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THE PROCLAMATION
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On Easter Monday April 24th 1916, Patrick Pearse read this great document
in Irish history on the steps of the General Post Office in Sackville
Street, now O'Connel street in Dublin, to an uncomprehending group of
passers by.
The Proclamation was ingeniously thought out and is far more comprehensive
than its first impact suggests.
Men were to indeed give their lives and remain faithful to the full
meaning of its claims and promises. Partition was not to be countenanced.
The Protestant minority were assured the same rights as the Catholic
majority, despite the differences fostered by an alien government. They
signed on behalf of the Provisional Government, not as members of it, as
indeed they were. They knew well that they themselves would soon be
counted among "the dead generations". Continuity would be achieved from
within the secret membership of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
Did Ireland, as they claimed, derive a right of nationhood from her dead
generations? Had England won the right to govern by repeated conquests
over seven hundred years? Your answer makes you a Nationalist or a
Unionist in Ireland today.
THE NORMAN INVASION
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Its a long way back to 1154. In that same year the young, French Speaking,
22 year old Henry II was crowned King of England and Nicholas Breakespeare
became Pope Adrian IV. The first and only English Pope. Dermott
MacMurrough was 44 and King of Leinster.
Henry knew of the fertile soil and abundant fish and timber of Ireland. He
knew of the culture and the rich monasteries. He asked for and got the
Papal blessing. The Brehon Laws and customs, still hardly changed seven
centuries after St. Patrick, were un-Christian to the Cistercian monk now
on the chair of St. Peter. Henry would bring this wayward flock back to
salvation and while he was at it, forcefully remind the Irish to pay their
Peters Pence to Rome.
Before Henry got around to actually going over to Ireland, Dermott
MacMurrough was kicked off his throne as King of Leinster and went over to
Bristol to an old friend of the family, Robert FitzHarding, who introduced
him to the Earl of Strigul, known as Strongbow. Down on his luck and out
of favor with Henry, Strongbow eagerly accepted the promise of
MacMurrough's daughter Aoife, in marriage and thereby, Kingship of
Leinster on the death of Dermott. In return all Strongbow had to do was
persuade enough out of work Norman Knights and foot soldiers to come over
to Ireland, where the spoils were good and the women were pretty and put
Dermott back in his rightful place.
The Irish were no match for the Normans. Henry soon was forced to follow
and claim his over-lordship of Strongbow, now a dangerously ambitious
Baron. After only a few months in his new kingdom of Ireland, now added to
the Norman Empire, Henry , the "Alexander of the West", sailed for Wales
from Wexford on Easter Monday morning! It was 1172, little more than 100
years after the Battle of Hastings, where Henry's great-grandfather,
William the Conqueror, defeated the Saxon King Harold in the year 1066 AD.
Henry's son, King John signed the Magna Carter. The Normans and their
aristocratic descendants rule England and own most of its land to this
day. They changed Saxon England for ever. They gave Ireland most of her
castles and distinctive Irish names. They became "more Irish than the
Irish themselves". But their English masters never let them establish a
purely Irish Kingdom in Ireland as the Anglo-Normans did. England became a
separate nation from their French homeland.. Ireland was doomed to seven
hundred years of re-conquest after re-conquest.
CONQUERED OR FREE
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The claim of the English to "right by conquest" became the very source of
the Irish claim to the right to strike in arms for freedom and nationhood.
Their long 700 year agony of second-class British citizenship and
religious discrimination left no doubt in the minds of the men of 1916.
UNION AND REPEAL
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The Irish Parliament drawn mostly from the Protestant Ascendancy class had
voted itself out of existence in 1800. Purchased by titles, money and
Pitts false promise of Catholic Emancipation, they passed the Act of
Union. Rebellion by the United Irishmen in 1798 had frightened the
English. They were determined not to lose Ireland and resolved to absorb
it completely.
The continued denial of citizen rights to Catholics, brought the Repeal
Movement and the mass peaceful popular demonstrations for Catholic
Emancipation, throughout the nineteenth century. Frustration with the
seeming futility of winning political gains from the British only to have
them denied in implementation spawned a new physical force element in
every generation.
