Term Paper TENACIOUSFILMY 1. What did Britain do with the Irish question and how where these polices met? 1. Introduction a. 1500-1912 The establishment of Protestant Ulster Potato famine IRA Fenians Home Rule In 1900, Ireland was subject to British rule. The British Westminster system allowed for a small number of MPs to sit in Parliament, however, this number was far too small to be effective in anything except trivial Irish concerns. The Irish anger towards the British was based on Anglo domination of Erie since medieval times; characters such as James I, Oliver Cromwell, William II, and four centuries of military occupation had made anti-English feelings a staple of the Irish psyche. Fed up with years of inconsequential diplomatic attempts at creating a stronger Ireland, in 1905, Arthur Griffith created a new party, Sinn Fein, (Literally, “we ourselves”) which was, put simply, a separatist party with strong links to the militant Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). Sinn Fein campaigned against the incumbent John Redmond and the Irish Parliamentary Party for the few seats in Ireland. Needing support, the IPP brought forward the third and strongest version of a Home Rule act. This act was successful, but as it brought together the Irish Catholic majority, it set of waves of anger with the Protestant minority. The Protestant population was mostly a remnant of two Scottish “plantations”. The second and stronger effort was a plan by Machiavelli and King James I in 1609 to create a more hospitable populous on the shore adjacent to Scotland, Ulster. Thus, three hundred years later, the northern eastern provinces had as much claim to the land as anyone else. This geographic closeness only fueled the Protestant / Catholic divide during this time period. After the passing of the Home Rule Bill in 1911, the Protestants feared the prejudice of a Catholic majority government, and in 1913 created the Ulster Volunteer Force to protect them from this possibility. Home Rule was adamantly opposed by some, and these forces where able to have parliament postpone Home Rule until 1914. When it finally became law, Home Rule was almost immediately suspended as WWI swept across the continent. In Britain, the Irish question had become a matter of deciding whether or not to treat Northern Ireland differently, and weather to carry out the decision by force. The Ulster Volunteer Force had made it clear that it would oppose Westminster’s legislation of Irish Home Rule, and the Dublin-based Irish Volunteers seemed just as likely to oppose them. The March 1914 Curragh ‘mutiny’ gave some power to the UVF when the army officers stationed there stated that they would never march upon Ulster. Ireland was a land of divided people by 1916. There was the division of Protestants versus Catholics, Home Rule versus Unionists, and within each party, different camps of political thought. Socialism was gaining world-wide attention in an Imperial dominated world, and there was the cut between people who choose violent means and the supporters of democratic negotiations. Overall, it was amazing that the 1916 Easter Uprising was able to gather the mere 1,600 people that it did. However low the turnout and the futility of the campaign as a military operation, the Easter Uprising did lead to the independence of 26 of the 32 counties in Ireland. Lloyd George, the new Prime Minister of England, brought some peace to one of the last places in Europe unscathed by war. He promised to the Unionists that Northern Ireland’s separation from Ireland would be permanent, and to Redmond, George promised that Northern Ireland would be a temporary division. This was followed up by martial law, executions of Easter Uprising leaders, and an Irish fear of conscription into the British Army, which looked close to losing the war. On April 18, 1918, these fears were confirmed. Irish Nationalist leader Dillon (replacing Redmond) declared to England that “All Ireland will rise against you” in response to the Military Service Bill. The British government was in a bind. The war effort had desperately needed the men when the bill was debated - but by spring 1918, the war was almost won. Either way, the concept of attempting to conscript hostile people was a poor decision at best. The Service Bill was quickly dropped, without any conscription, but not before the British had done something the Irish could never do by themselves - Unite the Nationalists. In November, another election was called, and Sinn Fein claimed 10 times the number of seats they had previously, collecting 73 out of 101. Again, the British government fanned the flames by placing out of work soldiers into the “Black and Tans” police force. Records account for different weights on different actions. Some sources emphases the IRB’s (now the IRA) attack on police head quarters and convoys, others state little else than the treatment of Irish people by the military-trained British police force. Perhaps the best, or at least most unique look, is Broad and Downing’s “Troubles” which chronicles the Irish and British attempts of smashing each other’s attempts of state-building. Regardless of the blame, Ireland spiraled into a fuzzy civil war. Britain’s Lloyd George again compromised Ireland’s problems by bargaining with both