The latest 1916 revisionism

What I find more interesting is what did not happen rather than what did happen.

Without British entry into World War I, the Home Rule Bill would undoubtedly have been implemented.

It seems inevitable that the UVF would have rebelled but would have rapidly lost support and sympathy from Tories in England when the first RIC officer or British soldier was shot and when sectarian outrages would have broke out across the north east.

The overwhelming majority of Irishmen in the British regiments in Ireland and in the RIC were Roman Catholics who supported Home Rule and with field guns and machine guns and cavalry they would have crushed the UVF who were armed with a collection of antique arms, multiple varieties of modern rifles and a large quantity of ammunition but a poor logistic system. Also tens of thousands of Irish nationalists led by John Redmond would have backed the British Army and RIC against the UVF. Mainstream Unionist support for a fight might have rapidly melted away.

In the same way that De Valera who was hedging for a deal with Collins was shunted to one side by the military leadership of the IRA in the Irish Civil War 1922-1923, James Craig and Edward Carson would have rapidly lost control of the UVF to more militant leaders. In the face of a British Army campaign the UVF would have quickly lost control of the towns and cities of Ulster and some would have chosen to adopt guerrilla warfare. The Dublin government would probably have used the same policy of interning unionists and executing die-hard loyalists just as the Free State government interned thousands of republicans and executed 77 men during 1922-1923.

Socialists like James Connolly and republicans like Patrick Parse, Tom Clarke and Sean McDermott might have waited for the dust to settle rather than launch their own rebellion in Dublin. If they did rebel in Dublin they would not have earned public sympathy if they were fighting against a Dublin Home Rule government in the midst of a war with Unionist rebels. More likely they would have participated in the war against the unionists with their own plans for post-war Ireland.

The end result of a civil war would probably have been a Dublin parliament dominated by the Irish Parliamentary Party ruling a 32 county Ireland with the British Royal Navy holding on to our ports. The Unionists would have grudgingly entered parliament at a later date just like the Anti-Treaty side entered the Dáil in 1927.

The Home Rule Irish Parliamentary Party led by Redmond might have been decimated anyway in the 1918 general election leading to the rise of Sinn Féin. Since Sinn Féin was an umbrella for a wide spectrum of Irish national opinion it would not have been long before the movement splintered into opposing factions. The generational divide between the increasingly elderly IPP and the vigorous youthful middle class Sinn Féin movement would have still existed and impatience with old fogies representing the southern Protestant and well to do Catholic landed elite in office since the late 19th century might still have led to a republican populist triumph.

What the personalities we are familiar with from our timeline would have done is anyone's guess but if Michael Collins or Eamon De Valera had emerged as leaders they probably both would have supported a gradualism stepping stone strategy toward an Irish Republic and still have become political rivals. James Connally and Patrick Pearse had they lived would probably have been violently opposed to anything short of a complete separation from Britain. Connally would have tried to imitate Lenin if Russia had collapsed in Communist revolt. Reactionaries like Eoin O'Duffy would have been inspired by the possible triumph of the Germans in World War I to imitate their autocratic rule in Ireland. Churchmen like John Charles McQuaid would have sought to put a Catholic stamp on the Irish state and many Irish Catholics would have taken a hard line against Ulster Protestants much like Unionists discriminated against Catholics in our timeline.

Loyalist resistance to the Dublin government might have persisted for decades just as republicans resisted British rule in Northern Ireland. Betrayed by Britain who would have backed the most stable system of government in Ireland centered in Dublin, they would instead adopted the position of a Protestant State For A Protestant Ulster. A figure like Ian Paisley might have emerged as the political leader of Ulster Protestant separatists and the UVF might have been revived. After all Ulster Presbyterians were among those who fought in the ranks of the United Irishmen in 1798 against the Dublin parliament. Perhaps a Civil Rights Movement would have been set up and Protestants inspired by the overtly Christian black civil rights protestors in the United States in the 1960s would have adopted the hymn We Shall Overcome. If a group of Irish soldiers opened fire on an orange march in Portadown in July 1972 it might have led to an armed struggle with UVF bombs exploding in Dublin and AK-47s supplied to the UVF by a Colonel Qaddaffi in Libya....

I did not know that Fine Gae was directly involved in the planning and execution of the 1916 Rising. I agree that is was only a matter of time till the UVF would have rebelled.

Um OP you know the "Sinn Fein" he is talking about is referring to the late 1910s version?:rolleyes:

He never said SF were involved in the Rising, a person with Junior Cert history knows that and John Bruton is far beyond that (and seemingly most people who are unable to debate this without whinging and describing him as a "West Brit", it seems the population are indoctrinated on the Easter Rising koolaid). The Rising leaders flocked to Sinn Fein. That is where the harder line elements went, hence why he says SF/IRA.

zeplin123 wrote: »

I did not know that Fine Gae was directly involved in the planning and execution of the 1916 Rising. I agree that is was only a matter of time till the UVF would have rebelled.

They did not exist, neither did FF. It was SF and the Irish Parliamentary Party from the nationalist persuasion. SF split after the War of Independence and have been splitting since.

