Differences between Home Rule v The Free State
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Was there really a possibility of the British government not implementing/repealing Home Rule Bill? It was on the books after all, IPP would've been in uproar if it hadn't been enacted, and seeing as how they were acting as kingmakers at the time they could have caused a real s**tstorm in Westminster
It was a very limited form of Home Rule and it probably would not have survived conscription as it is difficult to see how a man who supported the 1916 executions would have stood up to Britain.
The IPP did oppose conscription but it would have been a different story if they were leading an Irish Home Rule parliament.0 -
The British never tried to enforce conscription in Ireland. Eoin Mc Neill was committed to using the main force of the Irish Volunteers to resist any such moves (ie all the guys who were "stood down" for the duration of the rising).
Anyway, once the USA joined the war early in 1918 there was no need for it from the British point of view; the yanks had plenty of manpower to contribute.0 -
The British never tried to enforce conscription in Ireland. Eoin Mc Neill was committed to using the main force of the Irish Volunteers to resist any such moves (ie all the guys who were "stood down" for the duration of the rising).
Anyway, once the USA joined the war early in 1918 there was no need for it from the British point of view; the yanks had plenty of manpower to contribute.
Depends what you call 'tried'. Introducing legislation would be an attempt to 'enforce' in my eyes.
In March 1918 D. L. George introduced plans at cabinet to raise 500,000 men - 150,000 of them from Ireland. This conscription legislation was included in the Home Rule bill and effectively after a period ended British rule in Ireland. It also finished any hope of consensus between Unionists and Nationalists.
It was another case where the British, through lack of understanding the Irish situation - shot themselves in the foot ala the hunger Strikes, Bloody Sunday etc.1 -
FrancieBrady wrote: »Depends what you call 'tried'. Introducing legislation would be an attempt to 'enforce' in my eyes.
In March 1918 D. L. George introduced plans at cabinet to raise 500,000 men - 150,000 of them from Ireland. This conscription legislation was included in the Home Rule bill and effectively after a period ended British rule in Ireland. It also finished any hope of consensus between Unionists and Nationalists.
It was another case where the British, through lack of understanding the Irish situation - shot themselves in the foot ala the hunger Strikes, Bloody Sunday etc.
Plans at cabinet, even passing a bill or talking about the possibility of introducing something is very very different than on the ground enforced conscription. The fact that conscription was used in uk but excluded Ireland in ww1 was because it was understood that there was massive opposition to it. This seems the opposite to your post. If conscription had been enforced in Ireland then your last point would be correct. It wasn't.0 -
jonniebgood1 wrote: »Plans at cabinet, even passing a bill or talking about the possibility of introducing something is very very different than on the ground enforced conscription. The fact that conscription was used in uk but excluded Ireland in ww1 was because it was understood that there was massive opposition to it. This seems the opposite to your post. If conscription had been enforced in Ireland then your last point would be correct. It wasn't.
I didn't say they 'enforced' it 'on the ground'. I said that the 'attempt to enforce it' precipitated the end of British Rule. Any reading of the events of the time would conclude that.0 -
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But there was no attempt to enforce it. And the end of British rule didn't come until a few years later, in 1922.
The end was precipitated by the de facto existence of an alternative state in the 26 counties, having its own government, parliament, army, and courts system (the republican courts) operating in parallel to, and against, the British system, but having more popular support.
The country had essentially become ungovernable from Britain.0 -
But there was no attempt to enforce it. And the end of British rule didn't come until a few years later, in 1922.
The end was precipitated by the de facto existence of an alternative state in the 26 counties, having its own government, parliament, army, and courts system (the republican courts) operating in parallel to, and against, the British system, but having more popular support.
The country had essentially become ungovernable from Britain.
So, a sitting government introducing legislation is not an 'attempt to enforce something'?
And that 'attempt' - debate about conscription did not add cumulatively to popular support for the alternative government?
Is that what you are saying?0 -
Was there really a possibility of the British government not implementing/repealing Home Rule Bill? It was on the books after all, IPP would've been in uproar if it hadn't been enacted, and seeing as how they were acting as kingmakers at the time they could have caused a real s**tstorm in Westminster
Britain got a serious scare in Word War 1. The Empire was starting to crumble. As they had previously, Unionists dictated the fate of the majority in Ireland. After their great blood sacrifice in Europe, there was no way the Unionists would have allowed or accepted Home Rule, and they would have had the moral authority from the British public to back them
At best, there was always going to be Partition, and Redmond was aware of that risk. That would have hurt him big time.
