluded counties, was no more homogeneous than an Ireland including those counties. Testing the homogeneity theory, Lehane explained how the province of Ulster returned seventeen Nationalist MPs to the Imperial Parliament, compared with sixteen Unionists; leaving out the City of Belfast, the proposed exclusion area was represented by eight Nationalists and thirteen Unionists. The ‘fantastic and absurd’ partition scheme, ostensibly devised for the protection of a minority, in effect aggravated the situation by the creation of two bitterly discontented minorities without giving any appeasement whatever to the vast majority of the country, a problem compounded when, according to the last census, the population of the proposed exclusion area was 1,250, 531 comprising 820,370 Protestants and 430,161 Catholics.76 In the provincial press the Kilkenny People protested at the manner in which the proposals were being put before Ireland as a choice between home rule and martial law, claiming, ‘A man who is sentenced to be hanged will probably, if it is offered to him, accept the alternative of penal servitude for the rest of his natural life’, and that assent to ‘unnatural’ proposals extorted should not be taken as the considered judgement of a people deciding an


issue of transcendent importance to the future of Ireland.77 The Midland Reporter accused the Irish Party of selling the six counties to Carson and having ‘trafficked the grave of St Patrick and the See of our only Cardinal [in Armagh] to the men, whose oath at initiation is to “wade knee deep in Papish blood”’.78 The Roscommon Journal thought it was very well to say exclusion was temporary, but wondered would it in fact be temporary. The exclusion principle, once recognised and accepted, meant a relinquishing of Ireland’s national claim.79 In Nationalist Ulster, the Fermanagh News, while still supporting the Irish Party, shuddered to contemplate a repetition of ‘bigoted outbreaks’ from Ulster Protestants, ‘people in whom…religious jealousy and sectarian distrust are as rampant as in the days when we were struggling for emancipation. Our Faith is looked upon as the grand magazine of immorality, infidelity and rebellion’.80 The Fermanagh Herald declared that Ulster Catholics were to be ‘consigned to an Egyptian bondage that nobody alive is in a position to say will pass away in this generation or the next’. Who but the Catholics would be the conquered in the ‘Orange Free State’ asked the Herald, claiming they would have neither the power nor the dignity of a free people.81 In accepting these pledges, the Irish Party, said the Herald, ‘have become more English than the English themselves’.82 William O’Brien, MP for Cork and a former Irish Party member, concurred and felt the negotiations did more damage to the Irish Party than the executions following the rising. O’Brien claimed that Redmond had deceived Nationalist Ireland, this becoming apparent when the actual text of the new Home Rule Bill was published on 28 July 1916, seven weeks after what Redmond purported to be an accurate summary of the bill had been issued. O’Brien compared the text of the bill with Redmond’s statement:

Mr Redmond’s summary The actual text To bring the Home Rule Act The Government of Ireland Act, into immediate operation. 1914, to be brought into operation as soon as possible after the passing of the Bill, subject to the modifications necessitated by these instructions. O’Brien claimed that the actual text was a repeal of the first clause of the 1914 Act, ‘On and after the appointed day there shall be in Ireland an Irish Parliament, consisting of His Majesty the King, and


two Houses namely the Irish Senate and the Irish House of Commons’; in other words, the ‘repeal and annulment of the solemn recognition of the unity of Ireland as a Nation’. The second comparison read:

Mr Redmond’s summary To introduce at once an Amending Bill, as a strictly War Emergency Act, to cover only the period of the War and for a short specified interval after it.

The actual text The said Act not to apply to the Excluded Area, which is to consist of the six counties of Antrim, Armagh, Londonderry and Tyrone, including the Parliamentary Boroughs of Belfast, Londonderry and Newry.

O’Brien complained that, to the average man, the Amending Bill referred to in Redmond’s version might seem an innocent detail to cease with the war’s end; he got no hint that the genuine article contained the proviso that the Home Rule Act was not to extend to the excluded area without qualification or termination. O’Brien felt the judgement of Redmond’s candour could be made by comparing the following:

Mr Redmond’s summary During this war emergency period, six Ulster Counties to be left out as at present under the Imperial Parliament.

The actual text As regards the excluded area the executive power of His Majesty to be administered by a Secretary of State through such Offices and Departments as may be directed by order of His Majesty in Council, those departments not to be in any way responible to the new Irish Government.

According to O’Brien’s interpretation, the six counties instead of being ‘left as present’ were in fact to be erected into a separate state, ruled by a Secretary of State and an elaborate series of departments wholly independent from the Irish Parliament. So far from the arrangement only lasting ‘during this war emergency’, the text contained no hint of such a limitation, and the very nature of the complicated machinery to be set up forbade any assumption


of a mere stopgap contrivance to be cast aside after the few months in which the war might be concluded.83 Unknown to Redmond, and far more dangerous from the Irish Party’s point of view, Lloyd George had promised Carson and the Ulster Unionists that the exclusion would be permanent. The negotiations suddenly collapsed in a welter of accusation when the Southern Unionist leader, Lord Lansdowne, revealed in the House of Lords, on 11 July 1916, that the proposals were to be permanent. Lansdowne insisted that the Cabinet had agreed to make exclusion a ‘permanent and enduring character’. This swept aside the ambiguity with which Carson and Redmond had lived since the negotiations had begun in May. On 19 July the Cabinet agreed that ‘Sir E.Carson’s claim for the definitive exclusion of Ulster could not be resisted’. Redmond was outraged, calling Lansdowne’s speech a ‘declaration of war on the Irish people’,84 and warned Lloyd George that any departure from the agreed proposals ‘especially in respect of the strictly temporary and provisional character of ALL the sections of the Bill’ would compel the Irish Party to declare the agreement at an end.85 Redmond, furious at being misled, decided to oppose the new Home Rule Bill at every stage.86 Negotiations were finally abandoned on 27 July 1916. Following the collapse of negotiations, Dennis Gwynn, Redmond’s biographer, recalled that the Irish Party chairman’s influence in Ireland was ‘irreparably broken’. He was held responsible for the failure of the negotiations and of having committed Ireland to conciliatory gestures without obtaining any real guarantee of compensating concessions, or even of practical results in any form. Opinion grew that Redmond’s whole policy since August 1914 had been disastrously misjudged. He had offered co-operation when he might have exerted pressure that would have compelled the Government to face the Irish Question. The fact that he had compelled Northern Nationalists to assent to Lloyd George’s proposals by threatening to resign only emphasised the gravity of his mistakes.87 Irish Unionism and the partition proposals In formally accepting the permanent partition of Ireland and the exclusion of the six counties from the jurisdiction of a home rule parliament, Sir Edward Carson and James Craig, the Ulster Unionists who had negotiated the compact with Lloyd George, were influenced by the condition of public opinion in England, which they believed to be such that whichever Irish political party placed difficulties in the way of any settlement would risk


alienating the sympathy of the political parties in Britain.88 In Cabinet the leaders of British Unionism, Andrew Bonar Law and Arthur Balfour, had accepted the necessity for the grant of Irish home rule as an emergency war measure. Carson and Craig’s position, as they explained to Hugh de Fellenburg Montgomery, was that they were ‘at the end of their tether’, having been told that the Cabinet had unanimously decided, under the pressure of difficulties with the United States, the Dominions and in Parliament, that Redmond had to be given home rule at once. Carson had therefore agreed to submit to his followers the exclusion of the six counties as a basis of negotiation and, until they agreed to this, he refused to go any further or meet Redmond. Carson and Craig felt that all the ground which Ulster Unionists had gained in their anti-home rule campaign before the war had slipped away under the influence of the war. They realised that the majority of British Unionist MPs, newspapers and voters took the same view as to the necessity of an Irish settlement. If Ulster Unionists refused to consider such a settlement they could not hope for any sympathy or support in Britain at that time or thereafter. Now that the Unionist leaders in the Coalition Government were party to a proposal to put the 1914 Home Rule Act into immediate operation there was no hope of removing it from the Statute Book. If Ulster Unionists did not agree to a settlement, explained Carson and Craig, they would have the Home Rule Act coming into operation without the exclusion of Ulster, subject to some worthless Amending Act which might be brought in, and they would either have to submit to this or fight. The two leaders warned that to begin fighting at the end of the war would be hopeless and Ulster Unionists could not hope for any support; even if, despite this, their fighting succeeded, Unionists would not be able to get more than they were now offered—six county exclusion. Referring to the proposed post-war Imperial Conference, Carson laid stress on the importance of the conference finding an excluded Ulster in place and not an unattended or inadequately amended Home Rule Act on the Statute Book.89 On 6 June 1916, Carson laid these arguments for the scheme before a private meeting of the UUC, urging acceptance. He told them that it would be madness to think that they could ask their men to fight against British soldiers with whom they had fought the battle of Empire, pointing out that Ulster’s returning soldiers: will come and ask you, ‘What are you fighting for?’ and we will say, ‘For Ulster’.


They will say, ‘You were offered six counties, clean and free, under British Government on Irish soil, with a refuge and a haven for any man that felt himself ill-treated elsewhere, and you would not have it. You would rather go on and rather fight, and that is your contribution to the settlement of imperial questions at the end of the war’. It is not possible. I tell you it is not possible.90 The UUC accepted the partition proposals, but considerable resentment and fear was publicly manifest not only amongst Unionists in the southern provinces, but also within the three Ulster counties of Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal, which were to be included under the Irish Parliament. Hugh de Fellenburg Montgomery attempted to reassure Southern Unionists that Ulster Unionists would be in a better position to help them outside, rather than inside the dominion of a Dublin parliament, where they would all be a ‘helpless minority’, and where they would probably obtain worse treatment than they might otherwise get by identifying them with the unpopular cause of Ulster Orangism. If Ulster were excluded the majority in the Southern provinces would be on their good behaviour, bound to rule impartially and tolerantly in order to procure Ulster’s inclusion. In addition to this the predominant Ulster Unionist Party would hold important ‘hostages’ in the shape of the Catholic minority living among them and dependent upon them for employment.91 De Fellenburg Montgomery claimed that what the other three Ulster counties, of Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal, had given up was a ‘big thing as regarded sentiment’, but ‘nothing in substance’, for it was ‘well known’ among Ulster Unionists that if it had come to a military confrontation, in 1912– 14, General Richardson, commander of the UVF, had accepted that the first thing he would have had to do was to withdraw all the Ulster Covenanters from those three counties into the six now staying under the Imperial Parliament’s control.92 The acceptance of the partition proposals involved the dissolution of the Ulster Covenant, which many Unionists, such as Lord Arran, had thought impossible, believing it to be a solemn oath to resist home rule for any part of Ireland. According to Arran, the line ‘We men of Ulster’, in the covenant, meant that Ulstermen had sworn to take all means necessary to defeat home rule. ‘We’ was the normative, and ‘men of Ulster’ descriptive of them as covenanters with the active verb found in the sentence ‘We hereby pledge ourselves to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule parliament’. Therefore, concluded Arran, no Ulster Covenanter could disassociate himself from that which the ‘oath’


imposed upon him, nor could the covenant be read in any other way, so that it would be impossible for Ulster Covenanters to accept partition.93 Similarly, the Reverend T.L.F.Stack, preaching in the Lower Langfield Church, Belfast, on 25 June 1916, claimed: That covenant was an oath taken after divine service by most of us. It was an absolute oath—no conditions were introduced whereby we could absolve one another by mutual consent. It was an oath in brief: (1) to do our utmost to resist a Home Rule Parliament being set up; (2) never to submit to its authority; and (3) to stand by one another for these purposes. Who alone were eligible to take that oath? —persons born in Ulster. What is Ulster? That is answered…the only Ulster that ever existed, not the ‘Ulster of the Plantation’—an Ulster purely imaginary— not four counties, nor six…but the Ulster that every school child knows—the northern province of Ireland…. We are all loyal subjects of our gracious King. But we owe a higher allegiance still—loyalty to our God…. No imperial or other necessity, however vital can justify that or make amends for it…. Ulster’s honour is trailed to-day in the dust…. God can and will save us, if we deserve it, by trusting Him. But if not, let us like our heroic sailors, go down with the Union Jack flying, doing our duty.94 In correspondence Stack challenged de Fellenburg Montgomery to deny that the Ulster Covenant was a solemn vow made before God. Quoting from it, Stack pointed out that the covenant stated that Unionists were ‘humbly relying on’ Him, ‘in sure confidence that God will defend the right’, and that Unionists should be prepared to fight under this banner even unto death. De Fellenburg Montgomery, in reply, accepted that covenanters should be prepared to fight unto death, but denied the words expressing reliance and confidence in God made the document a ‘vow before God’ in the sense of an oath. De Fellenburg Montgomery argued that the words the ‘present conspiracy’ barred the covenant from being held to be a vow to resist a home rule parliament for all or any part of Ireland at all times and circumstances. He further claimed that the covenant appeared to refer to Ulster or such part of it as the covenanters were able to hold. When Stack asked de Fellenburg Montgomery if the covenant was made without reservation, or if it contained clauses whereby it could be dissolved by mutual consent, de Fellenburg Montgomery answered that every human document had to be subject to modification or dissolution by force majeure.95 De Fellenburg


Montgomery believed that the war had changed the whole atmosphere and nature of things since the covenant was signed: ‘If I enter into a solemn covenant to give you a certain house and garden and that house and garden is swallowed up by an earthquake I obviously have to reconsider my position, which is what the Covenanters of the Unionist Council had to do’. If the covenant was broken, he argued, it was when the Home Rule Act was placed on the Statute Book. What remained of the covenant programme was a duty to oppose home rule in any way possible, and if they could not prevent it being introduced in Ireland, at least in as large a part of Ireland as possible.96 While the Ulster Unionist leadership accepted the partition proposals, Southern Unionists led the main opposition to their imposition. Between 1 and 9 June 1916, Lloyd George had held a series of meetings with Southern Unionists seeking their agreement to the settlement. Southern Unionists, however, were unprepared to accept that their position was hopeless, or that the imposition of home rule was inevitable. Archbishop Bernard explained to Lloyd George that despite the reality of home rule on the Statute Book, and the refusal to coerce Ulster, Southern Unionists were as convinced as ever that a separate legislature for Ireland would injure Ireland’s interests, pointing out that as long as Ireland remained part of the British Empire so would disloyalty and sedition be a menace to national security. If Ulster were to be excluded, Bernard hoped that it would be the whole province because, first, it would be important that the line of division in the new Irish parliament should not precisely correspond with ecclesiastical or religious differences. The differences between North and South would be softened if the demarcation was made on geographical rather than theological lines. Second, by treating all Ulster as a unit, a large Catholic and nationalist minority would be left there and the treatment of the Southern minority would be greatly affected by the Ulster Protestant majority’s treatment of Catholics in the North, and vice versa, providing some guarantee for fair dealing all round, and producing, by good Irish legislation, ultimate unity. Bernard listed three reasons for the special treatment of the Southern unionist community: that they had been conspicuous through their loyalty and contribution to the Empire; that they had been the one class not to resort to arms in support of political opinions from 1913 to 1916; and, finally, no one who knew Ireland could deny the large part they had played in the intellectual life and trade of the country. It would be unjust to this minority and injurious to Ireland’s welfare as a whole if they were not treated with special consideration.97


However, no such special provisions were envisaged in the proposed settlement, and Lord Midleton, the leader of Southern Unionism in Ireland, explained to Lord Lansdowne that Southern Unionists would fight to the death against the implementation of home rule during the war. By all means, explained Midleton, there could be a concordat between Carson, Redmond and the Government, as to the course to be pursued after the war and after a general election had taken place. Dublin Unionists, for example, were quite prepared for post-war readjustments to their position in the general consideration of relationships between Britain and the Empire. But surely, Midleton asked, ‘no case can be made from any standpoint for the handing over of the rest of Ireland till we know whether those to whom it is committed can govern it’.98 As one Southern Unionist explained to Lloyd George, the appeal to their patriotism would not have fallen on deaf ears had they been persuaded that the war’s fate depended upon an Irish settlement, ‘but, sir, we are absolutely convinced that no settlement at such a moment as this would have anything but the opposite effect which you surmise’.99 Lansdowne took these concerns to the Cabinet. The recent disturbances had, he argued to the Cabinet in June 1916, generated a widespread desire for a settlement, but they had certainly not softened aspirations or disarmed suspicion; on the contrary it could be contended that the Easter Rising had revealed the existence of subterranean forces which would continue to be formidable, no matter what the government system. Was this then the moment to concede in principle all that the most extreme Nationalists were demanding? ‘The triumph of lawlessness and disloyalty would be complete’ he warned, and the Government might delude themselves that the arrangement was merely provisional, but the capitulation would be palpable, and its significance would not be diminished by the exclusion of Ulster. Lansdowne reminded the Government that the Sinn Feiners who had stabbed Britain in the back had achieved an amount of success quite sufficient to encourage others to defy authority, and it was idle to suppose that the men and women who supported Sinn Fein would be conciliated by the grant of the proposed form of home rule. Could Unionists look to a Redmond Government in Ireland to deal with an anticipated recrudescence of the recent troubles, Lansdowne asked. Furthermore, he objected to the presentation to the world of a new Irish ‘nation’, an Ireland which, with an excluded Ulster, would be an admission of failure; for if home rule was to come then Lansdowne preferred it to embrace the whole of Ireland, with safeguards for the minority.100 Lansdowne’s speech


in the Lords made certain that attempts to produce a settlement were subverted. The Southern Unionist victory in the 1916 negotiations turned out to be a temporary reprieve for that minority, as it was also to be for Northern Nationalists. De Fellenburg Montgomery felt that Ulster Unionists had secured a good hearing, for whenever home rule was to be further discussed they could probably make a ‘claim to six county exclusion if they couldn’t get anything better’.101 A reflective Carson, however, was reminded that ‘The Act will be the Act on the Statute Book, and we will resume our old quarrels…. I look forward to it with horror’.102 Ronald MacNeill reflected, several years later, that Ulster’s ‘bitter sacrifice’ in 1916 had borne no fruit, except to afford one more proof of her loyalty to England and the Empire, and Ulster was to find that such proofs were for the most part ‘thrown away’, used as a starting point for further concessions; ‘But, although all British parties in turn did their best to impress upon Ulster that loyalty did not pay, she never succeeded in learning the lesson sufficiently to be guided by it in her political conduct’.103 Conclusion The Easter Rising had two aims: to raise the cause of Ireland from a British domestic concern to an international issue, and prevent the demise of the separatist ideal; it failed in the first, but succeeded in the second. For many Nationalists the psychological appeal of the Easter Rising was that it was conducted by patriots fighting for Irish freedom in Ireland. Rebellions against the British, in 1798, 1803, 1848, 1867 and now 1916, formed a core myth of Irish Nationalism. In contrast, the Irish Party by asking members of the nationalist community to fight in the Irish regiments of the British army—the traditional expression of Irish Unionist patriotism —was attempting to create a new historical experience. However, the success of this strategy depended upon convincing nationalists in Ireland that the traditional relationship between Britain, as oppressor, and Ireland, the oppressed, had changed from that contained within the Irish Nationalist myth. The reaction of the British military in suppressing the rising, and its aftermath, reversed the perception of an entente cordiale between Nationalist Ireland and Imperial Britain. For all the British reforms carried out in Ireland, these had occurred over a relatively short period of time compared with the cultural socialisation of Irish historical myth. The partition proposals, coupled with the shock of the Coalition Government, the threat of conscription and the rising, broke the


Irish Party’s dominance of Irish Nationalism. Partition fundamentally challenged the central map-image of Irish Nationalism in which the island of Ireland was always thought of as the natural ‘homeland’, in terms of a discrete geographical entity. While the only victors of the partition debacle were advanced Nationalists and Southern Unionists, for the latter the victory was illusionary and short-lived.

154

Chapter 5 Loyalty and the Crown

Nationalist divisions and Unionist-Nationalist rapprochement, 1916–18

The rise of Sinn Fein The months following the Easter Rising saw the Irish Party desperately attempting to regain its influence over the nationalist community. An agitation had begun to free the internees held after the insurrection; but when, in December 1916, six hundred untried internees were freed from Frongoch in Wales and Lewes jail in England, the returning prisoners were hailed as heroes. The most vivid display of disaffection with the Irish Party occurred in February 1917 when Count Plunkett defeated T.J.Devine, a home rule candidate, by 3,022 votes to 1,708 in the Roscommon North by-election. This, together with the release of the prisoners, proved the launching pad for a reconstructed Sinn Fein movement, far larger but more diverse in its make-up than its preinsurrection predecessor. In April 1917, a Sinn Fein National Council was established to deny the ‘right of any foreign parliament to make laws for Ireland’. This was followed, on 9 May 1917, by another Sinn Fein victory, in the South Longford byelection, which saw Joseph McGuinness, a prisoner at Lewes, defeat the home ruler, Patrick McKenna, by 1,493 votes to 1,461. Following the death in action on the Western Front of John Redmond’s brother, Major Willie Redmond MP, Eamon de Valera, who had commanded a contingent of Irish Volunteers during the rising, defeated Patrick Lynch KC in the ensuing Clare East byelection by 5,010 votes to 2,035 in July 1917. This was followed by yet another Sinn Fein victory, in August 1917, when Alderman W.T.Cosgrave defeated John Magennis by 722 votes to 392 in the Kilkenny City by-election. Sinn Fein’s fortunes were further boosted by the death, on hunger strike, of Thomas Ashe in September 1917 after he was forcibly fed in prison; his funeral became the focus for a huge outpouring of sympathy. A formal structure to the new movement was completed on 26 October

156 LOYALTY AND THE CROWN

1917 when the Sinn Fein Ard-Fheis elected de Valera as President, and Arthur Griffith as Vice-President. The following day, de Valera was elected President of the Irish Volunteers as well. One of the principal reasons why many within the nationalist community changed their allegiance from the Irish Party to Sinn Fein was the perception that the former, and Redmond in particular, had little or no influence with the British Government. After the partition debacle, Michael Conway, a former Irish Party MP, found that ‘Every fool and semi-illiterate ass is busy with his “I never trusted Asquith”, “I always said the Party were not strong enough”, “what could we expect from English statesmen” and so forth…. In a word the country is about as rotten as could be…. It is hard to believe that some of these critics are people that I know well and trusted during the last few years’.1 In the Nationalist provincial press, the Kilkenny People claimed it had taken twentyfive years for the Irish Party’s leaders to discover what ‘for many a long day has been as plain as noonday to multitudes of men of average common-sense…that they were being tricked, deceived and humbugged by the Liberal Government’.2 The Sligo Nationalist found many Nationalists despondent3 and concluded that a mistake had been made when those in positions of authority had advised the Irish people to ‘help strengthen the Empire’ and forget the ‘spiritual claims of Irish Nationality’.4 Ireland, said the Nationalist, had reason to feel aggrieved because after supporting the Empire with her money and manhood, her reward had been nothing but abuse, and the deeds of the heroic Irish regiments had been forgotten.5 The Clare Champion remembered that the architect of the home rule movement, Isaac Butt, had in his day made some of the finest speeches Parliament had heard, but it was the obstructive tactics of Parnell and Biggar that had won reform for Ireland. The Champion believed that the Irish Party should detach themselves from the Liberal alliance and move into opposition to the Government before England was out of domestic and external difficulties; the Fenians, it pointed out, were the backbone of Parnell and without such extremists no Irish movement was worth its salt.6 Thus when Dillon, in a Commons debate in December 1917, complained ‘Our position in this House is made futile. We are never listened to’, the Roscommon Journal reflected how, three years previ ously, any person with the impertinence to say or think that the Irish Party could not move heaven and earth on the floor of the House of Commons would be denounced as a ‘crank and a factionalist’.7 The Clare Champion had drawn similar conclusions in October 1916 when, after Redmond had listed Nationalist

LOYALTY AND THE CROWN 157

Ireland’s grievances in the Commons, he had seen his motion defeated by 303 votes to 106; the newspaper concluded that it ‘shows once again that in the English House of Commons[,] English hearts are deaf to the voice of Ireland, and that Ireland must now depend upon herself, her own unity, and her own determination to work out her own destiny by independent opposition until the battle is won’.8 The Wicklow People claimed that the Irish people, in believing that Britain had broken faith with Ireland, now regarded the Irish Party as not being shrewd enough in its dealings with her; there had been disaffection for years, but this had been overlooked as long as home rule was believed safe.9 The alternative, as the Midland Tribune saw it during the 1916 talks, was the scrapping of the Irish Party; but what was to replace it?10 The Enniscorthy Guardian took a similar stance, explaining that no one doubted the Irish Party’s patriotism, but they did doubt its competence. All had been critical of those attacking the Irish Party, although thinking Redmond excessive on imperial loyalty, but accepted that after home rule this imperial patriotism would come. Asquith’s pledge that there would be no coercion of Ulster had changed this, however, and the criticism was that the Irish Party had paid the price before the goods were delivered.11 The Nationalist and Leinster Times claimed that it had never tied itself to any section or party, but consistently supported the Irish Party so long as it considered them right in putting forward the nation’s claims. But, the moment it realised that Ireland was paying too much for the poor results of thirty years agitation it revised its attitude towards the Irish Party, now merely a wing of the English Liberal party; the years since 1914 had proved that the Irish Party was composed of men inclined to put imperial interests before those of Ireland.12 The Kerryman highlighted the contradictions which the Irish Party faced, recalling how at a dinner honouring Dominion guests, one of the Australian guests walked out when there was no toast to the King. The moral of this, said the Kerryman, was that the Irish Party had learnt that it was not easy to pose in front of a discriminating audience in the guise of good Irishmen and Englishmen. British-Irish relations had ‘not yet been so satisfacto rily adjusted as to permit of patriotism as affecting one, being an exact synonym for patriotism as regards the other’.13 This did not mean that newspapers which supported Sinn Fein, such as the Kerryman, did so because they were prorepublican; as it explained, the problem was that Ireland had never had a chance of recognising the King as King of Ireland, the opinion of the Kerryman being that The Irish we feel sure would be


willing to look upon the King as king of Ireland but only in the real sense’, as existed prior to the Union.14 As one county councillor who supported Sinn Fein wrote to Count Plunkett, ‘I am inclined to think that Colonial Home Rule would satisfy Ireland’s needs and aspirations, but the more we ask, the more likely we are to get a good Settlement and the less we depend upon an English Settlement the more anxious[,] probably[,] will England be to settle and give a good Settlement’.15 Following the rising, the speed with which the Government and the Unionist press in Britain sought to settle the Irish Question was interpreted by many in the nationalist community as being due to the efforts of the rebels, who, it was felt, had rebelled because they saw the prospect of home rule slipping away The Dungannon Democrat, in June 1916, had claimed that the home rule cause was now stronger than before a shot was fired in Dublin for there was no doubt that the executions, sentences and arrests had inflamed Irish-American opinion. Ireland, claimed the Democrat, was in the position of a man who had something to sell, ‘more than that, it is in the position of a monopolist. When people wish to buy from a monopolist they must buy at the monopolist’s price’.16 The Fermanagh Herald concurred: we are informed that England intended to do well by Ireland, that the rebellion almost resulted in the ‘proverbial cup of liberty’ [home rule] being dashed from the nation’s lips, and that the Home Rule position was incalculably injured by the rising. This is not true. As surely as the Duke of Wellington’s apprehensions of civil war in Ireland resulted in the passing of the Catholic Relief Act…the recent revolt…elevated the Home Rule movement to a position of international importance, and, with the possible exception of the circumstances created at the outbreak of the war, put Ireland in the position of driving the best bargain in her history with the English…. The failure to take advantage of such favourable circumstances by pretending to British Ministers that Nationalist Ireland is unprecedently weak and absolutely at their mercy is a betrayal of the country’s hopes, insult to the living, ridicule of the dead and a scandal for posterity to hold up its hands in horror at.17 The rebirth of the Sinn Fein movement offered discontented Nationalists an alternative forum for the pursuit of Irish selfgovernment. Sinn Fein looked beyond the British Parliament to the projected post-war Peace Conference, which it believed would


have to be called to settle the issues of the war. In the spring of 1915, Arthur Griffith had prepared a memorandum on the subject of a Peace Conference, which he had laid before many of those involved in the rising. He argued that Ireland’s opportunity had arrived, and that opportunity was to work towards the hearing of Ireland’s case for nationhood by such a conference which would assemble before the end of the war. Griffith based Ireland’s claim to be at the Peace Conference upon the doctrine of ‘suppressed sovereignty’. But, he warned, Ireland could not secure belligerent rights unless Sinn Fein became de facto masters of the country. First, they had to destroy representation at Westminster, for the very existence of that representation denied Ireland’s claim to sovereign independence. Second, they had to have in Ireland, before the Peace Conference met, a constituent assembly chosen by the Irish people and speaking in their name. They had to see that every constituency met and chose its representatives and together formed themselves as a constituent assembly, backed by the moral and material strength of the Irish people, to act for Ireland, and to speak in her name at the Peace Conference.18 Griffith claimed that, because of the war, Ireland was no longer an island lying behind England but was again, politically, as well as geographically, part of Europe. The cant that pretended that the Irish Question was an English domestic affair was as ‘dead as Redmondism’, declared Griffith in 1917. In the Roscommon North by-election, he argued, Ireland had elected a representative to Europe instead of to the British Parliament. By one election Ireland had done more to secure European attention than all the elections since 1800.19 Griffith pointed out that the Kingdom of Poland, which before the war had no government or parliament, was now recognised by Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria because Poland had made herself an international problem. England’s safeguard against Ireland doing the same was the Irish Party, which, if returned in a general election, would be pointed to as the authentic voice of the Irish people.20 Sinn Fein adopted Griffith’s peace-conference policy and argued that the Irish Party’s course of parliamentary agitation could not be defended on the grounds of principle, for the nation that willingly acknowledged the right of another nation to rule its territory, to regulate its life, to control its activities, or to give or withhold its liberties, was a slave nation. As long as Ireland willingly sent representatives to Westminster, so long was Ireland a slave nation or subject province, for ‘she accepts the Union, she acknowledges the Conquest’, and logically, she should give up her claim to be a nation. Sinn Feiners claimed that Westminster representation was


futile in practice. Ireland had been sending representatives to Westminster for 116 years by 1917, and during that time Ireland had had two famine periods, years bordering on famine, four open insurrectionary periods, long periods of partly suppressed insurrections, wholesale evictions, abnormal emigration, scores of Coercion Acts, ever-increasing taxation, destruction of industries, decrease of tillage, and ‘mind-stupefying’ methods of education. Irish MPs at Westminster made eloquent speeches, asked questions, called attention to Irish grievances, pleaded, appealed, voted with one English party and another, but were materially unable to influence British government policy towards Ireland.21 Abstentionism, the refusal to send its elected representatives to Westminster, became the cornerstone of the Sinn Fein electoral platform. Sinn Fein’s case for Ireland to be heard before the Peace Conference rested upon the claim that Ireland was a sovereign state, one of the four ancient and sovereign European states, as established among the European Powers at the Council of Constance in 1417. There the question of precedence had arisen between the legates of King Charles VI of France and King Henry V of England, when the latter, abandoning any claim in respect of the Kingdom of England, put forward a claim in respect of the Kingdom of Ireland, which he ‘pretended and assumed’ had been transferred to England. The King of England made good the case of the ‘nation of Ireland’ to be considered third in precedence of the four ancient and sovereign states of Europe; and his legates took precedence of the King of France’s legates accordingly Therefore, it was argued by Sinn Feiners that for over a thousand years Ireland had exercised her full sovereign status and, for another five hundred years, during which time the full exercise of that sovereignty was frustrated, her sovereign status was recognised by the European Powers and its re-establishment made the subject of negotiation and treaty by certain of those powers. Ireland, it was claimed, had never surrendered her sovereign status, and no power, possessing title by conquest, by compact, or by treaty, could claim to exercise Irish sovereignty, for Irish sovereignty existed despite British suppression, its exercise being prevented by external force. Sinn Fein also claimed that Ireland was a sovereign state because the conscious will of the Irish nation for the restoration of its sovereignty had been asserted in every generation since its suppression, by rebellion against British rule, and that Ireland, by history, culture, and language was a distinctive, individual and separate nation. Therefore Ireland possessed within herself all the moral and material constituents of


