182-730: See § Aftermath Creation of the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland 491 dead The Irish War of Independence ( Irish : Cogadh na Saoirse ) or Anglo-Irish War was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic ) and British forces: the British Army , along with the quasi-military Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and its paramilitary forces
364-588: A devolved region within the United Kingdom and to resist the prospect of an all-Ireland republic . Within the framework of the 1998 Belfast Agreement , which concluded three decades of political violence, unionists have shared office with Irish nationalists in a reformed Northern Ireland Assembly . As of February 2024, they no longer do so as the larger faction: they serve in an executive with an Irish republican ( Sinn Féin ) First Minister . Unionism became an overarching partisan affiliation in Ireland late in
546-666: A sectarian aspect (see The Troubles in Ulster (1920–1922) ). While the Catholic minority there mostly backed Irish independence, the Protestant majority were mostly unionist / loyalist . A mainly Protestant special constabulary was formed, and loyalist paramilitaries were active. They attacked Catholics in reprisal for IRA actions, and in Belfast a sectarian conflict raged in which almost 500 were killed, most of them Catholics. In May 1921, Ireland
728-642: A Belfast parliament (they did not develop an express nationalism of their own), but in summarising The Case Against Home Rule (1912), L. S. Amery did insist that "if Irish Nationalism constitutes a nation, then Ulster is a nation too". Faced with the eventual enactment of Home Rule, Carson appeared to press this argument. On 28 September 1912, Ulster Day, he was the first to sign, in Belfast City Hall, Ulster's Solemn League and Covenant . This bound signatories "to stand by one another in defending for ourselves and our children our position of equal citizenship in
910-517: A Catholic tradition of support for the union, focused on the value of stability and of empire, survived the first home-rule crisis. But it did not share the majority unionist conviction that any measure of devolution within the United Kingdom must lead to separation. Nor did it supply unionism with the equivalent of the Protestants who, individually, played a prominent role in home-rule and separatist politics. A handful of Irish Conservatives, drawn from
1092-542: A Catholic, had helped devise a scheme for administrative devolution involving an Irish council of both elected and nominated members. Balfour, now prime minister, was obliged to disavow the scheme and Wyndham, pressed to deny his complicity, resigned. The uproar assisted the Liberal return to office in December. The road to Catholicism's identification with constitutional Irish nationalism was "far from smooth and immediate", and
1274-564: A Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) policeman and the burning of an RIC barracks in Kerry. The attacks brought a British military presence from the summer of 1918, which only briefly quelled the violence, and an increase in police raids. However, there was as yet no co-ordinated armed campaign against British forces or RIC. In County Cork , four rifles were seized from the Eyeries barracks in March 1918 and men from
1456-641: A Special Military Area under the Defence of the Realm Act two days later. The war was not formally declared by the Dáil, and it ran its course parallel to the Dáil's political life. On 10 April 1919 the Dáil was told: As regards the Republican prisoners, we must always remember that this country is at war with England and so we must in a sense regard them as necessary casualties in the great fight. In January 1921, two years after
1638-405: A The Government of Ireland Bill that was largely of his own drafting. Unionists were not persuaded by his inclusion of measures to limit the remit of a Dublin legislature and to reduce the weight of the popular vote (the 200 or so popularly elected members were to sit in session with 28 Irish Peers and a further 75 Members elected on a highly restrictive property franchise). Regardless of how it
1820-456: A birth rate of just 18.6 per 1,000. Irish society during this period was extremely Roman Catholic, with Roman Catholic thinkers promoting anti-capitalist, anti-communist, anti-Protestant, anti-Masonic, and antisemitic views in Irish society. Through the works of priests such as Edward Cahill , Richard Devane, and Denis Fahey , Irish society saw capitalism, individualism, communism, private banking,
2002-509: A choice by Prime Minister David Lloyd George to put down the rebellion in Ireland rather than negotiate with the republican leadership. As a result, violence escalated steadily from that summer and sharply after November 1920 until July 1921. It was in this period that a mutiny broke out among the Connaught Rangers , stationed in India . Two were killed whilst trying to storm an armoury and one
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#17330855064392184-674: A combination of three sources, and was largely the work of Michael Collins in the Treaty negotiations. It came in part from a draft oath suggested prior to the negotiations by President de Valera. Other sections were taken by Collins directly from the Oath of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), of which he was the secret head. In its structure, it was also partially based on the form and structure used for 'Dominion status'. Although 'a new departure', and notably indirect in its reference to
2366-518: A constructive course. He pursued reforms intended, as some saw it, to kill home rule with "kindness". For the express purpose of relieving poverty and reducing emigration, in the Congested Districts of the west Balfour initiated a programme not only of public works, but of subsidy for local craft industries. Headed by the former Unionist MP for South Dublin , Horace Plunkett , a new Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction broke with
2548-477: A football match, shooting into the crowd. Fourteen civilians were killed, including one of the players, Michael Hogan , and a further 65 people were wounded. Later that day two republican prisoners, Dick McKee , Peadar Clancy and an unassociated friend, Conor Clune who had been arrested with them, were killed in Dublin Castle. The official account was that the three men were shot "while trying to escape", which
2730-470: A landslide victory in Ireland. On 21 January 1919 they formed a breakaway government ( Dáil Éireann ) and declared Irish independence . That day, two RIC officers were killed in the Soloheadbeg ambush by IRA volunteers acting on their own initiative. The conflict developed gradually. For most of 1919, IRA activity involved capturing weaponry and freeing republican prisoners, while the Dáil set about building
2912-762: A low-level tenant-landlord war came to Westminster in 1852 when the all-Ireland Tenant Right League helped return 48 MPs to Westminster where they sat as the Independent Irish Party . What the Young Irelander Gavan Duffy called the League of North and South soon fell apart. In the South the Church approved the Catholic MPs breaking their pledge of independent opposition and accepting government positions. In
3094-636: A minority within the United Kingdom may have passed. In 1830, the leader of the Catholic Association , Daniel O'Connell , invited Protestants to join in a campaign to repeal the Union and restore the Kingdom of Ireland under the Constitution of 1782 . At the same time, the security in Ireland for emancipation was a fivefold increase in the threshold for the property franchise . O'Connell's Protestant ally in
3276-494: A new government by its side. The IRA's main target throughout the conflict was the mainly Irish Catholic Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), the British government's armed police force in Ireland, outside Dublin. Its members and barracks (especially the more isolated ones) were vulnerable, and they were a source of much-needed arms. The RIC numbered 9,700 men stationed in 1,500 barracks throughout Ireland. A policy of ostracism of RIC men
3458-633: A new office of President of Ireland was instituted in place of the Governor-General of the Irish Free State. The new constitution claimed jurisdiction over all of Ireland while recognising that legislation would not apply in Northern Ireland (see Articles 2 and 3 ). Articles 2 and 3 were reworded in 1998 to remove jurisdictional claim over the entire island and to recognise that "a united Ireland shall be brought about only by peaceful means with
3640-518: A reputation just as bad as the Tans for their mistreatment of the civilian population but tended to be more effective and more willing to take on the IRA. The policy of reprisals, which involved public denunciation or denial and private approval, was famously satirised by Lord Hugh Cecil when he said: "It seems to be agreed that there is no such thing as reprisals but they are having a good effect." On 9 August 1920,
3822-552: A self-governing Dominion on 6 December 1922. Northern Ireland remained within the United Kingdom. After the ceasefire, violence in Belfast and fighting in border areas of Northern Ireland continued, and the IRA launched the failed Northern Offensive in May 1922. In June 1922, disagreement among republicans over the Anglo-Irish Treaty led to the eleven-month Irish Civil War . The Irish Free State awarded 62,868 medals for service during
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#17330855064394004-640: A separation of north and south, with Belfast as the capital of its own "distinct kingdom". In response to the First Home rule Bill in 1886, Radical Unionists (Liberals who proposed federalising the relationship between all countries of the United Kingdom) likewise argued that "the Protestant part of Ulster should receive special treatment . . . on grounds identical with those that support the general contention for Home Rule" Ulster Protestants expressed no interest in
4186-877: A series of violent incidents between trade unionists and the Dublin police in the Dublin lock-out . In June 1914, Nationalist leader John Redmond forced the Volunteers to give his nominees a majority on the ruling committee. When, in September 1914, Redmond encouraged the Volunteers to enlist in the British Army, a faction led by Eoin MacNeill broke with the Redmondites, who became known as the National Volunteers, rather than fight for Britain in