sides. In 1920, he gave Home Rule to both the North and the South, giving the South their own parliament, and the North all but their own country. A overlapping Irish Council was to moderate between the two. Britain had just finished WWI, and was watching its’ empire crumble under their own massive debt, offering nothing but more violence, Northern Ireland wasn’t worth the price. This was the outline of the new countries, born in violence, which England wished it could forget. Between 1934 and 1935, only one hour and fifty minutes of Westminster’s debate time was on Northern Ireland. All of Ireland was hit hard by the great depression, and it economically stagnated. It would lag behind UK’s standard of living until the late 1960’s. Ireland had nothing to lose in the ongoing battle with Britain, Britain had nothing to gain, and the North was caught in the middle. The next Irish episode was simpler. WWII broke out, and again, it seemed that Britain could lose the war. Ireland’s official status was neutral; although there is some circumstantial evidence that the IRA may of attempted contracts with the Germans little seems to have come of it. Northern Ireland’s protestant population (approximately 66% of Northern Ireland) became strongly aligned with the Allies. The contribution was minimal, outside of allied ports for shipping, as the population was small and the economy was irrelevant. The largest factor was that in Northern Ireland, loyalist populism grew substantially. Tragic German air-raids on Belfast had the same moral-rising effect that the Blitzkriegs had on London. The end of the war had two outcomes for Northern Ireland, the clenched anger toward IRA bombings during 1939-1944 and the establishment of a welfare state from the UK. Within Ireland, the concept of neutrality proved beneficial. Neutrality may have been officially the choice of the ruling party, Fianna Fail, it would have been hard for them not to be neutral given the anti-conscription protests only twenty years earlier. Besides the advantage of avoiding the structural damage of total war, Irish neutrality promoted Irish independence and allowed Fianna Fail, to gain support for distancing Ireland from Britain. This would be important for the future of the IRA and nationalists because in order to keep the moral of a losing army, Ireland had to create “a national identity code the emphasized the moral and evaluative basis of the Catholic identity reflected in the norms of a dominant group, a motley assemblage of the middle-class and lower middle-class. This identity code rejected the outside, sanctified thee conventionalism of a Catholic way of life for all social strata.” While having little direct effect on Britain, this maintained that the Troubles would be a continuous religious battle as much as a political one. After the war, a new social change made its way across the western world. Post-war liberalism had come to England too, and an attempt was made to bring Northern Ireland out of its slum and contribute to the UK economy. This worked well, however, it was impossible for England to give these social benefits to the Loyalist Northern Ireland without giving it to the minority of Catholic Nationalists. An interesting occurrence was this dilemma to Northern Protestants - a fear of an arising Catholic middle class versus their own economic well-being. Some effort was made to hamper Catholic progress, such as In the late 1960’s, Northern Ireland’s Nationalists had taken advantage of this welfare system, and had created an entity previously unknown in Ireland - an educated population with economic means. Ireland was ripe for more problems. The protestants were as hostile to the Catholics and IRA as ever. In 1966, three vigilante Protestant gunmen couldn’t find an IRA target, thus settled on shooting a random Catholic. They were charged with murder, but were held to the highest honor by the powerful Protestant Orange Order. On the back drop of social disobedience for change in America, always a source of money and ideas for Ireland, the Catholics created the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) in 1967. The NICRA wanted to create a series of six objectives that they felt would create a more equal living place for Catholics in Northern Ireland. 1) One man, one vote in local elections 2) Removal of gerrymandered boundaries 3) Allocation of Public Housing on a Points System 4) Laws against discrimination by local authorities and a machinery to deal with other complaints 5) Repeal of the Special Powers Act 6) The Disbandment of the ‘B’ specials 2. Unionists and Nationalists - The creations of, arming of - The chaos of WWI / conscription - Easter Uprising - Michael Collins revolution / treaty ending war in May 1923 tenacious 3. Uprisings of 1939-43 4. Uprisings of 1956-62 5.1974 strike Overall the British answer to the Irish has been one of vigilance. It is surprising that the best offer made to the Irish, Home Rule, came in the pre-WWI phase of British history, the end of the age of empire. During WWI, WWII and onward, the British, who developed a taste for peace after the slaughter of the first world war, were still confident that sending more armed soldiers into Ireland would allow for a legitimate rule. http://meandmypage.tripod.com/Art/CivilRights.html