In the latter part of the 1900's Parnel had the political misfortune of
having a secret love life, which when revealed, the British gleefully used
to rid themselves of his irritating and powerful Irish presence in
Parliament.
HOME RULE
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In the first decade of the twentieth century, Redmond led 86 Irish votes
at Westminster which he used to keep Asquith and the Liberal Party in
Government in return for a Home Rule Bill. This first required The
Parliament Act of 1911 which took the long held power of veto from the
House of Lords. The Lords could now reject a Bill twice, but if the
Commons passed it a third time it became law despite them. Asquith
introduced a Home Rule Bill for Ireland in the summer of 1912. It finally
passed through the Commons for the third time in May 1914. It only
required Royal Assent to become law.
But Ulster Protestants refused to be ruled by Dublin Catholics. Carson
obtained 200,000 signatures, some in blood, to his "Ulster Covenant". The
Bible was quoted mightily. On April 24th 1914 they landed a huge cargo of
German guns and ammunition at Larne. "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be
right", was the cry of the newly formed
Ulster Volunteers. They set up a Provisional Government for the north with
a military council. With secure funding and support from British
Conservatives (whatever the ballot box might say) they were going to have
no truck with Dublin.
The Southern Catholics admired the Dublin-born Carson's defiance of the
Imperial Parliament (of which he was a member), and only wished that he
was fighting for them. He showed them that the British were susceptible to
well organized violence and the threat of it. This had enormous impact on
the minds of the Gaelic League in Dublin.
NATIONALIST ORGANIZATIONS
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The Gaelic League was formed in Dublin in 1893 to revive the dying Irish
language and culture. It represented the rediscovery of the language by
the intellectuals, in the persons of poets and dramatists like Yeats,
Synge and Lady Gregory and college professors like Eoin MacNeill.
The Irish Republican Brotherhood or I.R.B. was formed in 1856 as part of
the Fenian movement in America by exiled patriots from the 1848 rising. It
was a physical force movement in direct descent from Wolfe Tone's United
Irishmen who rebelled in 1798.
The Gaelic Athletic Association or G.A.A. was formed in Thurles, County
Tipperary, in 1884 to popularize native Irish games such as hurling and
gaelic football.
Sinn Fein was founded by Arthur Griffith in 1905 to oppose the Irish
Parliamentary Party at Westminster and follow a more independent national
policy. They believed in passive resistance, Irish self reliance and would
accept a dual monarchy with Britain.
THE IRISH VOLUNTEERS
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Eoin MacNeill wrote an article in the November 1913 issue of the Gaelic
League paper, An Claidheamh Solais, raising the possibility of an Irish
armed force similar to the Ulster Volunteers. As a result a public meeting
was held in the Rotunda Rink, Dublin, on Thursday Nov. 25th 1913 to found
a volunteer force. The majority of its inspirers were secretly I.R.B..
Enrollment forms were passed around. The Irish Volunterrs grew quickly
from that evening. Eoin MacNeill was in charge, or so he thought.
At their 1914 Ard-Fheis in Dundalk, the Gaelic League, now heavily
infiltrated by the secret I.R.B., passed a resolution abolishing the rule
that the organization be non-political. Its chairman and co-founder,
Douglas Hyde, refused to continue under these new conditions. He was
replaced by the scholarly and respectable Eoin MacNeill.
HOWTH GUN-RUNNING
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On Sunday July 26th, 1914, three months after their mentors, the Ulster
Volunteers, landed their German guns at Larne, Erskine Childers sailed
into Howth harbor on the flood tide at 12:45, hurriedly dropping his sails
as he did so. He had scarcely an hour before the ebb tide would drain the
harbor to mud. Eight hundred Irish Volunteers, four abreast came down the
pier at the double to unload the precious cargo of 900 hundred rifles and
25,000 rounds of ammunition. Erskine, writer of the classic seafaring
adventure, Riddle of the Sands, his brave American invalid wife Molly and
crew had weathered what they later learned was the worst storm in the
Irish Sea since 1882, on their 14 day voyage. They were dangerously
overloaded from their rendezvous with a German tug at Ruytigen Lightship
at the mouth of the Schelt river in Holland. Their sail-craft was the
Asgard, a 49-foot gaff-rigged ketch, built in Norway, whose name from
Norse mythology means "The Citadel of the gods", which contains
"Valhalla".
