The famous Anglo-Irish literary revival was led by a group of intellectuals who thought that a national literature and cultural life was vital to Irish nationality. They also thought that this literature should not just be old folktales (although they were considered important), but that it should be a vibrant and cultivated literature of the highest quality, one that would be regarded as highly as other national literatures. It was led by William Butler Yeats (1865–1939), a young poet who eventually came to symbolize the movement and much of what is now considered Irish literary culture. Yeats came from an artistic family (his father and brothers were successful and famous painters) with strong connections to County Sligo, where the young Yeats spent many holidays. His interest in the wild west of Ireland was to surface later in his poetry. He was born in Dublin and spent much of his youth in London, but he returned to Dublin to attend art school. After art school, he worked for a while as a literary correspondent for American newspapers, and began his serious work as a poet. His early poetry did not indicate a strong interest in native Irish literature, but Yeats soon came under the influence of John O’Leary, the Young Irelander, who had recently returned from exile in Paris. To Yeats and his friends, O’Leary symbolized early nationalist ideals of creating a nation in its entirety (culturally as well as politically). Yeats consulted O’Leary regularly while compiling some of his early works, such as Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888). He was also heavily influenced by Standish James O’Grady (1846–1928), who was writing heroic histories of Ireland. Between 1886 and the 1920s, Yeats revived Irish legends and folklore, with the help of other Irish literary figures such as the playwrights J.M. Synge (1871–1909) and Lady Augusta Gregory (1852–1932), and the Irish language scholar Douglas Hyde (1863–1947), who would also become the first president of Ireland (see chapter eight). They used folk imagery and ancient Irish heroes to symbolize the cultural history of Ireland. Rather than use historical figures such as the Gaelic chieftains of recent centuries, Yeats and his colleagues wrote about mythological or partly mythological figures, such as Cuchulainn [coo-cullen], the legendary Ulster warrior who came to symbolize the fighting spirit of the Irish. Yeats founded the Irish Literary Society of London in 1891 and joined the National Literary Society in Dublin in 1892. The Abbey Theatre in Dublin was founded in 1904 to provide a venue for the production of what was called ‘Irish national drama’.
Many great poems, legends, stories, plays and other types of literature were produced during this fervent period of creative activity, but the significance for Irish identity was more complex. The literary revivalists were highly successful in creating a new national literature based on ancient ideas, and their work continues to be studied to this day. But their literature generally appealed to like-minded people, and really only captured the interest of educated and intellectual people. Most Irish people, Dubliners especially, were interested in more popular and light-hearted forms of entertainment, such as music halls and dance clubs. The revivalist Abbey Theatre, for instance, struggled financially until it was subsidized by the Irish Free State in 1924. Further, although the literary revivalists took many of their themes from the west of Ireland, they mainly worked in Dublin for a Dublin (and international) audience, rather than the country as a whole. Still, their literature had an impact on some nationalists, who drew inspiration from the vision of Ireland as an ancient nation and culture, and the revivalists succeeded in one of their most cherished goals, that of gaining international recognition for Irish literature and drama.
Another important Irish movement of this period was the Gaelic League, and it succeeded where the literary revival failed – in capturing the imagination of the whole nation. It was founded in 1893 by Douglas Hyde (1860–1949) and Eoin MacNeill (1867–1945). The League had two goals: to retain and support the Irish language where it was already spoken (which was mainly in the far west, in isolated pockets in Munster and Leinster and in Donegal); and to restore Irish as the spoken language of the country. The League organized Irish language classes and Irish-speaking social activities. Rather than looking solely towards the past (like many literary revivalists), Gaelic Leaguers tried to create the conditions for the Irish language to become the major language in the country for the future. Starting in 1897, it ran a national festival, published its own newspaper and paid for the publication of Irish language texts and literature. It was a subscription organization, and raised a lot of money. There were many Gaelic League successes. The Irish language became a central part of Irish education. In 1903 alone, 1,300 National Schools had Irish introduced into their curriculum, and in 1909 it became a compulsory subject. To the extent that it is part of contemporary Irish culture at all, the Irish language owes its survival, beyond the boundaries of antiquarianism, to the Gaelic League and groups like it. Douglas Hyde was one of those involved in the Gaelic revival who argued strongly that a separate Irish cultural nation had to be re-created. His idea was that this must come about through a process of de-Anglicization, which meant casting off English customs, dress, games, language and ideas. This brought back memories of the boycotts of English goods in the late 1700s and during the Famine. Hyde wanted to help build a self-sufficient Irish economy.
