The Irish Liberation
Irish liberation from British rule was achieved as the result of a struggle extending over several centuries and marked by numerous rebellions. Following the Easter Rebellion, an uprising of Irish nationalists on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, Sinn Fein became the most influential political party in Ireland. This party, founded in 1900 by Arthur Griffith, a Dublin journalist, campaigned in the parliamentary election of 1918 on a program that called for the severance of all ties with Great Britain, an end to the separatist movement in northern Ireland, and the establishment of an Irish republic. Candidates of Sinn Fein won 73 of the 106 seats allotted to Ireland in the British Parliament. The Irish Revolution (1919-22). In January 1919 the Sinn Fein members of Parliament assembled in Dublin as the Dáil Éireann, or national assembly. Proclaiming the independence of Ireland, the Dáil forthwith formed a government, with Eamon De Valera as president. There followed guerrilla attacks by Irish insurgents, later called the Irish Republican Army (IRA), on British forces, particularly the Royal Irish Constabulary, called the Black and Tans; and the British instituted vigorous reprisals. In the course of the war, the British Parliament enacted, in December 1920, a Home Rule Bill, providing separate parliaments for six counties of Ulster Province and for the remainder of Ireland. By the terms of the bill, Great Britain retained effective control of Irish affairs. The people of Northern Ireland, as the six counties in Ulster Province were known, ratified the legislation in May 1921 and elected a parliament. Although the rest of Ireland also elected a parliament in May, the Sinn Feiners, constituting an overwhelming majority outside of Ulster, refused to recognize the other provisions of the Home Rule Bill. The warfare against the British continued until July 10, 1921, when a truce was arranged. Subsequent negotiations led to the signing, in December 1921, of a peace treaty by representatives of the second Dáil Éireann and the British government. By the terms of the treaty, all of Ireland except the six counties constituting Northern Ireland was to receive dominion status identical with that of Canada. After considerable debate, in which the opposition, led by De Valera, objected strenuously to a provision that virtually guaranteed a separate government in Northern Ireland and to an article that required members of the Dáil to swear allegiance to the British sovereign, the Dáil ratified the treaty on January 15, 1922, by a vote of 64 to 57. Ratification brought into being the Irish Free State, with Arthur Griffith as president and Michael Collins, who was another prominent member of Sinn Fein, as chairman of the provisional government. The Irish Free State (1922-37) Under the leadership of De Valera, the dissident Sinn Fein group, termed the Republicans and later known as Fianna Fáil, called for a resumption of the struggle against Great Britain and instituted a campaign, including insurrectionary acts, against the provisional government. With the question of the treaty the chief issue, an election for a provisional Dáil was held in June 1922. Candidates supporting the treaty won a majority of the seats. The Republicans, refusing to recognize the authority of the new Dáil, proclaimed a rival government and intensified their attacks on the Irish Free State. In the course of the ensuing struggle, hundreds were killed on both sides, and many prominent Republican leaders were executed. while, the Dáil, headed now by William Thomas Cosgrave, drafted a constitution providing for a bicameral legislature (Dáil and Saenad, or senate), which was adopted on October 11, 1922. Following approval by the British Parliament, it became operative on December 6. The official government of the Irish Free State was instituted at once, with Cosgrave assuming office as president of the executive council. In April 1923 the Republicans declared a truce in hostilities in order to participate in the forthcoming national elections, and public order was gradually restored. Neither the Sinn Fein party nor the Republican party secured a majority in the elections held late in August 1923. The Republicans boycotted the Dáil, however, and Cosgrave, supported by a coalition of parties, retained power. The boundary between the Free State and Northern Ireland was established in December 1925. During the next few years, agreement was reached with the British government on various mutual problems, and the national economy was substantially strengthened by a series of measures, including the initiation of a hydroelectric project on the Shannon River. Although the Republicans gradually increased their representation in the Dáil during this period, they continued their boycott until August 1927. They then assumed their 57 seats in the newly elected Dáil. Partly as a result of the failure of the government to cope with domestic difficulties brought on by the world economic crisis of the early 1930s, Cosgrave's party lost several seats to the Republicans in the elections of February 1932. De Valera thereupon became head of the government. Legislation that he sponsored in the following April included provisions for the abrogation of the