Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T05:51:45.606Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Anatomy of a Nationalist Revolution: Ireland, 1858–1928

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Tom Garvin
Affiliation:
University College, Dublin

Extract

The Irish national revolution has been a long time dying. This is due in part to its artificial continuance in Northern Ireland and in part to the survival of its slogans, in fossilized form, as official symbols of the democratic regime in the Republic of Ireland. The main phase of the movement is, however, long over; even the ideological residue left by it is in an advanced state of decomposition, and Patrick Pearse and James Connolly have no intellectual heirs of any importance.

Type
The Achievements of Revolutions
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Brinton, Crane, The Anatomy of Revolution (New York: Random House, 1965), 16–20Google Scholar; Johnson, Chalmers, Revolutionary Change (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982), 182–84Google Scholar; Hagopian, Mark, The Phenomenon of Revolution (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), 233–46. Throughout this article, archival sources are cited using the following abbreviations: AD CUA—Archives and Manuscripts Department, Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.; AD UCD-Archives Department, University College, Dublin; LC—Library of Congress, Wash-ington, D.C.; NA—National Archives, Washington, D.C.; NLI—National Library of Ireland, Dublin; PROL—Public Record Office, London; SPO-State Paper Office, Dublin.Google Scholar

2 Pocock, J. G. A., “The Case of Ireland Truly Stated: Revolutionary Politics in a Context of Increasing Stabilisation,” Department of History, George Washington University, typescript, (1966).Google Scholar

3 Lee, J, The Modernisation of Irish Society, 1848–1918 (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1973)Google Scholar; Farrell, Brian, The Founding of Ddil Eireann (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1971)Google Scholar. For a recent, brillant empiricist essay on long-term modernization processes in Ireland, see Cullen, L. M., The Emergence of Modern Ireland (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1981)Google Scholar. For a critique of modernization theory, see Tipps, Dean C., “Modernization Theory and the Comparative Study of Societies: A Critical Perspective,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 15:2 (03 1973), 199226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Larkin, E, “The Devotional Revolution in Ireland, 1850–75,” American Historical Review, 11 (06 1972), 625–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Connell, K, “Catholicism and Marriage in the Century after the Famine,” in his Irish Peasant Society (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), 113–62Google Scholar; Miller, D, “Irish Catholicism and the Great Famine,” Journal of Social History, 9:1 (1977), 8198.Google Scholar

5 Lee, Modernisation of Irish Society; and see also his “The Ribbonmen,” in Secret Societies in Ireland, Williams, D., ed. (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1973), 2645Google Scholar. On agrarian social change after the Famine, see Clark, S, The Social Origins of the Irish Land War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Bew, P, Land and the National Question in Ireland, 1858–82 (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1978).Google Scholar

6 Garvin, Tom, The Evolution of Irish Nationalist Politics (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1981), 6998.Google Scholar

7 Scott, J. C., “Protest and Profanation: Agrarian Revolt and the Little Tradition, Part I,” Theory and Society, 4:1 (Spring 1977), 138Google Scholar. Cf. his The Moral Economy of the Peasant (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), 9298.Google Scholar

8 Moore, Barrington, The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1969)Google Scholar; Scott, , Moral Economy.Google Scholar

9 Moore, Barrington, Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt (London: Macmillan, 1978), 476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Calhoun, Craig Jackson, “The Radicalism of Tradition: Community Strength or Venerable Disguise and Borrowed Language?” American Journal of Sociology, 88:5 (1983), 886914, at 886–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. the somewhat similar diagnosis of Thompson, W. I., The Imagination of an Insurrection (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), 362. Cf. also NA, Despatches from Consuls, 841–00/5–85, 30 September 1916, Queenstown.Google Scholar

11 Calhoun, “Radicalism of Tradition,” 890–91Google Scholar. See also Billington, James, Fire in Men's Minds (New York: Basic Books, 1980), 402–3.Google Scholar

12 Tilly, Charles, Tilly, Let al., The Rebellious Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Hroch, M, Die Vorkämpfer der Nationalen Bewegung bei den kleinen Völkern Europas (Prague: Universita Karlova, 1968)Google Scholar. Quote from Hobsbawm, E. J., “Some Reflections on Nationalism,” in Imagination and Precision in the Social Sciences, Nossiter, T. J., Hanson, A. H.et al., eds. (London: Faber and Faber, 1972), 385406Google Scholar. See also Nairn, Tom, “The Modem Janus,” New Left Review, 94 (1112 1975), 330Google Scholar; Wolf, Eric, Peasant Wars in the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper and Row, 1969)Google Scholar; and Fitzpatrick, D, “The Geography of Irish Nationalism, 1910–1921,” Past and Present, no. 78 (02 1978), 113144.Google Scholar

14 Wolf, , Peasant Wars.Google Scholar

15 NLI, MS 10492.

16 Pearse, Patrick, Political Writings and Speeches (Dublin: Talbot, 1966), 237.Google Scholar

17 ibid., 303.

