The English have been in Ireland, both as peaceful settlers and conquerors, since the C12th. It was not until Henry VIII 1509-1547 English interference took its toll on the Irish people. In order to subdue and rule Ireland, Henry sent Protestants to colonize Ireland and wrest control of her from the Gaelic and Catholic native population. Subsequent kings and queens, increased the efforts to install plantations across the island, claiming land for England and forcing the Irish to rent their own land back from their conquerors. This effort to "re-colonize" an already thriving civilization was largely successful, particularly in the area around Dublin and in the province of Ulster, and this began the period in Irish history known as the "Protestant Ascendancy". All action on the part of the Irish to resist the incursions were soundly defeated by English forces.
With England's Revolution of 1688, William of Orange and his wife Mary ascended the British throne. But James II, an overt Catholic, decided to make a last- ditch attempt to regain his throne. The decisive battle was that of the Boyne, a river near Dublin, on July 1, 1690. But another battle raged in Derry (renamed Londonderry in the C17th when it was heavily planted with Englishmen and the charter given over to the City of London). Approximately 30,000 Protestants loyal to King William walled up in the city while James II's forces laid siege for 105 days. Eventually William's forces arrived and on July 28th, 1690, James' army retreated. With the end of the siege the cause of Ireland's native population had lost its main champion in England, and the Protestant Ascendancy was secured.
In the early C18th the ruling Protestants in Ireland passed a series of "Penal Laws" designed to strip the "backwards" Catholic population of remaining land, positions of influence and civil rights. Catholics could no longer practice law, run for elected office, purchase land, or own property (eg horses) valued at more than 5 pounds.
By 1778 Irish Catholics would own a meager 5% of Irish land. Furthermore, the Catholic educational system was outlawed and priests who did not conform to the laws could be branded on the face or castrated. As a result, much of Catholic church services and education was forced underground, to operate in secrecy.
Not all Protestants wished to persecute the Catholics. Some, feeding off of the ideals espoused in the American and French Revolutions, and taking advantage of England's weakness during the American Revolution, saw the reasons for and opportunity for independence from Britain. They also believed in certain inherent rights for all people. Some, such as Henry Grattan, believed the penal laws were too harsh, and tried to force Britain into giving the Irish parliament political independence, although he did not favor severing all ties to England.
Others wanted more. Wolfe Tone founded the Society of United Irishmen and with the assistance of the French, tried to launch a full-scale rebellion against British rule in 1798. In the short run, Grattan succeeded where Tone failed, but all was a moot point by 1801 when the British enacted the Act of Union, bringing the business of Ireland's government firmly under English control.
Protestants in the ruling and merchant classes tended to be Anglican, belonging to the Church of Ireland. But not all Protestants were wealthy. Many were farmers like the Catholics and a good number of these belonged to the Presbyterian church, as their ancestors had frequently emigrated from Scotland. Although these Protestant farmers did not feel the impact of the Penal Laws like the Catholics, they too suffered from economic and political frustrations. Like Catholics, many had to sell the best and largest share of their crops to the landlords to pay their rent.
The poorer farmers, Catholic and Protestant alike, were forced onto smaller and smaller plots of land which were barely sufficient for subsistence farming while the wealthier ones forced tenants off the land in order to raise cattle. Because of their position, however, many of these small Protestant farmers were the biggest advocates of the Penal Laws because the restrictions on Catholics freed up land for the Protestants. Even though the Presbyterian farmers also felt the brunt of the high rents and restrictive laws, it was more convenient to follow the loyalties of faith rather than similarity of circumstance, and therefore Catholics became their main enemies.
