Irish 1916 Commemorations

Every country has its own big plans for 2016, but for the Irish, apart from a General Election, it is the commemoration of the centenary of the 1916 Rising against British rule. There are nearly 2,000 commemorative events planned for Ireland as well as various events in up to 100 countries, including the John F Kennedy Centre in Washington DC. It is intended that the commemorations are inclusive, remembering the loss of life on all sides, rather than taking a one dimensional approach as happened in the past. It is hoped that the year will foster friendships, develop mutual understanding, and promote tolerance, justice and peace. Regardless of what various groups thought of the Rising at the time or now, it became the catalyst in shaping modern Ireland.

A third attempt to pass a Home Rule Bill for the island of Ireland was initiated by the British Government in April 1912. Strong opposition in Northern Ireland led to the establishment of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) on January 31, 1913, to resist Home Rule. This was followed on November 25 with the formation of the Irish Volunteers by Eoin MacNeill to defend Home Rule, and support grew quickly throughout the country. The third Home Rule Bill was passed in September 1914 but, because of the danger of partition and civil war in Ireland, its implementation was suspended until after the war. John Redmond (1856-1918), leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party who had a big role in the passage of the Home Rule Bill, urged the Irish Volunteers to support Britain in the Great War, and a recruitment campaign was organized around the country.

John Redmond’s support for Britain in the First World War led to a split in the Irish Volunteers, when a minority of about 12,000 led by Pádraig Pearse and Eoin MacNeill opposed participation, while the majority of approximately 160,000, which became the ‘National Volunteers’, remained loyal. With Britain’s big commitment in the First World War, a group of 1,400 members of the Irish Volunteers led by Pearse, together with two hundred from the Irish Citizen Army under James Connolly, planned a rising for Easter 1916. Some leaders who were Home Rule supporters, including Pearse, had become disillusioned with constitutional nationalism when the British Government did not stand firm against the threat of force from Ulster Unionists, and the failure to enact Home Rule for the whole island as enacted on September 18,1914. Despite some confusion and a countermanding order from Eoin MacNeill (who had big moral reservations about the use of force and the way he was deceived about plans) to the order for volunteers to mobilise on Easter Monday 1916, the insurgents seized the General Post Office (GPO) and other buildings in Dublin on Easter Monday April 24, 1916.

They raised the tricolour over the GPO and Pádraig Pearse read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic in front of the building. The Rising, which caused shock and disbelief around the country, was crushed after six days, ending with an unconditional surrender, with an estimated 485 killed, chiefly civilians including forty children, and 2,614 injured. Martial law was imposed and numerous suspects were arrested, including some that were not involved. Some of those arrested were released after questioning; others were tried by court martial and convicted, with the remainder interned in England, Scotland and later at Frongach in North Wales. Fourteen leaders of the Rising, including the seven signatories of the Proclamation, were executed at Kilmainham Jail from May 3 to 12, 1916. Thomas Kent was executed on May 9, 1916, in Cork, and the sixteenth leader to be executed, Roger Casement, was hanged in London on August 3, 1916, (his remains were interred in Glasnevin cemetery, Dublin, in 1965).Some internees were released later that year.

The initial reaction to the Rising in Ireland was hostility, with public opinion strongly against the rebels, but that changed rapidly following execution of the leaders. For many, the executed leaders came to be seen as patriots and nationalist sentiment grew in strength which later strongly influenced political opinions. Many came to see the Rising as a gallant effort to achieve Irish independence; some saw it as a mad and reckless undertaking and others, especially Ulster unionists, deemed it to be an act of treachery in the middle of a world war. The 1916 Rising became a major turning point in Irish history, leading a few years later to independence for twenty-six counties and partition with the six counties of Northern Ireland.