4368-516: A small minority. The demand for home rule was eventually granted by the British government in 1912, immediately prompting a prolonged crisis within the United Kingdom as Ulster unionists formed an armed organisation – the Ulster Volunteers (UVF) – to resist this measure of devolution , at least in territory they could control. In turn, nationalists formed their own paramilitary organisation,
4550-650: A state. In September, the British government outlawed the Dáil throughout Ireland, Sinn Féin was proclaimed (outlawed) in County Cork and the conflict intensified. The IRA began ambushing RIC and British Army patrols, attacking their barracks and forcing isolated barracks to be abandoned. The British government bolstered the RIC with recruits from Britain—the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries—who became notorious for ill-discipline and reprisal attacks on civilians, some of which were authorised by
4732-605: A stroke in 1898 to democratically elected councils), the old landlord class had the terms of their retirement fixed by the Wyndham Land Act of 1903. This reduced, but did not in itself resolve, agrarian tensions, even in the north. In 1906, Thomas Russell, MP , the son of an evicted Scottish crofter , broke with the Conservatives in the Irish Unionist Alliance to be returned to Westminster from South Tyrone as
4914-462: A subsequent trial, WPSU organiser Dorothy Evans created an uproar by demanding to know why James Craig, then arming Ulster Volunteers with German rifles, was not appearing on the same weapons and explosives charges. In August 1914, suffragists in Ulster suspended their agitation for the duration of the European war. Their reward was a women's franchise in 1918 and (six years after it was granted in
5096-663: A trade regime, the Northern Ireland Protocol , that advances an all-Ireland agenda. In February 2024, two years after their withdrawal collapsed the devolved institutions, on the basis of new British government assurances they returned to the Assembly to form the first Northern Ireland government in which unionists are a minority. In the last decades of the Kingdom of Ireland (1542–1800), Protestants in public life advanced themselves as Irish Patriots. The focus of their patriotism
5278-476: A war was to kill someone, and we wanted to start a war, so we intended to kill some of the police whom we looked upon as the foremost and most important branch of the enemy forces. The only regret that we had following the ambush was that there were only two policemen in it, instead of the six we had expected. This is widely regarded as the beginning of the War of Independence. The British government declared South Tipperary
5460-511: Is the model of the reconstituted Seanad Éireann (the Senate), which operates based on a system of vocational panels, along with a list of appointed nominating industry bodies, a corporatist concept (seen in Pope Pius XI's 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo anno ). Furthermore, Ireland's main political parties; Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour, all had an inherently corporatist outlook. The government
5642-513: The 1918 general election Irish voters showed their disapproval of British policy by giving Sinn Féin 70% (73 seats out of 105,) of Irish seats, 25 of those being uncontested. Sinn Féin won 91% of the seats outside of Ulster on 46.9% of votes cast but was in a minority in Ulster, where unionists were in a majority. Sinn Féin pledged not to sit in the UK Parliament at Westminster , but rather to set up an Irish parliament. This parliament, known as
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5824-653: The 1932 general election ), the Seanad , university representation in the Dáil, and appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council . One major policy error occurred in 1936 when he attempted to use the abdication of King Edward VIII to abolish the crown and governor-general in the Free State with the " Constitution (Amendment No. 27) Act ". He was advised by senior law officers and other constitutional experts that, as
6006-811: The Allied war effort in Irish regiments of the New British Army , the intention being to ensure the commencement of home rule after the war. However, a significant minority of the Irish Volunteers opposed Ireland's involvement in the war. The Volunteer movement split, a majority leaving to form the National Volunteers under Redmond. The remaining Irish Volunteers, under Eoin MacNeill , held that they would maintain their organisation until home rule had been granted. Within this Volunteer movement, another faction, led by
6188-638: The American War of Independence , of the Irish Volunteers and, as that militia paraded in Dublin, the securing in 1782 of the parliament's legislative independence from the British government in London. In the north-east, combinations of Presbyterian tradesmen, merchants, and tenant farmers protested against the unrepresentative parliament and against an executive in Dublin Castle still appointed, through
6370-647: The Auxiliaries and Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). It was part of the Irish revolutionary period . In April 1916, Irish republicans launched the Easter Rising against British rule and proclaimed an Irish Republic . Although it was defeated after a week of fighting, the Rising and the British response led to greater popular support for Irish independence. In the December 1918 election , republican party Sinn Féin won
6552-579: The Chief Secretary for Ireland Hamar Greenwood reported that 556 Constables and 313 Magistrates had resigned within two-month period. The Irish Republican Police (IRP) was founded between April and June 1920, under the authority of Dáil Éireann and the former IRA Chief of Staff Cathal Brugha to replace the RIC and to enforce the ruling of the Dáil Courts , set up under the Irish Republic. By 1920,
6734-648: The Conservative and Orange-Order candidates of the landed Ascendancy . But as the Irish party-political successors to O'Connell's Repeal movement gained representation and influence in Westminster, Cooke's call for unity was to be heeded in the progressive emergence of a pan-Protestant unionism. Up to, and through, the Great Famine of the 1840s, successive governments, Whig and Tory, had refused political responsibility for agrarian conditions in Ireland. The issues of
6916-735: The First Dáil , and its ministry, called the Aireacht , consisting only of Sinn Féin members, met at the Mansion House on 21 January 1919. The Dáil reaffirmed the 1916 proclamation with the Irish Declaration of Independence , and issued a Message to the Free Nations of the World , which stated that there was an "existing state of war, between Ireland and England". The Irish Volunteers were reconstituted as
7098-443: The House of Commons in June 1921, Attorney-General for Ireland Denis Henry stated that he was informed by Commander-in-Chief Nevil Macready that 191 houses were destroyed in official reprisals in the area under martial law since January of that year. In December 1920 Macready informed the Cabinet of the British Government that Military Governors in the martial law areas had been authorized to conduct reprisals. On 11 December,
7280-433: The Irish Free State ) equal voting rights in 1928 . In 1911 a Liberal administration was once again dependent on Irish nationalist MPs. In 1912 the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith , introduced the Third Home Rule Bill . A more generous dispensation than the earlier bills, it would, for the first time, have given an Irish parliament an accountable executive. It was carried in the Commons by a majority of ten. As expected, it
7462-480: The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP). In his first ministry (1868-1874), the Liberal premier William Ewart Gladstone had attempted conciliation. In 1869, he disestablished the Church of Ireland , and in 1870 introduced the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act . In both measures conservative jurists identified threats to the integrity of the union. Disestablishment reneged on the promise of "one Protestant Episcopal Church" for both Britain and Ireland under Article V of
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7644-400: The Irish Trades Union Congress as tantamount to support for Home Rule. Yet loyalist workers resented the idea that they were the retainers of "big-house unionists". A manifesto signed in the spring of 1914 by two thousand labour men, rejected the suggestion of the radical and socialist press that Ulster was being manipulated by "an aristocratic plot". If Sir Edward Carson led in the battle for
7826-489: The Irish Volunteers . The British parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1914 , known as the Home Rule Act, on 18 September 1914 with an amending bill for the partition of Ireland introduced by Ulster Unionist MPs, but the act's implementation was immediately postponed by the Suspensory Act 1914 due to the outbreak of the First World War in the previous month. The majority of nationalists followed their IPP leaders and John Redmond 's call to support Britain and
8008-452: The Loyalist Anti-Repeal Union —sought to connect. With Gladstone's conversion to home rule, politicians who had held aloof from the Order now embraced its militancy. Colonel Edward Saunderson , who had represented Cavan as a Liberal, donned an Orange sash "because", he said "the Orange society is alone capable of dealing with the condition of anarchy and rebellion which prevail in Ireland". In February 1886, playing, in his own words,
8190-411: The Oireachtas , made up of the king and two houses, Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann (the Irish Senate). Executive authority was vested in the king, with the Governor-General as his representative. He appointed a cabinet called the Executive Council to "aid and advise" him. The Executive Council was presided over by a prime minister called the President of the Executive Council . In practice, most of
