Ireland in Revolution
Ireland was not with the revolution, but
in a few months she will be, and her heart which was withering will be warmed
by the knowledge that men have thought her wroth dying for.
-James Stephens
On April 24, 1916, violence erupted
in the streets of Dublin. Members of the Irish Citizens Army and the
Irish Volunteers took over the General Post Office, the Four Courts, Jacob’s
Factory, Boland’s Bakery, the South Dublin Union, St. Stephens Green and the College of Surgeons. Six days later portions of Dublin lay in ruins, hundreds were homeless,
hundreds had died, and thousands were wounded (Ward 3). By Sunday, April 30, the insurgents were
forced to agree to an unconditional surrender.
Despite its lack of popularity at the time of the Uprising, within
months, the men and women involved would be seen as martyrs for Ireland, and their passionate commitment to a
free Ireland
would inspire a nation.
The roots
of the Irish 1916 Uprising lay in the new nationalism which emerged in Ireland in the
1890s. New nationalism came to describe
both the growth of cultural and militant nationalism. Cultural nationalism reflected a growing
interest in Ireland’s past,
in language, mythology, folklore and sports (BBC website) At the
same time, Ireland
saw the emergence of a new, more radical nationalism reflected in political
initiatives. These included the birth of
Sinn Féin, the rejuvenation of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), and
developments in the labor movement.
These more militant organizations reflected the disillusionment of many
with the Irish Parliament Party’s inability to achieve home rule (BBC website). Many remembered other Irish heroes who had
used violence in their attempts to win independence. Many Irish Nationalists perceived Anglo-Irish
relations as seven hundred years of conquest, exploitation, and
repression. The Irish bitterly
remembered the bloody campaigns of Elizabeth, Cromwell, and William of Orange,
the calculated attempts to drive out Gaelic culture and to suppress the Roman
Catholic Religion, and England’s
rendering of Irish Catholics to a second class citizenship (Ward 30).
The participants of the Easter Uprising came
out of the revolutionary nationalism that believed that in order for the
creation of an independent Irish republic, England would have to be driven out by
force because it would never give up control willingly (Ward 48). Because
World War had broken out in Europe, Great Britain
was unwilling to grant home rule to Ireland at that time. Still, they needed to keep Ireland happy in order to have a
continuous influx of soldiers. Also
complicating the issue, Ulster,
the traditionally Protestant northern part of Ireland, promised civil war. This gave Great Britain another excuse to
delay the issue (Ward 93). Home rule was not enough for most
republicans, and some radicals decided to use the opportunity of England’s preoccupation in Europe
to achieve full independence.
The Irish
Republican Brotherhood, which was a small, underground, revolutionary body,
planned and directed the insurrection of 1916.
They were aided throughout by an Irish-American organization, the Clan
na Gael, which provided virtually the only channel of contact between the
insurgents in Ireland and Germany, from
whom they hoped to receive military backing (BBC website). However, the IRB was too small in numbers and
covert in operations to create the uprising necessary to achieve their goals.
Therefore three of the leaders of the 1916 Uprising, Patrick Pearse, Thomas
MacDonagh, and Joseph Plunkett, three of the leading Irish poets of the time,
secretly plotted to lead the more moderate Irish Volunteers into the fray (Ward
99). To carry off their plan, they had
to deceive the leader of the Volunteers, Eoin MacNeill.
Almost from its planning
stages the Easter Uprising was a disaster.
The rebels were counting on support and guns from Germany, but England found out about the
shipment when it intercepted badly transmitted communications and confiscated
the arms. Roger Casement was executed
for his involvement in this transaction (Ward 103). The original plan also called for up to five
thousand men in Dublin
and thousands more revolting in the countryside. However, on the morning of the Uprising, when
MacNeill discovered all of the IRB’s maneuverings, he prohibited all Volunteers
maneuvers in connection with the Easter Uprising. Ultimately, only eight hundred assembled in Dublin, and there was
virtually no response in the countryside (Ward 105). There was no chance of a rebel victory. Despite this, Patrick Pearse and others
leaders of the Uprising decided to go ahead with their plans. Some believed that Ireland needed a blood sacrifice in
order to achieve freedom. These men were
willing to make it.
At noon on
Easter Monday, the rebels took up their posts throughout the city. Patrick Pearse, stationed at the General Post
Office, the head quarters of the rebellion, came out and read the Proclamation
of the Irish Republic. Fighting was largely confined
to Dublin,
although there were a few isolated occurrences throughout the country. Martial
law was declared in the whole of Ireland, and by the end of the
week, about 12,000 government troops were ranged against the republicans
(Coogan 135). By the end of the week,
some 1350 were wounded or killed, the centre of Dublin was gutted, the damage being estimated
at £2,500,000 sterling. Initially,
Dubliners were outraged; many had husbands or sons fighting in France, and
they hooted and jeered the prisoners.
