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Nationalism and partition: the political thought of Arthur Clery
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
Arthur Chanel Clery appears in James Joyce’s Stephen Hero among the students at University College, Dublin, as a platitudinous timeserver called Whelan who criticises Stephen Dedalus’s views on Ibsen and wants to be a county court judge. Clery became a Gaelic Leaguer, defence lawyer for 1916 insurgents, Sinn Féin Supreme Court judge during the War of Independence, Republican envoy to the Vatican during the Civil War, and — briefly — an abstentionist T.D. He was also one of the few nationalists of his generation to advocate partition, not as a matter of political expediency, but because he regarded the Ulster Protestants as a separate nation entitled to self-determination. This article traces the development of his political attitudes from his youthful advocacy of Christian democracy in response to snobbery and anti-Catholic discrimination, to his final years as an extreme Republican who called parliamentary democracy a sham invented by Freemasons to justify exploitation of the poor, and advocated a new Catholic social order which would combine the achievements of Lenin and Mussolini.
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References
1 Joyce, James, Stephen Hero (London, 1966 ed.), pp 90, 101–2,176,184Google Scholar; Joyce, Stanislaus, My brother’s keeper (New York, 1958), pp 113, 144Google Scholar; Ellmann, Richard, James Joyce (Oxford, 1988 ed.), pp 70, 96Google Scholar.
2 The Marists of the Catholic University School encouraged devotion to the Marist martyr Pierre Chanel; hence Clery’s confirmation name, later his pen-name.
3 ‘My castle in Spain’ in The Leader, 18 Jan. 1930; Dawson, William, ‘Arthur Clery, 1879–1932’ in Studies, xxii, no. 89 (Mar. 1933), pp 77-88Google Scholar; will of Arthur Clery, 25 Sept. 1920, admitted to probate at Dublin, 13 Feb. 1933 (N.A.I., Testamentary Calendar 1933 (132)). All articles cited are by Clery unless otherwise stated; the pseudonym used is given only for books.
4 Article in St Stephen’s, Feb. 1904; ‘The University College man — a psychological sketch’, ibid., Dec. 1903; ‘Cui Bono’, ibid., Feb. 1904; ‘The poor-mouth policy’ in The Leader, 3 Aug. 1907. For blocked upward mobility for educated Catholics as stimulus to nationalism see Garvin, Tom, Nationalist revolutionaries in Ireland, 1858–1928 (Oxford, 1987)Google Scholar, though his primary focus is on separatism and non-graduates.
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8 Andrews, C.S., Man of no property (Cork, 1982) pp 43-4Google Scholar; see also his view — enunciated at a time when he was an outspoken Irish Republican — that the Carlist claimant was the legitimate king of Spain (‘On Kinahan and others’ in The Leader, 15 Aug. 1931).
9 Government by disreputables’ in New Ireland Review, Apr. 1906, pp 81–6; ‘The danger of Whiggery’ in The Leader,24 Feb. 1906; ‘Kingdom come’, ibid., 19 July 1930.
10 The land of the traitor’ in New Ireland Review, July 1910, pp 297–301; ‘On avoiding sin’ in The Leader, 3 Dec. 1927. Clery’s bachelorhood may have been as much a matter of choice as necessity; but he saw it as imposed on him by his fidelity to his ideals.
11 T. MacF, ‘Arthur Clery — II’ in The Leader, 28 Nov. 1942; ‘The poor man’s university’ in New Ireland Review, Feb. 1909, pp 333–9.
12 An Irish aspect of women’s suffrage’ in The Leader, 10 Nov. 1906; ‘The new franchise movement’, ibid., 6 Mar. 1909; ‘The religious aspect of women’s suffrage’ in Irish Review, Nov. 1913, pp 479–84, repr. in Clery, Arthur, Dublin essays (Dublin, 1920), pp 122-9Google Scholar.
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21 ‘Going to Trinity’ in The Leader, 29 Oct. 1904; ‘Scholars and scholarship’, ibid., 1 July 1905.