On the other hand, Britain , although more than delighted to get rid of the Irish Question, may not have been in the mood of loosing territory under a new Government. The Bill after all only got through on a technicality (ie removal of House of Lords veto)
With the changing world after World War 1, some movement, whether it was the IPP or Republicans would have demanded something better than Home Rule
It is a nonsense for the likes of Bruton and the anti 1916 people to say everything would have worked out. There is no basis for this. It might have happened, it might not, but there was enough evidence at that time, rather than hindsight , to suggest things would not have worked out
Why didn't Britain just implement Home Rule there and then? Ireland would have unquestionably , through Redmond, have gotten even more Irishmen out to Europe to fight.Whatever about the ICA, the IRB movement would have had an obstacle in front of them. The war was a helpful distraction for Westminster0 -
The British never tried to enforce conscription in Ireland. Eoin Mc Neill was committed to using the main force of the Irish Volunteers to resist any such moves (ie all the guys who were "stood down" for the duration of the rising).
Anyway, once the USA joined the war early in 1918 there was no need for it from the British point of view; the yanks had plenty of manpower to contribute.
They did suggest it, but even the Unionists warned them that this would cause problems.
Sinn Fein gained from this threat in 1918 elections, as you probably already know0 -
FrancieBrady wrote: »Depends what you call 'tried'. Introducing legislation would be an attempt to 'enforce' in my eyes.
In March 1918 D. L. George introduced plans at cabinet to raise 500,000 men - 150,000 of them from Ireland. This conscription legislation was included in the Home Rule bill and effectively after a period ended British rule in Ireland. It also finished any hope of consensus between Unionists and Nationalists.
It was another case where the British, through lack of understanding the Irish situation - shot themselves in the foot ala the hunger Strikes, Bloody Sunday etc.
Add banning of the Dail and illegal arrest of TD's even if their army had started a surge of violence .
Why isn't John Bruton ever challenged on this stuff, he is a democrat isn't he? Oh right, he will only talk when he will be in a safe environment0 -
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Add banning of the Dail and illegal arrest of TD's even if their army had started a surge of violence .
Why isn't John Bruton ever challenged on this stuff, he is a democrat isn't he? Oh right, he will only talk when he will be in a safe environment
Because 'talking' about it might involve being critical of the British and our national broadcaster and majority indentured media will have none of that, thank you very much.
He gets plenty of questions on the more independent social media networks and sites though.
It isn't that hard to demolish his argument, if you could call it that.0 -
That's right.FrancieBrady wrote: »So, a sitting government introducing legislation is not an 'attempt to enforce something'?
Lets imagine our current minister for justice asked the Gardai to stop checking for drink driving within Co.Kerry, and not to prosecute anyone for it. That means the legislation is not being enforced in that region, and everyone would know that they were free to drink-drive there. That's how it was for conscription in Ireland, for the short period of time it was on the statute books, during part of 1918.0 -
The Free State was a Dominion of the British Empire - not Home Rule.
The irony is that Unionists accepted Home Rule with its own government in what became so-called northern Ireland - something they would not accept with us native Irish people and within Ireland as a whole.
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You like reopening the old threads? :)
I also find it interesting that in 1972 the Republic of Ireland and the UK (and Denmark) joined the EEC as full member states, whereas also in 1972, the UK shutdown the Stormont parliament and reintroduced direct rule.
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It was also the same year as Bloody Friday, Belfast's Bloody Sunday (Springhill massacre), Battle at Springmartin, Claudy, the Lenadoon Battle, the first roomper rooms, the first IRA landmines being used in rural areas against mobile patrols and loyalist car bombs coming south for the first time, with a total of 5 going off in Dublin, Belturbet, Pettigo & Clones in December alone killing 4, including 2 children and injuring about 150. And the year started with a massacre in Derry, Bloody Sunday of course and ended with a massacre in Derry, when on the 20th December 1972 two UDA/UFF men walked into a small pub in a small Catholic enclave in the largely Protestant Waterside district of Derry and sprayed the pub with machine gun fire killing 5 people and injuring 4 others.