REMEMBER BATCHELOR'S WALK
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During the previous three months the British Army in Ireland had refused
their Government's orders to move against the Ulster Volunteers, but later
that day they fired indiscriminately into a crowd of Dubliners at
Batchelor's Walk. The crowd were jeering their efforts to disarm the Irish
Volunteers. Two men and one woman were killed and 38 wounded.
WORLD WAR ONE
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On Tuesday, July 28th, Austria declared war on Serbia. On July 31, Germany
and Russia mobilized and within 24 hours a state of war existed between
them. On August 3, Germany declared war on France. The next day German
troops crossed the Belgian frontier. By the night of August 4, Britain,
guarantor of the sanctity of Belgian territory, was in the war.
What now for Ireland? Will there be conscription? Where is the Home Rule
Bill? In June 1914 the Liberals and Conservatives had got to where they
had agreed that the Home Rule Bill should be signed by the King when an
Accompanying Bill (excluding either, four or six Ulster counties, without
a time limit) could be passed by the Commons. The King had called a
conference in July but failed to get the four parties to agree on the
terms of the proposed accompanying Exclusion Bill. On entering the war,
they quickly got the Home Rule Bill signed and off the order of business
by passing a different accompanying Bill postponing its operation for the
duration of the war.
VOLUNTEERS SPLIT
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Many Irish were impressed that England went to the aid of a small nation
like Belgium. Carson's Ulster Volunteers, who had been ready to fight
Britain to remain part of her, went to France as a division with their own
officers and colors. In June 1914, it was thought that allowing Redmond
into the Volunteers would strengthen his hand at Westminster on Home Rule.
Twenty five nominees of Redmond were added to the Executive Council.
Redmond now urged the Irish Volunteers to enlist. He told them a grateful
England would implement Home Rule after the war. Large numbers did. Sadly,
Kitchener displayed the age-old anti-Irishness and discriminated against
the Southern Irish. Unlike the Ulstermen, they were dispersed throughout
the British army and denied glory or recognition. In proportion to its
population, Ireland contributed more to the battlefields of France and
Belgium than did England itself. The Irish Volunteers split on the issue
of serving England or fighting her now that she was heavily preoccupied in
Europe.
THE NEW VOLUNTEERS
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On March 10th 1915, the higher command of the Irish Volunteers was
reorganized. The Executive Committee was now controlled by the I.R.B. On
March 13th, Patrick Pearse, one of the new headquarters Commandants,
called a meeting of the four Dublin battalion Commandants, Edward Daly,
Thomas MacDonough, Eamon Ceannt and DeValera to discuss a Rising in
September.
Home Rule, which seemed a possibility in 1913, had by now lost all
reality. Asquith's Government had shelved the Bill and talked about
partition of the country to appease the Conservatives and the Unionists.
After the split with Redmond the reorganized Volunteers became more and
more convinced that a complete break with England and the formation of an
all-Ireland Republic was the only way to avoid partition and move forward
as a people. This meant Insurrection!!
MacNeill never had any idea of using the Volunteers for insurrection. He
did, however, tell the British that he would fight them with guns if they
attempted to impose conscription. As a College professor he gave
respectability to the Volunteers. The English did not take the drilling
seriously which went on a full 12 months before the rising. The reports
from the Royal Irish Constabulary around the country into Dublin Castle
seemed to indicate the Irish letting off steam.
THE I.R.B.
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The Military Council of the I.R.B. was Pearse, Clarke, Plunkett,
MacDermott, Ceannt and MacDonough. Tom Clarke looked prematurely old after
15 years in English prisons. The plans for the rising were born in the
little tobacconist shop in Parnell Street run by he and his wife. He
recognized the smoldering power of Pearse, inducted him into the I.R.B.,
and suggested him to the Military Council for Commander-in-Chief of the
rising.