independent statehood. It was Sinn Fein’s contention that Ireland’s geographical position rendered her independent sovereignty essential to Europe and the world’s peaceful development, and appealed to the Great Powers to recognise this, especially as most of those powers in the current war had publicly declared for the rights of small nations.22 The Irish Party’s response to the Peace Conference proposal was to claim, as did the Freeman’s Journal, that when the conference assembled Sinn Feiners would appear before it as the men who had advocated stabbing the Allies in the back, and consequently would not receive much support from the free European nations or the United States.23 But despite this, Dillon admitted that he could not reject the possibility of appealing to a Peace Conference if the opportunity arose, however impracticable it seemed.24 The Irish Party and its supporters recognised that no Nationalist in Ireland would object to utilising the Peace Conference if it were possible.25 They did not, however, accept the argument of many Sinn Feiners that the Government of the Irish Republic had been established by the Easter rebels. As one Irish Party supporter argued, only an independent state at war could enjoy the rights of a belligerent; other states had no right or power to give or withhold these rights. In general, insurgents could not claim either the title or the rights of belligerents, although a state within which an insurrection had broken out might—without renouncing jurisdiction over the insurgents and without recognising their government, if one had been set up—treat the said insurgents as belligerents. But this as a rule, argued the writer, was done primarily to require foreign states to observe the duties of neutrality during the struggle. On the other hand, when the insurgents possessed a government, foreign states might recognise them as belligerents from a military point of view, without admitting their political independence which would constitute an act of aggression against the parent state; but insurgents could not demand to be recognised as belligerents. The writer argued that the Easter rebels were not belligerents. To begin with, they were not part of an independent state, on which belligerent rights naturally arose; they were not treated as belligerents by the state they rose against; and they were not recognised as belligerents by any other state, by formalities such as a declaration of neutrality. The entitlement to belligerency, arising from the declaration by the rebels of the Irish Republic, was rejected on the grounds that ‘Calling yourself a thing is not being that thing, especially when you are unable to make good your claim’. The insurrection’s existence had been a matter of hours, ‘rather a funny “independent Sovereign State”’. In the


proclamation the rebels had referred to ‘gallant allies in Europe’, but an ally presupposed an ‘alliance’, and an alliance was a union between states of acknowledged rank for the purpose of offence and defence. Who, outside the Sinn Feiners, recognised them as an independent state, asked the writer? Moreover, an alliance was not contracted other than by a specific treaty or agreement, in which the object was definitely stated; in no imaginable circumstances was an alliance associated with a sovereign state on one side and a ‘party’ on the other. The writer submitted that Ireland would have no right to be heard at the forthcoming Peace Conference; she did not possess an independent government, nor was she a state; Irishmen were the subjects of a crown that was to be represented, and it was not likely that every party or political section of every country would be admitted.26 Nationalists and the Crown: Sinn Fein and the Irish Party Within the broad church that was the post-1916 Sinn Fein movement, there existed deep divisions regarding the final relationship that a self-governing Ireland should have with the British Empire and Crown, divisions so deep that ultimately, it can be argued, they provided the foundations for the Anglo-Irish Treaty split in 1921 and the subsequent Irish Civil War of 1922– 23. Sinn Fein was a coalition of extreme and moderate Nationalists who, at the leadership level, were united in their ideological commitment to a Gaelic-speaking Ireland, but were divided between those who were prepared to accept some form of Irish monarchy and those who wished to establish an Irish republic. The Easter rebels, constituting themselves the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic, had declared in the Proclamation of the Republic: We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people…we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State…. The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to


pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government. However, republicanism represented but one strand of advanced nationalism. A second strand supported the retention of the monarchical principle. Sinn Fein supporters of an Irish monarchy were, however, divided between those who wished to see a selfgoverning Ireland possessing the status of an Irish Dominion within the emerging British Commonwealth of Nations, and those who wished to see the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Ireland which had existed before the Anglo-Irish Union. All Sinn Feiners were, however, united in their belief that their first loyalty was to Ireland and Ireland alone. This position was set out by Darrell Figgis in the Sinn Fein Catechism, which explained it in the form of a series of questions and answers:

Q. What is your nationality? A. I am Irish. Q. What does it mean to be Irish? A. It means that I am part of the Irish Nation, to which I must give my true and best service, and to which I must always be loyal. Q. Can you be loyal to France? A. No. Q. Can you be loyal to China? A. No. Q. Can you be loyal to England? A. No. Q. Why? A. Because only a Frenchman can be loyal only to France, and a Chinaman loyal to China, and an Englishman loyal to England. I am Irish and I can only be loyal to Ireland. I may like France, China or England, or I may dislike them according to my fancy; but I can only be loyal to Ireland. Nobody can be part of one Nation, and be loyal to somebody else’s Nation…. Q. If somebody came to you and said that he was Irish and that he was loyal to England, what would he mean? A. He would mean nothing at all. He would be talking nonsense. Those who are loyal to England or France must be English or French; those who are Irish can only be loyal to Ireland. No one can serve two masters.27


To preserve unity at the Sinn Fein conference, held in October 1917, a compromise was reached in which it was agreed that the movement should seek to secure a republic first, and then hold a referendum to decide whether the ultimate form of the Irish state should be a monarchy or republic. But, insisted de Valera, any king chosen would not be from the House of Windsor.28 However, within the diversity of political opinion drawn into Sinn Fein, the complexity of the issues involved continued to create confusion, particularly evident among many Nationalists as to what the actual status of Ireland as a separate kingdom would mean. For example, the widely used phrase, by both Nationalists and Unionists, ‘the Three Kingdoms’, encouraged the mistaken belief that Ireland was still a distinct kingdom despite the Act of Union. But, as one writer explained, the first Article of the Act of Union was conclusive—‘That it be the first Article of the Union of the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland that the said Kingdoms… shall be…and forever after be united into One Kingdom by the name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland’.29 Arthur Griffith, of course, realised this and rejected any form of Dominion home rule on the grounds that ‘Our country is a nation not a territory nor a colony; less than its national right it will not claim’. Griffith believed, in 1917, that to ask for a subordinate Dominion legislature as a settlement would only be to see the Irish Question, in ten years hence, no less acute than it presently was. He considered that this would remain the case until Ireland’s separate nationality was recognised through the restoration of the Kingdom of Ireland.30 Under a dual monarchical state the Kingdom of Ireland would have the same powers as an Irish Republic and the Irish Nation, referring to Count Plunkett’s claim that his vision of an Irish republic stood for complete independence, stated in May 1917, ‘Well so do we. He says that he stands for Ireland’s recognition as a Sovereign State. So also do we’.31 The Irish Nation explained: They [dual monarchists] aspire after freedom. They want Ireland to be recognised as a nation. They want to shake off the domination of England and to be free to progress along the lines best suited to their requirements, and of their own choosing. It does not follow because they want all this that they are desirous of breaking from the federation of states constituting the Empire, but they want a place in that federation, not of inferiority, but of equality…. Ireland is not, and never has been a Crown Colony, therefore what applies to Australia or Canada or any other British colony does not and


never can apply to Ireland. We have a past—a glorious past— the Colonies have no past. We have been enslaved and oppressed— the Colonies have not. We have been and still are a distinct and separate nation; the Colonies have never been more than British Colonies. Colonial self-government is not applicable to Ireland because we have never yielded up our divine right to complete nationhood, and have never degraded ourselves by accepting the position of a British colony or surrendering our claim to be treated as a distinct or separate nation…. Why should we descend from the lofty position we occupy and submit to the degradation of being treated as a Crown Colony of England?32 For dual monarchists, separation from the British Crown and Empire did not automatically mean the severance of all relations with British imperialism. For example, following the 1917 Imperial Conference in London, Griffith claimed to see a possible revolution in the government of the British Empire, and the approximation, after the war, of its government to the government of the German Empire. He considered ‘The British Empire’ to be an alias for ‘England’. England made war, peace and policy; the function of the Empire was to follow England, and this included not consulting Australia or Canada, nor Ireland, Scotland or Wales either. Thus the ‘British Empire’ was a name and nothing more, an alias for an autocratic England. But, at the Imperial Conference, Griffith detected what he believed was the resolve of the Dominions that the existing state of affairs had to end and that at the war’s cessation England would have to take her place as a state within the Empire and not as its ruler. England was to be Prussianised, one state among many—similar he thought to the pre-Norman model which existed in Ireland, combining the independence of the different parts with the unity of the whole against external enemies.33 Sir Roger Casement had also developed his thinking along similar lines in 1915. He too had denied the existence of a ‘British Empire’: there was a supreme and absolute England, to which Ireland, India and Scotland were all dependencies, the direct antithesis of the German Empire which was founded upon racial unity, with each state self-governing and having a common control of imperial policy. Were the British Empire to be modelled upon the German Empire it would involve the reappearance of Ireland and Scotland as separate kingdoms within the Empire, the erection of Wales into what she was only in name, a principality, self-government for India and an Imperial Council representing all. Casement thought home rule would not solve the Irish


Question because England would not permit serious Irish development unless she abolished the policy of English absolutism; between the utter destruction of Ireland and the permanent separation of the two countries, Casement saw only one route—a reconstruction of the British Empire on German or AustroHungarian models, meaning a new English relationship to Ireland such as that of Austria to Hungary or Prussia to Bavaria.34 The appeal of the Kingdom of Ireland ran throughout the Sinn Fein movement. The historian and Sinn Fein sympathiser, Alice Stopford Green, reflected on how the concept of the Kingdom of Ireland was not without dignity, but the old kingdom had been degraded from the high status of a co-ordinate part of the King’s dominions to a strictly subordinate position, and its inhabitants had become a subject people under the English Parliament, and controlled by the English nation. The Crown, ever since English monarchs had assumed the title of Kings of Great Britain and Ireland, had remained in mind and in action sovereigns of England, concerned with her special interests first and last, with Ireland viewed only as an outlying and alien dependency of illrepute. During six and a half centuries only five monarchs had crossed to Ireland on war and conquest expeditions; only two brief state parades were made in the nineteenth century; and only three had reached as far as Dublin since 1900. No single occasion could be recalled when the king on the throne considered it a right or a duty to mitigate the oppression of the Irish people. During the nineteenth century, moreover, when England had fully developed her own form of national life, the Crown, with the growth of the representative system recognising that the sovereign’s public conduct should be regulated by the head of the cabinet, became the mere expression of the British Prime Minister’s will, and so the loyalty demanded from Ireland to the king became transmuted into loyalty to successive British premiers, changing at the popular convenience of the British people. Green thought it unsurprising, given this, that there should be Irishmen who sought a republican state, for the question of republic versus monarchy engaged the Irish mind, not as an abstract academic comparison between the advantages of the two, but as the practical question of how to safeguard Irish self-government. However, she argued: If self-government is to be won for the Irish nation under a monarchy, there must be a new relation of the Crown and the Irish nation. If there is to be a Commonwealth of peoples, it must be everywhere based on that quality of rights from which alone friendship and alliance can spring, and a


conception of government must arise which rejects all idea of the subjection of a nation to a nation.35 Other Sinn Feiners expressed a desire to settle for a form of Irish self-government that was less than an independent republic or separate kingdom. F.J.O’Connor of the Irish Nation League believed that Ireland was equal in status to the ‘sister’ Kingdoms of England and Scotland, all being constituent units or entities forming together the United Kingdom. Ireland, he claimed, was a sovereign state, as were the other ‘kingdoms’ of England and Scotland with which she was united. Ireland’s status was far higher than that of the Dominions, yet they enjoyed a free constitution with full exclusive power over national affairs, leading O’Connor to think it reasonable to demand the same for Ireland.36 Another Sinn Fein sympathiser, the literary figure George Russell (‘AE’), saw the possibility for building Irish unity along the lines of Ireland becoming a self-governing Dominion such as Canada or Australia. Through this he believed that all Irishmen would: obtain substantially what they desire—the Ulster Unionists that safety for their interests and provision for Ireland’s unity within the Commonwealth of Dominions inside the Empire. The Nationalists would obtain that power they desire to create an Irish civilisation by self-devised and self-checked efforts. The brotherhood of Dominions, of which they would form one, would be inspired as much by the fresh life and wide democratic outlook of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada, as by the hoarier political wisdom of Great Britain, and military, naval, foreign and Colonial policy must in the future be devised by the representatives of those Dominions sitting in council together with the representatives of…Britain. Does not that indicate a different form of Imperialism from that they hold in no friendly memory? It would not be Imperialism in the ancient sense, but a federal union of independent nations to protect national liberties, which might draw into its union other people, hitherto unconnected without, and so beget a league of nations to make a common international law prevail. The allegiance would be to common principles which mankind desire, and would not permit the domination of any one race.37 Edward Lysaght, who subsequently attended the Irish Convention in 1917 as an unofficial observer for Sinn Fein, felt that Nationalists had to divide their thought into two phases: the


consideration of purely Irish problems and the consideration of their stake in the British Empire/Commonwealth. Influenced by the forward-thinking British imperialists of the Round Table and by L.S.Curtis’s book The Problem of the Commonwealth, Lysaght thought that Dominion status could fully satisfy Irish aspirations, although under no circumstances could it be hoped that Irish participation in the Empire/Commonwealth would be voluntary. In view of the Irish element in the Commonwealth, but also the Dutch element, not to speak of the non-European millions, Lysaght thought it would be as desirable to eliminate the word ‘British’ from the increasingly used term ‘British Commonwealth’ (reserving it for Great Britain’s inhabitants), as it would be to supersede the word ‘Empire’ for ‘Commonwealth’.38 But, he warned, if there was failure to prove to the Irish people that the fullest self-government was not only possible but certain within the Empire, no one should be surprised if an increasing number of Irishmen refused to accept anything short of complete separation. An Irish parliament had to be democratically elected, and minority safeguards could not prevent it from expressing the will of the Irish people as a whole. Lysaght believed constitutional provisions ought to include: 1 Fiscal autonomy, i.e. complete control of all taxation, including Customs and Excise. 2 Control of trade policy, with privileges similar to those enjoyed by the Dominions of Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand in respect of making commercial treaties. 3 Power to raise and control forces for home defence. Conscription not to be imposed upon Ireland without the consent of the Irish Parliament. 4 No representation at Westminster.39 Moreover, Lysaght argued that a fair and proper application of selfdetermination for Ireland was not being permitted, for ‘Every country to which the principle of self-determination is to be applied has within its borders an alien minority opposed to its national freedom. Is Ireland alone to be dominated by that minority, which, it must be remembered, has been offered… concessions and safeguards unprecedented in any democratic country in the world?’40 In assessing the form of self-government he believed the majority of Sinn Feiners might be prepared to settle for, Lysaght was to tell the Irish Convention, which sat from 1917 to 1918:


It was true…that Sinn Fein had demanded a republic, and some men in Ireland would die for that ideal. But the great bulk of Sinn Fein wanted only complete freedom for Ireland to work out her own destiny in her own way without interference benev olent or malign, from another nation…at present Sinn Fein was not intransigent…it had not yet taken up an impossible attitude. With the greatest confidence he [Lysaght] said it would accept a bold and far-reaching settlement within the Empire…. The Unionists had it…in their power…to keep from their country the demon of revolution. Lord Londonderry had said that the Unionists can be won if they can be persuaded that self-government is better than the Union. ‘I say’ declared Mr Lysaght, ‘that Sinn Fein can be won if it can be persuaded that national freedom is possible within the Empire’.41 Eoin MacNeill, attempting to bridge the gulf between Sinn Feiners, himself a member of the Sinn Fein Executive, advocated an Irish Republic ‘interdependent’ with the other nations of the world. Emphasising the revolution which had been brought about by the war in preconceived ideas of world politics, he pointed out that the fundamental notion of statecraft during the past era had been the sovereign independent state, or the state absolute, a conception in which the state, and therefore statesmanship, had been stripped of all ethical character. The natural result of the war, affecting as it did the lives of more ordinary men than any previous war, was to revise this hitherto prevalent notion of sovereign independence. Already he could see the notion in process of modification; several of the belligerent powers had themselves questioned the right of sovereignty where it was claimed by imperial states over subject nations, with the result that the doctrine of the rights of nations had been set up against the doctrine of absolute sovereignty. Therefore, it was not unlikely that the theory of independence might give way to interdependence. The modern world of sovereign independent states had been a world of international, or inter-state, anarchy and of such a condition the present war was the outcome. This led MacNeill to believe that the immensity of its evils would force civilised mankind to seek a better basis for the future of civilisation, not in the victory of the old system, but in a victory of new ideas. The basis of interdependence among nations and states would be the recognition of the principle that each unit, for its own protection, whether weak or strong, should be regarded as equal to every other unit ‘in the eyes of the law’. MacNeill agreed with the suggestion of Major Stuart-Stephens who,


in the July 1917 number of English Review, had advocated the establishment of an Irish republic within the British Empire, however contradictory this appeared. MacNeill argued that ‘The right and wise thing for England to do is consent freely, and without grudge…to the establishment of an Irish Republic unconditionally’.42 The Irish Party totally opposed Sinn Fein’s public claim for a republic. Commenting on MacNeill’s proposal, the Freeman’s Journal remarked that the ‘idealist’ always had an advantage in political controversy until the moment came to apply to him the test of practical accomplishment. Sinn Fein, it claimed, drew full advantage by preaching principles that might in the abstract be incontrovertible, but which possessed the fatal defect of being unreasonable.43 After de Valera had variously stated that if the Orangemen continued as the tools of England ‘we must make up our minds to fight them’,44 that ‘they would have to go under’,45 for it was they who were the seceders, the rebels and ‘we would find an Abraham Lincoln who would know how to deal with them’,46 the Freeman Journal asked what moral right did de Valera have to ‘kick’ Ulstermen, who objected to the separation of Ireland from the Empire, out of Ireland? The root cause of Ireland’s troubles, it decided, were to be found two and a half centuries before, at the Battle of the Boyne, when Irishmen had fought one another over the respective merits of two ‘English’ Kings. The Freeman queried whether, even if Nationalists could beat England to her knees and erect a republic, it would be worth the cost of their northern countrymen’s blood and their everlasting spirit of revolt? The Freeman remained unconvinced that Ulster would fight against an Irish constitution within the Empire, but ‘our scepticism on that point is equalled by our conviction that Ulster would and will fight against separation’ from the Empire.47 As one Irish Party supporter explained, it was not only Unionists who wished to retain an imperial connection; he asked: Why are there loyal Home Rulers in Ireland? Why are there Imperial Nationalists in Ireland?… Why are there patriotic Irish people bitterly opposed to the Sinn Fein policy in Ireland? Why are there Irish Nationalists who want to take a place ‘within the Empire’? Here is the psychology of their new friendship for the Empire…. Our pro-Imperialism and anti-Sinn Feinism is, at bottom, pro-Irishism…. It is not because we prefer this policy or attitude to any other, but the necessity of circumstances forces us into that outlook of policy It is the maximum we can expect until the navy of the…Empire is


sunk, until its wealth is dissipated…until its home and Colonial population is decimated or enslaved. We cannot coax or enforce terms on the…Empire that would shake its foundations, or imply its consent to commit suicide just to please Irish idealists and aspirations, which might only be allowed to last for a generation…by peoples altogether outside the British Empire.48 The O’Mahony, who had stood as an Irish Party parliamentary candidate in 1915, wrote that he was tired of hearing that selfgovernment within the Empire was the only attainable form of freedom for Ireland; instead he described it as the best form. During the past century Ireland had become, for good or evil, one of the Empire’s mother countries. In Britain, and every Dominion, there was a contented and loyal Irish population, and to ‘these portions of our race Ireland owes the same duty that England owes to Englishmen throughout the Empire’. Ireland, he believed, could not separate from the Empire without lessening the Empire’s strength and doing an injury to every population within the Empire, including those of their own Irish race. Britain, The O’Mahony wrote, would have as good a right to prevent Ireland’s secession from the Empire as the ‘Northern States had to prevent the Southern States’ secession from the United States’.49 The Freeman’s Journal welcomed the efforts of constitutional historian and Irish Party MP, Swift MacNeill, to dispose of the myth which had gained popular credence that the 1782 constitution, establishing the legislative independence of the Kingdom of Ireland, was an anticipation of a demand for an Irish republic. MacNeill reminded Nationalists that Ireland, under that constitution, was in external affairs absolutely subject to the action of the English executive, through the English sovereign, taken under the advice of English ministers, and controlled by an English parliament in which Ireland had no voice. MacNeill pointed out that it was the English king who entered into treaties with foreign nations on the advice of the English Privy Council; it was the English king who by the same advice declared war or made peace; and by these treaties Ireland was bound. The army was the army of England; the navy was the navy of England; the ambassadors to all foreign courts were those of the English king; all colonies were dependencies of the English crown; and over their government Ireland, or the Irish parliament, had not the slightest control.50 It was by way of an Irish statute—33 Henry VIII. Ir. c. 1.—that Ireland was converted from a ‘Lordship’ into a kingdom; the kings of England, who were previously lords of Ireland, were henceforth


kings of the Kingdom of Ireland ‘as united or knit to the Crown of England’. The connection of the English and Irish crowns had never been disputed, argued MacNeill, for the crown of Ireland was an imperial crown inseparably annexed to the crown of Great Britain and this formed one of the propositions in Henry Grattan’s celebrated address to the Crown in 1782, declaring that ‘The Irish Crown is annexed to, but not merged in, the Crown of England’. When Ireland was a separate kingdom, whoever was king de facto of England was king de jure in Ireland.51 Colonel Maurice Moore, the Inspector-General of the National Volunteers, also emphasised the historic links of Ireland with the British Crown, when he pointed out that about nine hundred years previously the people of England and Ireland abandoned their native dynasties, Gaelic and Saxon, because, in Moore’s opinion, they were too often engaged in internecine wars. Instead they chose kings—Plantagenet, Tudor, Stuart, Orange, Hanoverian, and SaxeCoberg—from France, Wales, Scotland, Holland and Germany. Moore noted that this had not turned Englishmen into Germans or Irishmen into Englishmen, for it had been quite common for two separate countries to have the same king. The King of Hanover was once King of England, but when the direct male line of succession died out, and Queen Victoria became Queen of England, Hanover chose another king thereby dissolving the connection between England and Hanover. In 1603, James VI of Scotland became King of England, but England did not, for that reason, become a possession or colony of Scotland. Therefore, concluded Moore, ‘We must distinguish between England and its king’.52 Irish Party supporters argued that the pursuit of an Irish republic would only further alienate Irish Unionists from Irish selfgovernment by severing all links with the Empire. In achieving the freedom of Ireland, as Stephen Gwynn wrote: It must then be a freedom which Ireland will accept. To propose an Irish Republic is to put forward an ideal to which out of four and a quarter million Irishmen at least a million and a half —the Irish Protestant Unionists—will have nothing to say What is the use in talking about England? It was not England who stopped Home Rule coming into being. It was Ulster. Ulster is the real difficulty; not England. The core of the resistance is within our own shores; and our real task is to transform Ireland into a true unity from being what she is today—thanks to Mr de Valera—little more than a geographical expression.


England has given us the chance to do this. She should have given it earlier—but could she, before the war? What made it possible for Ulster to come to terms with us—what made it impossible for Ulstermen to maintain their previous attitude— was the action of those Irish Nationalists who went to the war…. What Willy [sic] Redmond saw as his goal—what he gave his life for gladly—was the unity of Ireland. What Mr de Valera and his friends have done and continue to do is to make that ideal ten times more difficult of attainment. Personally, I prefer infinitely for Ireland the position of a free State in the British Empire to that of a small independent State, such as Denmark is to-day. Many Nationalist Irishmen will agree with me in this—especially those who realise the conditions under which Denmark, for instance exists today…. Many will disagree. But the essential fact is that we can hope to unite Ireland on the former ideal—on the latter never.53 Nationalist and southern unionist rapprochement The rise of Sinn Fein threatened to undermine the Irish Party’s attempts at a rapprochement with Unionists through the experience of common sacrifice in the war. The rising and its aftermath, the partition proposals of July 1916, called into question the Irish Party’s claim that nationalists who had enlisted in the British army would help secure home rule. Critics of the Irish Party pointed out that these men had enlisted to preserve Ireland whole and unpartitioned; as J.O’Connor Power put it, ‘The brave young fellows rushed to the recruiting offices in tens of thousands; most of whom now sleep their last sleep in the bloodstained fields of Europe. They did not offer up their lives for a mutilated Ireland…. I ask, is faith not to be kept with the dead?’54 The sense of treachery was intense, as ‘A National Volunteer’ explained: From platform, window and housetop, we heard the members of the [Irish] Party, shouting…‘As sure as the rising of the summer sun, Home Rule will be the law of the land’. ‘Trust us the men who have steered the ship so far’. We listened patiently, and obeyed them—with what result?… On the declaration of war…we threw ourselves heart and soul on the side of the Allies, we raised three fighting divisions…. Why? Because the British Government had placed Home Rule on the Statute Book, and we looked forward to the managing of our own affairs…. Alas the words Broken Treaty appear on the


horizon, and are all our hopes to be dashed to the ground? To us…rank and file the blame must primarily be laid thence to the men we gave so much power as leaders who held the Government in the hollow of their hands for years, but would not ‘embarrass it’…. Oh that Parnell were alive. He would not fear to demand his right; he would not be satisfied that the demand of nine-tenths of the Irish people should be flouted by the British.55 The growth of this perception among many in the nationalist community had dangerous consequences for the Irish Party’s entire pro-war strategy. T.M.Kettle’s view was that, having mixed with Englishmen and Protestant Ulstermen in the British army’s ranks, ‘there is no real or abiding reason for the gulfs…that now dismember the natural alliance of both of them with us Irish Nationalists’.56 The blood sacrifice of Nationalists like Kettle (who was killed in action on the Somme in October 1916) and Major Willie Redmond MP, presented an alternative form of sacrifice for Ireland which the Irish Party and its supporters believed had brought Catholics and Protestants together. Captain Stephen Gwynn argued: Pearse and his followers brought to Ireland, not merely war, but civil war and hatred…like a pestilence. The old ditch which divided us is deepened, new blood flows in it, but Willie Redmond and those who died like him, gave their bodies to bridge that gulf. Their example preached fellowship and brotherhood, not to Ireland only, and not only between Irishmen. It is for Ireland to weigh the issue…to decide a course. Is it to follow Pearse, who risked and lost his life without hope of immediate success, in order to revive in Ireland an ancient war? Or will it adhere to Willie Redmond, who risked and lost his life in the hope that through foreign war Ireland might at least reach an honourable peace.57 Gwynn attempted to restore the sacrifices of the Nationalist soldiers in the trenches to the forefront of political debate in Ireland. His interest was chiefly that the work of these soldiers for Ireland, in Flanders, Gallipoli, Serbia and Mesopotamia, should not be ‘neutralised, cancelled and blotted out’ back home. Second, his interest reflected a concern that the sacrifices made, the hardships borne, the dangers faced and those lives ended, should be met with some reward and ‘the only rewards that signify are honour, welcome and gratitude here at home in Ireland…. But the rewards


in Ireland’s present temper, seem far enough away’. Responding to the widely held view that Pearse and his associates had created a great opportunity for winning full home rule and that the Irish Party were betraying the people’s trust, Gwynn asked the nationalist community to consider what the implications of this view were: You cannot walk at the same time backward and forward. If you accept as a service to Ireland what the Sinn Feiners did, then you must set down the work of the Irish soldiers as a disservice. The only thing in common between these two bodies of men was their willingness to risk their lives in pursuit of the ideal they believed in. Both had sincerity and courage, and both loved Ireland. In every other respect they were opposite. What one did the other strove to undo. The first shots that the Sinn Feiners fired in action were flred against a battalion of young Irish troops, Nationalist almost to a man. Ireland has to be on one side or the other; she cannot claim in respect of both. She must be for her soldiers and against her rebels, or for her rebels and regarding her soldiers as ‘mercenaries of a foreign power’. Gwynn claimed that for every Sinn Feiner involved in the rising there were fifty Irish Party supporters in the trenches, and it was this fact and its recognition that had rendered the offer of home rule in 1916 possible. Had it not been for Redmond’s Commons speech in August 1914 and the response of thousands of young Irishmen, no English minister could have come to Parliament to set up an immediate Irish government. Yet it was said that the proposal was made only because the Sinn Feiners had risen in rebellion. Gwynn asked if anyone could really believe that if there had been no Home Rule Act on the Statute Book, a rebellion in Ireland, allied to Germany, would have been met with an offer of home rule? Without the rebellion the Act would have come into operation at the end of the war, when the work of reconciliation, carried out by Irish soldiers, had gone through to unbroken accomplishment. In this scenario, home rule would not have been offered as an emergency war measure, as the least desperate way of establishing harmony after civil war, but as it should have been, when all hearts were uplifted with the joy of peace after the long misery of war. Gwynn warned: Ireland has felt intensely what happened within her own doors, she has forgotten what has happened outside them;


she has given loose to the old resentment. It is a short step from this temper to the state of mind in which every soldier wearing the British uniform will be looked…at in the streets as a servant of the oppressor. How are you going to base a national claim on the services rendered by Irish soldiers if all your sympathy has been given to those who treated them as enemies and fired on them in fight? There is great pity and admiration for the young men who died in Dublin, bravely and dramatically. Of those who died overseas…there is little mention, little thought. When I think of my own dead, it is hard not to be indignant…. These Irishmen who did not share their dangers should at least bear them in mind, and consider when they shape their course how it is going to affect the men in the trenches. If it leads to an Ireland in which the soldier returning will find himself unwelcome, unregarded, unrewarded, then it will be a course unwise, because [it is] ungrateful to the truest patriots and best servants that Ireland has to-day.58 George Russell, a Sinn Fein supporter, also expressed his fears as to what sort of Ireland would emerge from the war. ‘AE’ created much public debate when he asked how Irishmen considered that they might live together in the future. The war would have a finale and thousands of Irishmen, pointed out Russell, would return to Ireland having faced death for ideals other than those which currently inspired thousands of Sinn Feiners in Ireland. How, he asked, were these to co-exist in the same island if there was no change of heart, for each would receive passionate support from their relatives, friends and parties. Ireland would be a most unhappy country if some ‘moral agreement’ could not be arrived at. Russell asked Ireland’s ‘national extremists’, the Sinn Feiners, in what mood they proposed to meet those who returned. For example, would these returning men endure being termed traitors to Ireland? Would their friends endure it? Would they who mourned their dead endure to hear scornful speech of those they loved? Russell did not believe that those who held to, or were upheld by, loyalty to the Empire could hope to coerce the millions clinging to Irish nationality; seven centuries of repression had left that spirit unshaken, and it could not be destroyed, unless the Irish people were destroyed because it sprang from ‘biological necessity’. If, as had been claimed, there had been two nations in Ireland, this was no longer the case, for the union of Norman, Dane, Saxon and Celt had, through centuries of work, produced one Irish character. Whatever views they might hold about the