Political opinion in Ireland started to change rapidly following the execution of the 1916 leaders, with a big upsurge in national sentiment and a desire to be independent of Britain and not just a Home Rule colony, expressed in support for Sinn Féin. An independent, Count Plunkett, father of the executed 1916 leader Joseph Mary Plunkett, won a Roscommon by-election in February 1917 and decided not to take his seat at Westminster. Sinn Féin organised clubs around the country and later won five by-elections, with all the successful candidates deciding not to take their seats. Conscription was introduced in Britain in January 1916 and there was a proposal to extend it to Ireland later in the year, but it received a hostile response. Following heavy losses in the war in 1918, there was a new proposal to impose conscription in Ireland, but the threat was opposed by all shades of Irish nationalism, which aided Sinn Féin. The political signs were ominous for the Irish Parliamentary Party. Following the end of the First World War, a general election in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was called for Saturday, December 14, 1918. It was an election for the soul of nationalist Ireland, between Sinn Féin on a separatist mission following 1916 and the Irish Parliamentary Party supporting Home Rule within the union (the latter won 80 of the 105 Irish seats at Westminster at the 1910 general election).

As a result of the Representation of the People Act, the electorate was 1.9 million in 1918 (up from 700,000 in 1910), because the franchise was extended to men over 21 and women over 30 with property qualifications. It was a landslide victory for Sinn Féin around the country, winning seventy-three seats out of one hundred and five, with the Irish Parliamentary Party reduced to six seats. The newly elected Sinn Féin members of parliament, following their pledge of abstention, refused to take their seats in Westminster, and instead arranged to have invitations sent to members elected for all constituencies to attend the first session of the assembly of Ireland in the Mansion House in Dublin on January 21, 1919. Twenty-seven members, all from Sinn Féin, attended and established the first Dáil Éireann as it was called (thirty-four of them were still in prison and eight were unable to attend). The new assembly was not recognised by the elected Unionists or by the survivors of the Irish Parliamentary Party. One of the first decisions of the first Dáil was to make a Declaration of Independence, re-affirming the 1916 Proclamation, and this defiant stand led to confrontation with the British. A number of meetings of the first Dáil took place before it was suppressed by the Government in September 1919 and afterwards it tried to operate underground.

After two policemen were shot in County Tipperary, a bitter Anglo-Irish war commenced, known in Irish history as ‘the War of Independence 1919-1921’. Clashes between the IRA and Government forces were sporadic at the start, but they developed into a bitter guerrilla war around the country. Terrible deeds were committed on both sides, with attacks and reprisals and considerable fear around the country. By 1920, there was no way that the aspirations of nationalists and unionists could be reconciled as a united self-governing country under Home Rule. After trying to get agreement, the British Government passed the Government of Ireland Act of December 1920, providing for the creation of two Home Rule parliaments, one for the six counties of Northern Ireland and the other for the remaining twenty-six counties. An election was held for the Northern Ireland parliament on May 24, 1921, and Unionists won 40 of the 52 seats. King George V opened the Northern Ireland parliament on June 22, 1921, which effectively resulted in the partition of Ireland. In the June 1921 election in the twenty-six counties, Sinn Féin candidates were returned un-opposed in 124 constituencies with four others for the University of Dublin. Eventually, after two and a half years of bitter fighting during the war, a truce was agreed on July 11, 1921, which led to negotiations for a settlement.

After weeks of difficult negotiations in London, articles of agreement, generally known in Irish history as the Anglo Irish Treaty, were signed on December 6, 1921, providing for an Irish Free State in the twenty six counties as a self-governing dominion within the British Commonwealth, with the monarch as Head of State, and Irish Members of Parliament obliged to take an oath of allegiance to the Crown. The six counties of Northern Ireland had the right to opt out. After a bitter Dáil debate, where the oath emerged as the main issue, the treaty was ratified by sixty-four votes to fifty-seven on January 7, 1922. The Irish Free State Provisional Government was established on January 14, 1922. Dublin Castle was surrendered and the British withdrew their soldiers and administration. The Irish Free State came into existence on December 6, 1922, one year after the treaty, following the adoption of a Constitution. The Northern Ireland parliament opted out of the Irish Free State. Various changes to the treaty took place over the years, as well as the adoption of a new constitution in 1937, under which the State became an independent republic in all but name. The State was declared a republic in 1949. While no one now wants to glorify political violence, especially after all the suffering since 1916, few can deny that the Rising was a seminal event in Irish history, setting in motion the events that led to the twenty six counties becoming a sovereign independent State, known in the constitution as Ireland.

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