In these ways, the League grew from being simply an organization to promote the Irish language, to a movement to invigorate the country with what was, essentially, new-found Irishness. The League was successful in gaining broad support from many different classes, although the working class made up its smallest element. It was also popular among some unionists, partly because the League was initially apolitical and partly because many unionists did not see any contradiction between being culturally Irish and still part of the United Kingdom. In 1915–16, however, the League became politicized, as Patrick Pearse (1879–1916) became more involved in its activities. Outside politics, however, the League was very successful. They even persuaded pubs to close on St Patrick’s Day and eventually had that day turned into a national holiday. Although they failed in their ultimate goal of making Ireland an Irish-speaking nation, the League, generally known under its Irish name Connradh na Gaeilge [conn-rah nah gale-geh] has continued to promote the language to the present day.
The other major surviving organization from this period is the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) which was founded by Michael Cusack in 1884. Cusack (1847–1906) had been a teacher and lecturer at a training college for aspiring civil servants. In his youth, he had enjoyed cricket and rugby, those quintessentially English games. But he became disillusioned with the way these games were run by exclusive social clubs and organizations. He also began to think that the gambling that was so prevalent at the time was an unwelcome English import, and that English games were damaging Irish identity. He founded the GAA with Maurice Davin (1864–1927), in an attempt to promote traditional Irish sports such as hurling, Gaelic football and camogie. Other athletic sports (such as foot races) which were not explictly English were promoted in the early stages, but they soon declined in popularity compared with team sports. The Archbishop of Cashel, Thomas William Croke (1824–1902), became the GAA’s first patron. Other prominent figures included Michael Davitt and Charles Stewart Parnell. One of the first things that the GAA did was to ban its members from playing foreign sports (tellingly called ‘imported games’; the ban was lifted in 1971) and from serving in the British military or police. It was organized on county lines, and county teams competed for their provincial titles, and then on to an ‘All-Ireland’ grand final. The Fenians quickly became involved in the GAA, and by 1886 they were in a dominant position. This soon brought disapproval from the Catholic Church, but after the fall of Parnell, the Fenian leaders reorganized the GAA so that it was clearly a nationalist organization, but also non-violent and non-revolutionary. The GAA also benefited from the general rise in interest in spectator sports that was taking place in Europe and America at the time. Crowds flocked to games and special trains were run to handle the flow of people. Participation in GAA events declined dur
ing the Anglo-Irish War and the civil war (see next section), but the organization soon recovered and has played an important part in Irish life ever since. Hurling and Gaelic football are perhaps unique in the western world in that they are mass spectator sports, but remain amateur.