Occasionally as a result of the pressure for land and rents, secret agrarian societies, Catholic and Protestant, developed in the countryside. Members of these groups directed violence at both property and individuals. Some, such as the Whiteboys and Ribbonmen attacked the landlords, while others fought amongst themselves. The Peep O'Day Boys, a Protestant group, formed to intimidate Catholics who they perceived were a threat to their land. The Catholics retaliated with a group called the Defenders, and the groups waged a small-scale war in the countryside. In 1795 these groups clashed at a town "diamond" in Armagh, and afterwards the victorious Peep O'Day Boys formed the Orange Order, named for their hero William of Orange. Although at first an agrarian organization, the Orange Order soon attracted Protestants of all classes and serves even today as the foremost authority within the Protestant Loyalist communities.
The C19th saw the repeal of some of the harshest penal laws as many Protestants found them impossible to enforce. A few Catholics, thanks to covert assistance from Protestant allies, had also managed to retain their middle-class status during the height of the Penal Laws. The family of Daniel O'Connell was one such family, and Daniel was able to receive a degree in Law. In 1803, in the wake of Robert Emmet's unsuccessful attempt to resurrect the United Irishmen and lead a new rebellion, O'Connell condemned the use of violence. He wanted to push for rights for his people and ultimately called for Catholic emancipation. He gathered the support of thousands of Catholics in Ireland for his Catholic Association, demanding among other things, repeal of the Union, an end to the enforced tithes to the Church of Ireland, and respect for all Irish people regardless of religious persuasion. Even when the British outlawed the Catholic Association, O'Connell's support continued to grow.
At about this time, changes in property qualifications enabled some Catholics to vote. Entrenched Protestant landlords were defeated in elections by those supported by the Catholic Association, and with pressure growing, Britain passed the Catholic Relief Act of 1829, which among other things, allowed Catholics to hold political office and overturned the remaining Penal Laws. O'Connell was duly elected as the first Catholic MP since the Penal Laws.
But with Emancipation won, even Protestants who had sided with suffering Catholics in the past now felt threatened by the new power block, and it was at this time that Protestants of all classes began to shift away from dreams of Irish independence such as Grattan and Tone had espoused and instead began to cling to the Union with Britain as the best way to retain their prestige and power. These men became bitter enemies to O'Connell and his growing entourage of Irish Catholic MP's that pushed for repeal of the Union.
During the early days in Parliament, O'Connell found allies in the Young Ireland movement, which was made up of young intellectuals who published the Nation, a newspaper dedicated to the cause of Irish nationalism. Young Irelanders such as Charles Gavan Duffy, John Mitchel, John Dillon and Thomas Davis wanted to see Ireland free herself from political and economic subservience, but they also began to promote cultural nationalism and pride in "Irishness."
With his snowballing success, in 1843 O'Connell began to call "monster meetings", with hundreds of thousands attending all across the country and calling for Repeal of the Union. Britain, worried about O'Connell's influence over such numbers of people, threatened the use of force against the meetings, and eventually, in October 1843, before a huge meeting to occur at Clontarf, O'Connell was unwilling to call Britain's bluff, and the meeting was cancelled. From then on, O'Connell, unwilling to commit his followers to violent means of protest, and finding that many of his supporters were suffering from the potato blights beginning in 1845, saw his support ebb from him.
Meanwhile, the Young Irelanders did not have the same distaste for violence. They began to quarrel with O'Connell over tactics and Duffy, William Smith O'Brien and Thomas Meagher abandoned the Catholic Association in 1847. They formed the Irish Confederation but by 1848 experienced their own split when John Mitchel joined and advocated taking on the landlords as well as Britain, a cause O'Brien, himself a landlord, could not espouse. That year the remnants of the Young Ireland movement attempted to capitalize on the rebellions occurring across Europe by staging their own, but before they could accomplish much, most of them found themselves imprisoned or "transported" to a penal colony as penalties for treason against Britain.