relative values of national and imperial ideals, Irishmen had to recognise that there was a ‘moral equality’ between these two values where the sacrifice was equal; no one had more to give than one’s life, and when that was given, neither Irish Nationalist nor Imperialist could claim moral superiority for the dead champions of their cause. Russell hoped that, by respecting the sacrifice of opponents, it might be possible to create a new Irish nation: I myself am Anglo-Irish, with the blood of both races in me, and when the rising of Easter Week took place all that was Irish in me was profoundly stirred…. And then later there rose in memory the faces of others I knew who loved their country, but had died in other battles. They fought in those because they believed they would serve Ireland, and I felt these were no less my people. I could hold them also in my heart and pay tribute to them. Because it was possible for me to do so, I think it possible for others…in the hope that the deeds of all may in the future be a matter of pride to the new nation.59 The problem with establishing a ‘moral equality’ towards the Great War and the Easter Rising, between Redmondite and Sinn Feiner, Nationalist and Unionist, was the psychological gulf which existed between these ideals. W.F.A.Ellison, a Southern Unionist from Fethard-on-Sea, attacked Russell’s call for a ‘moral amnesty’ equating the sacrifice of the Easter rebels with those of Irish soldiers at the Front, calling it an insult to ‘every loyal heart in Ireland’. On that principle, declared Ellison, ‘the man who risks his life to commit burglary, piracy, or murder, ranks as a hero with him who risks his on the battlefield for his country’. Ellison asked if ‘AE’ realised with whom he was asking Unionists to shake hands— ‘the men who ostentatiously proclaim themselves the allies of the unspeakable Boche? Germany’s allies share Germany’s guilt…. Germany has on her hands the blood of women and children; and the men who tried to repeat her deeds on Irish soil, and to defile our island with the tread of German troops, are no men for clean people to shake hands with…a purified and repentant Sinn Fein we may shake hands with by-and-by—but not while they are unrepentant, and even now, perhaps, plotting fresh treason’.60 A Unionist’, supposing for argument’s sake that he were to admit to ‘AE’ ‘s view of the ‘men who murdered…unarmed policemen in Dublin’, asked if it would make the writer co-operate with those who wished to see Ireland an independent nation in alliance with Germany. ‘No’, he answered, believing that ‘there is not one nation in Ireland; there are two. The war had drawn them apart as nothing


else could; and I am thankful that I belong to the nation of the North, which has heroically resolved to put all local considerations aside for the moment and to do its utmost for the cause of King and…Empire’.61 Another Southern Unionist, Ester Thompson, mused that it was characteristically Irish that ‘AE’, while basing his plea for an Irish settlement on Irish nationalist sentiment, had denied any settlement to the ‘other fellow’, by ignoring the Irish loyalist’s passionate devotion to the British Crown and Constitution. Thompson concluded that the ‘two peoples in Ireland speak a different spiritual language’.62 Professor W.Alison Philips, of Trinity College Dublin, took issue with ‘AE’ ’s reference to the ‘foolish dream’ that there should be ‘uniformity of character and civilisation between Irishmen and Englishmen’; Alison Philips claimed that this appeared to assume that such uniformity was the aim of those who desired to preserve a close political association between them. If he believed that the ‘British idea’, like the German, involved the imposition of one particular type of civilisation on all the Empire’s constituent nations, then Alison Philips declared that he would not be among its supporters; but any such assumption was refuted by the very character and condition of Great Britain, never mind the Empire, where not one of the three nationalities—English, Scots and Welsh—had sacrificed its particular character and civilisation as a result of close political union with the others. Doubtless they had been influenced by each other but, claimed Alison Philips, they had equally retained their own peculiar characteristics, languages, customs and traditions. He doubted if even ‘AE’ would have the courage to ‘tell a Scotsman to his face that the Union had turned him into an Englishman. I myself am Anglo-Scots with the blood of both races in me, [and] all that is Scots in me would be tempted to commit assault and battery. The Irish part of me would, I presume, remain neutral’.63 While Unionists rejected Sinn Fein’s definition of national identity, there had been, for many Unionists in the South at least, a reassessment of the Irish Party’s relationship to British imperialism. This evolved throughout the war, so that by the time of Willie Redmond’s death at the Somme in 1917, J.H.Bernard, now Archbishop of Dublin, in a memorial address to the fallen Irish Party MP, praised those Nationalists who had enlisted: Major Willie Redmond MP, of the Royal Irish Regiment; Captain Stephen Gwynn MP, of the Connaught Rangers; John Redmond’s son William, of the Irish Guards; Dr Alan Esmonde, who joined the Royal Auxiliary Military Corps and had died at camp; his son, Captain Esmonde, who had succeeded his father as MP for Tipperary; the late


T.M.Kettle; and Captain Sheehan, an O’Brienite member for midCork, all of whom had proved that ‘their views on questions of Irish domestic policy were fully consistent with loyalty to the Crown’. All those MPs, said Bernard, represented political views which did not commend themselves fully to many of the speaker’s friends, or indeed himself, but ‘when it came to fighting for your country, King, and Empire they [the Irish Party MPs] were on their side, “and we were on theirs”. (Applause)’. This appreciation was followed by an even more extraordinary speech, considering its source, from the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, Sir James Campbell, a previously implacable diehard opponent of Nationalism; Campbell explained how: It was not by his former political life and career that Major Redmond had…laid the foundation of the affection and respect that was entertained throughout the length and breadth of Ireland for his memory. It was for his action since the war. From the day the war broke out Major Willie Redmond never looked back. He at once realised what was the path of honour and duty for all his fellow-countrymen: and from that day he, like many others who found themselves faced with the momentous realities of this dreadful war and its tremendous possibilities, entertained the honest conviction that in their past years, they had spent too much time in accentuating the points on which they differed, while they overlooked the many points of agreement. (Applause).64 The Irish Times agreed with Campbell that the Irish soldiers had to come home to something other than the ‘dry bones of old religious and political controversies. They have clean forgotten those controversies on the field of war, and we must do all that lies in us to make the amnesty perpetual…. In their death our soldiers would create a new Ireland’.65 In the opinion of the Irish Times, Major Redmond had seen that ‘the road to Irish unity and progress led through the narrow gates of sacrifice’, and in his three years as a soldier he had done ‘more to bring Irishmen together than all our politicians had done in the thirty years before his death’.66 Fundamental to this rapprochement between sections of Southern Unionism and Irish Nationalism was the former’s belief in the sincerity of Redmond and his supporters’ declarations of loyalty to the King and his Empire. The Proclamation of the Republic struck at the heart of this allegiance and the British


identity of all Unionists. In Ulster, after the Easter Rising, the Fermanagh Times had exclaimed: It is just as we have affirmed time after time…an ‘Irish Republic’ with which the authorities will for the future have to deal…. The golden cord of the Crown is to be severed. Away with the Sassanach, Ireland for the Irish—these are the things that alone concern the masses now…. The demand for an Irish Republic that now dominates the [Dublin] city mobs…is being taken up…from the centre to the circumference… ‘Saxon curs’, ‘Saxon dogs’, ‘Saxon brutes’ were the phrases with which…the city populace refreshed itself…. Well, after all, it is better so. The real sentiments that pervade the patriots may yet filter into the dense understandings of the British electorate. It will be a slow process for we have no high opinion of the penetrability of the average brain across the Channel.67 All Unionists totally rejected Sinn Fein’s hostility to Ireland’s participation in the war and allegiance to the British Crown. Considering Darrel Figgis’ Catechism, Hugh de Fellenburg Montgomery, taking it section by section, argued: An Irishman may give his ‘true and best service’ to Ireland in many ways, but Ireland not being a nation in the sense in which England, Scotland, France, Spain &c…are nations this talk of loyalty to Ireland is essentially nonsense…still more obviously nonsense is the statement that a man belonging to one country cannot be loyal to another country to whom he is bound by honour or by interest to be loyal. At the present time every Englishman is bound to be loyal to France, Italy, America, Belgium, Serbia &c, and every Frenchman is bound to be loyal to England, Italy, America &c, and so forth. Irishmen are not asked to be loyal to England; they are required to be loyal to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, of which they are de facto and de jure citizens and subjects. It would however be perfectly reasonable to ask any Irishman to be loyal to England, because it is in his interest to be loyal to England, England being his best and chief customer for everything he produces…. The fact that certain Irishmen are found who desire to rebel, with the object of breaking up the Union between the three kingdoms, does not contradict the fact that Ireland was conquered and partly


settled by the conquerors, so that a very large proportion of the present inhabitants of Ireland are descendants of English and Scotch settlers, who had just as much right, and just as little right, to possess themselves of the land of those who were conquered and excluded [from the land] as the so-called Celts or Gaels, who were so excluded[,] had a few centuries previously to possess themselves of the land occupied by previous possessors, who were conquered and excluded by the Gaels. The Irishman who is loyal to the Crown and Constitution of the United Kingdom is no more open to the reproach of being a slave than a Scotchman or a Welshman who is loyal to that Crown and Constitution, or a Breton or a Provincial or a Burgundian who is loyal to France or a French Canadian who is loyal to the Dominion.68 As Gwynn had realised, those Unionists who felt that it was possible to reach an accommodation with Nationalists did so upon the basis that the latter would pledge allegiance to the British Crown. For example, H.G.Leahy, a Southern Unionist from Carrigies, Killarney, in summing up his own reassessment of the relationship between Unionists and Irish Party supporters, explained how he: never subscribed to Nationalist policy up to 1914, for the reason that he wrongly credited the exponents with disloyalty to the Crown. Since 1914 the most prominent Nationalists, as well as those of humbler degree, have proved their loyalty by giving their nearest and dearest to die for their king and country. The Crown in Ireland has had in the past to bear the odium of every law and act passed or committed by the party Government of the day, and many such laws run counter to public opinion in Ireland. Prosecutions under such laws accentuate the feeling among the simpler of the people that it is the Crown that enacts them. When the people show resentment there is sure to be some loud-voiced orator who inveighs against the Crown, when he is really voicing discontent at laws made by a party majority of men who do not understand Ireland, whose decisions under the terms of the British Constitution become laws under the authority of the Crown…. It is oftimes forgotten that the United Kingdom is that of Great Britain and Ireland, that his Majesty is King of Ireland, and that while no sensible Irishman desires to see… Ireland severed from the British Empire…yet they do most


earnestly desire to see her fiscally and legislatively as independent as Canada, Australia.69 Such reappraisals occurred almost exclusively among Southern Unionists, who, geographically isolated from Ulster Unionists and widely dispersed throughout the Southern provinces, were faced with the real prospect of the implementation of some form of home rule. An early example of Southern Unionist co-operation with Nationalists, to promote the compatibility of Irish Nationalism with British Imperialism, occurred in early 1917, when a committee was formed representing the opinion of ‘Independent Nationalists’, such as Colonel Maurice Moore, George Russell, Edward Lysaght, Irish Party supporter James MacNeill, and Unionists such as Sir Algernon Coote, His Majesty’s Lieutenant for Queen’s County, and Colonel Sir Nugent Everard, His Majesty’s Lieutenant for County Meath. The committee issued a memorandum, addressed to all Irish MPs, ‘Concerning the Present and Future Relations of Great Britain and Ireland in the Empire’. The committee felt that the greater the limitations upon the powers delegated to an Irish government, the greater would be the prospect of future irritation which might tempt Irishmen to organise for absolute separation from the British Crown and Empire. Therefore, any new form of Irish self-government should have powers wide enough to remove such a contingency. Their demand was for a measure of self-government commensurate with that enjoyed by the British Dominions. The committee accepted that the legal sovereignty of the Imperial Parliament over the whole British Empire, vested in a parliament representing only the British electorate, would continue to remain an anomaly, and possibly a danger to Irish freedom; but, if Imperial Federation was ever to become a question of practical politics, the committee held that the right of English politicians to dominate imperial and international affairs would have to be abrogated, with England contenting herself with a subordinate parliament of her own, and allowing the imperial sovereignty of Westminster to be transferred to a Council of Empire in which Ireland and the Dominions would be strongly represented, England no longer being predominant. Employing the traditional Nationalist interpretation of Ireland’s unjust economic treatment under the Union, the memorandum proceeded to address the question of Ireland’s unfair taxation, declaring that Ireland demanded that the 1914 Home Rule Act should be radically altered so as to give her control over taxation, customs, excise and trade policy. As to the issue of an Irish imperial contribution, Ireland was willing to do its share towards


imperial defence, but was not willing to allow millions of pounds to be raised in Ireland and spent outside Ireland for the benefit of Britain. The committee argued: There are two forms of government: a people may be governed by force: or they may govern themselves on their own responsibility…. England must trust Ireland, and must give Ireland proof that she herself is to be trusted, or she will never gain Irish friendship…. A constitution somewhat similar to that of South Africa or Canada would give peace, happiness and we believe prosperity to Ireland. Ireland is a nation but Irishmen will welcome a Commonwealth of the Empire, governed by a Council representing the Dominions as well as the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland; they would enter and give their loyalty to such a scheme, and contribute to the best of their power to the defence of such a commonwealth of free nations.70 As many Unionists admitted, not all that Sinn Fein represented was anathema to them. Its doctrine of self-reliance appeared attractive to many Unionists. The Bishop of Meath was careful to explain that Sinn Fein’s motto ‘Ourselves Alone’ [sic] admitted of an interpretation which doubtless attracted the higher type of patriot: the name stood for the cultivation of the spirit of self-reliance, which gave expression to a larger and more inclusive sense of brotherhood, and to a determination to make the best of themselves by developing the industrial, intellectual and spiritual resources of Ireland to the highest point. ‘Are not these’, the Bishop asked, ‘the ideals for which every true hearted Irishman, of whatever creed or class, should strive and pray?’71 But, what he and other Unionists could not accept was Sinn Fein’s claim for an Irish republic. One Southern Unionist, and regular Irish Times correspondent, Dudley Fletcher of Portarlington, believed that if Sinn Feiners would give up their ‘irritating and impracticable’ talk about an Irish republic there was much in their principles which would win Irish Protestant sympathy. Protestantism was, he stated, essentially a Sinn Fein movement, a protest against an undue and oppressive imperialism, a struggle for the rights of the individual, as well as the rights of small nations. Fletcher acknowledged that the great problem for the post-war peace conference would be to reconcile imperial unity with the rights, freedoms and local patriotism of small nationalities, and that, to a large extent, British imperialism had tried for centuries to suppress Irish nationality and to Anglicise Ireland. As a ‘Protestant Sinn Feiner in the


broadest sense of the term’ he ventured to offer a sovereign preventative against undue Anglicisation; but he opposed Sinn Fein’s republicanism on the grounds that it would be ‘fatal to the interests both of Ireland…Great Britain, and…the Empire’.72 Fletcher argued that Ireland and Britain had been united under the same sovereign for 750 years, and if this did not confer prescriptive rights then he found it hard to say what did. He believed that anyone who questioned the authority of the British Crown in Ireland had also to question the Papal Tiara, for both went hand and glove together in the annexation of Ireland.73 He accused de Valera of creating disunion between Britain and Ireland, making a deadly thrust at the vitals of the Empire—an ‘immoral’ act to the Colonies—and of raising an issue which could admit no compromise.74 Loyalty to the Crown was a fundamental principle for Irish Protestants who were ‘trained in an atmosphere of Imperial loyalty. Every Sunday they are taught to pray for the King, the Royal Family, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Cabinet and the Imperial Parliament’, and it was disloyalty that was the main cause of keeping North and South apart.75 ‘That there is such a thing as true Irish nationality’ reflected Fletcher: is manifest to any Irishman who has travelled abroad. In other lands…one learns that an Irishman is an Irishman, no matter what his name…creed or politics…. He discovers in other Irishmen a psychology close to his own, which he fails to find amongst those of other nations. Whatever he may call himself at home, an Irishman is an Irish Nationalist abroad. The questions which divide us at home, to the Irishman abroad become submerged in the deep love which fills his heart for anything and everything Irish. This common love for our country must form the bridge across the Boyne, which will unite the Northern Imperialist with the Southern Nationalist.76 If one were to ask the question of whether England, Scotland and Wales were also nations, Fletcher answered that they were. Yet the populations of these three countries were not a bit less of mixed origin than that of Ireland. The fact that Irish people had Celtic, Danish, French, Norman, English, Scots and Welsh blood in their veins did not prove that Ireland was not a nation; but the fact was that Ireland was a divided nation in a sense that England, Scotland and Wales were not, the main line of division being the attitude towards Great Britain. Fletcher predicted that if the question of its relationship with Great Britain could be settled, then Ireland could become a united nation in the full sense, like England, Scotland


and Wales. Those he called the ‘Gaelic Irish’ had to make it plain that they loyally accepted Ireland’s position in the British Empire, while those he termed the ‘British Irish’ had to make it equally plain that they were inspired by a genuine and enlightened Irish patriotic spirit, and were willing to place their time, talents and energies at their country’s service.77 Many Southern Unionists believed that the common Irishness of Unionists and Nationalists could form the basis for a compromise if the republicanism of Sinn Fein was dispensed with. In the Church of Ireland Gazette, an ‘Anglo-Irishman’, in early 1917, emphasised a common cultural Irishness when he asked other Unionists to recognise that the present merits of the Union were not called into question by a recognition that Irish history consisted of protest and resistance to a monstrous political aggression and economic oppression in earlier centuries. Englishmen, argued the writer, were not invited to be loyal to the United Kingdom, but first to England, their own nationality, not a political collaboration of nations. He asked if Irishmen were to be submitted to a different test of loyalty, holding that the ‘authentic flower of Irish loyalty to the community of nations which is the Empire can blossom only from a native soil; it must have its roots in Ireland and in Irish history’.78 This would involve Irish Unionists declaring, as did Lord Meath in 1918, ‘I am an Imperialist, it is true, but I am an Irishman first and an Imperialist afterwards’.79 As the Bishop of Ossory explained to worshippers in late 1917, accepting some form of home rule would involve a shift from Unionism to Loyalism which could be accommodated within an allegiance to the Crown, and, consequently, British subjectship: I want to reassure the minds of those who are uneasy on a certain point, namely, whether loyalty to the King will not be compromised by acquiescence in the new state of things…. Ireland is not going to be a Republic, any more than it was a Republic before the Union. If duly constituted authority gives Ireland a new form of government, the true loyalty is to accept it, and to do our very utmost to make a success of it. Loyalty to the Crown and Unionism are not necessarily equivalent terms. There was loyalty in Ireland before the Union—there was loyalty which vehemently deprecated the Union; and there can be loyalty still if the Union is legally dissolved…. Before the Union…Ireland was acknowledged as being one distinct Kingdom of several and not merely as a constituent part of one larger Kingdom…. The dissolution of the


Legislative Union does not mean either quitting the Empire or losing our King.80 Among senior Southern Unionists, Lord Monteagle believed that, in order to reach an accommodation with Nationalists, it was high time that Unionists faced the reality of the situation,81 and took counsel with Nationalists regarding the amending of the 1914 Home Rule Act.82 ‘The hostility of the Imperial connection must… be faced’, he wrote to J.H.Bernard, ‘but I know myself men who call themselves Sinn Feiners who are not irreconcilable. We s[houl] d shift them from the republicans+find out what w[oul]d reconcile them to the Empire’.83 Monteagle was willing to work with those who accept ‘our principles’, even if they hesitated to commit themselves publicly; this applied to Unionists who hesitated to admit that home rule was inevitable and Nationalists who hesitated to declare on the question of loyalty to King and Empire.84 Monteagle believed that to impose upon Ireland the principle of a federated United Kingdom, in which Ireland would be reduced to a provincial status thereby excluding the alternative of Dominion status for Ireland in a federated Empire, would destroy any chance of winning non-republican Sinn Feiners—the large majority he believed.85 For Unionists like Monteagle, the chief recommendation of Dominion status for Ireland was that ‘it would throw on the Irish people the undivided responsibility for working out their own salvation…. Self-reliance is the one point of contact between Sinn Feiners and Unionists and it should surely be made the most of’.86 Monteagle had not, for some time, been able to act with the Irish Unionist Association because, to him, they seemed to have turned their title upside down putting the ‘Unionist’ before ‘Irish’, and, for Monteagle, Ireland came first. He had come to realise that the Union had failed, but believed that a united Ireland would find that her best interests would lie in closer union with Britain than might presently be possible; but this had to be Ireland’s discovery. The adherence of Irish Unionists had been an instinctive clinging to Empire rather than to England. Now accepting the basic Nationalist argument that Ireland was, after all, an island, Monteagle believed that absolute incorporation into the United Kingdom, as in the case of Scotland and Wales, was a physical impossibility. Monteagle did not overmuch love the word Empire, preferring Commonwealth, and saw a sphere in the coming Ireland for the IUA if it became ‘Imperial’ without ceasing to be Irish.87 At a meeting of the Irish Constitution Committee in August 1916, he had argued:


It is…idle to ignore Home Rule being on the Statute Book… we have now a tabula rasa to consider what form of Home Rule is best for Ireland consistent with Imperial rather than merely British interests and at the same time the War has so magnified the Imperial factor…that it bids to transform the Imperial as well as the Irish problem…. Mr [Arthur] Balfour writing three years ago claimed that there were only two possibilities, the Union or Complete autonomy; Ireland remaining if she so desired, a self-governing colony within the Empire…many Irish Unionists would prefer the Colonial solution…. Mr Balfour admitted though only in passing that there was an arguable case for a large delegation of parliamentary powers to subordinate assemblies…if the two British parties…were to adopt the Federal principle for the Irish problem, we in Ireland must be prepared to discuss it in its various forms.88 In a similar vein, Lord Powerscourt saw as one of the causes of the Easter Rising a distinct tendency among some of the Irish upper classes to ridicule any outward signs of ‘national’ Ireland or sentimental Celtic manifestations, regarding them as unwarrantable, political or even disreputable. Powerscourt contended that this patriotic sentiment could not and should not be squashed, and, owing to neglect by the upper classes, it had fallen into the hands of ‘unprincipled’ organisers; but if this Irish national sentiment became ‘respectable’ and was organised by ‘respectable people’, who would introduce sound principles into it, it could be a great power for good in Ireland.89 In County Clare another Southern Unionist, Colonel O’CallaghanWestropp, hoped to see a ‘moderate’ or ‘Centre Party’ ruling in Ireland so as to convince Unionist Ulster to join in and also to provide a period of reconciliation and tolerance in the South of Ireland.90 He thought that the Sinn Fein gospel, as preached in the East Clare by-election, was essentially ‘national and non-party’, free from incitements to class or religious hatred, and referred to de Valera as ‘gallant, thoughtful and courteous and standing for the purest Nationality’. However, O’Callaghan-Westropp, as a King’s officer, had been unable to vote for a republican.91 His personal loyalty to the King remained, but subject to that he gave no further allegiance to Britain and its political factions.92 O’Callaghan-Westropp criticised those Nationalists and Southern Unionists who were unable to face facts and make the necessary ‘mental adjust ment’ to the inevitability of home rule. Irish political stability, he believed, could only be secured by a


combination of groups while the original Irish parties were recrystallising, the only hope for former Unionists being to attach themselves to the conservative elements of former Irish Party supporters and the ‘wiser’ Sinn Feiners. ‘This we can never hope to do on any other basis than being Irish, first, last, and all the time’ he concluded, for ‘Any trace of “holding a brief for England” or persisting in being the “English Garrison” in Ireland would damn us’.93 The concept of a ‘Centre Party’ was also central to Lord Midleton’s hopes for securing the position of Southern Unionists in a selfgoverning Ireland. Midleton had come to accept the inevitability of some form of home rule. As he told J.H.Bernard, in May 1917, it seemed to him that unless Redmond realised his own political weakness and was willing to concede to the ‘Loyalist Party’ such a position as would secure Ireland against the Sinn Fein majority, it would be factious of Great Britain to make any ‘temporary arrangement’ in Ireland. Surely, thought Midleton, no settlement could be anything but temporary except one that carried the whole of Ireland and gave a preponderant majority to the ‘loyal element’. In other words, ‘Redmond must rule in Ireland as Lloyd George [Prime Minister since January 1916] does in England, by Unionist votes, with such Nationalists as he can command’.94 Midleton envisaged some form of Imperial Federation following the war, in which a self-governing Ireland would be accommodated. Similarly, Sir James Campbell had predicted that great changes would result from the war, including the ‘inevitable’ reconstruction of the imperial system, and he expressed the hope that when this was done ‘a fitting place may be found in it for my own beloved country?…a position…worthy of her history, worthy of the traditional heroism of her sons on the field of battle, and at the same time consistent with the obligations of loyalty and patriotism’.95 As part of its advocation of a process of Irishisation, the Church of Ireland Gazette argued that ‘Irish National Ideals’ or cultural concepts, could be the property of Unionists, Nationalists and Sinn Feiners, by which it meant the aspiration towards making Ireland a ‘better and happier country, materially and spiritually, than she is’. The Gazette believed that the weakness of the Church of Ireland, since the Reformation, had been that it seemed far more the Church of England in Ireland, and to rectify that weakness it had to iden tify with Ireland’s distinctively national history and literature. ‘We believe’, it argued, ‘that our Church…must…strike her roots deep into the soil of Ireland, and that she must discard that attitude of suspicion and aloofness from Irish national ideals’.96


But, the problem for Unionists who advocated this course was that ‘Irish national ideals’ were likely to stimulate widespread opposition from many sections of Irish Unionism. W.F.A.Ellison, replying in the same journal, attacked the whole concept, asking what were ‘Irish National Ideals’. The term meant different things to the Unionist Ulsterman, Redmondite and Sinn Feiner. To the Ulsterman it meant ‘The Union, the whole Union, and nothing but the Union’; to the Redmondite it was ‘Self-Government within the Empire’; and to the Sinn Feiner it was an Irish republic.97 ‘Rusticus’, again, in the Gazette, pointed out that it was possible for the zealous Sinn Feiner, as well as the Redmondite and Unionist, to claim to aspire to a better, happier Ireland, each according to their own ideals.98 There was no consensus on what ‘Irish National Ideas’ meant. As the Reverend H.C.Lyster, who had first used the phrase ‘Irish National Ideals’ in 1917, stated, he had not meant aspirations towards making Ireland a ‘better and happier place’, but rather the emphasising of Ireland’s separate nationhood, which did not mean, as Sinn Feiners did, the ‘objectionable’ practice of referring to Englishmen and Scotsmen as foreigners, the attempts to revive Gaelic as a spoken language, and the compelling of the Irish people to play only Irish games; these, he had felt, were of no interest to the majority of the Church of Ireland’s members, they being of Anglo-Saxon, not Gaelic stock.99 Ulster Unionist perceptions of nationalists and the war If the diversity of the above debate illustrates the psychological and ideological problems which Unionists faced in trying to accommodate the Irishness of Nationalists, it became equally apparent that Ulster Unionists refused to countenance any psychological accommodation with the concept of an Irish nation which might have a separate existence from the United Kingdom, even if it was within the British Empire. The Ulster Unionists’ conception of the state was central to their definition of the nation. As Edward Stanley Robertson, originator of the phrase ‘The Whole Union and Nothing but the Union’, stated, in 1917: Ireland never was a political unit, and therefore never was a Nation. The phrase ‘National Ideals’ is wholly inapplicable to Ireland. As an island of course, she is a geographical unit; but a geographical unit is not a Nation. Nobody would call Sicily a Nation, or say that she has ever been a nation; yet Sicily is an


island, inhabited by a population of common descent, and speaking a common language. Ireland is an island, and its people, before Strongbow, may be said to have spoken a common language…. I am willing…to accept the popular belief in the community of race and of tongue; what I cannot get over is the diversity of political sovereignty. Ulster, Munster, Leinster, Connaught and Meath were distinct political units. It is true that every now and then some prince or other claimed to be King of All Ireland; but not one of them —not even Brian Boru himself—ever really exercised sovereign power…. That is why I deny that Nationality has any claim to be an Irish ideal. The geographical, non-political unit called Ireland never was a nation. For seven hundred years…it has been a dependency of England. Scotland, though not a geographical unit, was a political unit…. Though there are Scottish ideals, Home Rule and Repeal of the Union are not among them. What is good enough for Mac ought to be good enough for O’—at least, so I think; and my name will tell you that I am Scottish by race, though Irish by birth and residence.100 Asking ‘what constitutes a nation?’, the Belfast News-Letter agreed that if Ireland were to be allowed to self-determine itself out of the United Kingdom, then why should not Ulster self-determine itself out of Ireland? If the principle of self-determination were accepted absolutely it would mean the break-up of every state in the world, warned the News-Letter, and constant wars between minorities and majorities everywhere. Thus there could be no absolute right of self-determination, and if the right was not absolute then it did not exist at all. Ireland, for example, had not the right to become independent because it was not a nation but a part of a nation, the British nation, and since Ireland’s claim to home rule depended upon the Imperial Parliament and the United Kingdom’s electorate, that authority and no other had the right to define the powers to be granted.101 J.R.Fisher claimed that too much should not be made of Ulster’s argument for ‘self-determination’, since this had always been used by Unionists as a ‘second line of defence’. His own view was that if the British people in Parliament assembled accepted that Ireland, owing to religious, racial, historical and social reasons, had a right to separate treatment from England, then Ulster had the right to claim separate treatment from the rest of Ireland. Previously the argument had been used simply as a reductio ad absurdum, but recently it had come into practical politics as an alternative to civil


war and disaster; ‘We have never asked for it or accepted it for its own sake’, Fisher maintained.102 The reason for this was, as the News-Letter pointed out, ‘Ireland was not a nation, but part of a nation—the United Kingdom’.103 The only way to keep Ireland united, said the News-Letter, was to maintain the Union, and so it rejected any resurgence of ‘the national idea…of a nation’s soul’ on the grounds that Unionists were ‘not Irish Republicans, but loyal British subjects. Their nation is the United Kingdom. This does not mean that they are not patriotic Irishmen, but only that they have a clearer view of what is good for their country than their opponents’.104 The News-Letter rejected the Nationalist claim of separate British and Irish nations, claiming ‘there are no British and Irish nations; there is one nation—the United Kingdom—and there would be no Irish question if the Nationalists accepted the principle that the [British national] majority should govern’.105 The Southern Unionist, Lord Oranmore and Browne, understood this when, assessing Lord Londonderry’s support for partition, he explained the latter’s advocacy as ‘not because he [Londonderry] loves Ireland less, but because he loves the United Kingdom more’.106 As Hugh Pollock told Irish Nationalists: Do not appeal to what you call national sentiment; our national sentiment is just as strong as yours, though, perhaps we are more phlegmatic than you, we do not carry our hearts upon our sleeves. Don’t speak to us of national ideals; our ideals are just as lofty as yours. You desire that our country shall have a seat in the Olympus of nations; so do we, but we imagine a glorious union of Englishmen, Irishmen and Scotchmen sitting in the seats of the mighty and together moulding the destinies of the world.107 Hugh de Fellenburg Montgomery warned Southern Unionists who were contemplating accepting home rule that ‘If the choice is forced upon them…of saying which Union they attach more importance to, they will be bound to say that strong as the ties are which attach them to the rest of Ireland, the ties which attach them to Great Britain are stronger, and if one set of ties has to be severed they would regretfully decide that it must be the Irish ties’.108 Sir James Stronge wrote that in understanding the Ulster Unionist perspective it had to be remembered that by far the larger part of Ulster had, throughout history, been more closely associated with the Clyde in Scotland than with the Liffey and the Shannon in Ireland, and he believed that history and geography had rendered a permanent separation between Ulster and Scotland


