Irish History Articles - The Birth of Irish Militant Organizations

Articles: 19th Century Ireland
X.Militant Organizations

by Dr. Sam Couch, Ph. D.
Owner, Rising Road Tours

Yeats's Celtic Revival, which held center stage for a while, left an indelible mark on European civilization, but - too dreamy and cerebral - scarcely touched the bulk of the Irish population. It was the unsmiling, uncompromising face of nationalism, which defined the direction Ireland took during the 20th century. There as the Gaelic League and the GAA. Linked to them, more or less formally, were the various armed factions, not all pursuing the same dream but willing to overlook their differences to achieve independence. (It was characteristic of these years that the idea of Home Rule - a partial independence, fostered by moderate-headed Anglo-Irishmen - gave place to insistence on cutting all but the most nominal ties with Britain.) James Connolly's Citizens' Army was socialist; the Irish Republican Brotherhood enjoyed strong support from capitalist America. The Irish Volunteers came into existence initially as a response to open arming by the militant Orange interests in Ulster. All these were preparing to fight, parading and drilling in uniforms and carrying firearms in the streets of Dublin. Other organizations contributed moral, financial and technical assistance: the political party Sinn Fein (meaning "we ourselves" to signify the national self-reliance it envisaged), and various nationalist women's and children's associations.

It was an Irish organization wholly out of sympathy with all of these which provided the main trigger for armed rising. By 1912 Home Rule had been promised by the Westminster government, though there were constitutional hurdles to jump. Early the following year the Ulster Unionists, fiercely opposed to any Irish breakaway, and utterly determined that the Protestant North would remain part of Britain, paradoxically established an army, the Ulster Volunteer Force, to resist the decisions of the parliament they intended should continue to govern them. The 19th century had not brought them an inch nearer to the Catholic population. The famine had far less impact on the northeast than elsewhere in Ireland, mainly because it was heavily industrialized. The Presbyterian settlers had remained completely immune to those Irish characteristics that transformed the earliest Norman settlers and made the Anglo-Irish distinct from the English. They retained the virtues they had brought with them from Scotland: thrift, punctilio, cleanliness, dogged strength. (Their stolid integrity has led many otherwise Catholic firms to employ Protestants as accountants.) They and the English Protestants had built up industry and commerce and created the city of Belfast, which began the 19th century with a population of 20,000 and ended it with more than ten times that number. Their drive and prosperity, and the admiration they aroused in the English, caused the government to tolerate the wholly illegal means they were now using to thwart the granting of independence. They smuggled illicit arms into the country, and they paraded and demonstrated all over the two islands. The government turned a blind eye (though it busily arrested the much less provocative suffragettes of the day). The outbreak of European War in 1914 became a new government excuse for delaying home rule. Although thousands of Irish volunteered to fight against the Germans (more perhaps for regular pay than out of a desire to defend king and country), the more determined nationalists decided on an armed rising. This failed rebellion in 1916 ironically laid the groundwork for establishment of the modern Irish State.

This series of articles is based on lectures given by Dr. Samuel Couch to Irish Studies courses at Georgia Southern University and Young Harris College between 1997 and 2004. Documented sources come from Couch's research and studies in American universities and with scholars in Ireland. The articles are in no way intended to be comprehensive.

Background materials come from, but are not limited to, readings in the following books:

Duffy, Sean, ed., Atlas of Irish History. Gill & Macmillan: Dublin. 1997.
Joyce, P.W., Outlines of the History of Ireland from the Earliest Times to 1905. M.H. Gill & Son: Dublin. 1909.
Killeen, Richard, A Short History of Ireland. Gill & Macmillan: Dublin. 1994.
Smyth, Daragh, A Guide to Irish Mythology. 2nd ed. Irish Academic Press: Dublin. 1996.

Any lack of attribution to primary sources is unintentional and the sole responsibility of Dr. Couch.

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Articles: 19th Century Ireland X.Militant Organizations

Articles: 19th Century Ireland
X.Militant Organizations