Part of the reason both the Young Irelanders and O'Connell lost support was due to a situation well beyond their control. Beginning in 1845, the Great Hunger, or as some refer to it, the Irish Potato Famine, decimated the Irish population, affecting people of all religions but especially the poor Catholic tenant farmers who were most likely to support Irish nationalism in one form or another. The farmers had to sell the majority of their crops to their landlords or face eviction. In order to survive and feed their families, these farmers grew potatoes, a crop which required the least amount of land for the greatest yield, on a small plot on their land.
There had been many blights in the past which had affected the potatoes, causing the plants to die and tubers to rot, but the one which hit in 1845 was the first to affect the entire island on such a scale. People who depended on their potatoes to survive suddenly had no food, and if they ate the other crops they faced evictions and a life of homelessness, an even worse fate. Many of the poorest simply died, and those with relatives elsewhere or any form of assistance bought the cheapest passages possible to America and crammed into what became known as "coffin ships" to escape certain death in Ireland.
The potato blight destroyed the food crops for several years. 1847 was the worst year, for even though the blight was weaker, few tubers remained from previous years to plant, and starvation increased. Many were found dead with grass stains on their mouths or seaweed in their stomachs as they had attempted to stave off death. What made their deaths the more tragic was that there was no true famine, as there was plenty of grain, beef, butter and milk, but it was all destined for English mouths.
The Hunger had a profound effect on Irish politics. First of all, it created an entire generation of Irish living abroad who had reason to hate the English. Second, rebels who remained-those who were able to rise from the ashes of the Young Ireland movement in particular-had a new determination to change the situation for Ireland and her people.
In 1858 members from the Young Ireland movement regrouped. In America, James Stephens and John O'Mahony, with Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, formed the Fenian Brotherhood, the first Irish organization to clearly state its objectives as the creation of a democratic Irish Republic. The Irish branch of the Fenians became known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Together, the Fenians recruited men such as John Mitchel and plotted to raise an armed force in rebellion against England, drawing on the Irish in United States as sources for money and weaponry.
Later, under control of American Col. Thomas Kelly, in 1867 the Fenians made a bold stab at another Irish rebellion, but disorganization and poor planning got the best of them. Although the leaders again were imprisoned or forced underground, the movement did not disappear, but instead operated in secret for several decades to come.
A new movement, one calling for Home Rule for Ireland, was created by Issac Butt in 1870. By 1877 the Home Rule MP's elected Charles Stewart Parnell as their representative. Parnell wished to combine agrarian and political concerns together within the Home Rule Movement, and by 1879 led the National Land League as well. His strategy was to challenge the British government head-on, and by the 1880s the Home Rule MP's held the balance of power in Parliament. As a result, the first Home Rule bill was introduced in 1886, but it and the next Home Rule bill did not succeed for many reasons. Parnell was discredited by both a plot to accuse him of complicity in the Phoenix Park murders and by his own tragic love affair and the Ulster Unionists began to put pressure of their own on Parliament.
Many people did not think that Home Rule went far enough. The Irish Republican Brotherhood had made a dramatic resurgence around the turn of the century. Its members infiltrated several organizations, including Sinn Fein, formed in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, the Gaelic League, formed in 1893 to promote the Irish language, culture and the Gaelic Athletic Association.
Socialist agitation added to the mix. The IRB believed that England would never release Ireland unless forced to do so through the use of violence. The Irish Volunteers, a militia created by the Irish Republican Brotherhood and soon numbering 180,000, had thrown its support behind John Redmond, the new leader of the Home Rule Party. The potential for violence encouraged the British to introduce a third Home Rule bill in 1912, and it had passed but suspended when England was pulled into World War I. Promises were made that if Ireland helped England defeat Germany, Home Rule would be a certainty.
The IRB leadership had other ideas. Counting on the support of the Volunteers as well as the Socialist James Connolly's citizen army, IRB leaders planned a rebellion to occur in Dublin on Easter, 1916, which was to spark off a full-scale, country-wide, revolt. Several men, including Patrick Pearse of the Gaelic League and the labour agitator and socialist James Connolly, planned with the help of German weapons to simultaneously rebel at several key points across the island. Sir Roger Casement was to secure Germany's assistance, including ammunition, weapons and manpower.