impossible. Stronge explained that ‘For myself…I still believe that the people of the British Isles form one nation. But, if they should ever become two nations, I prefer to remain a Briton even at the cost of ceasing to be an Irishman’.109 He warned that ‘there is serious risk that…such Irish feeling as remains among us may disappear. Many events in recent years have tended to weaken our connection with the rest of Ireland, and if it becomes clear that the majority of Southern Unionists desire our absorption into an Irish “Nation” our conversion into “West Britons” will be complete’.110 If any one event in the Great War might be selected as the moment which symbolised the psychological partition of Ulster Unionism from the rest of the island, it was probably the impact of the Battle of the Somme upon the Ulster Unionist psyche, and the Ulster Protestant community generally, coming as it did so soon after the Easter Rising. On 1 July 1916, the 36th (Ulster) Division, the bulk of which had been formed from the UVF, attacked German trenches over a fifteen-mile front of the Somme sector in France. During the next two days the Ulster Division suffered over 5,000 men killed, wounded and missing. The impact of these casualties on small towns and villages, and whole streets in Belfast, was enormous. The Northern Whig described how: There are aching hearts among those who still wait in mingled hope and dread for news, and over the whole body of the people there is a feeling of sad expectancy. Yet through it all there runs a thrill, we will not say of pride, rather it is of exhaltation, at the thought that the Ulster Loyalist stock has now added to its long record of soldier service to King and country such a glorious fighting episode. Let us all remember in our sadness and our sorrow the unique character of the Ulster Division. There never was, there probably never will be again, a Division of the Forces of the King that will parallel the Ulster Division in what we may term its family character. There is a oneness of mind and of purpose in the Division that is closer and more intimate than can probably exist in any other unit of our armies now in the field. It stands in these armies for the loyalists of Ulster as no other Division can stand or any other section of the United Kingdom. It typifies us in all that we cherish and stand for, and in all that we are in the eyes of the rest of the nation.111 Carson expressed, on his and his colleagues behalf, the pride and admiration for the ‘unparalleled acts of heroism and bravery’ which were carried out by the Ulster Division. They ‘have made the


supreme sacrifice for the Empire of which they were so proud with a courage, coolness and determination, in the face of the most trying difficulties, which have upheld the greatest traditions of the British Army’. The Lord Primate, the Most Reverend Dr Crozier, declared that ‘All Ireland is proud of the noble gallantry of the Ulster Division…. They are of the stock from which our heroes come and to whom our Empire owes so much—unconquered and unconquerable…. Their services for honour and truth, after they have passed on into the near presence of God, will never be forgotten’. As a correspondent from the Front wrote: The Ulstermen had a proud heritage, they have justified it to the letter and the spirit. When July comes to be celebrated in the future, when our hearts have been assuaged by the healing hand of time, we shall recall how Ulstermen fought for their King and Empire at this time; we shall remember that through the ordeal of fire and gas and poison our men passed, like their heroic forefathers. Derry’s famous cry of ‘No Surrender’ animated them; it was at once their watchword and their epitaph. We mourn the gallant dead; we glory in their bravery. The Empire has hundreds of thousands of gallant sons; it has none more devoted than those who have died so gloriously in this battle. Death for them held no terrors; they were in honour’s cause, and when hearts are bleeding in the Northern Province to-day there must be the consolation of remembering that just as our boys have suffered heavily, so have they won imperishable fame.112 The lesson drawn by many Unionists after the Easter Rising, when they compared their blood sacrifice for King and Country, was that of instinctive Nationalist disloyalty. The Ulster Unionist interpretation of Ireland’s role in the Great War was that ‘this war is Ireland’s war, as well as England’s or Scotland’s, all through to the end. The blood of our sons has fallen and is falling in no stinted flow on many a field in the defence of liberty and for the securing of peace and freedom to future generations’.113 In contrasting the Easter Rising with the Battle of the Somme, the Reverend R.S. Morrison, rector of St Saviour’s, Portadown, told a gathering of Orangemen in July 1916 how: A feeling of profound and heartfelt sorrow held chief place in their minds for their gallant and noble brothers who had made the supreme sacrifice for King and country…the bravest of the brave—whose splendid deeds and deathless glory


would ever shine resplendent on the pages of British history, whose names would be cherished in the hearts and affections of all loyal Ulstermen from generation to generation the world-wide over…Ulster was poor and weaker by their loss, but gloriously rich and stronger by the memorial of invaluable service so willingly rendered, and involving such costly selfsacrifice to our Empire in her hour of greatest need. Whatever the future might hold for the Empire their sacrifice had not been made in vain…. The Sinn Fein rebellion…in the midst of such a national crisis…was an irrefutable impeachment of the Nationalist…party…which no Loyalist Britisher would ever forget…. To talk of a future compromise arrived at by the patriotic Irishmen who have fought side by side on the banks of the Somme, and whose forefathers fought against each other on the banks of the Boyne, was the dream of a visionary.114 Conclusion The revamped Sinn Fein contained deep divisions regarding what form an independent Irish state should take, whether it should be a Britannic dominion, a sovereign independent Irish kingdom, or an Irish republic. The growth of Irish republicanism, in particular, meant the rise of an ideology diametrically opposed to the Irish Unionist concept of Irishness, rejecting as it did British subjectship as central to Irish national identity In contrast, the Irish Party realised that any accommodation with Irish Unionism would have to be on the basis of Nationalists pledging allegiance to the British Crown, so that this meant that if Unionists had to surrender the Union it would not involve them abandoning their Britishness, as the link with the Crown would continue and also their status as British subjects. However, this would mean a reappraisal of their Irishness and the emphasis they attached to it. In short, although they would cease to be Unionists, they would remain Loyalists and Imperialists as elsewhere in the Empire. To survive in a new home rule Ireland, Southern Unionists realised that they would have to put the interests of Ireland first, at the expense of British imperial interests. It was clear, therefore, that if Southern Unionists were going to reach an ideological and psychological accommodation with Nationalists, this was only going to occur on a common acceptance of allegiance to the Crown and a Nationalist acceptance of Ireland’s place within the Empire. To embrace the republicanism of some of those within Sinn Fein was a psychological leap which Unionists were unwilling to make.


The rise of Sinn Fein also threatened the second pillar of the Irish Party’s policy of rapprochement with Unionism—the prorecruiting policy. Indeed, many Southern Unionists did take hope from the sacrifice of many Nationalists in the war. The blood sacrifice of men such as Willie Redmond and Tom Kettle demonstrated to many Southern Unionists that Nationalists were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for their King and Country, if they were given a stake in the wider imperial project. Stephen Gwynn and his Irish Party colleagues recognised that it was this blood sacrifice which had the greatest positive impact on the attitude of many Southern Unionists towards Irish selfgovernment. However, for Ulster Unionists the sacrifice of the 36th (Ulster) Division at the Battle of the Somme, symbolised their sacrifice for King and Country, in contrast to the treachery of Nationalists exhibited by the Easter Rising. The psychological intensity of this offering represented Protestant Ulster’s formal consecration of its communion within the British nation.

196

Chapter 6 The Irish Convention and the conscription crisis, 1917–18

The Irish Convention In the middle of 1917, the British Government proposed a convention of Irishmen with terms of reference to produce a form of Irish self-government ‘within the Empire’. This proposal gave the Irish Party a chance to escape from its post-rising position of political impotence. In January 1917, T.P.O’Connor had come to the conclusion that the proposed post-war Imperial Conference might be the Irish Party’s only hope of salvation.1 Stephen Gwynn feared that if the chance of utilising the Conference were lost there was ‘nothing ahead but sheer disaster!’2 O’Connor attempted to revive interest in an old idea put forward by H.E.Duke, the new Chief Secretary for Ireland, of referring the Irish Question to some external body such as a Statutory Commission. O’Connor hoped that if the idea was put forward by the Government it would allow the Irish Party to be free from all responsibility for it, enabling them to criticise it freely. O’Connor had come to the conclusion that the Irish Question could no longer be settled on the floor of the House of Commons, and he accepted that it was impossible for Lloyd George to bully Carson and the Ulster Unionists into accepting a unitary Irish parliament, first because he did not think Lloyd George would do it, and second because it was more than doubtful that the Prime Minister could do it even if he tried, for this would almost certainly mean the breakup of the Coalition Government. O’Connor believed that any attempt at a settlement on the basis of the 1916 negotiations was also out of the question, and he refused to be party to any Ulster county’s exclusion from home rule without a plebiscite, although he thought it would be foolish, perhaps even disastrous, to propose a county plebiscite in Ireland’s present temper. However, if there were county plebiscites, with Nationalists getting Fermanagh and Tyrone, O’Connor speculated that ‘startling’ results might follow

198 THE IRISH CONVENTION AND CONSCRIPTION

and ‘even the sparky fabric [of Ulster Unionist opposition to home rule] might come to the ground’. Despite his optimism, O’Connor remained strongly of the opinion that Ulster Unionists could not be coerced into home rule, or that Carson and his supporters would agree to Ulster’s inclusion in an Irish parliament unless it came indirectly from an extra-parliamentary body.3 For Ulster Unionists the Irish Convention provided a dilemma. The Church of Ireland Bishop of Down feared that if Redmondites were to attend the proposed convention, and Ulster Unionists boycotted it, a home rule scheme which seemed plausible to England might be produced, with the British political parties insisting upon Ulster’s acceptance.4 In contrast, following the South Longford by-election victory for Sinn Fein, Sir James Stronge felt that while Ulster could hardly be asked to accept home rule when they knew they would be accepting an Irish republic,5 he also realised that if British public opinion became convinced that Ulster was unreasonably barring progress, then no previous Lloyd George speech would be able to save Unionists from being ‘thrown over’.6 Hugh de Fellenburg Montgomery voiced his concern that the Irish Convention’s terms of reference, when coupled with the rise of Sinn Fein, made the creation of even a twenty-six county Irish parliament a manifestly greater danger to the defence of the realm than on the previous occasions when home rule was mooted, although he conceded that it improved the political position of Ulster Unionism by reason of the split amongst their Nationalist foes. He warned that if Ulster Unionists went into a conference under terms of reference binding them to help frame a home rule scheme, they would be seen to be on the run as well as doing what they were convinced was wrong. De Fellenburg Montgomery argued that it had to be open to their representatives, not only to insist on the exclusion of the six counties if home rule was carried against them, but also to advocate the maintenance of the Union for all Ireland, with such modifications as the abolition of the Lord Lieutenant.7 In response, Sir Edward Carson counselled de Fellenburg Montgomery that his fears were more apparent than real; the fact was, Carson maintained, that the 1914 Act was on the Statute Book and its repeal was not regarded as possible. This granted, the Ulster Unionist representatives would have to go to the Irish Convention instructed: 1 To secure a position for Ulster which shall be compatible with the principles for which we stand.

THE IRISH CONVENTION AND CONSCRIPTION 199

2 To secure the acceptance by the other side of as ample safeguard as possible for the Unionist minority under the Irish Parliament. 3 In view of the fact that the principle of Home Rule for Ireland has now become the law of the land—to endeavour if they think fit to secure that any form of Home Rule which is put into operation, shall be the best possible in the interest of Ireland and Great Britain, and free from the defects of the… Act of 1914, apart from the obnoxious principle of that Act which is beyond recall. The fact that Ulster was resolutely opposed to home rule in any form did not, in Carson’s opinion, preclude Ulster Unionists from considering what form of home rule was the best for Ireland, if it was taken for granted that some form of home rule was inevitable, although the first care of Ulster would continue to be the establishment of its own position. Above all, it had to be remembered that under the 1914 Act, Ulster was ‘included’, and remained so until some compromise was agreed upon.8 In the end, Ulster Unionists felt that they had little option but to enter the Irish Convention. However, as Sir John Lonsdale (who had replaced Carson as leader of the Irish Unionist Parliamentary Party since the latter had once again entered government) warned the House of Commons, the Ulster delegates would not be able to bind the ‘Ulster people’ to the proposals put forward by the Prime Minister, as they had always undertaken to lay any proposals before the UUC, which would make the final decision.9 De Fellenburg Montgomery recommended, as a member of the UUC Advisory Committee to the Ulster Unionist delegates, that they should adopt the tactic of ‘laying low’ on the question of partition, and object to any decision about it, as it would be wrong to decide the partition question until the delegates had heard details of every possible form of home rule; ‘in short we should play the game so as to make the various factions of Home Rulers put all their cards on the table before we play ours’. De Fellenburg Montgomery still retained considerable confidence in the survival of the legislative union with Great Britain, even if the Irish Convention succeeded, on the grounds that: (1) A self-governed Ireland cannot be governed without Ulster, Ulster will not submit to be included and Ulster cannot be coerced. (2) No such form of Home Rule as is embodied in the present Act, can satisfy so called National aspirations, any form of


Government which would satisfy such aspirations would be too obviously dangerous to the Empire to be agreed to. (3) Last and not least the R.C.Bishops do not want Home Rule and do not mean to have it.10 In contrast, the options for Southern Unionists were more limited. For example, in early 1917, Lord Robert Cecil, one of the Cabinet members who had helped sabotage Lloyd George’s 1916 partition plans, had come to the conclusion that home rule should be granted on the grounds that ‘Redmond’s patriotism throughout the war creates an honourable obligation that we ought to recognise’, and that ‘Recognition should take the form of an attempt to establish a workable form of self-government in Ireland’.11 With such movements in British Unionist opinion, Lord Midleton now had little choice but to enter the Convention with the goal of preventing the 1914 Act being put into effect since it had no special provision for the Southern Unionist interest. Midleton had two aims: to avoid the partition of Ireland, which would leave the Southern unionist minority isolated in a Catholic Ireland; and to secure Ireland’s utmost participation in the war,12 with the hope that the Irish Question might be settled on ‘broad Imperial lines’ despite Midleton’s conviction that the Union was the only constitutional option to which government in Ireland could be safely committed.13 Sinn Fein was the only one of the main actors to decline to attend the Convention’s deliberations. Count Plunkett objected to the Convention on the grounds that even if a majority of that body demanded ‘complete freedom’ it would be rejected because its terms of reference decreed that Ireland must be ‘within the Empire’, which entailed ‘maintaining the supremacy of the English Parliament’.14 Therefore, the Executive National Council of Sinn Fein unanimously declined to participate in the Convention until: (1) the terms of reference left it free to decree the complete independence of Ireland; (2) the English Government publicly pledged itself to the United States and the Powers of Europe to ratify the decision of the majority of the Convention; and (3) the Convention consisted of none but persons freely elected by adult suffrage in Ireland. Arthur Griffith added that the Government, having made a pledge to the Ulster Unionists that it would not force them to accept the decision of a majority of Irishmen in the Convention, had assured that body’s failure, enabling the Government to say to the world that England had left the Irish Question to Irishmen and that the Irish had failed to find a


solution. ‘This was England’s plan to obstruct Ireland’s appeal to the Peace Conference’ concluded Griffith.15 Nationalist and Southern Unionist agreement at the Irish Convention The Irish Convention sat from July 1917 until March 1918. Sir Horace Plunkett, the Convention’s chairman, summed up its difficulties in two words: ‘Ulster’ and ‘Customs’. The majority of the Convention delegates carried a series of resolutions which together formed a complete scheme for Irish self-government. This provided for the establishment of a parliament for the whole of Ireland with an executive responsible to it, full powers over all internal legislation, administration and direct taxation. Pending a final decision of the fiscal question, it was agreed that the imposition of customs and excise duties should remain with the Imperial Parliament, but with the whole of these proceeds being paid into the Irish exchequer. A Joint Exchequer Board was to be set up to determine the true value of Irish revenue, and Ireland was to be represented on the Board of Customs and Excise of the United Kingdom. The principle of Irish representation in the Imperial Parliament was resisted at first by Nationalists, but ultimately conceded. It was also accepted in principle that there should be an Irish contribution to the cost of imperial services but, owing to the lack of data, it was found impossible to fix any definite sum.16 The issue of customs and excise proved an unbridgeable wedge between Nationalists and the Ulster Unionists at the Convention. Throughout the Convention’s proceedings the Nationalists had stressed their fear that Great Britain, in her economic relations with Ireland, would primarily consult her own economic interests, which were overwhelmingly greater than those of Ireland; for example, Irish agricultural interests might be sacrificed to British industrial interests. Nationalists were apprehensive that under the current fiscal union between Great Britain and Ireland, with no customs barriers between the two islands, British tariff wars with other nations might result in Ireland being denied necessary raw mate rials, a danger which would be greatly lessened if Ireland could make her own treaties with foreign countries. With fiscal autonomy Ireland could protect new industries, encouraging their growth, and preventing the ‘dumping’ of cheaper British products on the Irish market which undermined new Irish industries.17 Nationalists reasoned that giving an Irish parliament full control of taxation started from the principle that a government which was


responsible for spending public money should also be responsible for raising it by taxation and that, consequently, Ireland would be required to draw upon all branches of taxation in order to have sufficient funds to pay the expenses of government.18 The crux of the Nationalist argument was that: We regard Ireland as a Nation, an economic entity. Governments exist to foster the economic interests of their peoples. Self-government does not exist where those nominally entrusted with affairs of government have not control of fiscal and economic policy. No Nation with selfrespect could accept the idea that while its citizens were regarded as capable of creating wealth they were regarded as incompetent to regulate the manner in which taxation of that wealth should be arranged, and that another country should have the power of levying and collecting taxes, the taxed country being placed in the position of a person of infirm mind whose affairs are regulated by trustees. No finality could be looked for in such an arrangement, not even a temporary satisfaction.19 Opposing these demands were the Ulster Unionist delegates who rejected any alteration in the fiscal unity of the British Isles. In November 1917, in an effort to break this deadlock on the fiscal question, the Southern Unionists conceded that an Irish parliament, with minority safeguards, should have control of internal taxes, administration, legislation, judicature and the police.20 Since this was still insufficient to bridge the gap between Southern Unionists and the aspirations of Nationalists, Lloyd George assured John Redmond that if substantial agreement was reached, based upon the scheme proposed by the Southern Unionists and carried by a majority of the convention, with the Ulster Unionists alone opposing, then he would use his personal influence with his Cabinet colleagues to get their acceptance of the proposals and give them legislative effect.21 With this assurance the Convention took up a resolution put forward by Lord MacDonnell, a moderate home ruler, which suggested that Irish control of customs and excise should be postponed for further consideration until after the war, on condition that such control should come into automatic effect three years after the cessation of hostilities, unless the Imperial Parliament decided otherwise. On 12 March 1918, the first part of MacDonnell’s resolution appeared in altered form, proposing the imposition of customs and excise under the Imperial Parliament during the war and thereafter until


the question of such control had been considered and a decision arrived at by the Imperial Parliament, this decision to be taken not more than seven years after the conclusion of peace. The first part of the resolution was put to a vote and carried by thirty-eight votes to thirty-four, thereby proving acceptable to the majority of Nationalists.22 This Nationalist majority, which included MPs Stephen Gwynn, J.J.Clancy, John Fitzgibbon and John O’Dowd, reached agreement with the Southern Unionists on this question because they held it to be of paramount importance that an Irish parliament should be immediately established. They were largely moved by the belief that the establishment of an Irish government would be an effective instrument in obtaining for Ireland, by general Nationalist and Unionist consent, whatever further powers her material interests would require. These Nationalists decided that the proposal to pay into the Irish Exchequer the full proceeds of Irish taxation, subject only to an agreed imperial contribution, would give an Irish government the means for internal development, and prevent the economic ruin they feared was certain to result from Ireland being liable to the full weight of British taxation and joint responsibility for the British war debt. But, since the decision upon Ireland’s claim to full fiscal autonomy was considered to be postponed only, they put on record their conviction that, according to all precedents in the Empire, an Irish parliament was entitled to become the sole taxing authority for Ireland, until and unless, in the general interest, it saw fit to part with some portion of her financial independence. They held, however, that in the common interest of both countries, there should be a free trade agreement between Great Britain and Ireland.23 A minority of the Nationalist delegates, which included MPs Joseph Devlin, Thomas Lundon, and T.J.Harbison; the Roman Catholic Bishops of Cashel, Raphoe and Down and Connor; and the proprietor of the Irish Independent, W.M.Murphy, differed from the Nationalist majority on the issue of fiscal autonomy. They agreed to the suspension until the end of the war of the Irish Parliament’s power to collect customs and excise revenue but demanded that it be conceded immediately thereafter.24 The Southern Unionists, in agreeing to these terms, stated that although their unaltered conviction was that the Union provided the best system of government for Ireland, they had entered the convention on the basis of consideration for Allied and imperial interests, and therefore were committed to devising a constitution which would meet the aspirations of Irish self-government within the Empire. They believed that an Irish parliament could only be


established with safety, for imperial and minority unionist interests, if the participation of Ireland’s various classes and creeds was rendered possible by safeguards agreed by the convention. The safeguards which the Southern Unionists considered vital were: 1 That Ireland should occupy the same position as other parts of the United Kingdom in any scheme for the Federation of the Empire or the United Kingdom. 2 That all Imperial questions and services, including the levying of Customs Duties, be left in the hands of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. 3 That Ireland should send representatives to Westminster. 4 That the whole of Ireland should participate in any Irish Parliament. 5 That the safeguards in the Report agreed to by the Convention should be established. 6 That an adequate contribution should be made by Ireland to Imperial services.25 In reaching their compromise with the Nationalists, the Southern Unionists were influenced by their belief that the British Empire was moving towards a scheme of Imperial Federation, or single government. Midleton believed that after the war, when the Dominions had ‘insisted’ that a representative assembly of the Empire should take over the army, navy, foreign affairs, and probably trading relations, the British House of Commons would be replaced by local assemblies in Edinburgh, Dublin and perhaps in Wales.26 In order to reach agreement, the Nationalists had had to accept a firm constitutional link with the Imperial Parliament, which left the potential for the future union of all British subjects in the Empire in some form of Imperial Federation. Nationalists conceded that the legal supremacy of the Imperial Parliament would remain over the new Irish Parliament. However, they distinguished between the legal right of the British Parliament to interfere in Irish affairs and the recognition that the experience of the Dominion parliaments showed this to be unlikely in practice.27 From the Nationalists’ viewpoint this retained a symbolic unity of the Empire, but concurred with what they saw as the reality of the evolution of the British Empire into a commonwealth of separate, independent nations bound by a common allegiance to the King. On the question of Irish representation in the Imperial Parliament, the Nationalists at the convention were only too aware that conceding


this representation would probably colour the whole controversy on the Irish Parliament’s status; that is, whether or not the Irish Parliament would really be as independent as, for example, Canada’s which had no representation at Westminster. The fear was that an impression would be created that representation at Westminster would result in the encouraging and facilitating of financial and other encroachments on Irish autonomy by the British Parliament. It was recognised by Nationalists that the creation of an Irish parliament, combining Dominion fiscal powers with representation in the Imperial Parliament, would produce a unique and radical development in the government of the British Empire. If the Dominions were prepared to wait for a truly Imperial Council or Parliament for the Empire, some of the Nationalists within the Convention advised that Ireland should wait too, in the meantime substituting the existing Imperial Conferences for representation at Westminster. This would have put an Irish parliament at the same status as the parliaments of other Dominions, although without certain Dominion powers such as those pertaining to the raising of an army or navy. It was feared that conceding representation in the Imperial Parliament could result in the Imperial Government conceiving its stability threatened by a foreign or alien element at Westminster—the Irish MPs. To the average English mind, it was suggested, the Irish MPs had become a nuisance, and to maintain, and even accentuate that nuisance, while abandoning control over a large part of Irish policy, would not make Ireland popular in England, or England in Ireland. It was also argued that representation would witness the withdrawal from Ireland of talent which she could not afford to lose; sap the sense of Irish selfreliance by forcing Ireland to look to England for money and ideas; keep alive hateful divisions of race and religion in Ireland by enabling minorities to continue to regard England as the arbiter and controlling force in Ireland; and encourage concurrent legislation for Ireland by the Imperial Parliament, which would hinder Ireland’s separate development. The best course appeared to be to make representation purely symbolic—for example, to allow for ten Irish MPs. Ireland’s real safeguard would be her parliament; indeed in any matter in which Ireland was outvoted, the greater the number of Irish MPs at Westminster the stronger would be the alleged sanction for overriding the Irish people’s views. With a symbolic representation, dislocation would be reduced to a minimum while those who set the continuity of Irish representation above the question of Ireland’s imperial status would be satisfied.28


In the Irish Convention’s final Heads of a Scheme, outlining the prospective Irish parliament, representation was assumed, and Nationalists realised that in view of the strong demand put forward by all Unionists for it, it seemed inevitable. Nationalist supporters of representation at Westminster had warned their colleagues that to hold out against representation for tactical purposes held the danger that some Nationalists outside the Convention regarded it as a dangerous concession generally, and that there was a strong feeling against such representation because of the impression that it meant ‘Federal Home Rule’, or limited Irish self-government, whereas non-representation meant ‘Colonial Home Rule’, or Dominion status. A confidential memo on representation argued that a true federation within the Empire was never likely to be established and that a quasi-federal scheme for the United Kingdom would involve the creation of at least two local parliaments in the United Kingdom, one for Ireland and one for Great Britain. The memo emphasised that, as Nationalists were not willing to postpone Ireland’s claim for self-government until there was an equally effective claim made by the other parts of the United Kingdom, the closest approach to federation that could at present be proposed with any chance of success was a ‘onelegged freedom’, simply meaning autonomy for Ireland in a federal setting, namely the creation of one local legislature for Ireland coupled with a continuance of Irish representation within the Imperial Parliament. The memo recognised that whatever form of Irish self-government arose from the Irish Convention’s deliberations it was likely the experience of that self-government would integrate the nationalist community in Ireland more firmly into a psychological attachment to the Empire. It concluded: Only Irishmen who have lived in the Colonies, and mixed with Irishmen there, can realise the feeling entertained by these Irishmen who enjoy self-government for, not England, but the Empire, which is regarded as the greatest instrument of freedom except in Ireland…. Non-representation is certainly opposed to the federal spirit, and Home Rulers cannot afford to disregard the influence of those who believe in federalism. Apart from political considerations, federalism is something more than a frame of government, it is a state of mind—the frame of mind which is more urgently required in Ireland than in any other part of the Empire today; it is the frame of mind which forbids separation as well as over-centralisation—it is the frame of mind which leads Irishmen to regard the Empire not as a prison house into which they have been thrust by


invincible force, but rather as a vantage ground where Ireland may work out her destiny, and where the pursuit of high Imperial ideals may be combined with the fostering of more local pride and patriotism.29 In conceding representation in the Imperial Parliament it was felt that Westminster’s Irish MPs should be elected by the Irish Parliament rather than by the constituencies, and this was the arrangement adopted by the Nationalists and the Southern Unionists. A majority of the convention delegates agreed that the Irish Parliament should consist of two houses: a Senate of sixtyfour members and a House of Commons of two hundred. The principle underlying the composition of the Senate was the representation of interests, for the benefit of Unionists, effected by giving representation to commerce, industry, labour, the county councils, churches, the learned institutions and the peerage. In constituting the Commons, Nationalists offered to guarantee Unionists 40 per cent of its membership, agreeing that in the South membership could only be secured by nomination.30 Ulster Unionist opposition The Irish Convention represented Southern Unionism’s last chance to secure a lasting influence within a new Ireland. The Southern Unionist delegates did not, however, represent the views of all their community outside the Convention. Between February and May 1918, Midleton’s opponents seized control of a reformed IUA, committed to the traditional Unionist policy of the maintenance of the Union, and ultimately splitting Southern Unionism in January 1919. The Southern Unionist Committee, encouraged by Ulster Unionists, provided the focus for this opposition, issuing a ‘Call to unionists’ which demanded that all Irish Unionists, especially those outside Ulster, reiterate their conviction that the maintenance of the Union was the only hope for the future of Ireland and the security of His Majesty’s Dominions.31 Within the Convention it had been the Ulster Unionist delegates who provided the sternest resistance to the efforts to create an allIreland parliament. They repudiated the offer of extra representation therein as ‘undemocratic in modern times’ and did not believe that this extra representation could last for even fifteen years, believing that it would be abolished as soon as the Irish Parliament was established.32 In fact, the only constructive contribution which the Ulster delegates made to the Irish


Convention was to propose, in March 1918, the partition of Ireland with the exclusion of all of the province of Ulster.33 The Ulster Unionists attacked the conclusions of the Convention, having expected it to be a ‘sincere and patriotic’ attempt to find common ground between the 1914 Home Rule Act, on the one hand, and Ulster’s position for the maintenance of the existing constitutional arrangements on the other. Instead, Ulster Unionists believed that they were faced with a demand for a form of home rule in excess of any previous claim, and, in their opinion, demanding: First—A Sovereign Independent Parliament for Ireland coequal in power and authority with the Imperial Parliament. Second—Complete Fiscal Autonomy for Ireland, including: (a) Power of imposing tariffs and controls of Excise, involving, as it would, the risk of hostile tariffs against Great Britain and the disturbance of free intercourse between the two countries; (b) Right of making Commercial Treaties with foreign countries; (c) Full powers of direct taxation. Third—Right to raise and maintain a Military (territorial) Force in Ireland. Fourth—Repudiation of any liability for the National Debt on the plea of over-taxation of Ireland in the past. Subject to the consent of the Irish Parliament, the principle of a small annual contribution towards Imperial expenditure was admitted. Fifth—Denial of the right of the Imperial Parliament to impose Military Service in Ireland unless with the consent of the proposed Irish Parliament.34 The Ulster Unionist delegates rejected a fiscally autonomous Ireland out of hand. H.M.Pollock, President of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce, argued that there was no instance on record where the duality of fiscal control, in countries so interrelated as Great Britain and Ireland, had worked anything but trouble. In Ireland’s case it would spell ruin because of their complete dependence on the sister country. The pages of history, claimed Pollock, furnished conclusive proof of how fiscal unity had contributed to the commercial and, as in the case of Germany, the military greatness of communities previously separated by tariffs. Bismarck, he pointed out, realised that political union was not sufficient and had


welded all the states of the German Empire into one fiscal union. In the English-speaking overseas communities, Pollock saw examples which ‘only a madman would disregard’. For example, prior to 1900, Australia consisted of six independent states, with six different customs arrangements; but the paralysis of business was such a hindrance to the free circulation of commodities that the Australian states banded themselves into a federal union, with a single authority controlling customs and the post office. Since fiscal unity was established, Australian progress and prosperity had been unchecked. South Africa, Canada and the United States all provided Pollock with other examples of the necessity of a single fiscal authority co-extensive with the limits of a federal area. Among the practical results of Irish fiscal autonomy would be tariff troubles with Britain; the power of concluding commercial treaties with foreign countries, leading to conflict with Britain; the automatic cessation of Irish parliamentary representation at Westminster; and even the searching and examination of all merchandise passing between the two islands, along with the exam ining of passengers’ luggage by customs officers, with consequent delay and irritation.35 Ulster Unionists considered the Nationalist analogy of Ireland with the colonies or Dominions as totally fallacious. They suggested that the United Kingdom and the British Empire could carry on after the loss of any one of its colonies or overseas Dominions, as it did after the loss of its American colonies, but not after the loss of Ireland. Ulster Unionists found it inconceivable that any of the Dominions would prefer home rule to an equal share in the Union and full representation in the Imperial Parliament were they situated within a ten-hour journey from London. The loss of the American colonies was due to an attempt to tax them without representation in the British Parliament, and this would be far from the present position of Ireland as long as the legislative Union was maintained; yet it might arise at any time if any form of Dominion home rule was established in Ireland. It was clear from the utterances of several Sinn Fein leaders, Ulster Unionists argued, that a difference of opinion would inevitably arise between any Irish parliament and the Imperial Parliament regarding Ireland’s imperial expenditure, whether in the way of payment of interest on the national debt or otherwise. In view of the perceived Sinn Fein relations with the German enemy and the ‘unmistakable sympathies’ of many of the ‘so-called constitutional Nationalists’, it would be ‘High Treason’ for any Unionist to propose a separate executive and parliament for Ireland.