The leaders of the rebellion were tried quickly by secret
court-martials. By May 12, fourteen men
had been executed. The men who lost
their lives were, Patrick Pearse, Tom Clarke, Thomas MacDonagh, Joseph
Plunkett, Edward Daly, William Pearse, Michael O’Hanrahan, John Macbride,
Eamonn Kent, Michael Mallin, Con Colbert, Sean Heuston, Sean MacDermott, James Connolly,
and Thomas Kent (Coogan 136).
In a large part, the 1916 Uprising sparked
the struggle for an Irish nation because of the incompetent handling of the
rebellion by the British. The Irish public
quickly became indignant over the secret court-martials and the
executions. Many of them were
particularly poignant. James Connolly,
who had been fatally injured during the Uprising, had to be carried to his
execution on a stretcher. When he could
not stand, they tied him to a chair and shot him. Joseph Plunkett, who was already dying of
tuberculosis, was married in his cell just hours before his execution (Ward
110) By the time British soldiers’
treatment of Irish civilians during the Uprising became more well-known, such
as the shooting of pacifist Francis Sheehy-Skeffinton without a trial, the
Irish public opinion had shifted in favor of the insurgents (BBC website). Suddenly they were martyrs for Ireland. Sinn Fein, a very revolutionary political
body in Ireland,
began to grow in numbers. Suddenly,
thousands more were willing to sacrifice their lives for the free Ireland the
Easter Uprisers had dreamed of.
According to
Richard Kearney in Myth and Terror,
suddenly everything in Ireland
was dated “Before and after Easter Week.?? The execution of sixteen rebel
leaders (including Thomas MacDonagh, a poet, and Padhraic Pearse, an educator)
in May after the 1916 Rebellion (April 24) was viewed as a transformation from
their patriotism to their martyrdom, rather than deterrence from further
resistance. Many revolutionaries have risen in the aftermath of the 1916
Rebellion such as Harry Boland (1887-1922) who was probably the most
influential Irish revolutionary between 1917 till his assassination in 1922,
where Ireland was in open
rebellion against Britain.
These rebels were mostly raised in the spirit of intransigent hostility to Britain due to
the injustice inflicted upon their ancestors by the British simply because they
wanted to fulfill the dream of Free, Independent and United Ireland. Not
surprisingly, the Revolt turned out to be a total fiasco since the British
succeeded in quelling it. Many rebels were arrested and imprisoned, however it
was seen as a bloody ending to a temporary phase that in turn led to a glorious
beginning and a new hope for the long-aspired and precious independence. For
example, Boland transcribed such aspirations in his notebook in the prison of Dartmoor where he said:
’Tis better to have fought and lost than never to have fought at all (Fitzpatrick, P.59)
These revolutionary leaders have mainly stressed on the separation between
the (captivated) body and the (free) spirit that can still find “true
happiness?? “within oneself?? despite the fact that it is behind bars and bolts.
Actually, this goes back to the Gaelic mythological traditions where one makes
sacrifices (by ones’ own self) in the name of dead generations, and that an
Irish victory could only spring from the defeat. In short, for these rebels,
death and victory are both perfect, and morally equivalent. These rebels gained
inspiration and endurance from the experience of each other and that of younger
generations, but they all shared one thing in common: Ireland is the mother and Britain is the
enemy. That was their noble cause and they felt proud about it. Boland wrote in
early May, “…and England is
about to reap the harvest she sowed in blood and tears in Ireland?? (Fitzpatrick,
P.84). England naively
thought that by “filling the jails of Ireland
with men, aye, and women because they dare sing their National Songs,?? and by
“deporting others without charge or trial,?? then it was putting an end now and
for all for these rebellious spirits filling the realms of Ireland. These
rebellious leaders had shown how to outmaneuver (British) might with mother wit
and in other cases with violence and aggression. A problem that Britain
was facing was that it was actually dealing with a bunch of courageous rebels
who lacked significant political fitness and who could easily win the people by
the simplicity and the passion of their speeches.
William Butler Yeats is one of the most important literary figures
during the Irish Revolution, if not one of the people who influenced it.
Actually his opinion on the 1916 Rebellion is unclear and obviously vacillated
between admiration for those who had sacrificed their lives for Ireland and at the same time his implicit blame
for them for not seeing the consequences of such an uprising and how it might
provoke England
into more aggression and into using more force. He repeats throughout his poem Easter 1916, “A terrible beauty is
born.?? He also says “In ignorant good-will.?? These rebels no doubt retain the
necessary passion that drives them to express their desire for their country’s
independence and freedom through revolution, but at the same time, they lack
the necessary knowledge and skills that would put them on the right track,
especially that they are dealing with such a great power such as Britain and
not a bunch of politically inexperienced leaders. Did Yeats forewarn the tragic
conflict to come?