8372-417: The Pound sterling from its inception; there is no reference in the Treaty or in either of the enabling Acts to currency. Nonetheless, and within a few years, the Dáil passed the Coinage Act, 1926 (which provided for a Saorstát [Free State] coinage) and the Currency Act, 1927 (which provided inter alia for banknotes of the Saorstát pound ). The new Saorstát pound was defined by the 1927 Act to have exactly
8554-400: The Presbyterian Church in Ireland , the Methodist Church in Ireland , the Religious Society of Friends in Ireland , as well as the Jewish Congregations and the other religious denominations existing in Ireland at the date of the coming into operation of this Constitution. Following a referendum, this section was removed in 1973. After the setting up of the Free State in 1923, unionism in
8736-590: The Republic of Ireland , by successive British governments. Following the 1998 Belfast Agreement , under which both republican and loyalist paramilitaries committed to permanent ceasefires, unionists accepted principles of joint office and parallel consent in a new Northern Ireland legislature and executive. Renegotiated in 2006, relations within this consociational arrangement remained fraught. Unionists, with diminishing electoral strength, charged their nationalist partners in government with pursuing an anti-British cultural agenda and, post- Brexit , with supporting
8918-487: The Ulster Unionist Council was established to bring together unionists in the north including, with 50 of 200 seats, the Orange Order . Until then, unionism had largely placed itself behind Anglo-Irish aristocrats valued for their high-level connections in Great Britain . The UUC still accorded them a degree of precedence. Castlereagh's descendant and former Lord Lieutenant of Ireland , The 6th Marquess of Londonderry , presided over its executive. The Council also retained
9100-400: The crown of the United Kingdom and to the union it represents with England , Scotland and Wales . The overwhelming sentiment of Ireland's Protestant minority , unionism mobilised in the decades following Catholic Emancipation in 1829 to oppose restoration of a separate Irish parliament . Since Partition in 1921, as Ulster unionism its goal has been to retain Northern Ireland as
9282-443: The partition settlement of 1921 by which the rest of Ireland attained separate statehood , Ulster unionists accepted a home-rule dispensation for the six north-east counties remaining in the United Kingdom. For the next 50 years, the Ulster Unionist Party exercised the devolved powers of the Northern Ireland Parliament with little domestic opposition and outside of the governing party-political system at Westminster . In 1972,
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#17330855064399464-413: The province of Munster—were put under martial law on 10 December under the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act; this was followed on 5 January in the rest of Munster and in counties Kilkenny and Wexford in the province of Leinster. Shortly afterwards, in January 1921, "official reprisals" were sanctioned by the British and they began with the burning of seven houses in Midleton, County Cork . Questioned in
9646-434: The " Black and Tans ") and the Temporary Cadets or Auxiliary Division (known as the "Auxies"). On 25 November 1913, the Irish Volunteers were formed by Eoin MacNeill in response to the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) that had been founded earlier in the year to fight against home rule. Also in 1913, the Irish Citizen Army was founded by the trade unionists and socialists James Larkin and James Connolly following
9828-411: The " Irish Republican Army " or IRA. The IRA was perceived by some members of Dáil Éireann to have a mandate to wage war on the British Dublin Castle administration . The heart of British power in Ireland was the Dublin Castle administration, often known to the Irish as "the Castle". The head of the Castle administration was the lord lieutenant , to whom a chief secretary was responsible, leading—in
10010-450: The " Irish pound " and the coins were marked Éire . Ireland joined the League of Nations on 10 September 1923. It would also participate in the Olympics sending its first team to the 1924 Summer Olympics held in Paris. They would send further teams to the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 1932 Summer Olympics . According to Gerard Keown, by 1932 much had been achieved in the quest for an independent foreign policy. The Irish Free State
10192-471: The " Squad "—gunmen responsible to himself who were assigned special duties such as the assassination of policemen and suspected informers within the IRA. The years between the Easter Rising of 1916 and the beginning of the War of Independence in 1919 were not bloodless. Thomas Ashe , one of the Volunteer leaders imprisoned for his role in the 1916 rebellion, died on hunger strike, after attempted force-feeding in 1917. In 1918, during disturbances arising out of
10374-413: The "Orange card", Lord Randolph Churchill assured a "monster meeting" of the Anti-Repeal Union in Belfast, that English Conservatives would "cast in their lot" with loyalists in resisting Home Rule, and he later coined the phrase that was to become the watchword of northern unionism: "Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right". Gladstone's own party was split on Home Rule and the House divided against
10556-416: The 1887 Act creating a new city-status municipal franchise for Belfast (piloted through the Commons by William Johnston ) conferred the vote on persons rather than men. This was eleven years before women elsewhere Ireland gained the vote in local government elections. The WSS had not been impressed by the women's Ulster Declaration or by the Ulster Women's Unionist Council (UWUC)—with over 100,000 members
10738-428: The Act of Union (the Ulster Protestant Defence Association claimed breach of contract), and weak as they were, provisions for tenant compensation and purchase created a separate agrarian regime for Ireland at odds with the prevailing English conception of property rights. In the Long Depression of the 1870s the Land War intensified. From 1879 it was organised by the direct-action Irish National Land League , led by
10920-412: The Army was to back up the police. In the course of the war, about a quarter of Ireland was put under martial law, mostly in Munster; in the rest of the country British authority was not deemed sufficiently threatened to warrant it. The British created two paramilitary police forces to supplement the work of the RIC, recruited mostly from World War I veterans, namely the Temporary Constables (better known as
11102-443: The British Army had historically been heavily dependent on Irish recruitment, concern over divided loyalties led to the redeployment from 1919 of all regular Irish regiments to garrisons outside Ireland itself. The two main police forces in Ireland were the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and the Dublin Metropolitan Police . Of the 17,000 policemen in Ireland, 513 were killed by the IRA between 1919 and 1921 while 682 were wounded. Of
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#173308550643911284-401: The British Government, but with the consent of the Irish Government. From 1927, the Irish Government alone had the power to advise the king whom to appoint. As with all dominions, provision was made for an Oath of Allegiance. Within dominions, such oaths were taken by parliamentarians personally towards the monarch. The Irish Oath of Allegiance was fundamentally different. It had two elements;
11466-509: The British Parliament passed the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act . It replaced the trial by jury by courts-martial by regulation for those areas where IRA activity was prevalent. On 10 December 1920, martial law was proclaimed in Counties Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Tipperary in Munster; in January 1921 martial law was extended to the rest of Munster in Counties Clare and Waterford, as well as counties Kilkenny and Wexford in Leinster . It also suspended all coroners' courts because of
11648-603: The British Parliament that may have enacted the original legislation in the past. It also removed Westminster's authority to legislate for the Dominions, except with the express request and consent of the relevant Dominion's parliament. This change had the effect of making the dominions, including the Free State, de jure independent nations—thus fulfilling Collins' vision of having "the freedom to achieve freedom". The Free State symbolically marked these changes in two mould-breaking moves soon after winning internationally recognised independence: When Éamon de Valera became President of
11830-399: The British administration. The first was Resident Magistrate John C. Milling, who was shot dead in Westport, County Mayo , for having sent Volunteers to prison for unlawful assembly and drilling. They mimicked the successful tactics of the Boers ' fast violent raids without uniform. Although some republican leaders, notably Éamon de Valera, favoured classic conventional warfare to legitimise
12012-411: The British cabinet, in the face of the crisis caused by the German spring offensive , attempted with a dual policy to simultaneously link the enactment of conscription into Ireland with the implementation of home rule, as outlined in the report of the Irish Convention of 8 April 1918. This further alienated Irish nationalists and produced mass demonstrations during the Conscription Crisis of 1918 . In
12194-410: The British government and members of the Dáil, culminating in the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6 December 1921. The Treaty allowed for the creation of a separate state to be known as the Irish Free State, with dominion status, within the then British Empire—a status equivalent to Canada. The Parliament of Northern Ireland could, by presenting an address to the king, opt not to be included in
12376-413: The British government suspended this arrangement. Against a background of growing political violence, and citing the need to consider how Catholics in Northern Ireland could be integrated into its civic and political life, it prorogued the parliament in Belfast. Over the ensuing three decades of The Troubles , unionists divided in their responses to power-sharing proposals presented, in consultation with