Given that the Irish Party no longer represented any considerable section of Irish public opinion, the Ulster Unionist delegates were advised by the UUC that they should either refuse to countenance any home rule scheme or insist on partition. The Ulster Unionists were also aware, however, that they would not stand well in the estimation of the British public if they expressed a readiness to allow the realm to be endangered by the setting up of an Irish parliament on the condition that their own skins were saved. It was feared that, in the long run, British public opinion would grow tired of hearing about the threatened oppression of minorities in Ireland and so it was suggested that, if Ulster Unionists wanted to get a hearing in Britain, they should put themselves in the position of defenders of the safety of the realm from dangers that they were in a better position to understand than their fellow subjects in Great Britain. This was the course of action urged by Hugh de Fellenburg Montgomery.36 The demand for the exclusion of Ulster had to be made so as to contain no implication that Ulster Unionists had any objection to home rule for the rest of Ireland; but they ought to continue opposing home rule anywhere in Ireland until the very last, so that when the whole position came to be summed up Ulster Unionists could at least claim to have been the most faithful defenders of the realm.37 Lord Londonderry, secretary of the Ulster delegates to the Convention, in addressing those Southern Unionists who advocated an all-Ireland parliament, summed up the fears which Ulster Unionists held at the prospect of a political partition of the British Isles, when he informed one of them: I am absolutely convinced…that so long as the British Empire exists Ireland must remain politically within the circle of the United Kingdom and whatever path is chosen long or short, or through whatever intermediary stages man in his wisdom or his folly may ordain she shall pass, that Ireland will be politically governed in exactly the same manner as England… Scotland or Wales. My plan is a Federal one…what is the alternative if these powers (chiefly fiscal powers) lately ceded to stave off a threatened catastrophe are not returned by Ireland to a British Government with willingness and enthusiasm?… Are you prepared in the hope of soothing present-day aggravations… to sow the seed of an infinitely more bitter struggle than you could possibly have now…. This surrender might just serve the purpose of temporarily strengthening the position of the Empire, in that this tiresome problem would be in abeyance…. It would not gain one single


additional recruit for the Army, so in the surrender not even this advantage would be gained…do you imagine that an Irish Government…is unlikely to avail itself of the power of blackmail resident in an independent Irish Parliament to extract from…Britain concessions which…Britain may not wish to give…. You and your southern compatriots are idealists, you have always thought that the acquisition of what was in your minds at the moment meant satisfaction and living subsequently and forever in peace[,] goodwill and happiness…. There is no truth…in denying that Ireland can prosper under the Union…it is obvious that…Irish Nationalists flung themselves into the task of local patriotic endeavour… and encouraging agitation and the hopeless pursuit of romantic and sentimental ideals…. There is no limit to selfgovernment which the evolution of modern government may not reach and to this movement I am a willing subscriber, but I repeat that this must limit Irish aspirations as long as the British Empire exists…. Do you imagine that you are going to restore Redmond? Never have I had an illusion so shattered as regards Redmond; an Irish leader with the gift of a superb elegance, but without a plan of any kind… this is your prospective Prime Minister.38 Sir Edward Carson took a similar view. He was clear that no settlement consistent with imperial interests could be devised which would satisfy Sinn Fein. The only other possible solution seemed to lie in a system of federation for the whole of the United Kingdom. Adverse as he was to any change in the present constitution with its single parliament for the whole of the United Kingdom, Carson did not deny that the Union ‘which I regard as the keystone of the British Commonwealth, may nevertheless be preserved upon the principles of a true federation’. By a ‘true federation’ Carson meant that it was essential not only that there should be constitutional equality between the ‘nations’ which were to be federated, but also, that the powers delegated to their new national parliaments should not be such as to hamper the supremacy of the United Kingdom Parliament. The difference between this model and that agreed between the Southern Unionists and the Nationalists at the Irish Convention was that in Carson’s scheme there would be no doubt of the Imperial Parliament’s legal and actual power to legislate for any Irish, Scottish, or English parliaments established. The United Kingdom Parliament would possess a real supremacy. Given the claim that the Irish Question was of such a pressing nature, Carson


recommended this solution for Southern Ireland, with Ulster standing out until such time as England and Scotland could be brought into a general scheme of federation, what was termed ‘home rule all round’.39 In a true United Kingdom federation it was considered essential, by Ulster Unionists, that there should be constitutional equality between the nations which were to compose the federal units, and that the powers delegated and made over by the United Kingdom Parliament to the ‘National Parliaments’ should not be such as to hamper the active supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. It was of paramount importance that the United Kingdom Parliament should retain all powers and functions which were not expressly delegated, including customs and excise. Central to Ulster Unionist acceptance of such a scheme was the fact that Ireland would not form one unit in a ‘federal’ United Kingdom. Carson claimed that the Ulster Unionist attitude to home rule depended upon what would happen in the period after it was granted. Partition would give Irish Nationalists an opportunity of showing Ulster Unionists that it would be to her benefit to take part in the general federal system, and to be part of one Irish unit. Ulster Unionists differed among themselves as to whether or not Ulster would ultimately join a federated Irish unit. De Fellenburg Montgomery, however, thought that the idea that Ulster could be won over to home rule was no more than ‘eye-wash’, and the effect of partition, with the six counties being treated as ‘practically English counties’ under the direct control of the Imperial Parliament, would be that they would prosper and flourish, as they had done under the Union, and that the ‘Home Rule counties’ would sooner or later ask to be put on the same footing as the other six.40 Carson, a southern Irishman, took a different view. The Prime Minister’s ‘emphatic’ declaration that the coercion of Ulster was out of the question, ought, thought Carson, to bring about a feeling of confidence in Ulster, which could see Unionists taking an attitude of reconciliation with Nationalists. It occurred to Carson that a home rule scheme might be devised to show that, while the Government’s policy was that Ulster should not be included in the 1914 Home Rule Act against its will, at the same time Ulster Unionists ‘might contemplate…if the Irish Parliament proves successful…ultimately a reunion of the whole of Ireland’. He believed that the Irish Party should profess its willingness to make any concessions that would be acceptable to Ulster Unionism, with a view to tempting her into the home rule scheme. Carson did not foresee how ‘at the present moment’ Ulster could be tempted to


come in, but he did accept that whatever conditions which could be offered to encourage them to contemplate this should be ascertained and included in any Amending Bill, so as to leave it open for Ulster, at some later period to accept those terms. Such provisions should be framed to meet, so far as possible, the six counties’ local conditions and sentiments, having due regard for the minority’s rights, taking Ulster’s industries into account, and the enactment and administration of labour laws. In order to demonstrate the policy of ultimate reunion, accepting that some form of home rule was inevitable, Carson suggested an inquiry to frame provisions for summoning together an Irish parlia ment, or a committee thereof, and the Ulster MPs elected to the Imperial Parliament, which would hold annual sessions to consider legislative proposals for the whole of Ireland. When the Ulster MPs were in agreement with the Irish Parliament’s views, a parliamentary bill might be applicable to the Ulster area outside the Irish Parliament’s jurisdiction by an order-in-council. The joint North-South assembly might, Carson suggested, be called the National Consultation Assembly of Ireland. Carson believed that bringing together the two parts of Ireland in this way would be likely to lead to reconciliation ‘if the Irish Parliament showed a willingness to try and meet the views of the Ulster Members, [for] it would tend greatly to eliminate the distrust which at present exists’. Carson considered that nothing would be worse than attempting to start off an Irish parliament in which the parties were merely taking sides in accordance with their religious views. If, at the commencement of the Irish Parliament’s life, Ulster was eliminated, then he believed that the overwhelming majority in any Irish parliament would be of the same religion, and would probably divide into groups of moderates and extremists, those in favour of the British connection and those against, so that when Ulster eventually came in they would probably become attached to some existing party and not range themselves in religious groups.41 However, neither Carson, nor any of the Ulster Unionist leadership, was prepared to be initially included in an all-Ireland parliament. The Belfast News-Letter argued that Ulster’s refusal to come under an Irish parliament, and its right to be separated from the rest of Ireland in any home rule system, was as great as that of Wales to be separated from England. Ulster’s traditions and temper, it claimed, differed more widely from the rest of Ireland than they did from England and Scotland, and there was as much reason for such separation from the other three Irish provinces as there was for Quebec from Ontario. ‘Until politicians admit this


fact, and act upon it’, concluded the News-Letter, ‘they cannot attempt the solution of the Irish problem with any hope of success’.42 The News-Letter tackled the complexities of the problem, explaining that what was commonly being called ‘Federalism’ was in fact ‘devolution’—its opposite. The United States and the Australian Commonwealth were federations, it pointed out, because in each case separate states agreed to create a common parliament and to transfer some of their powers to it; but the United Kingdom was one state, governed by one parliament, and what was proposed by Unionists using the term ‘federal’ was to create truly subordinate legislatures and devolve upon them the power of dealing with local affairs.43 In rejecting anything which resembled Dominion status for Ireland, the Belfast News-Letter dismissed the argument that such self-government had made the Dominions loyal and prosperous, highlighting the absence of any historic British-Dominion quarrels, as there had been between Irish Nationalists and England, because the Dominions’ political and religious ideals did not differ from England’s, while those of Irish Nationalists did. Quebec, the French-speaking Province of Canada, had self-government, yet, claimed the News-Letter, this had not made it loyal and contented. It concluded that if Quebec had Dominion status it would be practically certain that Quebec would be less and not more loyal, and that, similarly, an Ireland with Dominion status would merely be another Quebec with infinitely greater power to embarrass England and the Empire.44 Dominion status was merely ‘another name for independence’.45 The News-Letter, in asking where the Nationalist demand in the Irish Convention differed from that of Sinn Fein, answered ‘Only in the recognition of His Majesty as King of Ireland. If…the demand were conceded, the Irish kingdom could do everything which an Irish republic could do’.46 The conscription crisis In March 1918, the political calculations of the Government and those participating in the Irish Convention were shattered by the German offensive on the Western Front, which destroyed any hope of the Convention’s Report being implemented. The British army, in one day, suffered a stunning setback, with the enemy overrunning over ninety-eight square miles of territory, and penetrating, at the furthest point, to a depth of four and a half miles. This was virtually equal to the advance that the British and French armies had made during the entire Somme campaign of 1916. On 21 March 1918 alone, British casualties were 38,500,


including 7,000 dead and a staggering 21,000 taken prisoner.47 The grave military situation forced the Government to face the problem of how to raise sufficient men to send to the Western Front. The War Cabinet was informed that an extension of compulsory military service in the United Kingdom could raise an extra 555,000 men in Great Britain, and 150,000 men from Ireland. The estimated number in the former was based upon the assumption that the British people were prepared to make a supreme effort, with even clergymen and religious ministers to be conscripted, alongside boys of seventeen, although the latter would not be used for overseas service. The Government decided to extend conscription to Ireland through a new Military Service Bill, as well as proposing a new Home Rule Bill. This had the effect of alienating both Nationalists and Unionists in Ireland. The Mansion House Conference, representing all shades of Nationalist opinion, assembled on 18 April 1918, and produced a Sinn Fein-inspired pledge denying Britain’s right to impose conscription in Ireland, declaring that the participants would ‘solemnly…resist conscription by the most effective means at our disposal’.48 After the conference the Catholic bishops issued a statement of support, in which they directed: the Clergy of Ireland to celebrate a public mass of intercession…in every church in Ireland to avert the scourge of conscription with which Ireland is threatened. They further direct that an announcement be made at every public mass…of a public meeting to be held…for the purpose of administrating the following pledge against compulsory conscription in Ireland:‘Denying the right of the British Government to enforce compulsory service in this country, we pledge ourselves solemnly to one another to resist Conscription by the most effective means at our disposal’. Irish Party and Sinn Fein politicians announced that they would remain in Ireland to prevent the enforcement of conscription, while Irish Labour leaders had also taken steps for a general stoppage to be secured on the day of the signing of the Anti-Conscription Pledge.49 John Dillon believed that Lloyd George had ‘let HELL loose in Ireland’ as part of a machiavellian plot to evade his promise to grant home rule.50 Distrust, stated Dillon, was the root of all trouble in Ireland, and no man in Ireland, no matter what party he belonged to, ‘believes in or places any reliance whatever


on the promises and pledges of British statesmen’.51 Dillon had become leader of the Irish Party on 12 March 1918, after the death of John Redmond on 6 March 1918, following a long illness. It was perhaps merciful that Redmond did not live to see the final chances of his hopes for a Nationalist-Unionist rapprochement dashed forever. Sinn Fein’s support was immeasurably increased by the conscription crisis: as Table 6.1 shows, after the announcement of the extension of conscription to Ireland, the number of people joining Sinn Fein clubs rose dramatically. Devlin told the House of Commons in 1918 how, when conscription was applied to Great Britain, every British MP was consulted as to whether it should be applied or not, whereas Irish Party MPs, because they felt themselves representatives of another nation, decided they should not interfere, and left it to the British MPs to decide the issue. Now, in 1918, Irish MPs were not to be consulted as to whether ‘an unemancipated race should pay its blood tax to another’. Had Ireland been granted self-government, as the Dominions had, Devlin claimed that they would have been consulted through their representatives in their parliament. But the Government had given Nationalists a dual insult—the denial of self-government and the denial of the right to determine whether their nation’s sons were to be conscripted. Devlin claimed that the Prime Minister had set himself up as a ‘Parliamentary Kaiser’.52 The Irish Party MP, Matthew Keating, warned the Government that conscription would unite every section of Nationalist opinion in Ireland. He told the Commons of how he had encountered a woman who had told him that ‘if her boy was going to die she would rather he died fighting for Ireland, where she could bury him in her backyard, than for the British, where he would be buried in some unknown grave in Flanders’. Keating explained to British MPs how: You forget the point of view of an Irish Nationalist… you should remember that we regard our association with England from an entirely different point of view from the way you regard it. We regard ourselves as fashioned by Providence, by nature, by environment, in every way you can examine it as an independent community and an independent nation. Our history will show you that. We had a Parliament of our own which was co-equal with yours, until it was abolished by an Act of this Parliament. We have never acquiesced in that. We still assert our nationality and our independence as a community, and although Irishmen send representatives here to fight for the restoration of their Parliament, they do not


send them here to endorse Acts of Parliament passed by this Parliament…. At all events I think this question of military service for Ireland Table 6.1 Sinn Fein Membership, 1917–1918

Source: Pauric Travers ‘The Irish Conscription Crisis 1918’ (M.A. thesis, University College Dublin, 1977) p.136.

can only be settled by an Irish Parliament. We are entitled to that Irish Parliament. John Redmond’s son, Captain William Redmond MC, who had succeeded his father in Waterford City, rejected the Prime Minister’s analogy of the conscripted Irish in the United States with the non-conscripted Irish in the United Kingdom. It was a misconception of the British people, claimed Captain Redmond, to regard Ireland as an English shire, for ‘Ireland is not like Yorkshire or Somerset. Ireland is a distinct country, surrounded by water and separated from this country by a hundred and one different characteristics’. It was also a misconception to suppose that because a system of conscription had been proposed and accepted by Englishmen in England that those self-same Englishmen should have the right to impose a similar system of conscription upon a totally different country and people. Redmond agreed that Irishmen were conscripted in the United States, but asked: who conscripted them? They were not conscripted by England. They were not conscripted by France. They were conscripted by the American citizens in America…. Surely a State of that great Republic does not bear the same relation to the whole of


the U.S. as Ireland does to the rest of the U.K. The States are composed of various nationalities who by their own will have agreed to come together under a great federal union and call themselves a Republic. Did we ever come voluntarily into the Act of Union? Are we in the same position towards this country as the State of Pennsylvania is towards the Congress of the United States? The idea is absurd.53 Matthew Keating complained that all the championing of small nationalities by the Government, which was evidenced in regard to Belgium and Serbia, was in Ireland replaced by martial law. In attempting to conscript Ireland, what, he asked, would become of the claim of Britain to pose before the world as a disinterested arbiter in the interests of small nations.54 As Dillon argued: The Ireland you have to deal with is an ancient nation, and… a very proud nation, and it has as intense a sense of national self-consciousness as exists in the whole wide world. They see to-day Poland, Finland, and the Ukraine recognised by the great Powers of Europe as independent nations with the acclamation of His Majesty’s Government, and Ireland, which is more ancient than all of them and has far more national self-consciousness, is not only to be denied her liberty, but is to be dragooned, with every circumstance of insolence and insult, and ordered to go out and fight for a people whose Government has broken faith with her over and over again. If this deed is done your moral position before the world is gone.55 During the Irish Convention a committee, consisting of Unionists such as the Duke of Abercorn, Lord Desart and John Blake Powell, together with Irish Party MPs Captain Gwynn and Captain Doran, had concluded that if a scheme of Irish self-government was to be adopted it would, in practice, be impossible to impose a system of compulsory service on Ireland without the assent and co-operation of an Irish parliament. Nationalists denied the right of the British Parliament to conscript Ireland on the same basis that they denied the right of the British Parliament to conscript Canadians in Canada. Sir Thomas Esmonde MP asked if the Canadian Dominion Parliament would ever have conscripted New Brunswick, a province of the Canadian Confederation, had New Brunswick not entered the Confederation? When the Canadian Parliament decreed conscription, New Brunswick agreed to it; but Canada would never attempt to conscript Newfoundland, only twenty-seven miles from


the Canadian coastline, because it was not part of the Confederation but a separate Dominion. Esmonde argued that Britain had ‘no more right to conscript us than Canada has to conscript Newfoundland…. We have always held that this House has no more right to make laws for Ireland than it has for the United States. That is the foundation of our political belief’.56 To the argument that Britain, Canada and New Zealand had conscription, and that Ireland should therefore have it too, Esmonde replied that all those countries were self-governing, and asked if Westminster had ever, in its wildest dreams, thought of conscripting South Africa or Australia?57 Summing up Nationalist disillusionment with Britain, Devlin told the Government how: at the commencement of the War we were in its favour. We believed it a just War. I never changed my mind since…but I have changed my mind about the standard-bearers of liberty. How do I know, and what guarantee have we that when the War is over, when the fields of Europe…are red with Irish blood, that your declaration of devotion to small nationalities is anything more but a scrap of paper…. We believe it a War for small nations in every part of Europe, except that small nation that you control. We believe it a War for human liberties and against the worst despotism the world has ever known, but if you expect us to go out and fight for these things, you expect us to be fools. We want a guarantee of your good faith.58 Back in Ireland, de Valera and Griffith had suggested to the Standing Committee of Sinn Fein that they should ask the Mansion House Conference to treat general arrests as an attempt to implement conscription. Consequently, when arrests did come, in May 1918, during the so-called ‘German Plot’ in which the Government alleged that Sinn Fein had conspired with Germany to plot another rising, the Standing Committee issued an order declaring: When the English Government decided to conscript the men of Ireland they did not forsee that their action would be taken as a declaration of war on the Irish people, and that deportation of war would be accepted. Faced by the invincible determination of the Irish people to die at home rather than fight for freedom everywhere else in the world and slavery in Ireland, England seeks to confuse the issue by the pretence that Ireland’s attitude is due to a German plot, and has struck


at the Sinn Fein organisation under that pretence. The enemy Ireland has to face today is the same enemy she has faced for seven centuries, and that enemy is England. For the first time for generations England’s will in Ireland is opposed by a practically unanimous Ireland, and England’s will shall be broken and Ireland’s honour thereby upheld.59 Sinn Fein invited the Lord Mayor of Dublin to convene a meeting to demand the release of the prisoners, which included most of the Sinn Fein leadership, to make ‘use of the fact of the men in English prisons to make clear Ireland’s position as a separate nation and England’s position as a militarist nation rather than make a demand for concessions or release’. Sinn Fein decided to urge the nationalist community to continue making every possible preparation for active resistance against conscription, and to remind them that, when the fight came, each locality would have to draw on its own resources, and not to look to any central headquarters or directions, for ‘when the time comes for the enforcement of conscription our main reliance must be upon the preparations we have made for active resistance in the meantime’.60 The conscription crisis was a watershed in Ulster Unionism’s relations with Nationalist Ireland. The Government’s decision to introduce Irish conscription and a Home Rule Bill at the same time outraged Unionist political opinion. Sir Edward Carson warned the Government that it was not an easy job to say to his supporters in Ulster that their demonstration of loyalty, after they had been promised by a Prime Minister and a Leader of the Opposition that if they enlisted, home rule would be suspended for the war, was now to be betrayed and they were to be sacrificed. As a Belfast woman had roared at Carson ‘I have lost three children…in the War. Are we going to get Home Rule?’ This led Carson to agree with Nationalists that Ireland had suffered from nothing in its history as much as the ‘broken pledges of British statesmen’.61 Nevertheless, for his part, all Carson cared about was that the country was in danger and no man had the right to shirk.62 The only thing influencing him was the desire to fight the common German enemy ‘It is the only question! What does Unionism matter?… What does Home Rule matter?… They are nothing compared with the advance of the Germans’, Carson concluded.63 Carson was concerned that the right of Parliament to carry out Irish conscription for the defence of the realm, when the realm was in peril, had been challenged by Nationalists, Sinn Feiners and, above all, the Roman Catholic Church, who had all banded


together to defeat the powers retained by the Imperial Parliament in the 1914 Home Rule Act. Carson insisted that whatever form of government was to be applied to Ireland, whether ‘devolution’, ‘federalism’, or whatever, the Imperial Parliament could not give up the necessary powers to secure the realm’s defence. In his opinion, the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland had gone to lengths which ‘no civilized modern community ought for a moment to tolerate’, for the Government had been challenged and effectively beaten by the Roman Catholic hierarchy on a question of imperial supremacy. Ulster Unionists, pointed out Carson, had always told the Government that all the reservations and safeguards contained in the Home Rule Act were not worth the paper they were written on, and now it was demonstrated that if the power reserved to the Imperial Parliament, regarding the defence of the country, could not be carried out with all the Empire’s might, where was the power to safeguard the political and religious freedom of Unionists? As long as the Roman Catholic Church claimed to make any question it liked a question of faith and morals, and preach it as a ‘religious war’, was it any wonder that Unionists did not feel that their liberties would be safe when the bishops were capable of ‘pushing religion in a manner which would not be allowed in any other country in the world?’ Carson argued that a time came in a voluntary effort when there was not anything like equality of sacrifice. This had been reached in Ireland where it could no longer be anticipated that the men in the north of Ireland could be expected to voluntarily enlist, leaving it undefended from the south and west of Ireland. To Carson’s mind, so far from being a cruel, inhuman or improper act, conscription was the only way to make every man take his fair share in the elementary duties and privileges of British citizenship.64 Carson only supported the Military Service Bill on the grounds that all United Kingdom citizens should have equal and similar rights. If these equal and similar rights were removed, as would happen with the imposition of home rule in Ireland, then Ulster Unionists would be put in a subordinate position, and Carson, as an Irishman threatened with such a position under a Nationalist government, would accept it because he saw no more detestable domination than that which the Germans were trying to impose. Another reason why he was prepared to accept this subordinate status was that he was ‘ashamed’ of the skeletons that constituted the Irish divisions, which ought to be filled with Ireland’s manhood and sent out to replace those who had been slaughtered by the enemies of Britain and France.65


James Craig thought very little of anyone who called himself a British citizen yet did not take such action as Ulster had taken when it found that their liberties were being attacked. Britain’s strength, he argued, rested in the value of her citizenship, which, if it were worth anything, was worth fighting for, and anyone who did not do so he considered a coward and a traitor to the trust imposed upon them. What held the Empire together, believed Craig, was that citizens were under the same law and the same privileges; but the minute that this was tampered with, as was happening in Ireland, one was treading upon very delicate ground.66 As Craig explained, Ulster Unionists loved Ireland just as much as any Irish Party or Sinn Fein supporters,67 and if they accepted conscription in Ireland, allowing Ireland to take its full share in ‘national responsibility’ at a time of crisis, Nationalists would do more to secure the affection of the people of Great Britain and the Empire, and to win Ulster to join with them in a home rule parliament on a future occasion, than by any other step they could have taken. Ireland would then be regarded as part and parcel of the British Empire, taking her full share of its responsibilities.68 As this did not happen, for Ulster Unionists the conscription crisis was the final confirmation that the aspirations of Nationalists and Unionists were incompatible. The end of the war: towards armed struggle By June 1918 it had become apparent to most observers in Britain and Ireland that the tide of war had turned in favour of the Allied armies in Europe, and by 20 June 1918 the Government had dropped its conscription and home rule plans. However, the legacy of the crisis remained. Prior to the announcement that conscription was to be applied to Ireland, the Irish Party had won three successive by-elections, and Dillon and his supporters hoped that the electoral tide had turned in their favour. It is difficult to ascertain just how far the Irish Party had managed to stem Sinn Fein’s surge. Special circumstances obtained in both the South Armagh and East Tyrone by-elections, held in January and April 1918 respectively. Both constituencies were within the archdiocese of Cardinal Louge who publicly denounced Sinn Fein and revolution. The South Armagh election was dominated, not by the home rule versus republic issue, but that of partition. The Irish Party had the advantage of a strong local candidate, while Sinn Fein’s Dr Patrick McCartan was a relatively unknown outsider. The result showed a 1,019 Irish Party majority and, like the subsequent result in East Tyrone, seemed to indicate that partition was the


dominant issue in Nationalist Ulster. Therefore, the majority of Ulster Catholics were more disposed to endorse a policy of vigilant attendance at Westminster than to risk the consequences of Sinn Fein’s abstensionism. In the case of East Tyrone, the Irish Party was apprehensive enough to choose T.J.S.Harbison as its candidate, who had opposed exclusion at the 1916 Belfast conference; nevertheless, Sean Milroy, an outsider, polled 1,222 votes against Harbison’s 1,802 votes.69 However, after the conscription crisis, in May 1918 Sinn Fein had its first electoral success in Ulster when Arthur Griffith defeated the Irish Party candidate in the East Cavan by-election. From the conscription crisis onwards most observers in Ireland and Britain had little doubt that Sinn Fein now represented the majority of the nationalist community’s opinion. The confirmation of this came in the 1918 General Election. With an Allied victory in France looking increasingly likely, the Government announced in October 1918 that December would see the first general election in the United Kingdom since 1910. At a special Sinn Fein executive meeting, on 19 November 1918, it was proposed that a plebiscite of voters from the nationalist community be taken at an early date to decide whether Sinn Fein or Irish Party candidates should contest the Ulster seats against the ‘English garrison’, and that the Nationalist candidate whose party received a minority of votes in each of these constituencies should give a pledge to stand down.70 This forced Bishop McHugh to warn Sinn Fein that only a combined front could secure the nationalist community’s interests against the ‘Orange ascendancy’, emphasising that ‘we cannot forget we are Catholics’. The prospect of the loss of six or eight seats, due to a triangular Irish Party-Sinn Fein-Unionist contest, led the Roman Catholic Ulster bishops to call upon Dublin’s Lord Mayor to convene a de Valera-Dillon conference to divide the Ulster seats between them. Faced with bleak electoral prospects outside Devlin’s West Belfast stronghold, Dillon was forced to accept this advice. At a conference on 2 and 3 December 1918, Dillon and Eoin MacNeill agreed to an equal division of the eight marginal seats, with Louge allocating them.71 The pact proved successful, with the adopted candidates returned in seven of the eight constituencies. West Belfast, NorthEast Tyrone, South Armagh, South Down and East Donegal returned Irish Party supporters, and Sinn Feiners in South Fermanagh and North-West Tyrone; only East Down failed to return an anti-Unionist MP. In the two constituencies where both Sinn Fein and the Irish Party entered the lists, South Tyrone and