The period following the 1916 Rebellion became know as the Anglo-Irish
War and it lasted from 1819 until 1821. Resistance
after the 1916 Rebellion was divided mainly into two different approaches between
the Volunteers, who were more violence-oriented shooting policemen and raiding
arms, and De Valera who proposed more peaceful resistance and moral persuasion.
A branch of the Irish Volunteers (soon to be known as the I.R.A.) was formed in
London in 1919.
The Volunteers was a national defense body also known as the (extremist) Sinn
Fein. Eamon De Valera, the president of the Sinn Fein party in 1917,
discouraged the use of arms or any violent or military policy in resisting England’s right
to rule Ireland
against the will of its people. “His was a policy of attitude, of recognition
or non-recognition, national and international, of Dail Eireann as opposed to
English institutions?? (Lawlor, P.34). Michael Collins was one of the chief
workers for the Irish freedom as a leader in the Sinn Fein movement. “He is
best known for his brilliant work during the Anglo-Irish was in setting up the
IRA’s extremely effective intelligence and counter-intelligence until that time
and time again saved the IRA forces to fight another day.?? Unfortunately,
British officials could not differentiate between the nature of the two groups
and so the prevalent picture was that the resistance which was aggressive
cannot be subdued except by force.
For Britain,
the IRA and the rebels were equal to terrorism, not war since they used classic
guerrilla tactics. In March, 1920, Britain
sent to Ireland
a group of unemployed veterans for WWI which would later get the nickname of
the Black and Tans due to the variety of the colors of uniforms that they were
wearing from khaki, brown and green. The Black and Tans were irregular troops
who lacked the self-discipline that would have been found in the Western Front.
The only thing that attracted them to join the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), England’s police force in Ireland since 1991, was not
political, moral, or national pride; rather, it was simply money. Their main
aim was to make Ireland
“hell for rebels to live in,?? and to terrorize local communities. On June 17,
1920, Lt. Col. Smyth, one of the division commanders of the RIC in Munster said
to his “Black and Tans,?? “…The more you shoot, the better I will like you, and
I assure you no policeman will get into trouble for shooting any man.?? Thus
violence generated more violence on both sides.
There was domestic pressure on the British government since the English public
was for peace and it criticized the repressive measures used by it. Thus, in
1920, the British government decided to grant Ireland limited self-government
wrongly believing that the Irish nationalists would be satisfied. Also, Arthur
Griffith (1872-1922) along with Michael Collins in 1920 led the Sinn Fein
delegation to London to negotiate the treaty
that established the Irish Free State and separated Northern Ireland from the rest of
the country. The Anglo-Irish Treaty was agreed and signed on 6th
December, 1921. They were accused, mainly by the president, De Velara, of
compromising Ireland’s
rights because they failed to make Ireland
as a republic; it was still a member of the British Empire
and the English Crown was the Head of State under this treaty. However, Collins
and Griffith said that that was the best that could be done at the current
circumstances or war would have been initiated once more between Ireland and Britain. Collins was later killed
by anti-treaty guerillas.
The Irish Civil War began on June
28, 1922 (English, 35) following a bitter debate within the IRA (Irish
Republican Army) over the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty signed on December 6,
1921 (English, 30). The disagreement divided the IRA into two camps: one which
supported ratification of the treaty and another which rejected its terms. The
treaty called for the creation of the Irish Free State composed of twenty-six
southern (predominantly Catholic) counties while the remaining six northern
(predominantly Protestant) 6 counties would remain as part of the United Kingdom
(English, 30). The Free State would become an
official British commonwealth and would retain
controversial, yet merely symbolic ties to the Kingdom including a British
Governor-General and a governmental Oath of Alligence to the British Throne
(English, 30). More importantly, the treaty did not recognize the Republic or
the legitimacy of the Second Dail Eireann (the very organization which ratified
the treaty) (Costello, 290).