JAMES CONNOLLY
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James Connolly was born in Ulster in 1870, spent his early years in
Glasgow where his parents moved. He went to worked at age eleven as a
Corporation dustman. He settled in Dublin with his wife and two children
in 1896 but was forced to emigrate to America in 1903 because of poverty
due to employer discrimination. He was a dedicated socialist. He hated
British Capitalism and Imperialism. In 1910 he returned to Ireland to the
job of chief organizer in Belfast of the newly formed Irish Transport and
General Workers Union. He united Catholic and Protestant against their
unjust employers. In 1914, big Jim Larkin, the greatest outdoor speaker of
his time, sailed for America to raise funds and Connolly took his place as
General Secretary of the Union at its headquarters in Dublin's Liberty
Hall.
THE CITIZEN'S ARMY
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He found himself also the head of the Irish Citizen's Army which had been
formed during the general strike of 1912 to protect striking workers from
the Dublin Metropolitan Police. He drilled them and marched them through
Dublin streets until the I.R.B. became worried that he would wreck their
own careful plans for insurrection, now planned for Easter 1916. Pearse,
Plunkett and MacDonough met with him and told him their plans. He pledged
his Citizen's Army and was co-opted onto the Military Council without
joining the I.R.B.
EASTER SUNDAY
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A glorious renewal of the Spirit of Ireland was now set for Easter Sunday,
April 23rd 1916. Pearse the poet, writer, schoolmaster was Joan of Arc,
Gandhi, Jesus Christ even, ready, eager perhaps, to die. Yeats lovely poem
"The Rose Tree" caught the feeling exactly:
"But where can we draw water,
Said Pearse to Connolly,
When all the wells are parched away?
O Plain as plain can be
There's nothing but our own red blood
Can make a right Rose Tree."
MACNEILL'S COUNTERMAND
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On Holy Thursday night MacNeill learned by chance that an insurrection was
planned for Sunday. Pearse was roused from his bed to face MacNeill's
anger. The Gaelic League Profesor could not budge Pearse. MacNeill said he
would do everything short of ringing up Dublin Castle to stop it. He felt
that futile insurrection was immoral. It had to have a reasonable chance
of success. Next morning MacDonough and MacDermott convinced him that
German arms were on their way to Kerry with Roger Casement and that would
give the enterprise the possibility of success he needed and anyway it was
by now inevitable. He relented!
Casement was captured shortly after landing in Kerry. The German captain,
trapped in Tralee bay by a British naval vessel, scuttled his ship. On
Saturday MacNeill determined again to stop it. He sent despatches to Cork,
Belfast and Limerick. He put a notice in the Sunday newspapers, directed
over the heads of the officers, to each individual Volunteer, canceling
the "manouvers" and all Volunteer activities for the day.
SALVAGED
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There was shock and turmoil. But all was not lost. Seven resolute men were
meeting at Liberty Hall that Sunday morning, Pearse, Clarke, Connolly,
MacDonough, MacDermott, Ceannt and Plunkett. They must act or be a
disgrace to their generation. The British were on to them now after the
German gunrunning attempt of Good Friday in Kerry. Their plans must be
salvaged. MacNeill's order applied only to Sunday. They decided to confirm
MacNeill's order with an added instruction "all Volunteers are to stay in
Dublin until further orders".
The English would surely strike soon to disarm the Volunteers following
the now known German contacts. Feverish handwritten dispatches were flying
from officer to officer. By late afternoon the Dublin officers knew that
the rising was to take place as planned at noon the next day Easter
Monday. New orders to parade for inspection with full arms and provisions
next morning at 10:00 A.M. were issued.
TO THE GPO
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Pearse ordered that E. Company of the third battalion was to be on parade
outside Liberty Hall at that time as part of a Fifth Dublin Division. It
was this Fifth Division, supplemented by a contingent of Connolly's
Citizen's Army which set off from Liberty Hall to march on the General
Post Office. It numbered about 150 men. James Connolly in the full uniform
of a Commandant General, led the column. On his left, Plunkett. On his
right, Pearse. "Another route march", thought many scoffing onlookers from
the quiet Bank Holiday Dublin streets, until opposite the General Post
Office, Connolly's voice rang out, "Left turn, the G.P.O.-- Charge!"
Disarmed by MacNeill's countermanding order, Dublin Castle had been caught
napping. The men who took the G.P.O. met no resistance. They quickly put
it in a defensive state. They moved in bedding and food from a nearby
hotel, giving a receipt from the new Provisional Government for everything
they took. The trimly uniformed girls of Cumann na mBan organized kitchens
and dressing stations.