It was also the first year since 1921 that British Government representatives met with an IRA delegation in Cheyne Walk, London. That delegation of July 1972 included Sean Mac Stoifain, Seamus Twomey, Daithi O'Connell, Ivor Bell, Gerry & Marty. It has to be pointed out Gerry was only there in his capacity as a member, or, if you will a Soulmate of Sinn Fein, which he hadn't actually joined yet, but he had joined them in mind, body and soul, just not officially, Gerry didn't like joining things officially because it reminded him too much of the Sticky IRA.
Post edited by BalcombeSt4 on0 -
Well, it wasn't because of the "native" Irish they didn't want Home Rule. They believed a government run from Dublin would be too much influenced by the Roman Catholic, something they were proved right about when at the end of the Tan War the Catholic upper & middle classes along with the Bishops jumped on the SF bandwagon, people influenced by an inherently authoritarian organization and into their apologetics. I mean if I was a Protestant or an atheist which I am, I would not have wanted to live in the south of Ireland between 1922 - 1988, it was a real priest ridden, bog trotting, Celtic Brigadoon.
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Feel free to vent old boy, but at least try and restraint your anti-Catholicism to other other forums instead of bring it here.
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I was born a Catholic. I don't hate Catholics, Tom Barry, Bernie Devlin, James Connolly, Seamus Costello, Frank Ryan etc.... are people who I admire greatly, that is not a snub to the the mass population of Catholics living in Ireland between 1921 - late 80's/early 90's.
The Catholic in Ireland to an extent had a number of state intuitions, Ireland was officially a Christian State so much for "religious & civil liberties" in the proclamation. It's a fact the Irish government in the early & mid 20th century had to get had to get permission from the Bishops especially John Charles McQuaid.
The Catholic church in Ireland was always linked to the political life in the country.
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I think it's a mistake for post-Catholic atheists to adopt the loaded term "priest ridden", which G.M. Trevelyan says was originally associated with the Cromwell period, as their own.
Neutral language would be better.
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Priest-ridden meaning = adjective. dominated or governed by or excessively under the influence of priests.
Yes, Cromwell & Trevelyan were pr!cks, but a broken clock is right twice a day.
And I wasn't referring to the Catholic Church in the 17th & 19th century when it was an oppressed church, which is why it was regarded as a people's church here unlike France & Spain were the Church was a part of the ruling class. I was talking about for most of the 20th century when Ireland was under Rome Rule (the broken clock analogy works with Craig & Carson here), now i very much do not think there is any comparison between the treatment the Catholics in the north suffered to the relatively easy time Protestants in the south had it, a number of them were in various governments, there was a Protestant president, plenty of Irish revolutionaries were involved in the fight against the Brits like Erskine Childers, who a quasi-military dictatorship wanted to make an example out of & killed him.
I have read stories about Protestants "fleeing the south" when the Free State came into existence, that is simply false, some families might have moved north to be closer to friends, relatives & like minded people, but nobody ran them out or forced them to flee. Although life wasn't all inclusive for Protestants, the Republicans Congress delegate to Bodenstown in 1934 was accompanied by a number Shankill, Protestant socialists who carried slogans of James Connolly, the brainwashed Catholics in other groups attacked the small group of Protestants because they were of the wrong religion, despite Tone being one.
Never the less, the tentacles of the Catholic church infiltrated every part of Irish society. Ireland now might be a defective democracy, but at least it's no longer a plutocracy.
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This article which appeared in Dublin University Magazine in 1833, and which was written by an Anonymous Irish Protestant author, claimed the "Golden Age of the Protestants of Ireland" had ended with the Roman Catholic Relief Act (Emancipation) in 1829 and decried Protestants leaving Ireland en masse.
Excerpt:
"The numbers of Protestants, who emigrated from Ireland during the last few years is as follows: 1829, 12,000; in 1830, 21,000; 1831, 29,500; in 1832, 31,500, making a total of 94,000, during the short space of four years!"
I never see this highlighted during discussions of Catholic-Protestant relations on this island but it would seem that far more Protestants took their ball and went home after Catholic Emancipation than did almost a hundred later at the prospect of "Rome Rule".