NATIONALISM AND UNIONISM, 1891–1914
Gladstone resigned when his second Home Rule bill was defeated by the House of Lords in 1893. The new Liberal Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery (1847–1929), did not see Ireland as a priority and would not propose a Home Rule bill. But the Liberals were soon out of office, with the Conservatives coming to power under Lord Salisbury (1830–1903) in 1895. In opposition, Rosebery and the Liberals concentrated mainly on British domestic problems and did not raise Irish issues seriously. At the same time, the Irish nationalist MPs in the House of Commons were struggling with their own problems. They were still divided over Parnell, even after his death. The small group of Parnellites were led by John Redmond (1856–1918), and the anti-Parnellites by John Dillon (1851–1927). Although fewer in number than the anti-Parnellites, the Parnellites had more support in the constituencies and were backed by the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Further, the anti-Parnellites argued over tactics. Dillon thought that too much emphasis was being placed on land reform, and wanted a strong, centralized organization such as O’Connell and Parnell had built. Other anti-Parnellites, such as William O’Brien (1852–1928), thought that the land issue was vital, and that the Irish party would lose popular support if they neglected it. Tim Healy (1855–1931) argued that the party should be decentralized, become more locally based, so that it could rebuild its strength. All this division amongst the Irish MPs, and lack of interest in Irish affairs among British Liberal politicians, left the question of Irish government open to action from the Conservatives and Unionists. Salisbury (1830–1903) and Arthur Balfour (1848– 930), Irish secretary from 1887 to 1891 and Prime Minister from 1902 to 1905, developed an Irish policy which focused on further land and social reforms, and largely left the national question alone. In addition to seeing genuine need for such reforms, they wanted to placate the Irish population, as well as assure Unionists in Ulster and Great Britain that the United Kingdom would stay intact. Their land reforms from 1887 to 1903 made it very easy for tenants to buy the land that they worked, offering them interest at three and a quarter percent over sixty-eight and a half years. It was foolish to keep renting when the payments on their land loans were often cheaper, and so, by 1909, half of the country’s farmland was in the hands of former tenant farmers. Balfour also pushed through poor relief and agricultural organization in Ireland that pre-dated most welfare state reforms in Britain and much of Europe. Cottage industries such as weaving and fishing were subsidized by the government, and agricultural institutes were set up to train farmers in new methods. Railways, roads and bridges were built in an effort to help rural trade flow better. Local government was reformed and taken out of the hands of the landlords in 1898. While all these reforms provided much needed relief from specific and long-standing problems, their emphasis on rural and agricultural matters may have meant that industrial and commercial development in Ireland was delayed by a few generations.
By 1900, however, the Irish Party in the House of Commons had reunited under John Redmond, with his anti-Parnellite opponent John Dillon agreeing to act as his deputy. But William O’Brien still argued that the main issue was land reform and Tim Healy wanted to decentralize the party. Redmond and Dillon finally had to force Healy out of the party, and O’Brien resigned. Still, the revitalized party had potential. While criticized from different quarters for being controlled by the Catholic Church or by the British Liberals, the party tried to assert its independence by renewing the call for Home Rule. One of the main problems, however, was that, by 1900, many of the MPs in the Irish party had actually found themselves distanced from their constituents back home. They had become used to parliamentary life in London, and had actually begun to admire the parliamentary system. As a result, Redmond and his party were often not as careful to listen to Irish opinion as they probably should have been, which meant that they did not pay enough attention to Irish social issues while they were concentrating on the national question.
In Ireland, other nationalist movements were beginning to take shape. Arthur Griffith (1871–1922), a journalist, had recently returned from South Africa in 1899. Like many other Irishmen, he supported the Boers against the British in the Boer War (1899–1902). He began to edit a weekly newspaper called the United Irishmen (reviving the title of the Young Ireland paper of the 1840s). Through this newspaper and his other writings (particularly his Resurrection of Hungary: a Parallel for Ireland, 1904), he began to outline a policy of non-Home Rule independence which he called Sinn Féin [shin fain]. Griffith argued for a completely independent Ireland, but one which would share a monarch with Great Britain. Griffith had seen Hungary gain its independence from Austria this way, and thought that it was the best route for Irish independence. He also argued that Ireland needed economic protectionism in order to build its own economy. As a political vehicle for these ideas, Griffith and others founded Cumann na nGaedheal [cummann nah gale] in 1900, as an umbrella organization for co-ordinating the activities of smaller Irish nationalist groups. Among other things, they demanded in 1902 that the Irish Parliamentary Party withdraw from the British House of Commons. In 1905 Griffith and Bulmer Hobson (1883–1969) translated the idea of Sinn Féin into an official organization. Between 1905 and World War I, it attracted various nationalists who were finding it difficult to organize, and absorbed them into its organization (along with previously organized groups such as Cumann na nGaedheal). Other nationalist organizations were also starting to crawl out from under the long shadow of Parnell, including the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which was revived when Thomas Clarke (1857–1916) returned from jail in England via a stint in America in 1907. The IRB gradually attracted more members, and became very active in the Gaelic League and GAA, as well as Sinn Féin.