12558-409: The British government. By mid-1920, the Irish Republic was a reality in the lives of many people, enforcing its own law, maintaining its own armed forces and collecting its own taxes. The British Liberal journal, The Nation , wrote in August 1920 that "the central fact of the present situation in Ireland is that the Irish Republic exists". The British forces, in trying to re-assert their control over
12740-471: The British government. Thus the conflict is sometimes called the "Black and Tan War". The conflict also involved civil disobedience , notably the refusal of Irish railwaymen to transport British forces or military supplies. In mid-1920, republicans won control of most county councils, and British authority collapsed in most of the south and west, forcing the British government to introduce emergency powers . About 300 people had been killed by late 1920, but
12922-406: The Catholic gentry , were returned to the Commons before the 1884 Reform Act. A "unique place" was occupied by Sir Denis Henry (1864-1925). When he won his native South Londonderry seat in a 1916 by-election, he was the first Catholic to represent a unionist constituency in Ulster, and when he retained the seat in 1918, the future Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland was the last. In 1905,
13104-608: The Church of Rome", then undergoing its own devotional revolution. The leading Presbyterian evangelist, Henry Cooke took the occasion to preach Protestant Unity. In 1834, at a mass demonstration hosted upon his estate by the 3rd Marquess of Downshire , Cooke proposed a "Christian marriage" between the two main Protestant denominations (Anglican and Presbyterian). Setting their remaining differences aside, they would cooperate on all "matters of common safety". Presbyterian voters tended to favour reform-minded Whigs or, as they later emerged, tenant-right and free-trade Liberals , over
13286-494: The Dublin Metropolitan Police's G Division and other important branches of the British administration. The G Division men were a relatively small political division active in subverting the republican movement. They were detested by the IRA as often they were used to identify volunteers, who would have been unknown to British soldiers or the later Black and Tans. Collins set up the "Squad", a group of men whose sole duty
13468-506: The Dáil from 1922 to 1927 and thereafter ruled as a minority government until 1932. In 1931, with the passage of the Statute of Westminster , the Parliament of the United Kingdom relinquished nearly all of its remaining authority to legislate for the Free State and the other dominions. This had the effect of granting the Free State internationally recognised independence. In the first months of
13650-518: The Easter Rising. The British execution of the Rising's leaders also increased support in Ireland for both a violent uprising to achieve independence from British rule and an independent Irish republic. This support was further bolstered by the British government's decision to maintain martial law in Ireland until November 1916, the arrest of Irish critics of government policies and the possibility of conscription being extended to Ireland. In April 1918,
13832-496: The Executive Council (prime minister) in 1932 he described Cosgrave's ministers' achievements simply. Having read the files, he told his son, Vivion, "they were magnificent, son". The Statute of Westminster allowed de Valera, on becoming President of the Executive Council (February 1932), to go even further. With no ensuing restrictions on his policies, he abolished the Oath of Allegiance (which Cosgrave intended to do had he won
14014-592: The Free State's establishment, the new dominion had the "lowest birth-rate in the world". The report noted that amongst countries for which statistics were available ( Ceylon , Chile, Japan , Spain, South Africa , the Netherlands, Canada, Germany , Australia, the United States, Britain, New Zealand, Finland, and the Irish Free State), Ceylon had the highest birth rate at 40.8 per 1,000 while the Irish Free State had
14196-455: The Free State, in which case a Boundary Commission would be established to determine where the boundary between them should lie. Members of the parliament of the Free State would be required to take an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the Free State and to declare that they would be "faithful" to the king (a modification of the oath taken in other dominions). The Dáil ratified
14378-513: The Free State, the Irish Civil War was waged between the newly established National Army and the Anti-Treaty IRA , which refused to recognise the state. The Civil War ended in victory for the government forces, with its opponents dumping their arms in May 1923. The Anti-Treaty political party, Sinn Féin , refused to take its seats in the Dáil, leaving the relatively small Labour Party as
14560-638: The Government of Ireland Act 1920) to become Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State in accordance with the Treaty. The general election in June gave overwhelming support for the pro-Treaty parties. W. T. Cosgrave 's Crown-appointed Provisional Government effectively subsumed Griffith's republican administration with the death of both Collins and Griffith in August 1922. The following were
14742-590: The IRA claimed to have a total strength of 70,000, but only about 3,000 were actively engaged in fighting against the Crown. The IRA distrusted those Irishmen who had fought in the British Army during the First World War, but there were exceptions, such as Emmet Dalton , Tom Barry and Martin Doyle . The basic structure of the IRA was the flying column which could number between 20 and 100 men. Finally, Michael Collins created
14924-405: The IRA desist from the ambushes and assassinations, which were allowing the British to portray it as a terrorist group and to take on the British forces with conventional military methods. The proposal was immediately dismissed. The British increased the use of force; reluctant to deploy the regular British Army into the country in greater numbers, they set up two auxiliary police units to reinforce
15106-488: The IRA through fear or sympathy, supplying the organisation with valuable information. By contrast with the effectiveness of the widespread public boycott of the police, the military actions carried out by the IRA against the RIC at this time were relatively limited. In 1919, 11 RIC men and 4 Dublin Metropolitan Police G Division detectives were killed and another 20 RIC wounded. Other aspects of mass participation in
15288-473: The IRP had a presence in 21 of Ireland's 32 counties . The Dáil Courts were generally socially conservative, despite their revolutionary origins, and halted the attempts of some landless farmers at redistribution of land from wealthier landowners to poorer farmers. The Inland Revenue ceased to operate in most of Ireland. People were instead encouraged to subscribe to Collins' "National Loan", set up to raise funds for
15470-519: The Irish Republican Army (IRA) and British security forces, continued until July 1921 when a truce came into force. By this time the Parliament of Northern Ireland had opened, established under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 , presenting the republican movement with a fait accompli and guaranteeing the British presence in Ireland. In October negotiations opened in London between members of
15652-570: The North, the Protestant tenant righters, William Sharman Crawford and James MacKnight had their election meetings broken up by Orangemen . For unionism the more momentous challenge lay in the wake of the Reform Act 1867 . In England and Wales it produced an electorate that no longer identified instinctively with the conservative interest in Ireland and was more open to the "home-rule" compromise that nationalists now presented. Ireland would remain within
15834-418: The RIC's senior officers, 60% were Irish Protestants and the rest Catholic, while 70% of the rank and file of the RIC were Irish Catholic with the rest Protestant. The RIC was trained for police work, not war, and was woefully ill-prepared to take on counter-insurgency duties. Until March 1920, London regarded the unrest in Ireland as primarily an issue for the police and did not regard it as a war. The purpose of
16016-708: The RIC, would now be required to enter the city. The Trades Council's special Strike Committee controlled the city for fourteen days in an episode that is known as the Limerick Soviet . Similarly, in May 1920, Dublin dockers refused to handle any war matériel and were soon joined by the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union , who banned railway drivers from carrying members of the British forces. Blackleg train drivers were brought over from England, after drivers refused to carry British troops. The strike badly hampered British troop movements until December 1920, when it
16198-689: The RIC. The first of these, quickly nicknamed as the Black and Tans, were seven thousand strong and mainly ex-British soldiers demobilised after World War I. Deployed to Ireland in March 1920, most came from English and Scottish cities. While officially they were part of the RIC, in reality they were a paramilitary force. After their deployment in March 1920, they rapidly gained a reputation for drunkenness and poor discipline. The wartime experience of most Black and Tans did not suit them for police duties and their violent behavior antagonised many previously neutral civilians. In response to and retaliation for IRA actions, in
16380-608: The Republic on the treaty's ratification. His resignation outraged some of his own supporters, notably Seán T. O'Kelly , the main Sinn Féin organiser. On resigning, he then sought re-election but was defeated two days later on a vote of 60–58. The pro-Treaty Arthur Griffith followed as President of the Irish Republic. Michael Collins was chosen at a meeting of the members elected to sit in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland (a body set up under