18 Greaves, C. Desmond, The Life and Times of James Connolly (New York: International Publishers, 1971), 14, 154Google Scholar. Greaves argues elsewhere that Connolly's father had Marxist politics and that Connolly himself saw the nationalist revolution as a necessary preliminary for a socialist revolution (see his Connolly and Easter Week: A Rejoinder to John Newsinger,” Science and Society, 48:2 (Summer 1984), 220–23).Google Scholar

19 NLI, MS 10492.

20 SPO, FP, Carton I; Pilot, 2 April 1859. But see Munster and Connacht as centers of IRB strength in local representative councils at the end of the century in the aftermath of the Land War (PROL, CO 904/ 184/ 1).

21 For examples of anti-urban nativism, see Corkery's, Daniel foreword to O'Donoghue, F., Tomás MacCurtain (Tralee: Kerryman, 1958)Google Scholar; Ambrose, J, The Story of Dan Breen (Cork: Mercier, 1982)Google Scholar; Eoin, U. Mac, Survivors (Dublin: Argenta, 1981), 75104.Google Scholar

22 Moody, T. W., The Fenian Movement (Cork: Mercier, 1968)Google Scholar. On general Fenian strength in Ireland and its distribution, see SPO, A Files, A 124; Pilot, 6 January, 3 and 17 February, 17 and 24 March, 6 and 13 April 1866. Cf. Newsinger, J, “Old Chartists, Fenians, and New Socialists,” tire-Ireland, 17 (Summer 1982), 2, 1946.Google Scholar

23 A Silent Politician, On the Future of Ireland, and on Its Capacity to Exist as an Independent State (Dublin: Harding, 1862).Google Scholar

24 Sources, : Fenian leaders listed in the Dictionary of National Biography (London: Smith, Elder, 19081909)Google Scholar; Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1964)Google Scholar; and Boylan, H, A Dictionary of Irish Biography (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1978). AD CUA, Rossa Papers, Box 1, Item 4, lists 533 American Fenians (1865), Cork names being heavily overrepresented.Google Scholar

25 Pilot, 28 December 1867.Google Scholar

26 NLI, MS 7953/6.

27 NLI, MS 3041 (1 January 1866), 791.

28 Gross, Felix, The Revolutionary Party (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1974).Google Scholar

29 Clark, S, Social Origins, 246304.Google Scholar

30 SPO, DICS, Carton 3; SPO, CBS 548/5, 1128/5, 1153/5, 1181/5, 1205/5, 1224/5, 1229/5, 1355/5, 1360/5, 1482/5, 1487/5, 1505/5, 1873/5, 9001/5, 9301/5, 11426/5, 11921/5,11207/5,13114/5, 14993/5.

31 Brown, Terence, Ireland: A Social and Cultural History 1922–79 (London: Fontana, 1981), 2427Google Scholar; Arensberg, C. M. and Kimball, S, Family and Community in Ireland (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Birmingham, G. A., Irishmen All (London: Foulis, 1913), 213–18Google Scholar. The Yeats quotation is from Levenson, S, Maud Gonne (New York: Reader's Digest, 1976), 113.Google Scholar

32 Data are culled from Flynn's Parliamentary Companions (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1929, 1932, 1939, 1945)Google Scholar; Boylan, , Dictionary of Irish Biography;Google ScholarO'Farrell, P., Who's Who in the Irish War of Independence, 1916–1921 (Dublin and Cork: Mercier, 1980).Google Scholar

33 Putnam, R, The Comparative Study of Political Elites (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 195–98.)Google Scholar

34 O'Malley, E., On Another Man's Wound (Dublin: Anvil, 1979), 144.Google Scholar

35 See the discussion in Rejai, M and Phillips, K, Leaders of Revolution (Beverly Hills and London: Sage, 1979), 2434, 5556.Google Scholar

36 Dáil Debates: Official Report of the Debate on the Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, 14 December 1921–1910 January 1922 (Dublin: Talbot, n.d.), 410–11, 416.Google Scholar