In Demography, State and Society: Irish Migration to Britain, 1921-1971 (2000), Enda Delaney mentions a few other factors for Protestants leaving Ireland pre-1920s:
'The end of World War I saw the de-industrialisation of Dublin and migration of skilled Protestant workers seeking work.
World War I battle deaths also hit the Protestant population hard, which further spurred a migration of young Irish Protestant women to Britain to seek husbands.
Working-class Protestant women having a strong inclination to marry British soldiers, who upon the end of their tour of duty would then be posted to other parts of the British Isles.'
Overall I tend to agree with you that the new state was too oriented towards Catholic nationalism and this was a mistake. It was a popular theocracy. George Bernard Shaw predicted that this new State would itself alienate Irish people from Catholicism and he was (eventually) proved right.
Post edited by growleaves on1 -
I pretty much agree with that, that was basically what I was trying to convey.
If I was a protestant living in the north and witnessed the spectacle of the 1932 Eucharistic Congress I would be extremely uncomfortable living in a Dublin controlled society, were Irish independence now more than ever mean't to Ulster protestants ROME RULE. And it was no longer just a propaganda slogan, Rome Rule was a reality.
And then there was McQuaid who had extraordinary power over successive governments, basically he was a quasi-dictator working in the background, In the 1950's he even tried to get a football match between Ireland & Yugoslavia banned & then urged people to boycott it. Why? Because the Yugoslav government had only recently released a Cardinal who helped cover up crimes of the Croatian fascist Ustase regime, but McQuaid believed the socialist government of Yugoslavia had oppressed the Church and the Cardinal, clearly McQuaid was fine that the cardinal collaborated with a regime that even the Nazi's found to be too brutal. Then there's the saga of McQuaid destroying the proposed Mother & Child scheme introduced by Noel Browne which would provide free health care to mothers and children, McQuaid ranted against it saying the state had no right to interfere in the health of any citizen as it was God's work. That could have been the start of an Irish NHS. OH well. And then of course his worse crime covering up sexual abuse of children by priests. He also played a interfering part in the 1948 Italian election, something people go mad about when Russia does it. I don't call Ireland in the 20th century a plutocracy for hyperbole, I say it because it really was.
And of course the Catholics in the North were treated like 2nd class citizens & the Orange order had massive control over Stormont I'm a Republican so I know all about several families living in one small house, unfair interviews for jobs and gerrymandering, and everything to the Falls Curfew to Greysteel . But self criticism is important and we should take a look at our own country first.
Post edited by BalcombeSt4 on1 -
I don't think plutocracy is the word you're looking for here. A plutocracy is a state that is governed by the wealthy. The Catholic church in Ireland was never especially wealthy and, in any case, its political influence did not stem from its wealth. To be honest, it would be as easy or easier to make the case that Ireland is a plutocracy today than that it was in the early decades of the free state.
Undoubtedly the Catholic church had a high degree of influence in independent Ireland. But it would be a mistake to see this an an external imposition on the people of the country; rather, it's something that emerged from the people of the country.
As you point out yourself, in the nineteenth century the Catholic church in Ireland was a "people's church". It was the one social institution in the country that was genuinely open to all classes and in which, by comparison with the government, the army, industry, finance, etc, advancement and success was largely based on ability and merit. It also had a genuinely national character, and it formed links between Ireland and the wider world that didn't pass through Westminster. It's not surprising that it came to be seen as bound up with national identity.
And, therefore, it's not surprising that in a democratic Ireland it enjoyed a high degree of influence. Undoubtedly this was intensified by partition; a large body of people who would have dissented from the equation of Catholicism and national character were excluded from the new state. The result was an extremely socially and culturally homogenous population which saw itself as intrinsically and characteristically Catholic, and which was proud of this characteristic. In this situation, the more democratically the state was structured, the more influence catholicism was likely to have.
So, the Catholic church had the influence it had because the people gave it to them. If Ireland was theocracy (rather than a plutocracy), it was a popular theocracy. Things like the divorce ban weren't enforced on the state despite being unpopular; they were adopted because they were popular.