16562-532: The Senate of Northern Ireland passed resolutions "for the express purpose of opting out of the Free State". The Treaty established that the new state would be a constitutional monarchy , with the Governor-General of the Irish Free State as representative of the Crown. The Constitution of the Irish Free State made more detailed provision for the state's system of government, with a three-tier parliament, called
16744-478: The South. The British government, which had had to deploy its own forces to suppress the rebellion in Ireland and to turn back and defeat French intervention, decided on a union with Great Britain. Provision for Catholic emancipation was dropped from the Act of Union pushed with difficulty through the parliament in Dublin. While a separate Irish executive in Dublin was retained, representation, still wholly Protestant,
16926-509: The Treaty on 7 January 1922, causing a split in the republican movement. A Provisional Government was formed, with Michael Collins as chairman. The Irish Free State was established on 6 December 1922, and the Provisional Government became the Executive Council of the Irish Free State , headed by W. T. Cosgrave as President of the Executive Council . The following day, the Commons and
17108-444: The Treaty still afforded Ireland more internal independence than it had possessed in over 400 years, and far more autonomy than had ever been hoped for by those who had advocated for Home Rule . However, a number of conditions existed: The Statute of Westminster of 1931, embodying a decision of an Imperial Conference, enabled each dominion to enact new legislation or to change any extant legislation, without resorting to any role for
17290-520: The UK. In 1937, he drafted a new constitution , which was adopted by a plebiscite in July of that year. The Free State came to an end with the coming into force of the new constitution on 29 December 1937, when the state took the name " Ireland ". The Easter Rising of 1916 and its aftermath caused a profound shift in public opinion towards the republican cause in Ireland . In the December 1918 General Election ,
17472-655: The UWUC that draft articles for an Ulster Provisional Government included votes for women. The nationalists would make no such undertaking with regard to a Dublin parliament. The marriage was short lived. In March 1914, Carson , after being door-stepped for fours days by the WSPU, ruled women's suffrage too divisive an issue for unionists. There followed a series of arson-attacks on unionist-owned and associated property that culminated in Lillian Metge 's bombing of Lisburn Cathedral . In
17654-517: The Ulster Women's Declaration; 237,368 men signed the Solemn League and Covenant . Unionist women had been involved in political campaigning from the time of the first Home Rule Bill in 1886. Some were active suffragettes . Isabella Tod , an anti-Home Rule Liberal and campaigner for girls education, was an early pioneer. Determined lobbying by her North of Ireland Women's Suffrage Society ensured
17836-813: The Union it was "because we, the workers, the people, the democracy of Ulster, have chosen him". The majority of the signatories would have been organised in British-based unions, and could point to the growing political weight of British labour in reform measures such as the Trade Disputes Act 1906 , the People's Budget 1910 , and the National Insurance Act 1911 . Nationalists did not seek to persuade them that collective bargaining, progressive taxation and social security were principles for which majorities could be as readily found in an Irish parliament. At what
18018-463: The United Kingdom but with a parliament in Dublin exercising powers devolved from Westminster. Meanwhile, in Ireland, a combination of the secret ballot and increased representation for the towns, reduced the electoral influence of land owners and their agents, and contributed to the triumph, in 1874 , of the Home Rule League . Fifty-nine members were returned to Westminster where they sat as
18200-485: 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 in Ireland". In January 1913, Carson declared for the exclusion of Ulster and called for the enlistment of up to 100,000 Covenanters as drilled and armed Ulster Volunteers . On 23 September, the second Ulster Day, he accepted Chairmanship of a Provisional Government organised by Craig. If Home Rule were imposed "we will be governed as
18382-502: The War of Independence, of which 15,224 were issued to IRA fighters of the flying columns . Since the 1870s, Irish nationalists in the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) had been demanding home rule , or self-government, from Britain, while not ruling out eventual complete independence. Fringe organisations, such as Arthur Griffith 's Sinn Féin , instead argued for some form of immediate Irish independence, but they were in
18564-552: The accolade of election to a non-permanent seat on the council of the League of Nations and asserted its full equality with Britain and the other dominions within the Commonwealth. By contrast, the military was drastically reduced in size and scope, with its budget cut by 82% from 1924 to 1929. The active duty forces were reduced from 28,000 men to 7,000. Cooperation with London was minimal. According to one report, in 1924, shortly after
18746-442: The anti-conscription campaign, six civilians died in confrontations with the police and British Army and more than 1,000 people were arrested. There were raids for arms by the Volunteers, and two Kerry Volunteers (John Brown and Robert Laide) were shot and killed on 16 April 1918 during a raid on the police barracks at Gortalea. Those men were the first Volunteers to be killed during a raid for arms. At this time at least one shooting of
18928-568: The barracks were beaten that August. In early July 1918, Volunteers ambushed two RIC men who had been stationed to stop a feis being held on the road between Ballingeary and Ballyvourney in the first armed attack on the RIC since the Easter Rising—one was shot in the neck, the other beaten, and police carbines and ammunition were seized. Patrols in Bantry and Ballyvourney were badly beaten in September and October. In November 1918, Armistice Day
19110-571: The bill, which did allow for Irish MPs, was passed by a narrow majority in the Commons but went down to defeat in the overwhelmingly Conservative House of Lords . The Conservatives formed a new ministry. Gladstone's Tory successor in 1886, Lord Salisbury , believed his government should "leave Home Rule sleeping the sleep of the unjust". In 1887 Dublin Castle was given standing power to suspend habeas corpus . However, as Chief Secretary for Ireland , Salisbury's nephew Arthur Balfour determined upon
19292-454: The centre of Cork city was burnt out by British forces in reprisal for an ambush. Violence continued to escalate over the next seven months; 1,000 people were killed and 4,500 republicans were interned . Much of the fighting took place in Munster (particularly County Cork), Dublin and Belfast , which together saw over 75 percent of the conflict deaths. The conflict in north-east Ulster had
19474-678: The centre of Cork City was burnt out by the Black and Tans, who then shot at firefighters trying to tackle the blaze, in reprisal for an IRA ambush in the city on 11 December 1920 which killed one Auxiliary and wounded eleven. In May of that year, the IRA began a campaign of big house burnings which totaled 26 in Cork alone. Irish Free State The Irish Free State (6 December 1922 – 29 December 1937), also known by its Irish name Saorstát Éireann ( English: / ˌ s ɛər s t ɑː t ˈ ɛər ə n / SAIR -staht AIR -ən , Irish: [ˈsˠiːɾˠsˠt̪ˠaːt̪ˠ ˈeːɾʲən̪ˠ] ),
19656-575: The champion of the Ulster Farmers and Labourers Union. With the Cork City MP, William O'Brien , Russell helped initiate a programme that built some 40,000 one-acre labourer-owned cottages. During the constructivist 1890s, and before a Liberal government revived the prospects for home rule, unionists appeared more at ease with interest in Irish culture. The first Ulster branch of the Gaelic League
19838-609: The conflict escalated in November. On Bloody Sunday in Dublin , 21 November 1920, fourteen British intelligence operatives were assassinated; then the RIC fired on the crowd at a Gaelic football match, killing fourteen civilians and wounding sixty-five. A week later, the IRA killed seventeen Auxiliaries in the Kilmichael Ambush in County Cork . In December, the British authorities declared martial law in much of southern Ireland, and
20020-556: The conflict included strikes by organised workers, in opposition to the British presence in Ireland. In Limerick in April 1919, a general strike was called by the Limerick Trades and Labour Council, as a protest against the declaration of a "Special Military Area" under the Defence of the Realm Act, which covered most of Limerick city and a part of the county. Special permits, to be issued by
20202-711: The conflict, IRA activity was concentrated in Munster and Dublin, with only isolated active IRA units elsewhere, such as in County Roscommon , north County Longford and western County Mayo . While the paper membership of the IRA, carried over from the Irish Volunteers, was over 100,000 men, Collins estimated that only 15,000 were active in the IRA during the war, with about 3,000 on active service at any time. There were also support organisations Cumann na mBan (the IRA women's group) and Fianna Éireann (youth movement), who carried weapons and intelligence for IRA men and secured food and lodgings for them. The IRA benefitted from
20384-562: The consent of a majority of the people, democratically expressed, in both jurisdictions in the island". With regard to religion, a section of Article 44 included the following: The State recognises the special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church as the guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of the citizens. The State also recognises the Church of Ireland ,
20566-495: The country, often resorted to arbitrary reprisals against republican activists and the civilian population. An unofficial government policy of reprisals began in 1919 in Fermoy , County Cork, when 200 soldiers of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry looted and burned the main businesses of the town on 8 September, after a member of their regiment—who was the first British Army soldier to die in