oath of allegiance to the British crown. This bill, which also would have virtually ended the political ties between Great Britain and the Free State, received the approval of the Dáil, but was rejected, in effect, by the Saenad. In his next move against the British, De Valera withheld payment of certain land purchase annuities that the British claimed were legally due them. The withholding of the payment of annuities led to a protracted tariff war between the two countries, with serious damage to the economy of the Free State. In another significant move, De Valera secured repeal of a law restricting the activities of the IRA. The electorate registered approval of his program in elections held in January 1933, in which a majority of Republicans were returned to the Dáil. With this mandate from the people, De Valera systematically developed his program for the gradual elimination of British influence in Irish affairs, obtaining abrogation of the oath of allegiance, restrictions on the role of the governor-general who represented the British crown, and other measures. Simultaneously, the government initiated measures designed to give the country a self-sufficient economy. Steps taken included high income taxes on the rich, high protective tariffs, and control of foreign capital invested in Irish industry. In June 1935, De Valera severed his political ties with the IRA, which had been extremely critical of many of his policies, and imprisoned a number of its leaders. It became general knowledge, meanwhile, that the draft of a new constitution was in progress. In 1936 the Republicans, in coalition with other groups in the Dáil, finally secured passage of legislation abolishing the Saenad, long inimical to De Valera's policies. The Dáil functioned as a unicameral legislature for the remainder of its term. In connection with the events surrounding the abdication of Edward VIII, king of Great Britain, the Dáil enacted in 1936 a bill that deleted all references to the king from the constitution of the Free State and abolished the office of governor-general. Parallel legislation, which was known as the External Relations Act of 1936, restricted the association of the Free State with the British Commonwealth of Nations to joint action on certain questions involving external policy, specifically the approval of the trade treaties of the Free State and the appointment of its foreign envoys in the name of the British crown. 11.Eire (1937-49).The 5-year term of office of the Dáil expired in June 1937. In the subsequent election the Republican party won a plurality of the seats in the Dáil. The new constitution, which abolished the Irish Free State and established Eire as a “sovereign independent democratic state,” was approved by the voters in a plebiscite conducted simultaneously with the election. This document provided for a new senate of 60 members. Although the constitution specifically applied to all Ireland, it provided that the laws of Eire should be executed, pending unification with Northern Ireland, only within the territory of the republic. The constitution contained no references to the British sovereign or to the Commonwealth of Nations. A subsequent statement by De Valera indicated, however, that Eire's relations with Great Britain would be governed by the External Relations Act of 1936. In 1938 the Irish writer and patriot Douglas Hyde became the first president of Eire, and De Valera became prime minister. Through a treaty adopted in April 1938, the tariff war between Eire and Great Britain was concluded. The latter agreed to withdraw its forces from naval bases in Eire, and Eire agreed to a settlement of the annuities owed to Great Britain. The slight improvement in relations between the two nations was marred by a violent terrorist campaign in Great Britain conducted by the IRA. Eire maintained neutrality in World War II, although many thousands of Irish citizens joined the Allied forces or worked in British war industry. In the immediate postwar era, the economic dislocations in Great Britain and Europe subjected the economy of Eire to severe strains, resulting in a period of rapid inflation and, indirectly, in the defeat of Fianna Fáil in the elections of February 1948. De Valera was defeated in the Dáil for the prime ministry by John Aloysius Costello, candidate of a six-party coalition opposed to Fianna Fáil. Costello, a former attorney general, called for lower prices and taxes, the expansion of industrial production, and closer commercial relations with Great Britain. Republic of Ireland, On Easter Monday, April 18, 1949, by the terms of the Republic of Ireland Bill approved by the Dáil in November 1948, Eire became the Republic of Ireland, formally free of allegiance to the British crown and the Commonwealth of Nations. In the following month, the British Parliament approved a bill continuing the status of Northern Ireland as a part of Great Britain and extending to citizens of the republic resident in Britain the same rights as British citizens. Similar legal provision was made by the Eire government in respect of British citizens resident in Eire. The republic became a member of the United Nations on December 14, 1955, when the General Assembly approved the admission of 4 Communist and 12 non-Communist nations.
