Irish Revolution

I

INTRODUCTION

Irish Revolution, movement to transfer the government of Ireland from British to Irish hands, beginning in 1912 with the introduction of the third Home Rule Bill into the British House of Commons and ending in 1922 with the establishment of the Irish Free State.

II

BACKGROUND

The Irish Revolution was the culmination of a struggle for Irish independence from British rule that had lasted for centuries. In the 17th century, rebellious Irish Catholics were forced out of the northern province of Ulster, which the British government then gave to Protestant English and Scottish settlers (see Ulster Plantation). The resulting conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, especially in Ulster, has been the direct cause of almost 300 years of often bloody strife.

During the 19th century, the Irish demanded home rule, in which the Irish would have a separate parliament, independent from that of Great Britain (see Home Rule, Irish). After two unsuccessful attempts in 1886 and 1892, the British House of Commons passed the third Home Rule Bill in 1914.

III

MILITARIZATION OF SOCIETY

The introduction of the third Home Rule Bill into the House of Commons marked the beginning of the Irish Revolution. During this first phase, Irish politics and society became increasingly militarized. When the bill was passed, Protestants in the north of Ireland feared that under home rule the Irish parliament would be dominated by Roman Catholics, so they organized the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a paramilitary force dedicated to the preservation of the union between Britain and Ireland. In response, the nationalists in the south formed a similar organization, the Irish Volunteers, dedicated to ensuring, by force if necessary, that home rule would be implemented.

With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, home rule was postponed for the duration of the conflict. The UVF and the majority of the Irish Volunteers joined British regiments and fought for Great Britain. A minority of the Irish Volunteers, angered by the delay in implementing home rule, refused to fight. Instead, they staged an armed uprising in Dublin on Easter Monday 1916 (see Easter Rebellion), and declared an Irish Republic. The British subsequently captured and executed the leaders of the uprising, causing a wave of popular protest in Ireland, which carried the nationalist political party Sinn Fein to a number of British parliamentary election victories. However, its successful candidates refused to take their seats in Parliament.

In the 1918 general election, Sinn Fein won a landslide victory, taking almost every seat in Parliament outside of Ulster. Sinn Fein’s candidates again refused to take their seats in the British Parliament; instead, they declared Ireland an independent republic and established their own revolutionary congress in Dublin, called the Dáil Éireann (Gaelic for “Assembly of Ireland”).

IV

THE IRISH WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

On the day the Dáil Éireann first met, January 21, 1919, a group of Irish Volunteers attacked and killed two officers of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), an armed British police force, in County Tipperary. This act is generally regarded as the beginning of what became known as the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921).

Between January 1919 and June 1921, the Volunteers, now known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA), mounted a military campaign against the British administration in Ireland. During the conflict, the IRA, under the direction of Michael Collins, used guerrilla tactics with marked success. The IRA also met with considerable success in penetrating the British intelligence system, which allowed the IRA to identify and assassinate several key British agents. As a result of these successes, Britain augmented the Royal Irish Constabulary with special forces recruited in Britain and known as Black and Tans because of the colors of their uniforms. Their ruthless tactics inadvertently aided the cause of Irish independence by uniting the Irish people against British rule. They also aroused public opinion in both the United States and Great Britain against British policy in Ireland.

By early 1921, more than 700 people had been killed in the conflict, of which almost 75 percent were RIC or Black and Tans. Southwestern Ireland was under martial law, and it became clear to the British government that the revolution in Ireland could not be suppressed militarily without considerable loss of life. On June 24, following a call by King George V for peace between Britain and Ireland, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George invited Eamon de Valera, the leader of Sinn Fein, to attend peace talks, and a truce went into effect on July 11, 1921. After protracted negotiations, Sinn Fein was invited to send delegates to London to discuss the situation.

V

THE ANGLO-IRISH TREATY AND THE FOUNDING OF THE FREE STATE

Sinn Fein wanted a united Irish republic totally independent of the British Empire. The British were willing to concede home rule to Ireland with full military and financial autonomy, but demanded that Ireland stay within the empire. Fearing defeat if war resumed and believing that they had gained the maximum concessions from the British, the Irish delegates, led by Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins, signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty in London on December 6, 1921.

The treaty offered self-government in what was to be called the Irish Free State, which would remain a member of the British Empire. As such, the Free State’s leaders would still be required to swear allegiance to the British crown. The treaty allowed the six counties of Northern Ireland that had been created by the 1920 Government of Ireland Act to withdraw from the Free State within a month of its foundation if they desired—which they did the day after the Free State was established. In addition, the treaty left several strategically important ports in Ireland in British hands and required the Free State to take responsibility for a portion of Britain’s war debt.

The treaty was debated extensively in the Dáil. The debate split both Sinn Fein and the IRA into pro- and anti-Treaty factions. It was the issue of allegiance to the British crown and not partition that contributed most significantly to the split. Anti-Treaty Sinn Fein extremists continued to demand an autonomous republic with no reference to the British king or empire in its constitution.

The treaty was accepted by the Dáil on January 7, 1922, and the Irish Free State was established. However, the anti-Treaty IRA refused to recognize the provisional government of the Free State led by Michael Collins. On June 28, 1922, Collins’s government ordered the army of the Free State to attack the anti-Treaty rebels; this was the beginning of the Irish Civil War, which lasted until May 1923.