At roughly the same time, an infant Irish labour movement was beginning under James Larkin (1876–1947) and James Connolly (1868–1916). Although agricultural and rural labourers had been a major concern of Irish nationalists and reformers since the days of Young Ireland, urban workers had not received the same attention. Irish cities were amongst the most socially and economically backward in the United Kingdom. Undernourishment and disease were common. Inspired by labour and socialist movements in Britain and Europe, Larkin and Connolly organized the Irish Transport Workers Union (ITWU) in 1908. They were initially very successful in gaining concessions from employers, but a massive strike against the United Tramways Company in 1913 was a disaster. It lasted four months, and eventually, the ITWU had to surrender, which left its members with very little (and lacking four months’ wages). Frustrated by the lack of help from nationalist organizations, Larkin went to America to raise money for the union. Connolly then took over Irish trade unionism, and created his ‘citizen army’ to protect labourers from the police and hostile employers. Connolly also began to make connections with militant nationalists because he began to think that revolution was the only way that an Irish workers’ state could come about.
Meanwhile in Britain, the Liberals returned to power in 1906 with a large majority. They pushed through many reforms in Britain and Ireland, including setting up the National University of Ireland and extensions of land reform, and offering Redmond and the Irish Party an ‘Irish Council’ instead of an Irish parliament as a concession to Home Rule in 1907. Redmond refused. But the Liberals ran into trouble when the House of Lords vetoed their 1909 budget, and they had to call an election. Although they won the election, the Liberal majority was greatly reduced, and the Irish Party and the rising British Labour Party held the balance of power between the Liberals and the Conservatives. Redmond’s Irish Party pledged support for the Liberals if they would reciprocate with Home Rule. After they reduced the Lords’ veto powers in 1911, the Liberal Prime Minister, Herb
ert Asquith (1852–1928), introduced a third Home Rule bill on 11 April 1912. It was a moderate bill, which reserved British control of foreign affairs, currency and tariffs. Even so, it received the support of Redmond’s party and Sinn Féin. Unionists, however, were outraged because they realized that this Home Rule bill had a good chance of passing. Their leaders, Sir Edward Carson (1854–1935) and Sir James Craig (1871–1940), rejected the bill and held many demonstrations against it throughout 1912. They also put together the Ulster Volunteers (a private army), and gun-running provided it with arms. The Conservatives in Britain backed the unionists. With all this controversy, the bill took until January 1913 to pass the House of Commons. It was defeated by the House of Lords, but since their veto powers had been reduced in 1911, the bill could only be delayed for two years. The agitation against it did not cease, however. Unionists refused to accept that Home Rule would become law within two years, and pledged to fight against it. The support they received from British Conservatives made the problem a serious crisis. The government would have to enforce Home Rule by using the military, but many important officers in Ulster and in Britain said they would refuse to enforce Home Rule and that they would support the unionists. This made many Liberal cabinet members worry that Home Rule could never become law in Ireland without a civil war in the United Kingdom. Some MPs tried to convince the government to partition Ulster and keep it in the United Kingdom, but these efforts failed.
Seeing that the unionists were arming against Home Rule, many nationalists decided to do the same. The IRB formed the Irish Volunteers in November 1913. Eventually, Redmond realized that he needed the Volunteers, and many of the Irish Party joined them, especially in command offices. Membership in the Volunteers grew very rapidly. Redmond tried to pacify the overall situation by offering the unionists temporary exclusion from a Home Rule Ireland, but it was rejected. King George V tried to solve the crisis over the Home Rule bill by inviting all the major participants to a conference at Buckingham Palace from 21 to 24 July 1914. The conference was a failure because none of the participants could agree on anything.
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