PEARSE ON THE STEPS
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The tricolour flag of the new Republic, green, white and orange, floated
above the G.P.O. Down on the street under the portico, Pearse read the
Proclamation of the Irish Republic. Few of the little crowd of strollers,
soldiers on leave from the war in France, mystified metropolitan
policemen, who gathered and gaped, could have guessed at the solemnity of
the moment. The phoenix flame was lit once more.
THE PLAN
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The plan was to isolate the centre of Dublin. The four Dublin battalions
were in position. The men were informed that this was the real thing. Many
were promoted from the ranks. The confused orders caused a very low
turnout. The first battalion under Edward Daly occupied the Four Courts on
the banks of the Liffey and were to guard the north-west of the city. The
second under Thomas MacDonough, a signatory to the Proclamation and the
chief tactician of the Rising, was to defend the southern approach to the
city centre at Jacob's Biscuit Factory. The third under De Valera, at
Boland's Mill closed the ring to the south-east. Eamonn Ceannt, a
signatory, with Cathal Brugha as his number two, commanded the fourth
battalion from the South Dublin Union building, to defend the south-west.
Many Volunteers found their way to their units when they realized what was
happening, but the garrisons were still pitifully small. Communications
were weak. Officers had to act largely in isolation. There was a lot of
sniping in the first few days as the British got themselves organized.
Looting broke out in O'Connell street. Fires were started and left
unattended by the authorities.
MOUNT STREET BRIDGE
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Reinforcements from Britain were landed at Dun Laoghaire on Wednesday. Two
thousand Sherwood Foresters marched in the Merrion Road but met up with De
Valera's men at Mount Street Bridge over the Grand Canal. The greatest
battle of the rising took place here. Unbelievable courage was displayed
on both sides during a four hour battle. The defenders, only twelve in
number, killed and wounded 234 officers and men almost exactly half the
total British military casualties of Easter Week. The Volunteers lost only
four men. Lieutenant Michael Malone, in charge at the bridge, died
fighting with calm heroism.
THE
HELGA
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But the British gun-boat Helga appeared in the Liffey the same day. Her
booming guns told all Dublin who was going to be master. Connolly had
maintained that the British would not use artillery on the buildings of
their capitalists in Dublin. He was wrong. On Thursday, he left the G.P.O.
to inspect some outposts and received two bullets in the thigh.
IN THE GPO
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In the G.P.O. the garrison sang their rebel songs. In doomed defiance they
sang a favorite:
"Tonight we man the Bearna Baoghail
In Erin's cause, come woe or weal,
Mid rifles' roar or cannons' peal
We'll chant a Soldier's Song...."
Their courage is remembered every time we now sing those lines in Our
Nation Anthem! Incendiary shells were falling on Dublin from the guns of
the Helga. The City was on fire. The dead still lay in the streets.
MICHAEL COLLINS
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One of the most efficient officers in the G.P.O. was a young Corkman,
Michael Collins, recently returned from London with other Volunteers.
Michael went to England at age 15. He worked in the Postal Service as an
accountant for ten years. Many of his old London-Irish mates, not in the
I.R.B., were surprised and jeered him when he appeared in the uniform of a
Staff Captain in front of the Liberty Hall the morning of the rising. He
said in the G.P.O. "I'm the only man in the whole place that was'nt at
Confession and Communion".
DUBLIN ON FIRE
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The G.P.O. was engulfed in flames. The upper floors had already crashed
onto the floors below until now only the first floor remained. Most of the
women and the wounded, except Connolly who refused to leave, were
evacuated on Friday. The men tunneled from building to building down Moore
Street in an effort to escape. Many were hit by the relentless encircling
machine gun and rifle fire of the British as they dashed across an opening
to escape ever new flames.
General Sir John Maxwell arrived on Friday to take command. The British
soldiers who felt that the rising was a treacherous stab in the back were
in an inflamed temper. They gave little consideration to civilians caught
in the crossfire. Some were summarily shot, out of pure rage.
