Ireland the Struggle for Home

Ireland

The struggle for Home Rule in Ireland began before the push for independence. Home Rule would have mitigated the crisis between those who fought for strict independence and the Ulsters who could not foresee a rift within the United Kingdom. The Ulsters envisioned Ireland as not unlike Scotland or Wales, in which distinct languages and cultures were permitted to flourish while under the umbrella rule of the Crown. On the other hand, Ireland was culturally unique and distinct from Scotland and Wales. Because of these differences, the struggle for Home Rule and later independence played itself out violently.

Home Rule was the moderates' means of compromising an Irish identity within a British framework. While Home Rule might have worked, both the Irish nationalists and the Ulster Unionists remained vehemently opposed to the compromise. The Irish nationalists drew upon the spirit of political independence fostered by the anti-colonial movements, and also upon the spirit of economic sovereignty espoused by socialist doctrine. A wave of nationalism had been spreading throughout Europe, creating cause for Irish national identity distinct from the United Kingdom. Ethnic, linguistic, and religious pride enforced Irish solidarity. The primarily Catholic regions of southern Ireland did not enjoy the lack of representation in Parliament or the lack of access to the same economic and political resources as was enjoyed by its Protestant neighbors. Ireland was, in 1910, a relative backwater of mostly rural regions. Moreover, the independence movements in colonial territories like India also inspired the Irish nationalists to demand full independence rather than Home Rule within the Commonwealth. The Ulsters viewed Ireland as an indispensable part of the Crown for several reasons, not least of which was economic expediency. Home rule was antithetical to the notion of a united Kingdom, which presented a threat also to British national identity and political power vis-a-vis its continental neighbors.

Unionists would soon have another reason to resist Irish independence: World War One. When World War One broke out in 1914, the issue of Home Rule was placed on the back burner in British Parliament just after the first Ulster proposal for partition. Home Rule would never again become a feasible option because World War One led to a spiral of events that spun the Irish nationalist movement into full force. Parliament's reneging on Home Rule ultimately radicalized the nationalists.

To the Unionists, Ireland offered much-needed manpower in the fight against enemy forces. A sense of honor and duty prompted many Irish nationalists to agree and join the British cause against the Germans. If Ireland were still a part of Great Britain, then its manpower would surely be required in the broader cause of staving off a German invasion. That manpower was indeed provided by a large group of Irish volunteers called the National Volunteers who fought for the British against the Germans in World War I. The ultimate objective of the National Volunteers was to rekindle the Home Rule movement once the Great War had ended. Great Britain viewed Irish participation as an "equality of sacrifice" w / Wales and Scotland (Slide 5 in group #4). The Irish National Volunteers can be viewed historically as pragmatists, whereas a smaller but more vehement branch of the nationalist movement could not reconcile itself with Great Britain under any circumstances. The British were still viewed as an enemy every bit as much as the Germans. To fight with the British would constitute nothing less than a surrender of the very values that sparked the nationalism movement in the first place.

Therefore, the Great War exacerbated problems in Ireland rather than create cause for peace and a united front. Not all Irish nationalists deigned to fight with the National Volunteers for Great Britain. Those who opposed helping the British used World War One as the opportunity for distraction and the formation of the Irish Volunteers, which became the militaristic force behind the Easter Rising. The Irish Volunteers were also aided strategically by the Germans as well as Irish-Americans in support of full independence (cited in slide 24 in #3). A uniquely Irish Catholic spirit of martyrdom motivated the nationalistic fervor that gripped Ireland and prompted years of guerilla warfare with the Protestant British.

At the same time, Great Britain played its cards wrong in its relationship with Ireland. When the war ended, the Home Rule movement was not picked up where it was left before the war began. The Ireland issue was neglected, its people alienated from Great Britain at the end of World War One (Slide 8 in group 4). With Home Rule no longer an option, Sinn Fein was formed to create a counter-state to Great Britain. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) provided the military backbone for the new nationalist movement, using guerilla warfare and terrorist tactics such as threats to families, intimidation and assassination. The IRA blocked roads and destroyed bridges. Labor unions participated in the fight as dock workers refused to unload military supplies, and railway workers refuse to drive trains containing soldiers or military supplies too.

The British response to the insurgency was "ambivalent" and poorly executed (Slide 53 in group 4). On the one hand, the British attempted to treat the insurgency as a police or domestic matter. On the other hand, the IRA was clearly fighting against Great Britain as a nation and thus the skirmish was a military matter. Military intelligence enabled the British to infiltrate IRA leadership but without much success. The "drives" to weed out insurgency leaders in Ireland proved only moderately successful as the British assumed that if law and order could be regained that somehow the Irish moderates would assume power. An aversion to use excessive force also prevented an organized backlash against the IRA, as the British sought to maintain "constitutionalism" (Slide 55 in Group 4).