Some, such as Eoin MacNeill, the leader of the Volunteers, believed a rebellion would lead to the slaughter of the Irish, and when word reached them of the impending rising, they tried to stop it at the last minute. Word was already circulating to call off the rising when the leaders took over the General Post Office in Dublin on Easter Monday. From the G.P.O. Pearse read the newly-written Proclamation of the Irish Republic, and from there 1500 rebels held off the British forces for six days before nearly all the leaders were captured, imprisoned and executed.
The British thought that by executing the leaders of the rebellion they would quell any further notions of Irish independence. But the harsh action had the opposite result. In the months that followed, the Irish Volunteers continued to train, and the leaders used Sinn Fein as a platform to get members elected to Parliament, which they then refused to enter. In 1919, with WWI over, frustration over the lack of Home Rule (due to the British government's continuing efforts to cater to the Ulster unionists), led the Irish Sinn Feiners to form their own parliament, known as Dail Eireann. and from there it was an easy next step to engage the Irish Volunteers in the Irish War of Independence.
For the next two years the Irish forces, now known as the Irish Republican Army, fought the British armies, including the brutal Black and Tans (mercenary’s and prisoners) in Ireland. England's resources had been taxed by the war with Germany, and that, coupled with the unorthodox guerrilla techniques employed by the Irish, turned the effort in Ireland's favour.
The war cost many Irish lives, however, and eventually people wearied of the fighting. Consequently, when Britain offered to meet the Irish in treaty talks in December 1921, the leaders were ready to negotiate. Michael Collins, the IRA leader, agreed to British terms for peace, which among other things created a twenty-six county Irish Free State with dominion status.
Many, such as Eamon DeValera (the only 1916 leader to avoid execution, and by this time president of the Dail), opposed the Treaty, viewing it as a sell-out since the six counties left out of the Treaty, 2/3 of the ancient province of Ulster, had been retained by the British to appease the Unionist Protestants living there. In fact, Northern Ireland, as this newly-partitioned area became known, was the largest area which would maintain a loyal Protestant majority. In essence, the British planned to keep at least part of the island, and political sentiment, under British control indefinitely.
As a result of the disagreement over the Treaty, DeValera resigned his position and quickly the Irish Civil War began. This war pitted former allies against one another as the terms of the Treaty were contested by force and the war resulted in more Irish deaths than had the war with Britain. It only came to an end in 1923 when the pro-Treaty side, now the Free State Army (which had lost its leader, Michael Collins, to an assassin's bullet early in the conflict) finally wore down its opposition, known as the Irregulars (but still referred to as the IRA by many). The IRA was outlawed by the Free State and its members outlawed. Even as an illegal organization, the IRA and Sinn Fein, the political party which also reputed the Treaty, continued to fight the Irish government up through the 1950s, with its members regularly imprisoned.
In 1926, Eamon DeValera, repudiated the more radical elements of Sinn Fein and found a way to circumvent a distasteful oath of allegiance to Britain. As the leader of the new party, Fianna Fail, he was elected Prime Minister, or Taoiseach, of the Free State in 1932 and in 1937 put forth a new Irish Constitution that declared Ireland to be a Republic, independent of Britain. Also included in this new Constitution were provisions making Gaelic the first official language of the Republic and a territorial claim to the entire 32 counties of Ireland.
World War II presented another challenge for Ireland. Although there were some who believed England's enemies should be Ireland's allies and therefore Ireland should side with Germany, many more were unsympathetic to the Nazi cause. Ultimately the Irish Government retained a neutral stance during the war, but in reality allowed both Britain and the US to call upon Irish ports and airstrips when necessary.
The next serious crisis for Ireland would wait until two decades later, and Dublin fell into the shadows as the focus of events shifted north-to the partitioned province of Northern Ireland.