20748-410: The crown and governor-generalship existed separately from the constitution in a vast number of acts, charters, orders-in-council, and letters patent, they both still existed. A second bill, the " Executive Powers (Consequential Provisions) Act, 1937 " was quickly introduced to repeal the necessary elements. De Valera retroactively dated the second act back to December 1936. The new state continued to use
20930-402: The draft document was subsequently approved by the Dáil. A plebiscite was held on 1 July 1937, which was the same day as the 1937 general election , when a relatively narrow majority approved it. The new Constitution of Ireland ( Bunreacht na hÉireann ) repealed the 1922 Constitution, and came into effect on 29 December 1937. The state was named Ireland ( Éire in the Irish language ), and
21112-510: The early morning, Collins' Squad attempted to wipe out leading British intelligence operatives in the capital, in particular the Cairo Gang , killing 16 men (including two cadets, one alleged informer, and one possible case of mistaken identity) and wounding five others. The attacks took place at different places (hotels and lodgings) in Dublin. In response, RIC men drove in trucks into Croke Park (Dublin's GAA football and hurling ground) during
21294-558: The first President of the Executive Council (prime minister). The Oireachtas or legislature consisted of Dáil Éireann (the lower house) and Seanad Éireann (the upper house), also known as the Senate. Members of the Dáil were required to take an Oath of Allegiance to the Constitution of the Free State and to declare fidelity to the king . The oath was a key issue for opponents of the Treaty, who refused to take it and therefore did not take their seats. Pro-Treaty members, who formed Cumann na nGaedheal in 1923, held an effective majority in
21476-558: The first, an oath to the Free State, as by law established , the second part a promise of fidelity, to His Majesty, King George V, his heirs and successors . That second fidelity element, however, was qualified in two ways. It was to the King in Ireland, not specifically to the King of the United Kingdom. Secondly, it was to the king explicitly in his role as part of the Treaty settlement, not in terms of pre-1922 British rule. The Oath itself came from
21658-426: The ground to prevent them being used again, along with almost one hundred income tax offices. The RIC withdrew from much of the countryside, leaving it in the hands of the IRA. In June–July 1920, assizes failed all across the south and west of Ireland; trials by jury could not be held because jurors would not attend. The collapse of the court system demoralised the RIC and many police resigned or retired. In August 1920
21840-455: The issue. The Free State was not a republic. The Oath became a key issue in the resulting Irish Civil War that divided the pro and anti-treaty sides in 1922–23. The compromises contained in the agreement caused the civil war in the 26 counties in June 1922 – April 1923, in which the pro-Treaty Provisional Government defeated the anti-Treaty Republican forces. The latter were led, nominally, by Éamon de Valera , who had resigned as President of
22022-490: The jury were targeted in the reprisal. Arthur Griffith estimated that in the first 18 months of the conflict, British forces carried out 38,720 raids on private homes, arrested 4,982 suspects, committed 1,604 armed assaults, carried out 102 indiscriminate shootings and burnings in towns and villages, and killed 77 people including women and children. In March 1920, Tomás Mac Curtain , the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork ,
22204-404: The large number of warrants served on members of the British forces and replaced them with "military courts of enquiry". The powers of military courts-martial were extended to cover the whole population and were empowered to use the death penalty and internment without trial; Government payments to local governments in Sinn Féin hands were suspended. This act has been interpreted by historians as
22386-450: The largest women's political organisation in Ireland. Elizabeth McCracken noted the failure of unionist women to formulate "any demand on their own behalf or that of their own sex". Yet in September 1913 McCracken was celebrating a "marriage of unionism and women's suffrage". Following reports that the militant Women's Social and Political Union (WPSU) would begin organising in Ulster, the secretary of Ulster Unionist Council had informed
22568-596: The leadership of the tenant-right movement men, like the Rev. James Armour of Ballymoney , who were at best agnostic on the union, while in the west of the province (in counties Armagh , Cavan , Fermanagh and Tyrone ) even Orangemen had started joining the Land League. The final and decisive shift in favour of constitutional concessions came in the wake of the Third Reform Act of 1884 . The near-universal admission to
22750-674: The leadership of unionism. Together with R. Lindsay Crawford and their Independent Orange Order , Sloan supported dock and linen-mill workers, led by the syndicalist James Larkin , in the great Belfast Lockout of 1907 . In July 1912, loyalists forced some 3,000 workers out of the shipyards and engineering plants in Belfast. Unlike previous incidents, the expellees included not only Catholics but also some 600 Protestants, targeted mainly because they were seen to support labour organising across sectarian lines. The unionist press depicted any connection with either British Labour (who had held their first party conference in Belfast in 1907) or with
22932-491: The link between Ireland and Great Britain were weakened or severed". That same link was critical for all those employed in the great export industries of the North—textiles, engineering, shipbuilding. For these the Irish hinterland was less important than the industrial triangle that linked Belfast and region with Clydeside and the north of England. Yet the most popular summary of case against Irish self-government remained
23114-401: The manufacturers and merchants of Belfast and neighbouring industrial districts could generally count on voting with the majority of their own workforce. But the loyalty of the Protestant worker was not unconditional. In the mind of many working-class unionists there was no contradiction between the defence of Protestant principle and political radicalism, "indeed, these were often seen as one and
23296-621: The measure. In 1891 Ulster's Liberal Unionists , part of a larger Liberal break with Gladstone, entered Saunderson's Irish Unionist Alliance , and at Westminster took the Conservative whip . In 1892, despite bitter division over the personally compromised leadership of Parnell, the Nationalists were able to help Gladstone to a third ministry. The result was a second Home Rule bill . It was greeted by an Ulster opposition more highly developed and better organised. A great Ulster Unionist Convention
23478-657: The message broadcast in a "great revival" of the Orange Order — "Home Rule means Rome Rule ". In the north, the competition represented by the growing numbers of Catholics arriving at mill and factory gates had already given the once largely rural (and Anglican ) Orange Order a new lease among Protestant workers. The pattern, in itself, was not unique to Belfast and its satellites. Glasgow , Manchester , Liverpool and other British centres experiencing large-scale Irish immigration developed similar Orange and nativist ward and workplace politics with which unionists—organised in
23660-485: The monarchy, it was criticised by nationalists and republicans for making any reference to the Crown, the claim being that it was a direct oath to the Crown, a fact arguably incorrect by an examination of its wording, but in 1922 Ireland and beyond, many argued that the fact remained that as a dominion the King (and therefore the British) was still Head of State and that was the practical reality that influenced public debate on
23842-465: The nationalist campaign involved popular mobilisation and the creation of a republican "state within a state" in opposition to British rule. British journalist Robert Lynd wrote in The Daily News in July 1920 that: So far as the mass of people are concerned, the policy of the day is not active but a passive policy. Their policy is not so much to attack the Government as to ignore it and to build up
24024-432: The new republic in the eyes of the world, the more practically experienced Collins and the broader IRA leadership opposed these tactics as they had led to the military débacle of 1916. Others, notably Arthur Griffith, preferred a campaign of civil disobedience rather than armed struggle. During the early part of the conflict, roughly from 1919 to the middle of 1920, there was a relatively limited amount of violence. Much of
24206-587: The next boat out of Dublin. The Chief of Staff of the IRA was Richard Mulcahy , who was responsible for organising and directing IRA units around the country. In theory, both Collins and Mulcahy were responsible to Cathal Brugha, the Dáil's Minister of Defence, but, in practice, Brugha had only a supervisory role, recommending or objecting to specific actions. A great deal also depended on IRA leaders in local areas (such as Liam Lynch, Tom Barry, Seán Moylan , Seán Mac Eoin and Ernie O'Malley ) who organised guerrilla activity, largely on their own initiative. For most of
24388-548: The nineteenth century. Typically Presbyterian agrarian-reform Liberals coalesced with traditionally Anglican Orange Order Conservatives against the Irish Home Rule Bills of 1886 and 1893. Joined by loyalist labour, on the eve of World War I this broad opposition to Irish self-government concentrated in Belfast and its hinterlands as Ulster unionism and prepared an armed resistance—the Ulster Volunteers . Within
24570-495: The north, George Ensor , observed that this broke the link between Catholic inclusion and democratic reform. In Ulster, resistance to O'Connell's appeal was stiffened by a religious revival. With its emphasis upon "personal witness", the New Reformation appeared to transcend the ecclesiastical differences between the different Protestant denominations. while launching them into "a far more conscious sense of separateness from