South Derry, the Sinn Fein vote in the former was double that of the Irish Party, and in the latter only 500 votes behind the Irish Party’s candidate, illustrating the extent to which the older party had been undercut.72 In the rest of Ireland the general election was a disaster for the Irish Party. Sinn Fein won seventy-three of Ireland’s 105 seats; Unionists won twenty-five, with only four university seats outside Ulster; Independent Unionists one seat; and the Irish Party six seats, with only one, Captain Redmond’s in Waterford, outside Ulster. One Sinn Feiner, Michael Hayes, interpreted the success of Sinn Fein in the general election as due to the following: 1 It [the election result] was anti-Irish party, a change entrusting the destinies of the people, not to the leaders of the Irish party, but to the Sinn Fein leaders who were in the tradition of 1916 and who had proved apparently successful in resisting the threat of conscription. 2 It was a vote against conscription and against the British Government both for their vacillation about Home Rule, for their conduct after the 1916 rising and for their threat of conscription. 3 It was an effort to get Ireland’s claim to independence to the Peace Conference where of course it was rightly believed the United States of America would have considerable influence and would itself be influenced by the Irish in America. 4 It was declared to be a movement to get a Republic but other words are consistently used in the Sinn Fein manifesto and in the speeches, and there is a clear consciousness in declarations by Mr de Valera and by others that they were not doctrinaire republicans, a clear consciousness that the republic constituted a strait-jacket. One might summarise the whole thing by saying that the declaration was for an Irish Parliament with as much power as possible.73 The end of the war also introduced a new phase into the Irish Question. The Irish Volunteer journal, An tOglac, warned ‘The Irish Volunteers are the keynote of the situation. They are the reality, the grim reality that England cannot get rid of’.74 It concluded that, with the general election over, the road was clear for the Irish Volunteers to resume their full military activities since the ‘triumph of Irish Republicanism at the polls simply means an endorsement by the overwhelming majority of the people of Ireland of the action of the Irish Volunteers in Easter 1916’, and it warned that the changed situation in Ireland ‘may necessitate a


change in tactics on the part of the Volunteers’.75 Steps had been taken to reorganise the Irish Volunteers at the end of August 1917. De Valera met with senior military figures within the movement, such as Cathal Brugha, Thomas Ashe and Michael Collins, to discuss the revival of the Irish Volunteers. In October 1917, an Irish Volunteer Convention was held and a Volunteer Executive set up with representatives from the four Irish provinces. De Valera was elected President of the Volunteers, Brugha as Chairman of the Resident Executive, Collins as Director of Organisation, Rory O’Connor as Director of Engineering, Diamuid Lynch as Director of Communication and Richard Mulcahy as Director of Training. By January 1918 it had become clear to the Volunteer Executive that a General Headquarters staff needed to be set up and, in March 1918, two weeks before the conscription crisis, this was done. Richard Mulcahy was selected as Chief of Staff, and Dick McKee as Director of Training and Officer Commanding Dublin Brigade.76 The Irish Volunteer movement looked to the future with a commitment to solving Nationalist Ireland’s relationship with Britain through a military confrontation. An tOglac pointed out that ‘the Irish Volunteers are a military body pure and simple. They are the army of the Irish Republic, the agent of the national will, an instrument framed by Irishmen to further Ireland’s determination to be free. Volunteers are not politicians; they were not created for the purposes of parades, demonstrations, or political activities; they follow no political leader as such; their allegiance is to the Irish Nation’.77 The absence of what most Nationalists considered a legitimate Irish constitution led physical-force Sinn Feiners, such as Eamon de Valera, to claim that Irishmen had a perfectly legitimate right to seek freedom by force of arms if a suitable opportunity presented itself, they having a moral right to arm and defend themselves. De Valera understood the term ‘constitutionalism’ as acting in accordance with the will of the Irish people and the moral law.78 He asked ‘Would anyone tell him that the law they had in Ireland was based on the will of the Irish people?’ De Valera held that there was tyranny in Ireland, and the Irish people were permitted by the moral law, and the law of God, to use any means they willed to overthrow British rule in Ireland.79 When an opponent complained that Pope Leo XIII’s Encyclical ‘On Human Liberty’, which de Valera cited as justification for armed resistance, also stated that to ‘despise legitimate authority, in whosoever, is unlawful, as a rebellion against the Divine Will, and whosoever resists that rushes wilfully to destruction’,80 a Sinn Fein supporter countered ‘But English authority in Ireland is de facto not lawfully constituted’.81


With the formation of the Irish Volunteer GHQ Staff, and the arrival of the conscription crisis immediately afterwards, the Irish Volunteer command found themselves in what Richard Mulcahy termed a ‘political aggressive position’, but still in a phase in which the Irish Volunteers were not on the military offensive. In this situation aggressive action was taken by the Irish Volunteers on a local level, often in response to what local units saw as provocative actions by local police. The attitude of the GHQ Staff was that these activities had to be dampened down. The priority work for the Irish Volunteers at this stage was their involvement in political matters, such as the involvement in by-elections. The greatest motivation for further Irish Volunteer involvement in political matters came with the advent of the conscription crisis; consequently, and to his surprise, Richard Mulcahy, as a military man, found himself selected as a candidate for the 1918 General Election.82 With the Armistice bringing hostilities to an end, on 11 November 1918, An tOglac claimed that while the Great War was over, the seven-hundred-year-old war between England and Ireland went bitterly on. ‘An armistice has been signed in France; but in Ireland there is no armistice’, it warned. The imperial system, which was the ‘argument’ by which England held Ireland, was in a process of disintegration everywhere in Europe, and all it stood for ‘can be seen cracking and crumbling away. England remains its last stranglehold; and even there its days are numbered’. An tOglac argued that those who saw, in the ending of the war, the victory of one alliance of nations over another alliance of nations, had misjudged the situation. The fact was that no military decision had been obtained by either side and, from the purely military point of view, the side which had the strongest position and had the most victories to her credit, whose armies occupied the most territory, had found it necessary to sue for peace and accept the enemies’ terms. Thus, concluded An tOglac, there were other factors in war which nobody, regarding it from a purely military point of view, could reckon on. The main factors in this were the growth of popular discontent with German autocracy, the spread of Russian Bolshevism, and the fact that discontented persons had weapons to hand. ‘In the same way, in our fight with England’, argued An tOglac, the ‘occupation of our territory by the enemy, his superior numbers, armament and equipment…may not prevent his ultimate defeat’.83 A little under two months after this was written, the implications of these words became apparent when a local Irish Volunteer unit, led by Seamus Robinson, Dan Breen and Sean


Treacy, ambushed and killed two policemen, at Soloheadbeg, County Tipperary, starting the Anglo-Irish War. Conclusion The fundamental Ulster Unionist opposition to all Nationalist preferences for Irish self-government, whether in the Irish Convention’s Report, full Dominion status for Ireland, a resurrected Kingdom of Ireland, or an Irish Republic, was that none of these were considered subordinate to the Imperial Parliament at Westminster. Whether Ulster Unionists would or would not have ultimately considered some form of Irish unity in a distant future, what was certain was that any relationship would have to be based upon a federated United Kingdom, and not on the basis of full Dominion powers for Ireland. Ulster Unionists were opposed to any constitutional settlement which allowed Ireland to develop separately from the rest of the United Kingdom. Southern Unionists, on the other hand, had accepted an Irish parliament on the assumption that some form of imperial federation would follow after the war. Conscription exposed the core of the Nationalist psychological relationship with Britain. Irish Party members and Sinn Feiners denied the right of the representatives of one nation, the British nation, to conscript Ireland, a separate nation. While the conscription crisis was to pass, its effect was to break the Irish Party’s influence in Ireland irreversibly and, in the process, provide the final proof to Ulster Unionists of Nationalist disloyalty. For Ulster Unionists, all Irish Nationalists, together with the Roman Catholic Church, had combined to thwart the authority of the Imperial Parliament in Ireland. In a period when the war itself might have been lost, one of the most fundamental definitions of British citizenship, the defence of the realm, had been compromised. This was the final demonstration for Ulster Unionists that any form of Irish parliament would seek separation from the United Kingdom and the British Empire. For militants within Sinn Fein, the lesson to be drawn from the conscription crisis was that the threat of armed resistance could thwart British policy in Ireland.

228

Conclusion

In retrospect it would appear that it was inevitable that, even without the intervention of the First World War, Ireland would have been partitioned in some shape or form. However, the significance of the Great War for Ireland was that it created the circumstances which led to a form of psychological partition which could not have been predicted before the war. A pre-war partitioned Ireland, as envisaged in July 1914, would have been a British Ireland with a form of devolved Irish self-government similar to that established in Northern Ireland in 1920; it was not to be a form of Dominion self-government, as established in the Irish Free State in 1922, and consequently any moves towards greater independence, as did occur in the period 1922–1948, would have been considerably more difficult. The eve of the First World War saw an Ireland in which a fluid sense of national identity was evident. Neither Britishness nor Irishness were mutually exclusive identities. Broadly, Irish Nationalists were conscious that they were members of an Irish nation separate from the people of the island of Great Britain. Irish Unionists were conscious that they belonged to either a local variant of a British nation extending throughout the British Isles and British Empire, or members of an Irish nation accommodated within a British state and imperial patriotism, which was similar to manifestations of Scottishness. The fundamental difference between Irish Unionists and Irish Nationalists was that the former possessed a Britannic identity while the latter did not. Neither Nationalists nor Unionists accepted the legitimacy of each others’ definition of national identity. The link with the Crown allowed all Unionists to possess a strong dual British-Irish identity and for some Nationalists to aspire to a loose Britannic patriotism. It was the link with the Crown which made it possible, in 1917–1918, for some Southern Unionists to contemplate home rule for Ireland, based upon the retention of their status as British subjects. When this link was threatened,

230 CONCLUSION

many of the political elite within Ulster Unionism, reinforced by their geographical security, warned that the experience of the war had begun a psychological process which might witness their ultimate absorption into a narrower definition of Britishness. This, it should be noted, was limited to the apex of the Ulster Unionist political class; however, it signalled the genesis of a process which might ultimately spread throughout the Ulster unionist communal consciousness. The most likely catalyst for this would be if republicanism became the dominant strain within Irish Nationalism, involving breaking the link of the Crown, which would involve the jettison of any concept of Irishness which retained a Britannic identity, by the rejection of British subjectship. It was in this way that the Great War transformed the Irish Question. In 1914, the majority of Irish Nationalists accepted that Irish self-government would be within the United Kingdom; by the end of the war the majority of Nationalists apparently supported the establishment of an Irish republic outside the British Empire. It is, however, more accurate to state that the vast majority of the nationalist community would have settled for a form of selfgovernment on Dominion lines, within the Empire but outside the United Kingdom, with many Nationalists recognising that the Dominions within the British Empire were now developing into a loose commonwealth of increasingly independent states. The significance of the war was that it catapulted Irish republicanism from an obscure, minority obsession into a potential form of government for a self-governing Ireland. The period prior to the war had witnessed a time in which the precise nature of Irish and British identity was in flux. John Redmond and his supporters had hoped that the common sacrifice of Irish Nationalists and Unionists, on the field of battle, would lead to the creation of a common sense of Irishness, within a wider relationship binding Irishmen with Englishmen, Scotsmen, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans. The central fact of Redmondite imperialism was that it was aspirational; it was something to be acquired, slowly, as in South Africa, which had also had a difficult relationship with the imperial centre. When Redmond supported Britain during the war he had hoped that it would be a short conflict. But, the longer the war went on, the more problems it created for the British state and changes at the heart of government made many Nationalists believe that home rule would never become a reality. Consequently, Redmond and the Irish Party were considered to have wasted a golden opportunity to secure home rule at the start of the war.

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In supporting a British war and advocating recruitment for the British army, Redmond was aligning himself with the core psychological Other of Irish Nationalism, Britain, at a period when the relationship between Nationalist Ireland and Imperial Britain had yet to be resolved to the former’s satisfaction. Redmond’s gamble was that this approach might convince British and Irish Unionists of the sincerity of Nationalist loyalty to King and Empire. However, the actions of the Easter rebels, in an atmosphere of increasing doubt concerning the fate of home rule, illustrated an alternative, but traditional, method of fighting for Irish liberty—by fighting for Ireland against the hereditary enemy, the British state in Ireland. When the British state responded with coercive measures, these could more easily be associated with older and stronger Nationalist myths of British oppression than with the novel concept of alliance with Britain. The Irish Party, trapped in a policy of not antagonising British opinion, appeared to have become ‘more English’ than it was Irish. It was the war itself which created the conditions for the rise of Sinn Fein via the suspension of the Home Rule Act for the duration of the war; the war’s increasing financial burden; the formation of the Coalition Government; the threat of conscription; and the possibilities it offered to advanced Nationalists to engage in insurrection. The rise of Sinn Fein introduced a definition of Irishness which, potentially, could completely alter the psychological relationship of Nationalist Ireland to the British Empire and Ulster Unionism to the rest of the island. Although Sinn Fein profited from its pre-rising stance of championing traditional Nationalist interpretations of British imperialism, within its own confines there were sharp ideological differences as to what form an independent Irish state should take. Sinn Fein’s political elite, as opposed to most of its supporters, was ideologically divided on the final form of an independent Irish state. As cultural nationalists, this elite was agreed upon the organic nature of the nation; but whether the nation should be encompassed within a Britannic dominion, a sovereign independent Irish kingdom, or an Irish republic was a problem postponed for future debate and, ultimately, post-war conflict. The growth of Irish republicanism meant the rise of an ideology diametrically opposed to the Irish Unionist concept of Irishness. The latter’s Irishness rested upon a multi-layered identity, the centrepiece of which was the relationship of British subjectship to national identity. Britannic identity rested upon individuals owing allegiance to a common Crown throughout the Empire/Commonwealth, creating a uniform British nationality Republicanism, and indeed dual monarchy by

232 CONCLUSION

way of an ‘elected’ king, advanced the sovereignty of the Irish people alone, and both excluded any form of Britannic identity, the former on the basis of allowing no positive psychological, as well as material, relationship with the British Crown, and the latter, in that it was only prepared to contemplate an imperial relationship which separated British and Irish identities in separate kingdoms, thereby breaking the unity of the British Empire as a single realm. Members of the Southern Unionist political elite were prepared, from 1916 onwards, to contemplate home rule, in order to secure their influence within Irish political society. Although this would have involved them adopting a primary Irish identity, the retention of the link with the Crown would have meant that they would not have had to surrender completely their Britannic identity. In this respect, they were moving towards the Redmondite vision of an Irish nation within a wider and looser collection of imperial nations. It should also be remembered that the Southern Unionist vision of a federated Empire would have produced, if the Irish Convention’s Report had been implemented, a revolutionary form of government at the heart of the Empire. The acceptance by Irish Nationalists of the link with the Crown was a fundamental element necessary for Southern Unionist agreement to any form of home rule. The proof of this loyalty had been demonstrated, in the short term, by the actions of Redmond and the Irish Party during the war. Redmond proved to these Unionists that he was sincere in his professions of loyalty to King and Empire, and that an Irish Nationalist could also be an Imperialist. It was possible for Southern Unionists to contemplate the adoption of a primary Irish identity because Irishness and Britishness were not, because of the link with the Crown, necessarily exclusive of one another. For Ulster Unionists, however, the war confirmed all their prewar suspicions of Irish Nationalism. Secure in their northern citadel they did not have to search for evidence of Nationalist loyalty with which to ally themselves. The prospect of home rule for most of Ireland, the psychological impact of the Easter Rising when contrasted with the Battle of the Somme, the ideology of Sinn Fein and the resistance to conscription provided the genesis of a process which forced many of the political elite within Ulster Unionism to choose between their Irishness and their Britishness in terms of their primary identity. This is not to say that these Ulster Unionists no longer retained a positive Irish identity, or that they abandoned a tremendous psychological bond with Ireland; they did not, for their Irishness had been built up over centuries. But Ulster Unionists were now confronted by an alien definition of Irishness that required them to begin a longer term reassessment

CONCLUSION 233

of their psychological relationship with Ireland. At this stage at least, the initial movement seems to have been towards a closer association with their British identity, rather than their Ulster identity Ulster Unionists were only prepared to consider an ultimate unity with the rest of Ireland within a federated United Kingdom, and this after an undefined probationary demonstration of imperial loyalty After the 1918 General Election, however, Nationalist Ireland’s representatives seemingly called for a republic; this call ended the Redmondite and Southern Unionist visions of an accommodation between Irish national and British national/imperial identities. A process leading to the total polarisation of these identities had begun.

234

Notes

Introduction: The Crown and national identity in the United Kingdom and British Empire 1 Edward Moxon-Browne, Nation, Class and Creed in Northern Ireland (Aldershot: Averbury, 1983) p.1. 2 Hugh Seton-Watson, Nations and States: An Enquiry into the Origins of Nations and the Politics of Nationalism (London: Methuen, 1977) p.5. 3 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991) pp.6–7. 4 Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism (London: Pluto, 1992) p.11. 5 A.H.Birch, Political Integration and Disintegration in the British Isles (London: Allen & Unwin, 1977) pp.98–99. 6 James Loughlin, Gladstone, Home Rule and the Ulster Question 1882–93 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1986); Thomas Hennessey, ‘Ulster Unionist Territorial and National Identities 1886–1893: Province, Island, Kingdom and Empire’, Irish Political Studies 8 (1993) pp.21–36. 7 Steve Bruce, God Save Ulster! The Religion and Politics of Paisleyism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986) p.249. 8 David Miller, Queen’s Rebels: Ulster Loyalism in Historical Perspective (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1978) p.4. 9 Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992) p.5. 10 Linda Colley, ‘Britishness and otherness; an argument’ in Journal of British Studies Vol. 31, no. 4 (1992) pp.316–324. 11 Ibid. pp.316–317. 12 Keith Robbins, Nineteenth Century Britain: England, Scotland and Wales, The Making of a Nation (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988) p.4. 13 Anthony P.Cohen (ed.), Belongingness: Identity and Social Organisation in British Rural Cultures (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982) p.16. 14 Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism (London: Sage, 1995) pp.65–69.

236 NOTES

15 Maurizio Viroli, For Love of Country: An Essay on Patriotism and Nationalism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995) p.1. 16 Margaret Canovan, Nationhood and Political Theory (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1996) p.89. 17 Michael Ignatieff, Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism (London: Vintage, 1993) pp.3–5. 18 Derek Heater, Citizenship: the Civic Ideal in World History, Politics and Education (London: Longman, 1990) pp. 183–184. 19 J.M.Barbalet, Citizenship (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1988) p.15. 20 A.Lawrence Lowell, The Government of England Volume 1 (New York: Clarendon, 1919) pp.18–21. 21 Richard Rose, ‘Is the United Kingdom a State? Northern Ireland as a Test Case’, in Peter Madgwick and Richard Rose (eds), The Territorial Dimension in United Kingdom Politics (London: Macmillan, 1982) pp. 100–101. 22 A.Berriedale Keith, Anson’s The Law and Custom of the Constitution Volume II: The Crown Part I (Oxford: Clarendon, 1935) pp.285–286. 23 Ann Dummett and Andrew Nicol, Subjects, Citizens, Aliens and Others (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1990) pp.21–25. 24 Ibid. p.28. 25 J.Mervyn Jones, British Nationality Law (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956) p. 28. 26 Sir William R.Anson, The Law and Custom of the Constitution Volume II: The Crown Part II (Oxford: Clarendon, 1908) pp.4–5. 27 Ibid. 28 Mervyn Jones, op. cit. pp.59–60. 29 Ibid. pp.29–30, note 1. 30 R.T.E.Latham, ‘The Law and the Commonwealth’, in W.K. Hancock, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs Volume I: Problems of Nationality 1918–1936 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1937) p.520. 31 John Eddy and Deryck Schreuder (eds), The Rise of Colonial Nationalism: Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa First Assert Their Nationalities 1880–1914 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1988) pp.6–7. 32 Ibid. pp.97–98. 33 Richard Rose, op. cit. p.1. 34 Birch, op. cit. pp.98–99. 35 Ibid. pp.117–118. 36 Ibid.p.135. 37 John Osmond, The Divided Kingdom (London: Constable, 1988) p.37. 38 J.H.Grainger, Patriotisms: Britain 1900–39 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986) pp.52–53.

NOTES 237

1 National identity, Home Rule and the Ulster question 1 Eamon Phoenix, Northern Nationalism: Nationalist Politics, Partition and the Catholic Minority in Northern Ireland 1890–1940 (Belfast: Ulster Historical Society, 1994) p.107. 2 A.Berriedale Keith, The Governments of the British Empire (London: Macmillan, 1935) p.25. 3 John Sexton, Ireland and the Crown: The Governor Generalship and the Irish Free State (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1989) p.12. 4 Brigid Hadfield, The Constitution of Northern Ireland (Belfast: SLS, 1989) p.63. 5 Ibid. p.64. 6 Sexton, op. cit. p.14. 7 Nicholas Mansergh, The Unresolved Question: The Anglo-Irish Settlement and its Undoing (New York: Yale University Press, 1991) p. 201. 8 Alvin Jackson, The Ulster Party: Irish Unionists in the House of Commons 1884–1911 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989) p.7. 9 Ibid. p.5. 10 Patrick Buckland, Irish Unionism 1: The Anglo-Irish and the New Ireland 1885–1922 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1973) p.xiv. 11 House of Commons Debates Vol. XLVI (Hansard 16 January 1913) Col. 2334. 12 Irish Review March 1911. 13 J.Seeley in 1884, quoted in George Bennett (ed.), The Concept of Empire: Burke to Attlee 1774–1947 (London: Black, 1953) p.13. 14 Irish Times ‘Observer’ letter, 25 October 1912. 15 House of Commons Debates Vol. LX (Hansard 6 April 1914) Cols 1669–1670. 16 Ibid. Vol. LIII (10 June 1913) Col. 1514. 17 Ibid. Vol. XLII (10 October 1912) Col. 1615. 18 Irish Times 1 October 1912. 19 Ibid. 2 October 1912. 20 Belfast News-Letter 30 April 1912. 21 House of Commons Debates Vol. XXXIX (Hansard 13 December 1912) Cols 1090–1091. 22 Belfast News-Letter 17 April 1912. 23 Ibid. 10 April 1912. 24 Ibid. 16 April 1912. 25 House of Lords Debates (Hansard 23 June 1914) Col. 391. 26 Ibid. (1 July 1914) Col. 5916. 27 House of Commons Debates Vol. XXXVII (Hansard 17 May 1912) Col. 1303. 28 Thomas Sinclair, The Position of Ulster’, in S.Rosenbaum (ed.), Against Home Rule: The Case for the Union (New York: F.Warne, 1912) pp.172–173. 29 Irish Times 9 April 1912. 30 House of Commons Debates Vol. XLI (Hansard 22 October 1912) Col. 1976. 31 Ibid. Col. 1978.

238 NOTES

32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

Ibid. Col. 2001. Ibid. Col. 201. Irish Times 30 September 1912. Ibid. 13 August 1912. A.T.Q.Stewart, The Ulster Crisis; Resistance to Home Rule 1912–14 (London: Faber, 1967) p.62. House of Commons Debates Vol. XLVI (Hansard 15 January 1913) Cols 2150–2151. Belfast News-Letter 16 September 1912. Ibid. 19 September 1912. Ibid. 24 September 1912. Ibid. 13 August 1912. Ibid. 12 July 1912. Ibid. 19 September 1912. House of Commons Debates Vol. LX (Hansard 1 July 1912) Cols 797– 799. Ibid. Col. 819. Belfast News-Letter 2 July 1912. John Hickey, Religion and the Northern Ireland Problem (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1984) pp.62–63. Mary Harris, The Catholic Church and the Foundation of the Northern Irish State (Cork: Cork University Press, 1993) pp.11–12. Patrick Buckland, James Craig, Lord Craigavon (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1980) p.20. S.Rosenbaum (ed.), Against Home Rule: The Case for the Union (New York: F.Warne, 1912) p.218. Harris, op. cit. p.14. Ibid. p.5. John Bowman, De Valera and the Ulster Question 1917–1973 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982) pp.11–12. J.E.Redmond, The Justice of Home Rule: A Statement of Ireland’s Claim for Self-Government (London: Irish Press Agency, 1912) p.37. Jeremiah MacVeigh, Home Rule in a Nutshell (London: Irish Press Agency, 1911) p.3. Paul Bew, Ideology and the Irish Question: Ulster Unionism and Irish Nationalism 1912–1916 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994) p.76. Ibid. p.71. House of Commons Debates Vol. XXXIX (Hansard 13 June 1912) Cols 1086–1087. House of Commons Debates Vol. XLVI (Hansard 16 January 1913) Col. 2334. Irish Press Agency, The Irish National Convention 1912 (London: Irish Press Agency, 1912) p.23. J.E.Redmond, The Justice of Home Rule: A Statement of Ireland’s Claim for Self-Government (London: Irish Press Agency , 1912) p. 13. House of Commons Debates Vol. XLVI (Hansard 31 December 1912) Cols 237–238.

NOTES 239

63 J.E.Redmond, The Justice of Home Rule: A Statement of Ireland’s Claim for Self-Government (London: Irish Press Agency, 1912) pp. 33–34. 64 J.E.Redmond, Mr Balfour on Nationality and Home Rule, A Reply by J.E.Redmond MP (London: Irish Press Agency, 1912). 65 Irish Press Agency, Ireland, Scotland and Ulster (London: Irish Press Agency, n.d.). 66 Nationality 19 May 1917. 67 Irish Press Agency, Ireland, Scotland and Ulster (London: Irish Press Agency, n.d.). 68 D.G.Boyce, Nationalism in Ireland (London: Routledge, 1982) pp.280– 281. 69 House of Commons Debates Vol. XXXVII (Hansard 15 April 1912) Cols 144–146. 70 House of Commons Debates Vol. XXXVI (Hansard 11 April 1912) Col. 1490. 71 John Hutchinson, The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism: The Gaelic Revival and the Creation of the Irish Nation State (London: Allen & Unwin, 1987) p. 152. 72 J.E.Redmond, What Ireland Wants (London: Irish Press Agency, 1910) pp.12–13. 73 House of Commons Debates Vol. XXXVIII (Hansard 9 May 1912) Cols 598–600. 74 House of Commons Debates Vol. LX (Hansard 1 April 1914) Cols 1216–1217. 75 House of Commons Debates Vol. LX (Hansard 6 April 1914) Cols 1659–1660. 76 J.E.Redmond, The Justice of Home Rule: A Statement of Ireland’s Claim for Self-Government (London: Irish Press Agency, 1912) p.10. 77 Hutchinson, op. cit. pp.15–16. 78 Ibid. p.153. 79 Tom Garvin, Nationalist Revolutionaries in Ireland 1858–1922 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987) pp.78–81. 80 Ibid. pp.83–84. 81 Hutchinson, op. cit. pp.173–175. 82 Boyce, op. cit. p.243. 83 John O’Beirne Ranelagh, ‘The Irish Republican Brotherhood in the revolutionary period 1879–1923’, in D.G.Boyce (ed.) The Revolution in Ireland 1879–1923 (London: Macmillan, 1988) pp.139–144. 84 Charles Townsend, Political Violence in Ireland: Government and Resistance since 1848 (London: Clarendon, 1983) pp.241–242. 85 Irish Freedom January 1912. 86 Ibid. September 1913. 87 Pádraic H.Pearse, The Collected Works of Pádraic H.Pearse (Dublin: Phoenix, 1916) pp.299–302. 88 Sinn Fein 25 September 1909. 89 Ibid. 9 November 1907. 90 Irish Freedom November 1910.

240 NOTES

91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112

Ibid. February 1914. Pearse, op. cit. p.343. Irish Freedom November 1912. Ibid. July 1911. Ibid. February 1913. Pearse, op. cit. p.223. Leader 8 July 1911. Ibid. 27 July 1912. Ibid. 12 April 1913. Hutchinson, op. cit. pp.169–173. Arthur Griffith, The Resurrection of Hungary: A Parallel for Ireland (Dublin: Sinn Fein, 1904) p.89. Sinn Fein 8 September 1906. Ibid. 20 April 1907. Irish Review August 1911, pp.269–70. Ibid. p.272. National Library of Ireland, Bulmer Hobson Papers, Ms 13170, ‘General Statement, January 1948’. Ibid. ‘Comments by Dr Patrick McCartan on Mr Bulmer Hobson’s General Statement’. Pearse, op. cit. pp.291–292. Ibid. p.268. Irish Freedom January 1912. Sinn Fein, Colonial Home Rule: What It Means (Dublin: Sinn Fein, 1917). Irish Freedom January 1912.

2 Ireland in 1914 1 Michael Laffan, The Partition of Ireland 1911–1925 (Dublin: Dublin Historical Association, 1983) p.33. 2 Ibid. pp.35–38. 3 Ibid. pp.40–46. 4 Nicholas Mansergh, The Unresolved Question: The Anglo-Irish Settlement and its Undoing 1912–72 (New York: Yale University Press, 1991) p.82. 5 Dennis Gwynn, The Life of John Redmond (London: G.G.Harrap, 1932) pp.354–357. 6 Nationalist and Leinster Times 8 August 1914. 7 Ibid. 15 August 1914. 8 Ibid. 22 August 1914. 9 Drogheda Independent 8 August 1914. 10 Longford Leader 8 August 1914. 11 Dundalk Democrat 8 August 1914. 12 Ibid. 22 August 1914. 13 Clare Champion 8 August 1914.

NOTES 241

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

Cork Examiner 4 August 1914. Ibid. 5 August 1914. Clonmel Nationalist 5 August 1914. Ibid. 11 August 1914. Ibid. 19 August 1914. Enniscorhty Guardian 12 September 1914. Ibid. 5 September 1914. Ibid. 26 September 1914. Ibid. 8 August 1914. Limerick Leader 5 August 1914. Ibid. 10 August 1914. Wexford Free Press 8 August 1914. Western People 8 August 1914. Kerryman 8 August 1914. Sligo Champion 29 August 1914. Ulster Guardian 27 September 1914. Nationalist and Leinster Times 22 August 1914. Leitrim Advertiser 6 August 1914. Ibid. 4 August 1914. Cork Constitution 8 August 1914, ‘Wait and See’ letter. Sligo Independent 8 August 1914. Ibid. 15 August 1914. Church of Ireland Gazette 7 August 1914. Ibid. 21 August 1914. Irish Protestant September 1914. Kilkenny Moderator 15 August 1914. Ibid. 22 August 1914. Church of Ireland Gazette 19 September 1914. Irish Times 22 August 1914. Church of Ireland Gazette 14 August 1914. Belfast News-Letter 4 August 1914. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. 8 August 1914. Derry Standard 10 August 1914. Armagh Guardian 14 August 1914. Ibid. 28 August 1914. Northern Whig 10 August 1914. Armagh Guardian 14 August 1914. Belfast News-Letter 10 August 1914. Northern Whig 10 August 1914. Derry Standard 26 August 1914. Belfast News-Letter 21 August 1914. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. 31 August 1914. Northern Whig 5 September 1914.

242 NOTES

61 National Library of Ireland, John Redmond Papers, Ms 15,261(2), Graves to Redmond, 2 October 1915, regarding a meeting with Carson on 13 March 1915. 62 Belfast Evening Telegraph 15 September 1914, R.S.H.Noble letter. 63 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, D627/436/37, de Fellenburg Montgomery Papers; Stronge to de Fellenburg Montgomery, 29 August 1918. 64 Weekly Northern Whig 8 August 1914. 65 Northern Whig 10 August 1914. 66 Belfast News-Letter 1 September 1914. 67 Northern Whig 28 August 1914. 68 Ibid. 4 August 1914. 69 Ibid. 5 August 1914. 70 Ibid. 12 August 1914. 71 Ibid. 8 August 1914. 72 Trinity College Dublin Manuscripts, Donoughmore Papers K/27/32, Shaw to Donoughmore, 7 August 1914. 73 Ibid., Donoughmore Papers K/27/36, Donoughmore to Shaw, 11 August 1914. 74 Ibid., Donoughmore Papers K/27/39, Donoughmore to Carson, 16 August 1914. 75 Irish Times 13 August 1914. 76 Sinn Fein 8 August 1914. 77 Irish Volunteer 19 September 1914. 78 Sinn Fein 29 August 1914. 79 Ibid. 8 August 1914. 80 Irish Freedom September 1914. 81 Irish Independent 20 August 1914, F.O’Reilly letter. 82 Leader 15 August 1914. 83 Enniscorthy Guardian 15 August 1914. 84 University College Dublin Archives, O’Callaghan-Westropp Papers, 8 September 1914, O’Callaghan-Westropp to Hickman. 85 Irish Times 7 August 1914. 86 Kilkenny Moderator 5 September 1914. 87 Irish Times 15 August 1914. 88 Kildare Observer 22 August 1914. 89 Ibid. 12 September 1914. 90 Public Record Office, 30/57/WK/4, Kitchener Papers, Meath to Redmond, 15 August 1914. 91 Ibid. 30/57/WK/5, Kitchener Papers, Redmond to Meath 19 August 1914. 92 Ibid. 93 Irish Volunteer 19 September 1914. 94 Freeman’s Journal 17 August 1914. 95 Irish Times 31 August 1914. 96 Trinity College Dublin Manuscripts, Donoughmore Papers K/27/41, Wyndham Quinn to Donoughmore, 18 August 1914. 97 Connaught Telegraph 19 September 1914.