Two articles that show opposite views on this discussion. The first was in the Irish independent yesterday:

The hostilities were triggered by John Bruton, the former Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader. Bruton is an 
unabashed cheerleader for the Home Rule Bill, and wants the 100th anniversary of its passing - on September 18th, 1914 - to be formally commemorated by government. Though the law never came into force, as its implementation was derailed by World War I, Bruton argues that the existence of such legislation on the statute books would, in time, have led to Irish independence. Therefore, he believes that both the Easter Rising and the War of Independence were "unnecessary".

For the self-appointed guardians of Irish republican history, Bruton's contention amounts to heresy. The inarguable rightness and righteousness of the gallant heroes of 1916 is a tale treated by many with something akin to the reverence with which creationists treat the Book of Genesis. For would-be patriotic purists to acknowledge that Bruton might have a point, they would have to re-examine some of their most cherished certainties - and that was never likely to happen. Denouncing the messenger on social media is much easier.
- See more at: http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/home-rule-hooha-provides-handy-distraction-from-home-truths-30491467.html#sthash.1rao9jcq.dpuf

a line from article I particularly laughed at

"Politicians often use historical events for current purposes," insisted O'Cuiv; a memo from Mr Pot to Mr Kettle. - See more at: http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/home-rule-hooha-provides-handy-distraction-from-home-truths-30491467.html#sthash.1rao9jcq.dpuf

And then a less balanced view from Niall O'Dowd who seems to jump to conclusions that are not relevent to try and show us how up to speed he is with his 'Irishness'.

Publicity seekers such as former Irish leader John Bruton have held out the events around the war as far more significant for Ireland than the Easter 1916 Rising, saying that the Home Rule Bill – suspended when the war broke out – made the Rising unnecessary.

Fortunately, Bruton’s cuckoo view of history has been exposed by Eamon O Cuiv, grandson of Eamon De Valera, and Senator Mark Daly who both point out many inconvenient truths to Bruton.

Firstly, John Redmond, architect of Home Rule had called on all young Irish men to sign up for service in the British Army as a quid pro quo. Thousands did so and became war fodder in the trenches.

Who knows how many thousands more would have signed up for certain death if the Easter 1916 Rising had not intervened and completely changed the political climate? http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/niallodowd/Glorifying-World-War-1-and-denying-Easter-Rising-1916.html

I find O'Dowds view to be almost childish in the simple conclusions he attempts to draw from a complex scenario. For example he starts the article damning the glorification of WWI as he sees it. Does he propose we dont remember the dead of WWI or what? Maybe he feels that Irishmen who went to Belguim believing they were doing so for the benefit of Ireland are less worthy of memorial than those who took part in the Easter Rising for the very same reasons. I know he is tailoring his argument to a particualr demographic in the US but his views are narrow minded in the extreme.


What are peoples opinions on the views on these articles?

Mac Diarmada was an organiser for the IRB, not Sinn Fein

Dr.Nightdub wrote: »

Mac Diarmada was an organiser for the IRB, not Sinn Fein

Oh, okay. I guess Sinn Fein advertised their policies, etc. at some IRB events that he organized, like the Irish Christmas market, which is why I connected him to the party. Thanks!

I'm not sure that is what the term blood sacrafice is supposed to mean. In the context of the Rising it was always to do with how they had little chance of military victory, but their hope was that this would make the Irish public rise up.

I don't disagree that the formation of the Irish Volunteers gave the tools for a Rising but of course Redmond wasn't against violence. After all he encouraged 10s of thousands to go to war for the United Kingdom. The key distinction from the direction of Redmond and the hardcore elements was that for Redmond violence wasn't directed at the Westminister authority. If it was to come it would have been against the Ulster Volunteers and those elements within Britain who tried to stop HR. One of Bruton's major points was that the IPP and Redmond won a lot of concessions through Parliament and he is not wrong. The IPP were kingmakers for quite a bit of time and were instrumental in key Constitutional changes in Britain which people really don't appreciate. The parliamentary process actually got Britain to the point where I do believe a civil war was possible if sections of the British Army and the UV had raised arms. The IPP were extremely important to the Liberal Party and that wasn't changing anytime soon.

What 1916 did was veer Irish Nationalism off the road it was on. The 1918 election and first past the post system, combined with SF abstentionism took Irish Nationalism away from the former process (and no surprise the Unionists used this to their advantage). It directed nationalism against Westminister. To me what 1916 did allow which the former political process didn't was for Ireland to gain dominion status rather than a parliament under the UK banner. This allowed for the CnaG government to help force the Statute of Westminister, DeValera to gain back the treaty ports and ultimately Ireland to avoid being ruined by WW2. On the flipside I do believe it left northern nationalists to rot and created a constitutional gap which won't be closed anytime soon. An Ireland with a HR Parliament, even just the south with a Belfast opt out (to what degree we don't know if the other process had truly gone the course with nationalists at the table) would have imo kept us on the same path and inevitably led to one administration.