24752-513: The office of the Lord Lieutenant , by English ministers. Seeing little prospect of further reform and in the hope that they might be assisted by republican France , these United Irishmen sought a revolutionary union of "Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter" (i.e. of Catholics and Protestants of all persuasions). Their resolve was broken with the defeat of their uprising in 1798 , and by reports of rebel outrages against Protestant Loyalists in
24934-538: The old-fashioned Tories of the Counties ... modern Conservatives ... Orangemen ... All these various elements—Whig, Liberal, Radical, Presbyterian, Episcopalian , Unitarian and Methodist ... united as one man." While references to Catholics were conciliatory the Convention resolved: to retain unchanged our present position as an integral portion of the United Kingdom, and protest in the most unequivocal manner against
25116-446: The only opposition party. In 1926, when Sinn Féin president Éamon de Valera failed to have this policy reversed, he resigned from Sinn Féin and led most of its membership into a new party, Fianna Fáil , which entered the Dáil following the 1927 general election . It formed the government after the 1932 general election , when it became the largest party. De Valera abolished the oath of allegiance and embarked on an economic war with
25298-538: The passage of any measure that would rob us of our inheritance in the Imperial Parliament, under the protection of which our capital has been invested and our home and rights safeguarded; that we record our determination to have nothing to do with a Parliament certain to be controlled by men responsible for the crime and outrage of the Land League . . . many of whom have shown themselves the ready instrument of clerical domination. After mammoth parliamentary sessions
25480-507: The principal parties of government of the Free State between 1922 and 1937: Michael Collins described the Treaty as "the freedom to achieve freedom". In practice, the Treaty offered most of the symbols and powers of independence. These included a functioning, if disputed, parliamentary democracy with its own executive, judiciary and written constitution which could be changed by the Oireachtas. Although an Irish republic had not been on offer,
25662-571: The promotion of alcohol, contraceptives, divorce, and abortion as the pursuits of the old 'Protestant-elite' and Jews, with their efforts combined through the Freemasons . Denis Fahey described Ireland as "the third most Masonic country in the world" and saw this alleged order as contrary to the creation of an independent Irish State. In 1937 the Fianna Fáil government presented a draft of an entirely new Constitution to Dáil Éireann. An amended version of
25844-458: The real power was exercised by the Executive Council, as the Governor-General was almost always bound to act on the advice of the Executive Council. The office of Governor-General of the Irish Free State replaced the previous Lord Lieutenant , who had headed English and British administrations in Ireland since the Middle Ages. Governors-General were appointed by the king initially on the advice of
26026-511: The republican Sinn Féin party won a large majority of the Irish seats in the British parliament: 73 of the 105 constituencies returned Sinn Féin members (25 uncontested). The elected Sinn Féin MPs, rather than take their seats at Westminster, set up their own assembly, known as Dáil Éireann (Assembly of Ireland). It affirmed the formation of an Irish Republic and passed a Declaration of Independence . The subsequent War of Independence , fought between
26208-497: The same because it was the wealthy who were most prone to conciliation and treachery". Exercising the new workingman's vote , in 1868 loyalists in Belfast had chosen their own "Conservative", rejecting a millowner and returning an evangelical Orangeman, William Johnston , to Westminster. Johnston proceeded to propose and vote for labour protection , tenant right , the secret ballot and woman's suffrage In 1902, Johnston's successor as MP for South Belfast , Thomas Sloan , again
26390-409: The same weight and fineness of gold as was the sovereign at the time, making the new currency pegged at 1:1 with sterling. The State circulated its new national coinage in 1928, marked Saorstát Éireann and a national series of banknotes . British coinage remained acceptable in the Free State at an equal rate. In 1937, when the Free State was superseded by Ireland ( Éire ), the pound became known as
26572-524: The second half of 1920 and in 1921. Collins was a driving force behind the independence movement. Nominally the Minister of Finance in the Republic's government and IRA Director of Intelligence, he was involved in providing funds and arms to the IRA units and in the selection of officers. Collins' charisma and organisational capability galvanised many who came in contact with him. He established what proved an effective network of spies among sympathetic members of
26754-484: The separatist Irish Republican Brotherhood , began to prepare for a revolt against British rule in Ireland . The plan for revolt was realised in the Easter Rising of 1916, in which the Volunteers launched an insurrection whose aim was to end British rule. The insurgents issued the Proclamation of the Irish Republic , proclaiming Ireland's independence as a republic. The Rising, in which over four hundred people died,
26936-531: The services of Carson, from 1892 MP for Trinity College Dublin and supported him from 1910 as leader of the Irish Unionist parliamentary party. But marshalled by Captain James Craig , a millionaire director of Belfast's Dunville Whiskey , it was northern employers who undertook the real political and organisational work. Unlike the southern landowners who were politically opposed by their Catholic tenants,
27118-541: The south largely came to an end. The 1937 Constitution saw a notable ideological slant to the changes of the framework of the State in such a way as to create one that appeared to be distinctly Irish. This was done so by implementing corporatist policies (based on the concepts of the Roman Catholic Church , as Catholicism was perceived to be deeply imbedded with the perception of Irish identity). A clear example of this
27300-413: The southern Protestant Charles Stewart Parnell . In 1881, in a further Land Act , Gladstone conceded the three F's —fair rent, free sale, and fixity of tenure. Recognising that "the land grievance had been a bond of discontent between Ulster and the rest of Ireland and in that sense a danger to the union", Irish Conservatives did not oppose the measure. Protestants in the eastern counties had admitted to
27482-411: The suffrage of male heads of household tripled the electorate in Ireland. The 1885 election returned an IPP, now under the leadership of Parnell, of 85 Members (including 17 from Ulster where Conservatives and Liberals split the unionist vote). Gladstone, whose Liberals lost all 15 of their Irish seats, was able to form his second ministry only with their Commons support. In June 1886, Gladstone tabled
27664-442: The summer of 1920, the Tans burned and sacked numerous small towns throughout Ireland, including Balbriggan , Trim , Templemore and others. In other acts of reprisal, between April and August 1920 over 100 mills, creameries and other economic targets were destroyed or burned. In July 1920, another quasi-military police body, the Auxiliaries, consisting of 2,215 former British army officers, arrived in Ireland. The Auxiliaries had
27846-513: The support of the splinter Liberal Unionist Party , Salisbury returned to office in 1895. The Land Act of 1896 introduced for the first time the principle of compulsory sale to tenants, through its application was limited to bankrupt estates. "You would suppose", said Sir Edward Carson , Dublin barrister and the leading spokesman for Irish Conservatives, "that the Government were revolutionists verging on Socialism". Having been first obliged to surrender their hold on local government (transferred at
28028-427: The traditions of Irish Boards by announcing that its aim was to "be in touch with public opinion of the classes whom its work concerns, and to rely largely for its success upon their active assistance and cooperation". It supported and encouraged dairy cooperatives, the Creameries, that were to be an important institution in the emergence of a new class of independent smallholders. Greater reform followed when, with
28210-528: The war had started, the Dáil debated "whether it was feasible to accept formally a state of war that was being thrust on them, or not", and decided not to declare war. Then on 11 March, Dáil Éireann President Éamon de Valera called for acceptance of a "state of war with England". The Dail voted unanimously to empower him to declare war whenever he saw fit, but he did not formally do so. Volunteers began to attack British government property, carry out raids for arms and funds and target and kill prominent members of
28392-412: The war. Many of the National Volunteers did enlist, and the majority of the men in the 16th (Irish) Division of the British Army had formerly served in the National Volunteers. The Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army launched the Easter Rising against British rule in 1916, when an Irish Republic was proclaimed. Thereafter they became known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Between 1919 and 1921
28574-414: The war—was killed in an armed raid by local IRA volunteers on a church parade the day before (7 September). The ambushers were members of a unit of the No. 2 Cork Brigade under the command of Liam Lynch , who also wounded four British soldiers and disarmed the rest before fleeing in their cars. The local coroner's inquest refused to return a murder verdict over the soldier and local businessmen who had sat on
28756-412: The widespread help given to them by the general Irish population, who generally refused to pass information to the RIC and the British military and who often provided " safe houses " and provisions to IRA units "on the run". Much of the IRA's popularity arose from the excessive reaction of the British forces to IRA activity. When Éamon de Valera returned from the United States, he demanded in the Dáil that
