Irish Revolution

I

Introduction

Irish Revolution, period of transfer of the government of much of Ireland from the United Kingdom to the Irish Free State (later the Republic of Ireland) between 1912 and 1922, and specifically the period of armed conflict in 1919-1921.

II

First Stages

The years 1912-1916 witnessed the militarization of Irish society and politics. In the northern counties of Ulster, Unionists armed themselves and formed the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force in January 1913 as they prepared to resist the implementation of Home Rule. In November of the same year, nationalists in Dublin formed a rival military force, the Irish Volunteers. By the outbreak of World War I the Irish Volunteers numbered 180,000 members, but the organization split over support for the British war effort. A splinter group of 11,000 objected to Irish involvement on the British side in the war against Germany and formed the Irish National Volunteers, which came under the control of a revolutionary secret organization known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB).

The IRB, led by Patrick Pearse and Sean MacDermott, aimed to mount an armed insurrection in Ireland while Britain was still at war with Germany. During Easter week 1916, the IRB led an armed rebellion, the Easter Rising, in the name of an independent Irish republic. Militarily the affair was a failure, with most of the fighting confined to Dublin and without any popular support. However, public opinion changed when the rebel leaders were systematically executed by the British authorities and large numbers of non-combatants were imprisoned.

The rising was wrongly associated in the press with a small nationalist party called Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin had argued for cultural and economic independence for Ireland while still remaining under the rule of a British monarch who would be crowned in Ireland as well as in Britain. Under the banner of Sinn Féin, every shade of nationalist opinion gathered in 1917, and the party adopted a republican constitution with Eamon De Valera, a senior officer during the rising, as its leader. Sinn Féin contested several by-elections and enjoyed some early successes, but its candidates refused to take their seats in Parliament at Westminster. By the end of 1918 Sinn Féin had 112,000 members, and in the general election of that year secured a huge vote, winning almost every nationalist seat outside Ulster. The popularity of Sinn Féin was based on the continued resistance to the British rule, which had been fundamentally enhanced by the British government’s plans, announced in April 1918, to impose conscription in Ireland.

III

The War of Independence

Continuing their abstention from the British parliament, Sinn Féin deputies convoked their own parliament, Dáil Éireann, in Dublin and met on January 21, 1919. On the same day, in County Tipperary, members of what became known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) ambushed and killed two members of the armed Royal Irish Constabulary and initiated what has become known as the Anglo-Irish War or War of Independence (1919-1921). The IRA used guerrilla tactics against both the Royal Irish Constabulary and the British Army with marked success. The Royal Irish Constabulary had to be augmented with special constables recruited in Britain (known as Black and Tans because of the colours of their uniforms), and both sides used brutal reprisal and counter-reprisal tactics. In Dublin the IRA, under the direction of Michael Collins, met with considerable success in undermining the British intelligence system. Collins was able to infiltrate Dublin Castle, the seat of British power in Ireland, and identify key agents, who were summarily executed by his assassination “Squad”.

By early 1921, south-western Ireland was under martial law, and it became clear that Ireland could not be suppressed militarily without considerable loss of life and further embarrassment within the international community to Britain. On June 24, following a call for peace by King George V, Eamon De Valera received an invitation from the British prime minister, David Lloyd George, to attend talks, and a truce came into effect on July 11, 1921. After protracted negotiations Sinn Féin was invited to send delegates to London to discuss how Ireland’s nationalist aspirations could be reconciled with the British Empire.

IV

Independence and Partition

Representatives of Sinn Féin negotiated with the British government and signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty on December 6, 1921. The treaty offered self-government in what was to be called the Irish Free State. It also promised full financial autonomy, but demanded that Ireland should become part of the British Empire on the same terms as the Dominion of Canada. Furthermore, the British would remain in control of several strategically important ports. Northern Ireland, since it was already in possession of its own parliament created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, and consisting of the six north-eastern counties of Ulster could, as was inevitable, opt out of the Free State, in which case a Boundary Commission was to be created to redraw the border between the two states. The treaty fell far short of the political aspirations of many in Sinn Féin and the IRA, and led to the Partition of Ireland and the Irish Civil War between supporters of the settlement and those opposed to it. The Irish Free State came into being on December 6, 1922.