Members of the Dail, the Irish
Republican parliament, bitterly debated the Treaty’s contents for the following
three weeks and in January 1922 it was narrowly accepted by a vote of 64 to 57
(English, 31). On January 14, 1922, the
provisional government of the Irish Free State convened for the first time at
Mansion House in downtown Dublin
(Costello, 290). This body was composed of the 64 pro-treaty Dail members as
well as 2 Unionists, providing a weak voice which remained loyal to Britain
(Costello, 290). Michael Collins, the leader of the Anglo-Irish Treaty
delegation, led this government while another member of the treaty delegation,
Arthur Griffith, split with the provisional government and became president of
the remaining portion of the second Dail (Costello, 290). However, this rift
was mended quickly after Collins allowed the second Dail’s cabinet a say during
the provisional government’s meetings (Costello, 291). Eamon de Valera, as the
deposed President of the Dail, quickly became an outspoken opponent of Collins,
Griffith and the treaty. This reactionary bitterness may have stemmed, in part,
from the fact that Collins was either unable or unwilling to consult with de
Valera during the negotiation process despite the fact that de Valera had
designed a plan specifically for their communication (English, 30). However,
the United Kingdom
had leverage during the treaty negotiations—British delegate Lloyd George even
warned that failure to sign the treaty would result in “‘war in three days’??
(Costello, 288).
In any case, the signing of the
treaty led to divisive arguments which further factionalized the IRA,
eventually pushing the newly-formed Irish Free State
into civil war. The Gaelic name for the Irish Civil War is “Cogadh na gCairde??
or “War of the Friends?? which is especially apt considering that the major
leaders of the warring factions had been close comrades during the Irish
Revolution only a year earlier (Costello, 292). Hardline IRA men saw the treaty
as a defeat and hoped that their defiance of the provisional government’s
authority would force Britain
to return to Ireland,
thereby causing an increase in support of the Republican cause. Four of these
anti-treaty hardliners—Liam Mellows, Rory O’Connor, Peadar O’Donnell and Ernie
O’Malley—led a takeover of the Four Courts in downtown Dublin in April 1922
(English, 34). From this symbolically-important base, the break-away militants
sniped at departing British forces and organized a campaign of general
disruption and violence towards the provisional government (Costello, 296-298).
In the words of Francis Costello: “The cause itself had come to outweigh its
objective,?? (295).
During this period of unrest,
Collins and the provisional government worked for seven months to create a
working state before the first elections would be held and, in retrospect, this
delay may have been a determining factor in the outbreak of the civil war
(Costello, 299). Collins and de Valera signed a pact (Collins-de Valera Pact)
which allowed Collins to remain connected the revolutionary figurehead and his
supporters much to chagrin of Winston Churchill, Britain’s chief negotiator
(Costello, 300). After a popular vote ratified the treaty in June of 1922, the
anti-treaty faction nearly voted to declare war on Britain and, because of this, Churchill
demanded that Collins put a stop to the rebellion. At 4:29 am on June 28, after
Rory O’Connor refused to surrender, Irish Free State
forces began bombarding the Four Courts using artillery and weapons provided by
the British(!) (Costello, 306). Two days later, the Four Courts area was
cleared but fighting continued throughout the southwestern areas of the island
(Costello, 308). On July 12, Michael Collins resigned as head of the
provisional government to become commander-in-chief of its military (Costello,
312). Exactly one month later, Arthur Griffith died of a brain hemmorage in a Dublin hospital and was followed ten days later by Collins
himself who was killed during an ambush in his hometown of West
Cork (Costello, 313).
The deaths of two of the most
prominent pro-treaty leaders sparked harsh retribution from the provisional
government against the rebel IRA. In October, the Public Safety Bill was
enacted which led to the executions of seventy-seven Republicans including the
four leaders of the Four Courts takeover and the imprisonment of hundreds of
others (Costello, 315). This repression was supported by the Catholic Church and
most of the population of the Free
State and less than a year later the civil war had
ended. In April of the following year, the leader of the anti-treaty IRA, Liam
Lynch, was killed and his successor, Frank Aiken, called for a cease fire a
month later (English, 36). A hunger strike initiated by the remaining
anti-treaty prisoners started with thousands of prisoners only to peter out
after a month (October 1923) (English. 37).
“In
the eleven-month period that spanned the Irish Civil War, more Irishmen were
killed at the hands of their fellow countrymen than there were Volunteers lost
to the British forces during the entire two and a half years of the Anglo-Irish
War [Irish Revolution]. In comparison to a total of seventy-seven executions
that were carried out by the Free
State against their former comrades, only twenty-four
executions had been carried out by the British authorities during the entire
Anglo-Irish War. From the ranks of the Irish Free State
army there were 800 killed alone, with the number of IRA dead unknown, but
probably higher. It is also likely that the total number of casualties, both
military and civilian, during the Civil War vastly exceeded those of the War of
Independence period,?? (Costello, 317).
The internal violence during this dark period of Irish
Republican history would never be repeated but the ideological clash between
negotiation, compromise and armed revolt remain the subject of debates to this
day between Sinn Fein and IRA leaders.
Bibliography
Music: (I have other really good Irish revolution music
that we couldn't get loaded on the page. If you want to hear
more, email harmsjil@grinnell.edu
Black and Tans
Irish Soldier Laddie