28938-472: The words of the British historian Peter Cottrell —to an "administration renowned for its incompetence and inefficiency". Ireland was divided into three military districts. During the war, two British Army divisions, the 5th and the 6th divisions, were based in Ireland with their respective headquarters in the Curragh and Cork . By July 1921 there were 50,000 British troops based in Ireland; by contrast there were 14,000 soldiers in metropolitan Britain. While
29120-416: The young government and its army. By the end of the year the loan had reached £358,000. It eventually reached £380,000. An even larger amount, totalling over $ 5 million, was raised in the United States by Irish Americans and sent to Ireland to finance the Republic. Rates were still paid to local councils but nine out of eleven of these were controlled by Sinn Féin, who naturally refused to pass them on to
29302-410: Was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between the forces of the Irish Republic – the Irish Republican Army (IRA) – and British Crown forces. The Free State was established as a dominion of the British Empire . It comprised 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland . Northern Ireland , which
29484-425: Was almost exclusively confined to Dublin and was put down within a week, but the British response, executing the leaders of the insurrection and arresting thousands of nationalist activists, galvanised support for the separatist Sinn Féin – the party which the republicans first adopted and then took over as well as followers from Countess Markievicz , who was second-in-command of the Irish Citizen Army during
29666-454: Was an established element in the European system and a member of the League of Nations. It had blazed a trail in asserting the rights of the dominions to their own foreign policy, in the process establishing full diplomatic relations with the United States, France, Belgium, Germany, and the Holy See. It was concluding its own political and commercial treaties and using the apparatus of international relations to pursue its interests. It had received
29848-458: Was announced by the Dáil on 11 April 1919. This proved successful in demoralising the force as the war went on, as people turned their faces from a force increasingly compromised by association with British government repression. The rate of resignation went up and recruitment in Ireland dropped off dramatically. Often, the RIC were reduced to buying food at gunpoint, as shops and other businesses refused to deal with them. Some RIC men co-operated with
30030-476: Was called off. The British government managed to bring the situation to an end, when they threatened to withhold grants from the railway companies, which would have meant that workers would no longer have been paid. Attacks by the IRA also steadily increased, and by early 1920, they were attacking isolated RIC stations in rural areas, causing them to be abandoned as the police retreated to the larger towns. In early April 1920, 400 abandoned RIC barracks were burned to
30212-408: Was constituted, they believed that an Irish parliament would (egged on by the "American Irish") enter into conflicts with the "imperial parliament" in London that could only be resolved through "complete separation". The upper and middle classes found in Britain and the Empire "a wide range of profitable careers--in the army, in the public services, in commerce--from which they might be shut out if
30394-458: Was defeated in the Lords, but as result of the crisis engendered by the opposition of the peers to the 1910 People's Budget the Lords now only had the power of delay. Home Rule would become law in 1914. There had long been discussion of giving "an option to Ulster". As early as 1843, The Northern Whig reasoned that if differences in ethnicity ("race") and interests argue for Ireland's separation from Great Britain, they could as easily argue for
30576-399: Was formed in 1895 in east Belfast under the patronage of the Rev. John Baptiste Crozier and Dr. John St Clair Boyd , both avowed unionists, and of the Orange Order Grand Master, the Rev. Richard Rutledge Kane . But for many Irish unionists the chief-secretaryship of George Wyndham was "a last straw". In February 1905, they learned that his undersecretary, Sir Anthony MacDonnell ,
30758-444: Was held in Belfast organised by the Liberal Unionist Thomas Sinclair , whom the press noted had been a critic of Orangeism. Speakers and observers dwelt on the diversity of creed, class and party represented among the 12,300 delegates attending. As reported by the Northern Whig there were "the old tenant-righters of the 'sixties' ... the sturdy reformers of Antrim ... the Unitarians of Down, always progressive in their politics ...
30940-424: Was later executed. A number of events dramatically escalated the conflict in late 1920. First the Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney , died on hunger strike in Brixton Prison in London in October, while two other IRA prisoners on hunger strike, Joe Murphy and Michael Fitzgerald , died in Cork Jail. Sunday, 21 November 1920, was a day of dramatic bloodshed in Dublin that became known as Bloody Sunday . In
31122-406: Was led by Seán Treacy , Séumas Robinson , Seán Hogan and Dan Breen acting on their own initiative. The IRA attacked and shot two RIC officers, Constables James McDonnell and Patrick O'Connell, who were escorting explosives. Breen later recalled: ...we took the action deliberately, having thought over the matter and talked it over between us. Treacy had stated to me that the only way of starting
31304-444: Was made up of the remaining six counties, exercised its right under the Treaty to opt out of the new state. The Free State government consisted of the Governor-General – the representative of the king – and the Executive Council (cabinet), which replaced both the revolutionary Dáil Government and the Provisional Government set up under the Treaty. W. T. Cosgrave , who had led both of these administrations since August 1922, became
31486-401: Was marked by severe rioting in Dublin that left over 100 British soldiers injured. While it was not clear in the beginning of 1919 that the Dáil ever intended to gain independence by military means, and war was not explicitly threatened in Sinn Féin's 1918 manifesto , an incident occurred on 21 January 1919, the same day as the First Dáil convened. The Soloheadbeg Ambush , in County Tipperary,
31668-400: Was not the choice of employers. The campaign of the Belfast Protestant Association candidate was marked by what his opponents considered a classic piece of bigotry. Sloan protested the exemption of Catholic convents from inspection by the Hygiene Commission (the Catholic Church should not be "a state within a state"). But it was as a trade unionist that he criticised the "fur-coat brigade" in
31850-401: Was partitioned under British law by the Government of Ireland Act , which created Northern Ireland . A ceasefire began on 11 July 1921. The post-ceasefire talks led to the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6 December 1921. This ended British rule in most of Ireland and, after a ten-month transitional period overseen by the Provisional Government , the Irish Free State was created as
32032-429: Was rejected by Irish nationalists, who were certain the men had been tortured and then murdered. On 28 November 1920, one week later, the West Cork unit of the IRA, under Tom Barry, ambushed a patrol of Auxiliaries at Kilmichael, County Cork , killing all but one of the 18-man patrol. These actions marked a significant escalation of the conflict. In response, the counties of Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary—all in
32214-433: Was shot dead in front of his wife at his home, by men with blackened faces who were seen returning to the local police barracks. The jury at the inquest into his death returned a verdict of wilful murder against David Lloyd George (the British Prime Minister) and District Inspector Swanzy, among others. Swanzy was later tracked down and killed in Lisburn , County Antrim . This pattern of killings and reprisals escalated in
32396-401: Was the Parliament in Dublin . Confined on a narrow franchise to landed members of the established Anglican communion (the Anglo-Irish " Protestant Ascendancy "), the parliament denied equal protection and public office to Dissenters (non-Anglican Protestants) and to the Kingdom's dispossessed Roman Catholic majority. The high point of this parliamentary patriotism was the formation during
32578-405: Was the subject of intense lobbying by leading Church figures throughout the 1930s in calling for reform of the State's framework. Much of this was reflected in the new 1937 Constitution. 53°20′52″N 6°15′35″W / 53.34778°N 6.25972°W / 53.34778; -6.25972 Unionism in Ireland Unionism in Ireland is a political tradition that professes loyalty to
32760-484: Was to be the high point of mobilisation in Ulster against Home Rule, the Covenant Campaign of September 1912, the unionist leadership decided that men alone could not speak for the determination of the unionist people to defend "their equal citizenship in the United Kingdom". Women were asked to sign, not the Covenant whose commitment to "all means which may be found necessary" implied a readiness to bear arms, but their own Associate Declaration. A total of 234,046 women signed
32942-408: Was to seek out and kill "G-men" and other British spies and agents. Collins' Squad began killing RIC intelligence officers in July 1919. Many G-men were offered a chance to resign or leave Ireland by the IRA. One spy who escaped with his life was F. Digby Hardy , who was exposed by Arthur Griffith before an "IRA" meeting, which in fact consisted of Irish and foreign journalists, and then advised to take
33124-525: Was transferred to Westminster . In the Presbyterian north east the Irish parliament was unlamented. Having refused calls for reform—to broaden representation and curb corruption—few saw cause to regret its passing. It took the Union thirty years to deliver on the promise of Catholic emancipation (1829)—to admit Catholics to Parliament—and permit an erosion of the Protestant monopoly on position and influence. An opportunity to integrate Catholics through their re-emerging propertied and professional classes as
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