SURRENDER
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It was because of what was happening to civilians that Pearse sent young
Elizabeth O'Farrell, carrying a Red Cross flag to the British barricade at
12:45 PM on Saturday. Twice more that brave girl walked that dangerous
journey. The British wanted unconditional surrender. Finally at 3:45 PM
Pearse himself walked to the barricade and surrendered to General Lowe "in
order to prevent the further slaughter of Dublin citizens".
The Four Courts had also finally fallen. Elsewhere the garrisons were
holding out. DeValera and others were reluctant to give in and were
suspicious of a British trick. They demanded confirmation from other
leaders.
PRISON AND DEATH
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The rebels were ahead of their time. They were jeered by the onlooking
Dubliners as they were marched to captivity or the firing squad. "A
terrible beauty was born" wrote Yeats later. The political detectives from
Dublin Castle walked slowly through the sullen ranks, picking out the
ringleaders. They passed by a man unknown to them, who was to be the most
deadly dangerous. He, however, eyed them well and remembered their faces,
he was Michael Collins.
General Maxwell quickly court-martialed and shot the seven signatories to
the Proclamation. Eight more leaders got the same quick justice. Volunteer
Thomas Kent, hanged a week later in Cork, for resisting arrest, makes "the
sixteen" of Easter Week.
IMMEDIATE HOME RULE
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Prime Minister Asquith arrived in Dublin on May 12th. Early that morning
the last two executions, James Connolly and Tom MacDermott, had been
carried out. He spent six days in Ireland. He talked to prisoners and read
the court-martial speeches of the leaders. He began to understand their
motives. On his return he reported to the House of Commons that the
existing machinery of government in Ireland had broken down. He asked
Lloyd George to begin negotiations with the Nationalists and the Ulster
Unionists, on the suspended Home Rule Bill, without waiting for the end of
the war as planned, and get it into operation as soon as possible.
THE ULSTER QUESTION AGAIN
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The intransigence of the Ulster Unionists reappeared with the shelved Home
Rule Bill. Partition reappeared. Lloyd George got Redmond and Carson to
agree that twenty-six counties would be ruled from Dublin and six from
Belfast. They did not agree to whether the arrangement would be permanent
or temporary, the old stumbling block. Carson wanted it permanent, Redmond
could only accept such an arrangement as a temporary expedient. The talks
again broke down.
SINN FEIN
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The Irish people suffering under martial law by Maxwell, saw the impotence
of the Irish Parliamentary Party. They now had a new crop of national
heroes and some great songs. They showed their appreciation for the men of
1916 by voting Sinn Fein at a couple of by-elections. In December 1916,
Asquith was pushed out of office and Lloyd George became Prime Minister.
He released the Rising internees from Frongoch in Wales. On April 4th,
1917 America entered the War and Lloyd George breathed more easily. He
became worried about the growing support for Sinn Fein candidates at
by-elections, some of whom were in British jails during the campaign. In
May 1917 he offered Redmond immediate Home Rule. The six counties of
Northern Ireland would be excluded for a period of five years. Redmond
knew Lloyd George had promised Carson that partition would be permanent,
so he turned it down.
POLITICS
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Redmond suggested a Convention from all walks of Irish life. He and Lloyd
George were anxious to halt the drift towards Sinn Fein. Its founder,
Arthur Griffith, a reluctant convert from a long-held faith in the power
of passive resistance, by now accepted the necessity of physical force and
the idea of a Republic. He decided to step aside as leader. At the Sinn
Fein Ard-Fheis of October 1917, Eamon De Valera, absentee Member of the
British House of Commons for East Clare, was elected President of Sinn
Fein. The following day he was also elected President of the Volunteers.
THE IRB ALIVE AND WELL
top^
Mrs. Kathleen Clarke held the secrets of the I.R.B., put there in his
wisdom by her husband Tom before his execution. It was to her Michael
Collins hurried on his release from Frongoch. Soon the I.R.B. was well
organized again. Its secret President was the President and trustee of the
Republic. The I.R.B. was now the I.R.A., the Army of the Republic,
Proclaimed by Pearse on the steps of the G.P.O. The stage was set for the
final battle with Britain, culminating in the foundation of the Irish Free
State in 1922 and the eventual plebiscite adopting the 1948 Constitution
for what was already, except in name, The Irish Republic.
Copyright Pat Flannery 1993
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