37 Rejai, and Phillips, , Leaders of Revolution, 55, 6972.Google Scholar

38 Dáil Debates (10 01 1922), 400401Google Scholar. On importance of the United States, London, and Munster connections to persistence of the IRB, see Incipient Irish Revolutions, an Exposé of Fenianism Today (London: Eglington, 1889) (NLI, Eglington 94108 EI).Google Scholar

39 NLI, MS 11127.

40 AD UCD P48o/374–388.

41 Garvin, Tom, “Decolonisation, Nationalism, and Electoral Politics in Ireland, 1832–1945,” in Wählerbewegungen in der Europäischen Geschichte, Busch, O., ed. (Berlin: Colloquium Verlag, 1980), 259–80Google Scholar. Quotation from Dáil Debates (1 March 1922), 157.Google Scholar

42 Macready, N, Annals of an Active Life (London: Hutchinson, n.d.), 11, 615.Google Scholar

43 PROL, PRO 30/59, 1.

44 PROL, PRO 30/59, 4. See British assessment of Dáil delegation and of the 1921 Dáil in Earl of Birkenhead, F. E.(London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1959), 375.Google Scholar

45 Moss, Warner, Political Parties in the Irish Free State (New York: Columbia University Press, 1933), 64.Google Scholar

46 See, for example, AD UCD P17b/95; O'Malley, E., The Singing Flame (Dublin: Anvil, 1978), 43.Google Scholar

47 O'Malley, , Singing Flame, 285–86Google Scholar. Cf. J. J. Sherlock memoir, 71, 78–79, 85, in NLI, MS 9873, Papers, F. S. Bourke; and O'Beirne-Ranalagh, J., “The IRB from the Treaty to 1924,” Irish Historical Studies, 20:77 (March 1976), 2639.Google Scholar

48 AD UCD P17b/ 100, 103.

49 O'Hegarty, P. S., The Victory of Sinn Féin (Dublin: Talbot Press, 1924), 7577Google Scholar

50 PROL, PRO 30/59 (10 December 1921), 1–5.

51 Pyne, P, “The Third Sinn Féin Party, 1923–1926,” Economic and Social Review, 1:1, 2 (1969), 2950, 229–57.Google Scholar

52 PROL, CO 904/188(1).

53 AD UCD P17b/123.

54 Ibid., P17b/133.

55 Ibid., P48a/42–43.

56 Ibid., P48a/42.

57 Dáil Debates: Offcial Report of the Debate on the Treaty (21 12 1921), 112.Google Scholar

58 Ibid., (3 January 1922), 187–88.

59 Dáil Debates: Private Sessions of the Second Dáil, 18 August 1921–6 January 1922 (Dublin: Stationery Office, n.d. [1966]), (17 December 1921), 242–43.Google Scholar

60 Dáil Debates: Official Report of the Debate on the Treaty, 112.Google Scholar

61 PROL, PRO 30/67/56. See Butler, Evan, Barry's Flying Column (London: Cooper, 1971), 33.Google Scholar

62 O'Hegary, , Victory, 240–43.Google Scholar

63 Connolly, J, Memoir, in private possession, n.d. [19581960], 335–36.Google Scholar

64 PROL, PRO 30–59 (17 August 1920), 1–5.

65 Macready, , Annals, II, 603; Mark Sturgis's Diaries, PROL, PRO 30/59 (13 November 1921), 1–5.Google Scholar

66 NLI, MS 21142.

67 Eoin, Mac, Survivors, 340Google Scholar

68 Russell, G, The Interpreters (London: Macmillan, 1922).Google Scholar

69 O'Malley, , On Another Man's Wound, 228.Google Scholar

70 NLI, MS 15991.

71 AD UCD P7/D/ 14. Cf. Desmond FitzGerald's comments in LC, Arthur Papers, Container 36, 29 January 1923.

72 Dáil Debates: Official Report of the Debate on the Treaty, 116.Google Scholar

73 NLI, MS 10561. But see NA, Despatches from Consuls, 841–00/86–190, 10 May 1918.

74 NLI, MS 15993.

75 Griffith, K and O'Grady, T., Curious Journey (London, Hutchinson, 1982), 187.Google Scholar

76 Eoin, Mac, Survivors, 25.Google Scholar

77 Lifton, R. J., Revolutionary Immortality (New York: Random House, 1968).Google Scholar

78 Ussher, Arland, The Face and Mind of Ireland (London: Gollancz, 1949), 25.Google Scholar