NOTES 243

98 Irish Independent 1 September 1914. 99 Ian Colvin, The Life of Lord Carson, Volume 3 (London: Victor Gollanz, 1934) pp.32–33. 100 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, D627/429/5, FMP dated 22 September 1914. 101 Belfast News-Letter 4 September 1914. 102 Dennis Gwynn, The Life of John Redmond (London: G.G.Harrap, 1932) pp.375–376. 103 Irish Volunteer 29 August 1914. 104 Irish Times 29 August 1914. 105 Trinity College Dublin Manuscripts, Donoughmore Papers K/27/44, Longfield to Bagwell, 16 August 1914. 106 Irish Times 29 August 1914. 107 Freeman’s Journal 1 September 1914. 108 Cork Constitution 31 August 1914. 109 Dennis Gwynn, The Life of John Redmond (London: G.G.Harrap, 1932) pp.374–375. 110 Ibid. pp.379–380. 111 Ibid. pp.381–382. 112 Public Record Office, CO 904/94, September 1914. 113 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Hugh de Fellenburg Montgomery Papers, D627/429/5, 22 September 1914. 114 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Carson Papers, D107/A/8/ 16, 15 September 1914.

3 The Great War and national identity, 1914–16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Weekly Northern Whig 8 August 1914. Belfast News-Letter 21 October 1914. Belfast Evening Telegraph 14 August 1914. Weekly Northern Whig 15 August 1914. Tyrone Constitution 7 August 1914. Ibid. 14 August 1914. Irish Times 15 August 1914. Ibid. 29 August 1914. Armagh Guardian 18 September 1914. Belfast Evening Telegraph 13 August 1914. Derry Standard 12 August 1914. Church of Ireland Gazette 21 August 1914. Ibid. 11 September 1914. Ibid. Weekly Northern Whig 8 August 1914. Derry Standard 3 August 1914. Belfast News-Letter 5 August 1914. Ibid. 10 August 1914. Ibid. 19 August 1914.

244 NOTES

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

Derry Standard 3 August 1914. Freeman’s Journal 17 September 1914. Ibid. 17 September 1914. Ibid. 21 September 1914. National Library of Ireland, John Redmond Papers, Ms 15,524, Redmond to Fitzpatrick, 16 December 1914. Dennis Gwynn, The Life of John Redmond (London: G.G.Harrap, 1932) pp.374–375. Irish Independent 26 October 1914. Ibid. 25 September 1914. National Volunteer 31 October 1914. Ibid. 6 September 1914. Ibid. 24 September 1914. Gwynn, op. cit. p.384. Freeman’s Journal 3 October 1914. New Ireland 10 July 1915, ‘One of the Irish Division’ letter. Gwynn, op. cit. pp.393–394. Parliamentary Paper Cd 8279 Royal Commission on the Rebellion in Ireland: Minutes of the Evidence and Appendix (London: HMSO, 1916) p.2. Irish Volunteer 31 October 1914. Eire-Ireland 26 October 1914. Irish Volunteer 14 November 1914. Sinn Fein 15 August 1914. Irish Volunteer 10 October 1914. Ibid. 2 January 1915. Ibid. 21 November 1914. Ibid. 3 October 1914. Freeman’s Journal 26 November 1914. Hugh Law, Why is Ireland at War? (Dublin: Constable, 1916) p.33. Ibid. pp.35–37. T.M.Kettle, The Ways of War (London: Constable, 1917) p.206. Ibid. pp.227–228. Ibid. pp.219–221. Ibid. p.223. Law, op. cit. p.20. Kettle, op. cit. p.232. Gwynn, op. cit. pp.386–387. Ibid. p.402. National Volunteer 17 October 1914. Stephen Gwynn, ‘The Irish Brigade 1914’, in Stephen Gwynn and T.M.Kettle, Songs for the Irish Brigade (Dublin: Maunsel, 1915) pp. 30–31. Leader 28 September 1914. Public Record Office, CO 904/94, September 1914. Ibid. August 1914. Ibid. September 1914. Public Record Office, CO 904/95, October 1915.

NOTES 245

62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104

Ibid. Public Record Office, CO 904/96, February 1915. Ibid. April 1915. Public Record Office, CO 904/94, September 1914. Ibid. Public Record Office, CO 904/96, January 1915. Ibid. March 1915. Public Record Office, CO 904/95, October 1915. Freeman’s Journal 16 September 1914. Ibid. 21 September 1914. Ibid. 6 October 1914. Ibid. 14 October 1914. Ibid. 6 October 1914. Ibid. 10 October 1914. Ibid. 26 October 1914. Ibid. 27 September 1914. Parliamentary Paper Cd 8279 Royal Commission on the Rebellion in Ireland: Minutes of the Evidence and Appendix (London: HMSO, 1916) pp.2–3. Ibid. p.57. Ibid. p.3. Ibid. p.19. National Library of Ireland, John Redmond Papers, Ms 15,262(1). Irish Independent 25 November 1914. Ibid. 30 April 1915. Ibid. 28 June 1915. Ibid. 5 August 1915. Ibid. 23 September 1915. Trinity College Dublin Manuscripts, John Dillon Papers 6740, Dillon to O’Connor, 26 September 1916. Ibid. Dillon to O’Connor, 4 June 1915. Ibid. Dillon to O’Connor, 4 July 1915. Dennis Gwynn, The Life of John Redmond (London: G.G.Harrap, 1932) pp.423–426. Ibid. pp.431–432. Roscommon Herald 29 May 1915. Connaught Telegraph 29 May 1915. Leinster Leader 29 May 1915. Enniscorthy Echo 29 May 1915. National Library of Ireland, John Redmond Papers, Ms 15,262(1). Irish Independent 12 October 1915. House of Commons Debates Vol. LXXVII (Hansard 21 December 1915) Col. 221. Irish Independent 21 December 1915. Ibid. 22 December 1915. Ibid. Ibid. 7 December 1916. Gwynn, op. cit. p.443.

246 NOTES

105 House of Commons Debates Vol. LXXVII (Hansard 5 January 1916) Cols 1050–1051. 106 Peter Simkin, Kitchener’s Army: The Raising of the New Armies 1914– 16 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988) pp. 156–158. 107 Freeman’s Journal 9 June 1915. 108 Ibid. 1 July 1915. 109 Ibid. 13 August 1915. 110 House of Commons Debates Vol. LXXVII (Hansard 12 January 1916) Cols 1632–1633. 111 Ibid. (21 December 1915) Cols 254–258. 112 Ibid. (5 January 1916) Col. 1055. 113 Trinity College Dublin Manuscripts, John Dillon Papers 674, Dillon to O’Connor, 30 September 1915. 114 Ibid. O’Connor to Dillon, 7 October 1915. 115 Ibid. Redmond to Dillon, 22 March 1916. 116 Ibid. O’Connor to Dillon, 20 November 1915. 117 Ibid. O’Connor to Dillon, 9 November 1915. 118 Ibid. O’Connor to Dillon, 20 November 1915. 119 House of Commons Debates Vol. LXXVII (Hansard 5 January 1916) Cols 1006–1009. 120 House of Commons Debates Vol. LXXVIII (Hansard 17 January 1916) Cols 65–67. 121 Patrick Bukland, Irish Unionism 1: The Anglo-Irish and the New Ireland 1885–1922 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1972) p.38. 122 Irish Times 21 December 1914. 123 Ibid. 21 December 1915, 10 January 1916. 124 Ibid. 18 June 1915. 125 Ibid. 4 September 1915. 126 Ibid. 25 September 1915. 127 Freeman’s Journal 27 September 1915. 128 Ibid. 5 October 1915. 129 Belfast News-Letter 6 October 1915. 130 Northern Whig 20 January 1916. 131 Ibid. 132 Ibid. 29 March 1916. 133 Ibid. 12 April 1916. 134 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, de Fellenburg Montgomery Papers D627/429/4, de Fellenburg Hyde to Coote, 25 March 1916. 135 Northern Whig 10 January 1916. 136 Public Record Office, CAB 148/18, 21 May 1916. 137 Ian Colvin, The Life of Lord Carson, Volume 3 (London: Victor Gollanz, 1934) pp.61–62. 138 Ibid. pp. 110–114. 139 Ibid. pp.131–132. 140 Ibid. pp.139–143. 141 House of Commons Debates Vol. LXXVII (Hansard 11 January 1916) Cols 1476–1477. 142 Ibid. (21 December 1915) Cols 237–239.

NOTES 247

143 Colvin, op. cit. pp.131–132. 144 Ibid.p.133. 145 House of Commons Debates Vol. LXXVII (Hansard 5 January 1916) Col. 1036. 146 Ibid. 147 Ibid. Cols 1500–1501. 148 House of Commons Debates Vol. LXXXII (Hansard 9 May 1916) Cols 491–492. 149 House of Commons Debates Vol. LXXVII (Hansard 11 January 1916) Cols 1483–1484. 150 House of Commons Debates Vol. LXXVIII (Hansard 17 January 1916) Col. 49.

4 The Easter Rising and aftermath 1 Military Archives A/0051, ‘Oglaigh na h-Eireann and the Great War’ in P.Beasley, An t-Oglac September 1931. 2 Donagh MacDonagh ‘Irish Leaders of Our Time: Tom Clarke’, An Cosantór January 1945. 3 University College Dublin Archives, Richard Mulcahy Papers P7/D/ 14, conversation between Mulcahy and McCartan, 1961. 4 Ibid. P7/D/24. 5 University College Dublin Archives, Sean McEntee Papers P67/30. 6 Ibid. P67/39. 7 National Library of Ireland, Bulmer Hobson Papers Ms 13,170. 8 Pádraic H.Pearse The Collected Works of Pádraic H.Pearse (Dublin: Phoenix, 1916) pp.65–66. 9 Ibid. p.69. 10 Ibid. p.71. 11 Military Archives A/017, ‘Kerry: Reorganisation’ by Commandant D. O’Sullivan. 12 University College Dublin Archives, Richard Mulcahy Papers P7/D/ 16. 13 Workers Republic 28 August 1915. 14 Ibid. 31 July 1915. 15 Ibid. 18 March 1916. 16 University College Dublin Archives, Sean McEntee Papers P67/15. 17 Ibid. P67/43. 18 Workers Republic 1 January 1916. 19 University College Dublin Archives, Sean McEntee Papers P67/21. 20 Ibid. P67/43. 21 Ibid. P67/39. 22 University College Dublin Archives, Richard Mulcahy Papers P7/D/ 23. 23 Parliamentary Paper Cd. 1108 Documents Relative to the Sinn Fein Movement in Ireland (London: HMSO, 1921) p.15.

248 NOTES

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

Ibid. p.13. Ibid. Irish Freedom October 1911. National Library of Ireland, Bulmer Hobson Papers Ms 13,170 BHP, 26 January 1948 . Irish Review July 1913. National Library of Ireland, Roger Casement Papers Ms 1689, Diary 19 November 1914. Ibid. 1 December 1914. Public Record Office, German Foreign Ministry Papers SA/WK No. IIk. secr. 3. National Library of Ireland, Roger Casement Papers Ms 1689, Diary 27 November 1914. Ibid. Ms 13,073, Devoy to Casement, 1 January 1915. National Library of Ireland, Roger Casement Papers Ms 1690, Diary 28 March 1916. University College Dublin Archives, Sean McEntee Papers P67/21. National Library of Ireland, Roger Casement Papers Ms 1689, Diary 13 December 1914. Ibid. 12 December 1914. National Library of Ireland, J.M.Plunkett Papers 10,999(i), 4 June 1915. Donagh MacDonagh ‘Joseph Plunkett’, An Cosantór March 1945. Public Record Office, German Foreign Ministry Papers S.A./WK No. IIK. secr. 9. Donagh MacDonagh ‘Joseph Plunkett’, An Cosantór, March 1945. Trinity College Dublin Manuscripts, John Dillon Papers 6730/169. University College Dublin Archives, Richard Mulcahy Papers P7/D/ 30. Parliamentary Paper Cd 8279 Royal Commission on the Rebellion in Ireland: Minutes of the Evidence and Appendix (London: HMSO, 1916) pp.20–21. Cork County Eagle 6 May 1916. Kilkenny People 20 May 1916. Dungannon Democrat 17 May 1916. Drogheda Independent 13 May 1916. Connaught Telegraph 13 May 1916. Connaught Tribune 6 May 1916. Ibid. 13 May 1916. Ibid. 5 August 1916. Longford Leader 22 My 1916. Limerick Echo 9 September 1916. Derry Journal 8 May 1916. Fermanagh News 13 May 1916. Freeman’s Journal 13 May 1916. Kilkenny People 20 May 1916. House of Commons Debates Vol. 104 (Hansard 12 April 1918) Col. 1958.

NOTES 249

60 National Library of Ireland Ms 15317, anon. ‘Easter Monday’. 61 Trinity College Dublin Manuscripts, John Dillon Papers 6741, Dillon to T.P.O’Connor, 2 May 1916. 62 Ibid. Dillon to O’Connor, 17 May 1916. 63 Ibid. O’Connor to Dillon, 18 May 1916. 64 Public Record Office CAB 151/39. 65 Dennis Gwynn, The Life of John Redmond (London: G.G.Harrap, 1932) pp.507–508. 66 Cork County Eagle 17 June 1916. 67 Ibid. 21 June 1916. 68 Freeman’s Journal 16 June 1916. 69 Ibid. 20 June 1916. 70 Irish Independent 14 June 1916, C.L.Kemmy letter. 71 Ibid. 21 June 1916. 72 Mary Harris, The Catholic Church and the Foundation of the Northern Irish State (Cork: Cork University Press, 1993) pp.52–53. 73 Eamon Phoenix, Northern Nationalism: Nationalist Politics, Partition and the Catholic Minority in Northern Ireland 1890–1940 (Belfast: Ulster Historical Society, 1994) pp.36–37. 74 Ibid. p.41. 75 Ibid. p.43. 76 Irish Independent 29 July 1916. 77 Kilkenny People 17 June 1916. 78 Midland Reporter 22 June 1916. 79 Roscommon Journal 24 June 1916. 80 Fermanagh News 17 June 1916. 81 Fermanagh Herald 24 June 1916. 82 Ibid. 22 July 1916. 83 William O’Brien, The Irish Revolution and How It Came About (Dublin: Maunsel & Roberts, 1923) pp.283–286. 84 Gwynn, op. cit. p.518. 85 National Library of Ireland, John Redmond Papers Ms 15,189, Redmond to George, 18 July 1916. 86 Gwynn, op. cit. p.520. 87 Ibid. p.524. 88 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, de Fellenburg Montgomery Papers D627/429/32, de Fellenburg Montgomery to Fane Vernon, Hon. Treasuer IUA, 13 June 1916. 89 Ibid. D627/429/39, de Fellenburg Montgomery to ‘My dear Stewart’, 1 June 1916. 90 Patrick Buckland, Irish Unionism 2: Ulster Unionism and the Origins of Northern Ireland 1886–1922 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1973) pp. 105–106. 91 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, de Fellenburg Montgomery Papers D627/436/30, Stronge to de Fellenburg Montgomery, 26 August 1918. 92 Ibid. D627/429/32, Hyde to Fane Vernon, Hon. Treasuer IUA, 13 June 1916.

250 NOTES

93 House of Lords Debates Vol. XV (Hansard 11 December 1914) Col. 128. 94 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, de Fellenburg Montgomery Papers D627/429/33. 95 Ibid. D627/429/93. 96 Ibid. D627/429/66, de Fellenburg Montgomery to Mrs M.E.Sinclair, 20 September 1916. 97 British Library, Bernard Papers 52781, Bernard to Lloyd George, 3 June 1916. 98 Public Record Office, Midleton Papers 30/67/31, Midleton to Lansdowne, 9 June 1916. 99 Patrick Buckland, Irish Unionism 1: The Anglo-Irish and the New Ireland 1885–1922 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1973) p.58. 100 Public Record Office, CAB 150/11, 21 June 1916. 101 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, de Fellenburg Montgomery Papers D627/429/53, de Fellenburg Montgomery to Mrs M.E.Sinclair 24 June 1916. 102 Ian Colvin, op. cit. Vol. 3, p.179. 103 Ronald McNeill, Ulster’s Stand for Union (London: John Murray, 1922) p.251.

5 Loyalty and the Crown: Nationalist divisions and UnionistNationalist rapprochement, 1916–18 1 Trinity College Dublin Manuscripts, John Dillon Papers 6752, Conway to Miss O’Brien, 7 August 1916. 2 Kilkenny People 29 July 1916. 3 Sligo Nationalist 2 September 1916. 4 Ibid. 5 August 1916. 5 Ibid. 26 August 1916. 6 Clare Champion 28 April 1917. 7 Roscommon Journal 8 December 1917. 8 Clare Champion 21 October 1916. 9 Wicklow People 28 July 1917. 10 Midland Tribune 27 July 1916. 11 Enniscorthy Guardian 10 March 1917, 17 March 1917. 12 Nationalist and Leinster Times 8 December 1917. 13 Kerryman 19 August 1916. 14 Ibid. 4 November 1916. 15 National Library of Ireland, Count Plunkett Papers Ms 11,383(6), Holland to Plunkett, 12 April 1917. 16 Dungannon Democrat 21 June 1916. 17 Fermanagh Herald 8 July 1916. 18 Freeman’s Journal 26 October 1917. 19 Nationality 3 March 1917. 20 Ibid. 7 April 1917.

NOTES 251

21 Ibid. 30 June 1917. 22 Parliamentary Paper Cd 1108 Documents Relative to the Sinn Fein Movement in Ireland (London: HMSO, 1921). 23 Freeman’s Journal 7 July 1917. 24 Ibid. 16 August 1916, 2 November 1917. 25 Ibid. 10 August 1917. 26 Ibid. 13 August 1917. 27 Darrel Figgis, Sinn Fein Catechism (Dublin: Sinn Fein, 1918) pp.3–5. 28 Freeman’s Journal 18 October 1917. 29 Ibid. 22 October 1917, ‘Dalriada’ letter. 30 Nationality 26 May 1917. 31 Irish Nation 5 May 1917. 32 Ibid. 6 January 1917. 33 Nationality 19 May 1917. 34 Roger Casement, British versus German Imperialism: A Contrast (New York: publisher unknown, 1915). 35 Alice Stopford Green, Loyalty and Disloyalty: What it means in Ireland (Dublin: publisher unknown, 1918). 36 Fermanagh Herald 30 December 1916. 37 Irish Times 29 May 1917. 38 New Ireland 9 September 1916. 39 Irish Times 23 January 1918. 40 National Archives, George Gavan Duffy Papers, Lysaght to Lloyd George, 12 January 1918. 41 National Library of Ireland, Ms 15,265(1). 42 English Review September 1917. 43 Freeman’s Journal 4 September 1917. 44 Ibid. 10 September 1917. 45 Ibid. 7 July 1917. 46 Ibid. 3 December 1917. 47 Ibid. 27 October 1917. 48 Ibid. 24 January 1918, ‘An Imperial Nationalist’ letter. 49 Freeman’s Journal 28 January 1918. 50 Ibid. 12 January 1917. 51 Irish Times 3 October 1917. 52 Ibid. 25 June 1917. 53 Ibid. 26 November 1917. 54 Irish Independent 19 June 1916. 55 Ibid. 15 June 1916. 56 University College Dublin Archives, T.M.Kettle Papers LA34/399, 3 September 1916. 57 Freeman’s Journal 19 June 1917. 58 Ibid. 22 June 1916. 59 Irish Times 19 December 1917. 60 Ibid. 22 December 1917. 61 Ibid. 24 December 1917. 62 Ibid. 31 May 1917. 63 Ibid. 22 December 1917.

252 NOTES

64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101

Ibid. 31 August 1917. Ibid. 2 July 1917. Ibid. 31 August 1917. Fermanagh Times 22 June 1916. Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, de Fellenburg Montgomery Papers D627/432/176, de Fellenburg Montgomery to Mary ffolliott, 28 August 1918. Irish Times 27 January 1918. National Library of Ireland, Redmond Papers Ms 15,523(2) RP, 5 April 1917. Church of Ireland Gazette 2 November 1917. Irish Times 28 August 1918. Ibid. 19 July 1917. Ibid. 7 November 1917. Ibid. 9 April 1917. Ibid. 26 December 1917. Irish Independent 14 February 1917. Church of Ireland Gazette 19 January 1917. House of Lords Debates Vol. 30 (Hansard 27 June 1918) Col. 487. Church of Ireland Gazette 5 October 1917. British Library, Bernard Papers 52782, Midleton to Bernard, 31 July 1916. Ibid. 23 July 1916. Ibid. 14 August 1916. Ibid. 19 August 1916. Irish Times 21 May 1917. National Library of Ireland, Maurice Moore Papers Ms 10,568, Monteagle to Moore, 22 March 1917. Irish Times 14 June 1917. British Library, Bernard Papers 52782, 19 August 1916. Ibid. 52782. University College Dublin Archives, O’Callaghan-Westropp Papers, O’Callaghan-Westropp to Midleton, 24 July 1918. Irish Times 17 July 1917. University College Dublin Archives, O’Callaghan-Westropp Papers, O’Callaghan-Westropp to Lady Ashtown, 19 December 1917. Ibid. O’Callaghan-Westropp to Midleton, 6 January 1918. British Library, Bernard Papers 52781, Midleton to Bernard, 22 March 1917. Church of Ireland Gazette 2 February 1917. Ibid. 9 February 1917. Ibid. Ibid. 23 February 1917. Ibid. 20 October 1917. Ibid. 16 February 1917. Belfast News-Letter 15 March 1918.

NOTES 253

102 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, de Fellenburg Montgomery Papers D627/433/68, Fisher to de Fellenburg Montgomery, 4 March 1918. 103 Belfast News-Letter 8 September 1917. 104 Ibid. 10 September 1917. 105 Ibid. 24 July 1918. 106 House of Commons Debates Vol. XVI (Hansard 2 July 1914) Col. 667. 107 National Library of Ireland, Redmond Papers Ms 15,265(1), Confidential Report…to the King. 108 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, de Fellenburg Montgomery Papers D627/436/25A&B, de Fellenburg Montgomery to Mary ffolliott, 23 August 1918. 109 Ibid. D627/436/30, Stronge to de Fellenburg Montgomery, 26 August 1918. 110 Church of Ireland Gazette 11 May 1917. 111 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Carson Papers D1507/A/ 18/3, ‘The Glory of Ulster’. 112 Ibid. 113 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Carson Papers D1507/A/ 25/5, re Convention. 114 Belfast News-Letter 11 July 1916.

6 The Irish Convention and the conscription crisis, 1917–18 1 Trinity College Dublin Manuscripts, John Dillon Papers 6730/176 DP, O’Connor to Dillon, 22 January 1917. 2 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, de Fellenburg Montgomery Papers D1507/A/23/2 CP, Gwynn to Oliver, 24 March 1917. 3 National Library of Ireland, Redmond Papers Ms 15,215, O’Connor to Devlin, 15 February 1917. 4 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, de Fellenburg Montgomery Papers D627/430/37, D’Arcy to de Fellenburg Montgomery, 6 June 1917. 5 Ibid. D627/431/27, Stronge to de Fellenburg Montgomery, 12 May 1917. 6 Ibid. D627/430/3, Stronge to de Fellenburg Montgomery, 4 May 1917. 7 Ibid. D627/430/21A, de Fellenburg Montgomery to Carson, 26 May 1917. 8 Ibid. D627/430/22, Carson to de Fellenburg Montgomery, 28 May 1917. 9 Irish Times 18 May 1917. 10 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, de Fellenburg Montgomery Papers D627/430/46, de Fellenburg Montgomery to Major Sir Emerson Crawford, 16 June 1917.

254 NOTES

11 Ibid. Carson Papers D1507/A/22/3 CP, Cecil to Lloyd George, 10 March 1917. 12 Irish Times 18 January 1918. 13 Ibid. 19 May 1917. 14 Irish Independent 26 May 1917. 15 Ibid. 24 May 1917. 16 Parliamentary Paper Cd 9019 Report of the Proceedings of the Irish Convention 1918 (London: HMSO, 1918) pp.5–6. 17 Ibid. p.66. 18 National Library of Ireland, Redmond Papers Ms 15,523(1). 19 Parliamentary Paper Cd 9019 Report of the Proceedings of the Irish Convention 1918, p.67. 20 Ibid. Appendix VII, pp.83–84. 21 National Library of Ireland, Redmond Papers Ms 15189, 31 December 1917. 22 Parliamentary Paper Cd 9019 Report of the Proceedings of the Irish Convention 1918, pp.22–23. 23 Ibid. ‘Report by the Majority of Nationalists’, p.44. 24 Ibid. ‘Report by the Undersigned Nationalists’, p.36. 25 Ibid. ‘Note by Southern Unionists’, p.48. 26 British Library, Bernard Papers 5278, Midleton to Bernard, 22 March 1917. 27 National Library of Ireland, Redmond Papers Ms 15,265(6). 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. ‘Memo B’. 30 Parliamentary Paper Cd 9019 Report of the Proceedings of the Irish Convention 1918, pp.5–6. 31 Patrick Buckland, Irish Unionism 1: The Anglo-Irish and the New Ireland 1885–1922 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1972) pp.145–149. 32 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, de Fellenburg Montgomery Papers D627/433/93, de Fellenburg Montgomery to Dicey, 24 March 1918. 33 Parliamentary Paper Cd 9019 Report of the Proceedings of the Irish Convention 1918, Appendix XIV, ‘Outline of Scheme of Irish Government based on the Amending Bill, 1914’, p.116. 34 Ibid. ‘Report of the Ulster Unionist Delegation to the Irish Convention’ pp.31–32. 35 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, de Fellenburg Montgomery Papers D627/436/19, 21 May 1918. 36 Ibid. D627/436/7, n.d. 37 Ibid. D627/433/3, de Fellenburg Montgomery to Hugh Barrie, 5 January 1918. 38 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Londonderry Papers D3099/ 2/7/15, Londonderry to Fingle, 26 November 1917. 39 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Carson Papers D1507/A/ 26/42–5, 14 February 1918. Colvin Life of…III pp.325–327. See also de Fellenburg Montgomery Papers D627/433/80, Barrie to de Fellenburg Montgomery, 9 March 1918.

NOTES 255

40 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, de Fellenburg Montgomery Papers D627/429/65, de Fellenburg Montgomery to Monteagle, 19 September 1916. 41 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Carson Papers D1507/A/ 22/1. 42 Belfast News-Letter 7 May 1918. 43 Ibid. 20 June 1918. 44 Ibid. 3 October 1917. 45 Ibid. 10 November 1917. 46 Ibid. 27 September 1918. 47 Trevor Wilson, The Myriad Faces of War: Britain and the Great War 1914–1918 (Oxford: Polity, 1986) pp.555–560. 48 Ibid. p.83. 49 Public Record Office CAB 24/49 GT 4302 21, April 1918. 50 Pauric Travers, ‘The Irish Conscription Crisis 1918’ (unpublished M.A. thesis, University College Dublin, 1977) p.71. 51 House of Commons Debates Vol. 104 (Hansard 9 April 1918) Col. 1501. 52 Ibid. Col. 1371. 53 Ibid. (10 April 1918) Cols 1574–1575. 54 Ibid. (9 April 1918) Cols 1414–1415. 55 Ibid. (10 April 1918) Col. 1510. 56 Ibid. Col. 1551. 57 Ibid. Col. 1553. 58 Ibid. Cols 1371–1373. 59 University College Dublin Archives, Richard Mulcahy Papers P7/D/ 39, Sinn Fein Standing Committee, 17 May 1918. 60 Ibid. 27 June 1918. 61 House of Commons Debates Vol. 105 (Hansard 16 April 1918) Col. 320. 62 House of Commons Debates Vol. 104 (9 April 1918) Col. 1444. 63 Ibid. Cols 1443–1444. 64 House of Commons Debates Vol. 107 (25 June 1918) Cols 922–935. 65 House of Commons Debates Vol. 105 (14 April 1918) Col. 319. 66 House of Commons Debates Vol. 107 (25 June 1918) Col. 972. 67 Ibid. Col. 971. 68 Ibid. Col. 974. 69 Eamon Phoenix, Northern Nationalism: Nationalist Politics, Partition and the Catholic Minority in Northern Ireland 1890–1940 (Belfast: Ulster Historical Society, 1994) pp.46–47. 70 University College Dublin Archives, Richard Mulcahy Papers P7/D/ 39, Sinn Fein Standing Committee, 19 November 1918. 71 Phoenix, op. cit. pp.48–51. 72 Ibid. pp.54–55. 73 University College Dublin Archives, Richard Mulcahy Papers P7/D/ 20. 74 An tOglac 29 October 1918. 75 Ibid. 16 December 1918.

256 NOTES

76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83

University College Dublin Archives, Richard Mulcahy Papers P7/D/6. An tOglac 15 August 1918. Freeman’s Journal 12 November 1917. Ibid. Ibid. 28 November 1917, ‘Juvenis’ letter. Ibid. 7 November 1917, ‘Carthaginian’ letter. University College Dublin Archives, Richard Mulcahy Papers P7/D/6. An tOglac 30 November 1918.

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266

Index

Please note: note numbers appear in brackets.