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You're right theocracy "the rule of God" is what I was looking for plutocracy - the rule of the rich, is the US, Saudi's, Russia etc. There's so many different ways to unjustly rule a country I'm getting mixed up. Just because it was a "popular theocracy" doesn't make it any less theocratic, it makes have parallels with Iran in that regard.
I don't think the people exactly gave it to them, the people were war weary from WW1 & after 7 seven years of revolutionary violence, during which there was a strong connection among the least well off workers a number of whom created what they called soviets, following the Russian lead. You say it was because the people let it happen but there was historical reasons why the church was popular with the mass of people. Unlike the revolutions in France and Spain were the church was seen as an enemy of the people because of it's ties to the ruling class, in Ireland the church was an oppressed church and during the land wars at least the lower rankings of the church sided with the people against the landlords, and the involvement of the clergy made it harder for the British to move against the movement.
Again a lot of the lower ranking clergy sided with Sinn Fein and the Volunteers during the guerrilla conflict of 1919 - 21, costing some priests their lives like Michael Griffith & Thomas Magner. This and the rule that the politicians could never go against the church's teaching or just the personal opinions & whims of McQuaid made it a theocracy.
Post edited by BalcombeSt4 on0 -
You're missing the point. Politicians couldn't go against the church's teaching because the voters would punish them for it.
I think there's a mutually reinforcing cycle going on here. Obviously the influence of the church helped to maintain socially conservative policies and institutions in Ireland. But the church only had that influence because the people were socially conservative in the first place. Indeed, the church itself was socially conservative in part because it was a popular church, drawn from and reflecting the views and positions of a socially conservative people.
The other point to note is that the church didn't acquire its influence by capturing the institutions of the new state. It was already influential; as the UK democratised over the course of the nineteenth century, the influence of the Catholic church in Ireland necessarily grew. Church control of the national school system, for example, was established in British days, decades before independence. Similarly, while divorce wasn't banned in Ireland before 1922, in practice you couldn't get a divorce; there were no divorce courts, as there were in England and Scotland. Only the very, very wealthy could get a divorce in Ireland, by promoting a private Act of Parliament to dissolve their marriages.
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Interesting discussion.
In Mary Kenny's Crown and Shamrock she produced research showing that CoI parishioners mostly agreed with the restrictive laws around divorce and even contraception in the early years of the state.
At that time, though there were of course liberal Protestants like George Moore, Irish Protestantism wasn't synonymous with contra-Catholic liberal reforms.
If you go back to the Counter-Reformation, Catholicism was originally playing catch-up with Reformed theology in terms of piety and strictness in a battle to be seen as the authentic Christianity.
The indirect influence of Calvinistic modes of thought on Irish Catholicism, via Jansenism, is pretty strong as Irish priests educated in France were often Jansenists. This is unfortunate imo as its how Irish Catholicism aquired its obstinate rigidity.
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Unionists used what they believed to deny Irish people Home Rule. The Unionists brought the gun back into Irish political and committed treason against their own Monarch and his government at that time. Ever hear of democracy - what the Unionists did was the antithesis of democracy.
As for what happened after the artificial partition of Ireland by our historical and hereditary enemy England - well that's obviously a direct consequence of our country being artificially and England occupying a part of Ireland.
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I think it's the other way around, the politicians and clergy were the same side of the same coin. If the people got out of line both the politicos and clergy would punish the people .
As Kevin O'Higgins who was part of the Clongowes private school system as were many of his ilk including the top clergy and there's just as many around today, he remarked soon after the counter-revolutionary / civil war "we are probably the most conservative minded revolutionaries that ever put through a successful revolution’. If by ‘we’ O Higgins meant the upper class, ‘Donnybrook set’ who jumped into Sinn Fein, he might [be] right. But of course this ‘we’ never ‘put through any successful revolution’ – they did everything they could to restrain and squash it. The actions of the mass of people in backing an armed struggle and taking action themselves testifies to a very unconservative outlook not to mention the dozens of Soviets and Factory committees that sprang up between 1918 - 1924 in all four provinces
As Kieran Allen observers
"There was also plenty of ‘indiscipline’ on the land that the Free State was determined to crush. Small farmers continued to demand not only land redistribution but sometimes had ceased paying rent or annuities to landlords. The Free State’s answer was the Enforcement of Law (Occasional Powers) Act of 1924 to give greater powers to bailiffs. These could immediately seize property from recalcitrant farmers, sell them off within twenty four hours and charge the cost of their seizure to the victims. A special mobile unit of the Irish army was also established to capture cattle that had been ‘driven’ from big estates. ‘The bailiff, as a factor in our civilisation, has not been particularly active or effective in recent years’, O’Higgins declared and he intended to fix that.