Act of Renunciation 35, 36–37, 38 Act of Settlement 17 Act of Union 3, 23, 35, 36, 38, 89, 163–9 Adair, Gen. Sir William 42 Alison Philips, W. 177–4 Alsace-Lorraine 128, 140 American War of Independence 16 Ancient Order of Hibernians 18 An Claidheamh Soluis 28, 42 Anderson, Benedict viii–ix Anglo-Irish Treaty 161 Anglo-Irish Union 19, 35, 36, 161– 7 Anglo-Irish War 134, 226 Anson, Sir William R. 235(26) Anti-Conscription Pledge 215 Anti-Partition League 142 An tOglac 223–1, 225–3 Antrim 19, 40, 42, 139 Arar-Robartes, Thomas 40 Ardill, Reverend Canon 49 Armagh xix, 19, 40, 41–5, 139, 221–9, 223 Armagh Guardian 53, 243(9) Arran, Lord 148 Ashe, Thomas 119, 153–60, 224 Asquith, Herbert xix, 40, 42–6, 71– 6, 86–1, 102–8, 107, 111, 114– 20, 119, 138, 139, 155 Athlone Barracks 125, 126 Atkins, Tommy 50 Australia 2, 4, 25, 39, 78, 84, 208, 213

Bachelor’s Walk shootings 42, 44 Balfour, Arthur J. 4, 19, 21–4, 101, 146, 186 Bangor 42 Barbalet, J.M. Barrymore, Lord 11 Beasley, Pearse 119 Belfast 3, 19, 41, 139, 191–9, 222, 223 Belfast Evening Telegraph 77, 78–3, 241(62) Belfast News-Letter 8–9, 10, 14– 15, 16, 51–5, 55, 81, 111, 189– 7, 213 19 242(66), 243(2), 243 (101), 253(114) Bernard, Archbishop J.H. 110–16, 150, 178, 186, 187 Berriedale Keith, A. 235(22), 236(2) Bew, Paul 237(56) Biggar, Joseph 155 Billig, Michael 233(14) Birch, A.H. ix, 235(34) Birrell, Augustine 93, 135 Blake Powell, John 218 Blanchardstown 125 Blucher, Count Gebhard 129, 130 Boer War 27, 46, 49, 91 Boers 21, 70, 85, 108 Bonar Law, Andrew 41, 43, 72, 101, 113, 115, 146 Botha, General 85, 108–14, 110, 136–2 Bowman, John 237(53) Boyce, D.G. 238(68)

267

268 INDEX

Boyne, Battle of the 15, 170 Breen, Dan 226 British Army 64–9, 66, 82, 83, 86, 95, 192; conscription 96, 98–4, 101–23, 214–8, 226–4; Irish Division 93–9, 104, 111– 17, 221 British Empire: Constitutional Irish nationalism and 18 26; Crown and national identity viii– xviii, 1, 7–8, 17, 19–1, 25, 34, 38–2, 227–6, 231, 233–1; Crown and nationalists 161–78, 182; cultural nationalism and Irishness 29, 35–9; Great War and national identity 78–6, 85–90, 93–8, 95, 111–18; Irish Convention and 209–17; nationality and Irish unionism 3– 18; see also Dominions; Imperial Parliament British Expeditionary Force 71, 81, 104 British government: Act of Union 3, 23, 35, 36, 38, 89, 163–9; Coalition Government 101–14, 115, 119, 146–3, 152, 195, 230; Liberal Government 69, 101, 102, 155; see also Parliament; War Office British nationality, Irish unionism and 3–18 British North America Act (1867) 2 Britishness ix–x, xiv, xvii–xviii, 75, 194, 227, 231–9; national identity and Ulster question 4–5, 7–11, 13, 36, 38– 2; unionism and Great War 75–5, 229 Bruce, Steve x

Brugha, Cathal 224 Buckingham Palace Conference 41, 139 Buckland, Patrick 236(10), 237(49), 246(121), 249(90), 254(31) Butt, Isaac 23, 26, 155 Byrne, Father 96 Byrne, Gerry 122 Campbell, Sir James 178–5, 187 Canada 2, 4, 16, 20, 25, 39, 78, 84, 208, 214, 218–5 Canovan, Margaret xii Carson, Sir Edward 192; in Cabinet 101–9, 113–23; Easter Rising 135, 139, 143, 145–3, 150–8; Irish Convention 195–3, 211– 19, 220–7; opposition to Home Rule 3, 8, 14, 16, 41–5, 67–3, 74, 97; Ulster Volunteers 52, 55–9, 67–3 Casement, Sir Roger 127–5, 133, 134, 165 Cashel, Bishop of 202 Castletown, Lord 58 Catholic Relief Act 157 Catholics/Catholicism x–xi, 22, 44, 75, 88, 215, 220; cultural nationalism 28–1, 35; Easter Rising 140, 141–8, 150; in Germany 56; recruitment among 93–8, 111, 113; role of Crown 17–18, 19; Ulster Catholics xix, 3, 18, 41, 143, 150, 222 Cavan 147, 148, 222 Ceannt, Eamonn 87–2, 121, 125 Cecil, Lord Robert 7, 199 Chambers, John 10 Charles I, King of England 19 Charles VI, King of France 159 Church of England 111, 187–5 Church of Ireland 3, 10, 19, 88, 111, 187–5, 197, 243(12)

INDEX 269

Church of Ireland Gazette 50, 185, 187–5, 251(71) Church of Scotland 19 Clancy, J.J. 202 Clann na Gael 127, 128 Clare Champion 45, 155, 156 Clare East by-election 153, 186 Clarke, Tom 119, 121 Clonmel Nationalist 46 Coalition Government 101–14, 115, 119, 146–3, 152, 195, 230 Cohen, Anthony P. xi Colley, Linda x Collins, Michael 224 ‘Colonial Home Rule’ 205 Colonial Laws Validity Act (1865) 2 ‘Colonial Nationality’ 38 Colvin, Ian 242(99), 246(138), 250 (102) Commons, House of xix, 8, 25, 40, 43, 72, 114, 137–4, 142, 156; Coalition Government 105, 115, 195; in Ireland 1, 144, 206 Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (1900) 2 Connaught 1 Connaught Rangers 91 Connaught Telegraph 102, 136, 242(97) Connaught Tribune 136 Connolly, James 119, 121, 123–9, 125 Connor, Bishop of 202 conscription 96, 98–4; crisis 214–8, 226–4; nationalists and 101–14, 220–8; unionists and 109–23 Conservative Party xix Constitutional Irish nationalism, British Empire and 18–26, 35–8, 38–2 Conway, Michael 155 Cooper, Captain Bryan 58 Coote, Algernon 181 Cork 95 Cork City Corps 70, 71

Cork Constitution 241(33), 243 (108) Cork County Eagle 135, 139–6 Cork Examiner 45–9 Cosgrave, Alderman W.T. 153 Council of Constance (1417) 159 Council of Empire 182 Craig, Charles 14 Craig, James 3, 13, 17, 57, 118, 146–3, Crookes, Will 73 Crown: Irishness and 153201, 227–6, 231, 250–8; national identity and viii–xviii, 1, 7–8, 17, 19–1, 25, 34, 38–2, 227–6, 233–1; nationalists and (Sinn Fein and Irish Party) 161–78, 179–90 Crozier, J.B. (Archbishop of Armagh) 9–10, 192 Cullimore, Reverend C. 15 cultural nationalism: Easter Rising and 119–9; Irishness and 12, 26–38, 230 Cumberland, Duke of xvi Curragh 41 Curragh Mutiny 98, 103 Curtis, L.S. 167 D’arcy, Dr 79 Dardenelles campaign 114, 116 Davis, Thomas 45 de Fellenburg Montgomery, Hugh 67, 146–5, 151, 180, 190–8, 197– 4, 209, 212 Defence of the Realm Act 103 Derry 223 Derry Journal 136–2 Derry Standard 53, 55, 79, 81 Desart, Lord 218 de Valera, Eamon 153–60, 163, 170, 172, 184, 186, 219, 222–32 Devine, T.J. 153 Devlin, Joseph 18, 43, 97, 117, 134, 138–6, 202, 216, 219, 222 Devoy, John 28, 127, 129

270 INDEX

Dillon, John 43, 137; conscription policy 101, 105– 13, 117,215, 218; constitutional Irish nationalism 18, 25; Irish Party 18, 96–3, 101, 138, 155, 160, 221–9 ‘Doctrine of the Devil’ 92–7 Dominions xvii, 1–2, 4, 16, 19, 21– 4, 25, 33, 39, 78, 111–18, 139, 164, 165, 167–3, 209, 214 Donaghadee 42 Donegal 147, 148, 223 Donoughmore, Lord 59 Doran, Captain 218 Doris, L.J. 96 Doris, William 96 Down 19, 40, 42, 139, 223 Down, Bishop of 79, 142, 197, 202 Drogheda Independent 44–8, 136 Dual Monarchy policy 36, 36, 37–1, 39 Dublin 70, 87, 125–1, 131, 134, 136, 137–3; Bachelor’s Walk shootings 42, 44; Irish Volunteers 122, 132 Duffy, Patrick 121 Duffy, William 96 Duke, H.E. 195 Dummett, Ann 235(23) Dunboyne Irish Volunteers 125 Dundalk Democrat 45 Dundalk Irish Volunteers 121 Dungannon Club 29 Dungannon Democrat 135–1, 157 Dunsany, Lord 65 Easter Rising viii, 98, 179, 186, 191, 193, 194, 230, 232; and aftermath 119–58, 247–5 Eddy, John 235(31) Edward VII, King of the United Kingdom 20 Eire-England 244(37) Elliott, Right Reverend 79 Ellison, W.F.A. 176–3, 188

Emmet, Robert 123, 135 ‘Empire Confederation’ 117 English Review 169–5 Enniscorthy Echo 103 Enniscorthy Guardian 46, 61, 156 Eriksen, Thomas Hylland ix Esmonde, Dr Alan 178 Esmonde, Sir Thomas 22, 178, 218– 5 Everard, Sir Nugent 182 Federalism 24–8, 205, 213–20 Fenianism 22, 88, 155; see also Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) Fermanagh 41, 42, 139, 197, 223 Fermanagh Herald 143, 157, 25134 Fermanagh News 137, 143 Fermanagh Times 179 ‘Fiach Duubh’ 90 Figgis, Darrell 162, 180 Fingal Battalion 125 Fingall, Lord 66 Fischer, Joseph 67 Fisher, J.R. 189–7 Fitzgibbon, John 96, 202 Fletcher, Dudley 183–90 Fogerty, Michael (Bishop of Killaloe) 102, 135 Foley, Alderman 49 Foley, Reverend Dr 47–1 Francis Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria 42 Frederick the Great 57 Freemans Journal 42, 106, 122, 137, 160, 170–6, 242(94), 243 (21), 243(107), 244(32), 248(68), 250(18), 251(57), 255(78) Frongoch jail (internees freed) 153 ‘Gaelic Irish’ 184 Gaelic Journal 28 Gaelic League 13, 27, 28, 29 Gaelic Revival 12, 13,27 Galian campaign 115–1

INDEX 271

Gallipoli campaign 104, 107, 110, 111, 113, 114, 115 Galway 96 Garvin, Tom 238(79) George V, King of the United Kingdom 14, 63, 64 ‘German Plot’ 219 German prisoners 125–1 Germany 55–57, 208, 209, 226; alliance (Easter Rising) 125–8, 135–1; Great War 79, 80–5, 91–7, 106– 12, 114, 116, 119 Gladstone, William Ewart xix, 23 Gough, General 41 Government of Ireland Act (1914) 144 Grainger, J.H. 235(38) Grattan, Henry 171 Great Famine 122 Grey, Sir Edward 43 Griffith, Arthur: on British Empire 35–9, 37; Irish Convention 199–6, 219, 222; Sinn Fein 26, 28, 32, 60–4, 89, 99, 155, 158–4, 164–70, 199–6, 219, 222 Grubb, Reverend James 75 Gwynn, Dennis 104, 145–2, 239(5), 243(25), 243(102), 245(91), 248 (65) Gwynn, Stephen 86, 91, 93, 94, 99, 103, 171, 173–81, 178, 181, 194, 195, 202

Henrietta, Maria x–xi Henry V, King of England 159 Henry VIII, King of England 128, 171 Hibernian 29 Hickey, John 237(47) Hobson, Bulmer 29, 32, 42, 122, 126–2 Hollweg, Bethman 131 home rule ix, 157, 223; Government of Ireland Act (1914) 144; Irish Convention 167–2, 195– 34, 253–60; national identity and (Ulster question) xix–39, 232, 236–5; in 1914 40–4; 44–48, 51–6, 57, 59–3, 61, 67–8, 230; Home Rule Act (1914) 99–8, 109, 113, 119, 147, 182, 186, 198–5, 207, 212, 220 Home Rule Bills 33, 215; (1886) ix, xix, 23; (1893) xix; (1912–14) xix–1, 3, 16, 25, 39– 3, 44, 51–5, 57, 59–2, 61, 67–9, 83–8, 139; Amending Bill 96–2, 119, 144, 147, 212 Horner, Andrew 11 Howard, Samuel 50 Humbert, General 133 Hutchinson, John 238(71), 239 (100) Hutnick xi

Hadfield, Brigid 236(4) Hamilton, James, Duke of Abercorn 218 Hanover xvi, xvii, 12 Harbison, T.B. 202 Harbison, T.J.S. 222 Harris, Mary 237(48), 249(72) Hayden, John 96 Hayes, Micheal 223 Hazleton, Richard 96 Heater, Derek xiii

Ignatieff, Michael xii Imperial Conference: (1917) 165; (1926) 2; proposal 139, 140, 147, 204 Imperial Council of Empire 25, 204 Imperial Federation 182, 187, 203– 10 Imperial Parliament 52, 103; Easter Rising and 142, 148;

272 INDEX

Irish Convention 200, 19811, 209, 211–19, 220, 226–4; national identity and xix–3, 8, 12, 14–16, 23–7, 38; unionist-nationalist rapprochement 182, 189–7 ‘Independent Nationalists’ 181 India 78, 129 Ireland: Crown and Irishness 153–194, 250–8; Easter Rising 119–58, 247–5; Great War and national identity (1914–16) 75–119, 243–52; home rule and Ulster question (national identity) xix–39, 236– 5; Irish Convention and conscription crisis (1917–18) 195–34, 253–60; nationalism see nationalists; in 1914 40–75, 239–8; partition 40, 139–55, 212, 227– 9 Irish-Americans 28–1, 69, 223 ‘Irish Army’ 93 Irish Brigade 128, 129, 130 Irish Citizen War 123 Irish Civil War (1922–3) 34, 161 Irish Constitution Committee 186 Irish Convention (1917–18) 167, 168, 195–5, 231, 253–60; conscription crisis 214–8; end of war (towards armed struggle) 221–33; Nationalist and Southern Unionist agreement 200–12; Ulster Unionist opposition 206– 20 Irish Division 93–9, 104, 111–17, 221 Irish Freedom 29, 33, 61–5, 126, 239(110), 242(98) Irish Independent 99–6, 104, 141, 142–9, 202, 242(81), 244(26), 251(54), 253(14) Irish Nation 164

Irish National League (INL) 142, 166 Irish National Volunteers: Easter Rising 119–31, 129, 131– 8; eve of war (1914) 42–7, 46–47, 49, 51–5, 69–5, 75; in Great War 82–93, 95, 98–4; Irish Convention 223–3; Provisional Committee 42, 70, 71, 119; rise of Sinn Fein 153, 155–1, 171; southern unionist and nationalist tensions 58–66; split 82–93, 95 Irish Parliament 144–1; Great War 87–2, 100; Irish Convention 195, 202–10, 210, 212–19, 216–3, 223, 227; national identity and 1–3, 15– 16, 19, 23, 35; in 1914 46, 52, 58 Irish Party: conscription policy 101–16, 113, 215–2, 218, 221–30, 226; decline (1916 talks) 138–52; Easter Rising 134–40, 138–52, 147, 152; in Great War 85–86, 89, 91, 93– 101, 119, 230; Irish Convention 195, 209, 212, 231; national identity and xix, 15, 18, 26, 28–1, 33; in 1914 43, 46, 48–2, 51, 53, 58, 60, 65, 69, 72–7; rapprochement attempts 172– 84, 181, 187, 193–1; recruitment and 93–101; Sinn Fein and 153, 155, 159, 160, 161–78, 174 Irish Press Agency 53, 237(60), 238 (65) Irish Protestant 50 Irish Republican Army (IRA) 134

INDEX 273

Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) 22, 27–29, 32, 36–37, 42, 61, 88, 119–31, 130–6, 133, 155 Irish Review 5, 236(12), 239(104), 247(28) Irish Times 12, 13, 50, 78, 109–15, 179, 183, 236(14), 242(75), 243 (104), 251(37), 252(85), 253(9) Irish Unionist Alliance (IUA) 11, 59, 186, 207 Irish Unionist Association 186 Irish Unionist Party 3, 113, 198 Irish Volunteer 63, 69–4, 88–3, 90, 242(77), 244(36) Irishness 4–5, 9–13, 39, 83; Crown and 153–194, 227–6, 231, 250–8; cultural nationalism and 12, 26– 38, 230 Jackson, Alvin 236(8) James I ix, xvi, 19 James II xi, 19 James VI xvi, 171 Joint Exchequer Board 200 ‘Justitia’ 55 Keating, Matthew 135, 216, 218 Kerryman 47, 156–2 Kettle, T.M. 92–7, 173, 178, 194 Kildare Observer 242(88) Kildare Volunteers 125 Kilkenny 111, 153 Kilkenny Moderator 50, 242(86) Kilkenny People 135, 143, 155, 248 (58) King, R.S.G. 57–1 Kitchener, Lord 63, 66, 67–2, 93, 113–19 Knox, Vesey 140

Labour in Irish History (Connolly) 124 Labour Party 69, 102, 107 Laffan, Micheal 239(1) Lalor, Fintan 122 Lansdowne, Lord 11, 145, 150–7

Larne 42 Latham, R.T.E. 235(30) Law, Hugh 91–6, 137 Leader, The 34, 78, 95 Leahy, H.G. 181 Lehane, C. 142 Leinster 1, 5 Leinster Leader 102 Leitrim Advertiser 48 Leo XIII, Pope 225 Lewes jail (internees freed) 153 Liberal Government 69, 101, 102, 155 Liberal Party xix, 69, 107, 156 Lichnowsky, Prince Karl M. 56 Limerick 132 Limerick Echo 136 Limerick Leader 46–47 Lloyd George, David 40, 99–5, 139, 145–2, 150–7, 187, 195–3, 199, 201, 215 Locke, John 35 Londonderry 19, 40, 41, 42, 139 Londonderry, Lord 190, 210–17 Long, Walter 105, 113 Longford by-election 153, 197 Longford Leader 45, 136 Lonsdale, Sir John 117, 198 Lords, House of xix, 11, 41, 73, 145 Louge, Cardinal 221, 222 Loughlin, James x Lowell, A.Lawrence 235(20) Lundon, Thomas 202 Lynch, Diamuid 224 Lynch, Patrick 153 Lysaght, Edward 167–4, 181 Lyster, Reverend H.C. 188 McCann, Alexander 17–18 McCartan, Dr Patrick 37, 121, 222 McCelland, A.H. 55 McCullough, Denis 29 MacDermott, Sean 29, 32, 42, 119, 121, 123, 126 MacDonagh, Donagh 247(2), 248 (39)

274 INDEX

MacDonagh, Thomas 121, 125 MacDonnell, Lord 202 McEntee, Sean 124–30 McGuinness, Joseph 153 McHugh, Charles (Bishop of Derry) 142, 222 McKee, Dick 224 McKenna, Patrick (Bishop of Clogher) 142, 153 MacNeill, Eoin 119; Easter Rising 121, 134; Gaelic League 28; Irish Volunteers 42, 60, 87, 89– 4, 98–4; Sinn Fein 169–5, 222 MacNeill, James 181 McNeill, Ronald 8, 12, 16, 152 MacNeill, Swift 170–7 MacRory, Joseph (Bishop of Down and Connor) 142 MacVeagh, Jeremiah 18, 139 Magennis, John 153 Mahon, Sir William 62 Manchester Martyrs 123 Mansergh, Nicholas 43, 236(7) Mansion House Conference 215, 219 Maxwell, General Sir John 134, 137 Mayo, Lord 58 Meath 125, 132 Meath, Bishop of 183 Meath, Lord 62–7, 185 Mervyn Jones, J. 235(25) Midland Reporter 143 Midland Tribute 156 Midleton, Lord 150–7, 187, 199, 203, 207 Military Council (of IRB) 121, 130–6 Military Service Bill 98–4, 105–11, 215, 220 Miller, Reverend David x, 78 Milroy, Sean 222 Molyneux, William 23 Monahan 147, 148 Monteagle, Lord 186–3 Moore, Colonel Maurice 171, 181 Moore, William 9, 13 Moran, D.P. 28, 34, 61, 95

Morrison, Reverend R.S. 193 Moxon-Browne, Edward viii Mulcahy, Richard 134, 224, 225 Munster 1 Murphy, Canon 19, 137 Murphy William Martin 202–9 Nathan, Sir Matthew 99, 101–7 National Consultation Assembly of Ireland 213 national identity: Crown and (in UK/British Empire) viii–xviii, 233–1; Great War and (1914–16) 75– 119, 232, 243–52; home rule and (Ulster question) xix–39, 232, 236–5; National Register 105, 106 National Registration Act 106 National Volunteer 85, 94 nationalist-unionist divide 3, 34, 45 47; agreement at Irish Convention 200–12; Irish National Volunteers 58–66; Irish National Volunteers split 82–93; rapprochement (1916–18) 153– 194, 250–8 Nationalist and Leinster Times 44, 156, 241(30) nationalists 42, 49–3, 152, 231–9; conscription and 101–14, 220– 8; constitutional British Empire and 18–26, 35–8, 38–2; Crown and (Sinn Fein and Irish Party) 161–78; divisions (1916–18) 153–194, 250–8; impact of Easter Rising 134–44; reactions to outbreak of war 44– 48, 118–4, 227–7; Ulster Unionist perceptions of 188–193 Nationality 99, 238(66), 250(19)

INDEX 275

nationality, British (and Irish unionism) 3–18 New Departure 28 New Ireland 104, 244(33), 251(38) New Zealand 2, 4, 84, 219 Newry 139 Nicol, Andrew 235(23) Nietzsche, Friedrich 93 1916 talks, decline of Irish Party and 138–52 North, Frederick Lord 16 Northern Whig 53–7, 55–9, 57, 67, 75, 77–2, 81, 111–17, 191, 242 (67) Nugent, Sir Walter 97 O’Beirne Ranelagh, John 238(83) O’Briain, Liam 126 O’Brien, P. 96 O’Brien, William 143–51 O’Callaghan-Westropp, Colonel 186–4 O’Connell, Daniel 23, 24, 65 O’Connor, F.J. 142, 166–2 O’Connor, Rory 224 O’Connor, T.P. 107, 138–5, 195–3 O’Connor Power, J. 172 O’Donnell, Patrick (Bishop) 142 O’Dowd, John 96, 202 O’Dwyer, Edward (Bishop of Limerick) 137 O’Flanagan, Father Michael 140 O’Hannigan, Donal 125–1 O’Haodea, Seamus 90–5 Oldcastle (County Meath) 125 Omagh 141–8 O’Mahony, T. 170 O’Malley, William 96 O’Neill, Hugh 58, 65, 117–3 ‘Orange Free State’ 143 Orange Lodge 57 Orangemen 6, 29, 45, 61–6, 85, 170, 193 Orange Order xix Orangism xix, 148 Oranmore and Browne, Lord 58, 190

Osmond, John 235(37) Ossory, Bishop of 185 Paget, General 41 Parliament 19, 33, 35, 38, 100, 204, 218; House of Commons xix–1, 8, 25, 40, 43, 72, 105, 114–20, 137–4, 142, 144, 156, 195, 206; House of Lords xix,11, 41, 73, 145; Imperial see Imperial Parliament: Irish see Irish Parliament Parliament Act (1911) xix Parnell, Charles Stewart xix, 19, 23, 24, 28, 65, 155 partition 212, 227–9; proposals 40, 139–51; unionism and 146–8 Peace Conference 158, 159, 160, 161, 200, 223 Pearse, Patrick H. 31–4, 33, 37, 42, 88, 121–9, 125–1, 174 Persce, Captain W.A. 66 Philip of Spain 56 Phoenix, Eamon 236(1), 249(73), 255(69) Plunkett, Count 133, 153, 157, 164, 199 Plunkett, Sir Horace 200 Plunkett, Joseph Mary 29, 32, 121, 130–8 Pollock, H.M. 190, 208 Post Office 1 Powerscourt, Lord 186 Prenter, Reverend Samuel 17 Presbyterianism 17, 111 Privy Council 170 Problem of the Commonwealth, The (Curtis) 167 Proclamation of the Republic 162, 179 Protestants/Protestantism 16, 18, 35, 40, 41, 58, 183; Britishness and ix–x, 10, 13; Church of England 111, 187–5;

276 INDEX

Church of Ireland 3, 10, 19, 88, 111, 187–5, 197, 243(12); Church of Ireland Gazette 50, 185, 187–5, 251(71); Church of Scotland 19; recruitment among 93; Ulster Protestants xix, 3, 9, 11, 17, 19, 21, 44, 56, 68, 113, 140, 143, 150, 191 Provisional Government of Irish Republic 162 Prussian militarism 91–7, 106–12 Quebec 214 Raphoe, Bishop of 202 Re-conquest of Ireland, The (Connolly) 124 ‘Reciprocal Act of Parliament’ xvii recruitment, Irish Party and 93–101 Redmond, John 178; on conscription 101–7, 104, 106–14, 111, 115, 117, 215, 217; Easter Rising 119–6, 135, 138– 5, 142–52, 150; Home Rule xix,9, 18–26, 29, 33, 35, 39, 40–48, 50–5, 67, 69, 71– 7, 75, 229–7; Irish Convention 199, 201, 211, 215, 217, 223; Irish National Volunteers 42, 58, 60–7, 65, 75, 82–89; Irish Party 18, 93–102, 119, 138–52, 230, 231; responses to 48, 50–5, 55–9; Sinn Fein and 153–61, 187 Redmond, Willie 21, 22, 96, 153, 172–80, 178–5, 194, 217 Renunciation Act (1783) 35, 36–37, 38 republicanism 185–2, 187–5, 193, 194, 231 Resurrection of Hungary, The (pamphlet) 35 Richardson, General 98, 148 Richmond Barracks 126

Roantree O’Shiel, K. 141 Robbins, Keith xi Robertson, Edward Stanley 188–6 Robinson, Seamus 226 Roscommon 96 Roscommon Herald 102 Roscommon Journal 143, 155–1 Roscommon North by-election 153, 158 Rose, Richard 235(20) Rosenbaum, S. 237(50) Royal Dublin Fusiliers 104, 111 Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) 1, 95– 1 Royal Munster Fusiliers 104 Russell, George (‘AE’) 167, 175–4, 181 ‘Rusticus’ 188 St Leger Moore, Lieutenant-Colonel 58 Schreuder, Deryck 235(31) Scotland xiv–xviii, 5, 9, 12, 19, 191 Scott, Sir Walter 12 Seeley, John Robert 7 self-government 39, 227–6; see also home rule Senate 206 Serbian campaign 107, 115, 116 Seton-Watson, Hugh viii Settlement, Act of 17 Sexton, John 236(3) Shannon, River 126, 132 Shaw, R.J.Herbert 59 Sheehan, Captain 178 Simkin, Peter 245(106) Sinclair, Thomas 11–12 Sinn Fein 39, 175–4, 232; conscription and 215–3, 219–6, 221–34; cultural nationalism 12, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32–6; Easter Rising 134–40, 137, 138, 140, 142, 151; Great War and 89, 96, 99, 103, 119;

INDEX 277

Irish Convention 197, 199, 209, 211, 214; Irish Party and 153, 155, 159, 160, 161–78, 174; in 1914 (eve of Great War) 60–4, 70, 73; republicanism within 185–2, 187–5, 193, 194; rise of 153–66, 172, 194, 230; self-reliance doctrine 183, 186 Sinn Fein 26, 61, 238(88), 239 (102), 242(76), 244(39) Sinn Fein Catechism (Figgis) 162–8, 180 Sligo 49 Sligo Champion 47 Sligo Independent 241(34) Sligo Nationalist 155 Smuts, General Jan 85 Social Identity Theory xi Solf, Dr (Minister for German Colonies) 130 Somme campaign 191, 193, 194, 214, 232 South Africa 2, 4, 8–9, 16, 39, 78, 84, 89, 136–2, 208; Boer War 27, 46, 49, 91; Boers 21, 70, 85, 108–14 South Africa Act (1909) 2 Southern Unionists 3, 11, 75, 145, 229, 231, 232; conscription and 109 21 -nationalist agreement (Irish Convention) 199, 200–13, 210, 211, 226; -nationalist rapprochement 172–95; nationalist tensions 58–66; partition proposal 146–8; -Ulster Unionists tension 48–66 Spender, Captain Wilfred 42 Stack, Reverend T.L.F. 148–5 Stafford Green, Alice 165–1 Stanford, James 49 Stewart, A.T.Q. 237(36) Stewart-Croswait, E.G. 62 Stoppard Green, Alice 165–1 Stronge, Sir James 57, 191, 197

Stuart-Stephens, Major 169–5 Suez Canal 129 Sweetman, John 70 Swift, Jonathan 23 Tajfel, H. xi Talbot-Crosbie, Captain 70–5 Tara area (County Meath) 125 Thompson, Ester 177 Tone, Wilfred 37, 123 Townsend, Charles 238(84) Travers, Charles 121 Travers, Pauric 217, 254(50) Treacy, Sean 226 Turkey 129 Tyrone 41, 42, 139, 142, 197, 221, 222, 227 Tyrone Constitution 78 Ulster 139; Catholics xix, 3, 18, 41, 143, 150, 222; crisis 40–5; Protestants xix, 3, 9, 11, 17, 19, 21, 44, 56, 68, 113, 140, 143, 150, 191; question (home rule and national identity) xix–39, 232, 236–5 ‘Ulster Covenant’ 13–14, 55, 148–5 Ulster Day 13 Ulster Division 191–9, 194 Ulster Guardian 47 ‘Ulster Imperialist’ 4–6 Ulster Unionist Council (UUC) 3, 68, 147, 149, 198, 209 Ulster Unionist Party 148 Ulster Unionists 41, 171–8, 230; acceptance of Home Rule Bill 67– 3, 72–9; conscription 111, 113, 117–3, 220–8, 226–4; Easter Rising 140–9, 145–8, 191, 200, 194; Irish Convention opposed 195– 6, 206–20, 226;

278 INDEX

national identity and x, 3, 13– 14, 18, 75–2, 97–3, 111, 113; partition proposals 146–8; perceptions of war 188–193, 229, 231–9; -Southern Unionists tension 48– 66 Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) 3, 41, 42, 44, 47, 53–58, 63, 65, 67–3, 73, 84, 98, 148, 191 Union, Act of 3, 23, 35, 36, 38, 89, 163–9 ‘Union of Hearts’ 20–3, 34 unionism: Britishness and Great War 75–5; Irish (and British nationality) 3– 18; Irish Volunteer split 82–93; partition proposals 146–8 Unionist Party 19–1, 41 Unionists 34, 38–2, 45–47, 75, 101– 7, 104, 227–6; conscription and 109–23; reactions to Great War 48–58, 118–4; see also nationalist-unionist divide; Southern Unionists; Ulster Unionists United Irishman 26 United States 28–1, 69, 208, 213, 217–4, 223 Victoria, Queen xvi, 20, 171 Viroli, Maurizio xii von Bernhardi, General 92, 93 von Bernstorff, Count 127 von Jagow, Gottlieb 130 von Strumm, Baron 128–4 von Trieitschke 91–6, 93 Wales xviii War Office 62, 63–9, 67, 70, 71, 75, 93–9, 103 Waterford 96 Wensley, J.A. 58 Western People 47

Wexford Free Press 47 Wesleyans 111 White, Patrick 65 Wicklow People 156 ‘Wild Geese’ 94 Wilhelm II, Kaiser 44–8 Will-to-Power 93 William IV xvi William the Conqueror xiv Wilson, Field Marshall Sir Henry 113, 116 Wilson, J.Mackay 59–3, 116–2 Wilson, Trevor 254(47) Workers Republic 247(13) World War I: conscription crisis 214–8; Easter Rising and 124–39; end of (towards armed struggle) 221–33; Ireland in 1914 40–75, 239–8; national identity and (1914–16) 75–119, 243–52; significance 227, 229; Ulster Unionist perceptions of 188–193, 229, 231–9

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