The Free State politicians , however, offered its population one compensation for the dashed hopes of the revolutionary years – a strict Catholic morality. Despite their own self-image as cosmopolitans who disdained the crudities of the Gaelic revival, the Free State elite were the first to forge a tight bond with the bishops. They saw them as agents for control and rewarded their loyalty to the state with measures to enforce a Catholic fundamentalist ethos. The Free State completely banned divorce by closing off all loopholes and imposed strict censorship on films, including even the posters used for advertising those films. It targeted unmarried mothers and created a framework for punishing those who were ‘recidivists’. It established a Committee on Evil Literature in 1926 to identify publications that were deemed offensive on sexual matters. It adopted a particularly vindictive attitude to women who sought to be politically active outside the home or simply more engaged in the wider society. In 1927, O’Higgins introduced his Juries Bill that excluded women from jury service and brought about a return to the pre-revolutionary practice.
Contemporary Irish politicians of all hues claim an allegiance to the 1916 Rising and, with a certain nervousness, suggest that the Irish state owes a gratitude to those ‘who gave their life in 1916’. However, the current Irish state is not a product of the Rising – it owes its existence to the counter-revolution of 1923. That state established clear structures that survived for decades – even after it was modified by subsequent Fianna Fáil governments. It was an authoritarian state that kept a battery of repressive legislation at the ready for dealing with dissidents. It was a highly centralised state which left little room for local democracy. "
So , no, politicians would not loose votes for going against the Church , the State instead used the Irish Catholic Church's Army as a type of unorthodox style of Authoritarianism and Majoritarianism
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Mmm. I think you may be overstating the influence of what you term the "upper class Donnybrook set". While it's true that O'Higgins was a good Clongowes boy, he stood out for that very reason; it was unusual. (And he wasn't that good a Clongowes boy — he was expelled, and ended up at the Christian Brothers in Portlaoise.) The Anti-Treaty/CnaG government was notable for the unpretentious backgrounds of its members — a government of counter-jumpers and clerks, as I can't remember which Tory toff said at the time. Cosgrave was a Christian Brothers boy whose father ran a pub; Mulcahy a Christian Brothers boy who worked in the post office, like his father before him; McNeill admittedly was a university professor, but from quite a humble background — his father was variously a baker and a sailor; Desmond FitzGerald was the son of a labourer; Ernest Blythe the son of a small farmer; his education stopped in primary school, and he was a clerk in the Department of Education.
And so on. None of them, not even O'Higgins, could have been described as men of property. Only one of them had a professional qualification — Joe McGrath was an accountant. But he wasn't born to money, and he didn't make any until after he left politics.
To be blunt, it was a government dominated by men from the lower middle class. I don't think you can make the case that the Free State was a plutocracy by pointing to the church and, equally, you can't make that case by pointing to the Free State government. The truth is, the Free State was a poor country; there weren't enough plutocrats in it to furnish a plutocracy. And neither economic nor social conservatism was imposed downward from the top; they both arose out of a thoroughly conservative society.
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"The Free State completely banned divorce by closing off all loopholes " Is this actually true? The legislative ban on divorce was notoriously brought in in 1925. However, I was reading this story in The Irish Times about a case from 6 April 1935:
"This is how The Irish Times covered the subsequent High Court story, on April 6th, 1935.
“Before Mr Justice Sullivan, in the High Court, Dublin, last week, Hugh Major, Edgeworthstown, sought a divorce from his wife, Elizabeth Major, on the grounds of her alleged adultery with William Cameron, a law clerk in Longford.... The divorce was granted'
Full article can be read here: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/the-landmark-paternity-suit-that-ruined-an-entire-family-1.4536224
Which has me wondering were there any divorces after 1937/Bunreacht na hÉireann's ban on divorce?
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