22 ‘Education and enterprise’, ibid., 8 May 1909. This experience may have influenced the tone of ‘The land of the traitor’ in New Ireland Review, July 1910, pp 297–301, which contains a particularly bitter denunciation of emigration as treachery.
23 ’The sect of the Gael’ in The Leader, 10 Feb. 1912; ‘Rugby football and the “condumnium’”, ibid., 14 Mar. 1914; ‘On avoiding sin’, ibid., 3 Dec. 1927; ‘My morality’, ibid., 5 July 1930.
24 ’Is Ireland a country or a county?’, ibid., 26 June 1915.
25 ‘Our Protestant brother’ in New Ireland Review, Dec. 1908, pp 234–8; ‘The religious angle in Ireland’ in Studies, iv, no. 15 (Sept. 1915), pp 432–40; ‘Is Ireland a country or a county?’ in The Leader, 26 June 1915.
26 ’Synan, Arthur’, The return of the king (Dublin, 1909)Google Scholar, esp. chs 7 and 12 and pp 141–2.
27 ’Power in percentage’ in The Leader, 20 Jan. 1906; ‘The danger of Whiggery’, ibid., 24 Feb. 1906;‘The keys of the Castle’, ibid., 29 Sept. 1906;‘When the green flag floats’, ibid., 20 Oct. 1906.
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36 Kennedy, Liam, Two Ulsters: a case for repartition (Belfast, 1986)Google Scholar.
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38 ‘The partition of Ulster’ in The Leader, 17 Feb. 1906, repr. as ‘Free Ulster and federated Ireland’ in ‘Chanel’, Idea of a nation, pp 71–2.
39 Bew, Conflict and conciliation, pp 130–33. Clery’s diminishing expectations as the bill was prepared and opposition when its terms were published can be traced in the following articles: ‘Power in percentage’ in The Leader, 20 Jan. 1906; ‘The danger of Whiggery’, ibid., 24 Feb. 1906; ‘The keys of the Castle’, ibid., 29 Sept. 1906; ‘Anti-parliamentarians and devolution’, ibid., 12 Jan. 1907; ‘The bill’, ibid., 2 Mar. 1907; ‘Chanel on the bill’, ibid., 18 May 1907.
40 ‘The long fan policy’ in New Ireland Review, Oct. 1907, pp 65–71.
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50 ‘Earl-Meathism’, ibid., 17 Oct. 1914; ‘Crypto-unionism and neo-unionism’, ibid., 2 Oct. 1915.
51 Lyons, Enigma of Tom Kettle, pp 288–9;‘Austin Stack’ in The Leader, 4 May 1929.
52 ‘The commonwealth of Ireland’ in The Leader, 31 Mar. 1917; ‘Dog collars and conventions’, ibid., 2 June 1917; ‘The re-establishment of the Protestant church’, ibid., 27 Apr. 1918.
53 This view was not unique: cf. T. H. Burbage, ‘Mr Wilson and his friends’ in Catholic Bulletin, Jan. 1918.
54 ‘The colony’ in The Leader, 16 Mar. 1918; ‘Freemasons and freedom’, ibid., 18 July 1918; ‘The old rut’, ibid., 16 Nov. 1918.
55 ‘Armagh virumque’, ibid., 9 Feb. 1918; see also subsequent controversy in The Leader with the northern Sinn Feiner Louis J. Walsh.
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57 Quinn, Peggy et al, An Irish banking revolution: the story of the National Land Bank (Dublin, 1995), p. 41 Google Scholar. I owe this reference to Paul Bew.
58 ‘Clongowes men and Irish Ireland’ in The Clongownian, 1918, pp 151–4.
59 ‘The Dublin snob-woman’ in The Leader, 28 May 1921; ‘The Mason war’, ibid., 19 Feb. 1921; ‘Molesworth Street moves’, ibid., 19 Mar. 1921.
60 ‘The Ulster throw-backs’, ibid., 3 Apr. 1920; ‘The Mason grip’, ibid., 8 Jan. 1921; ‘Protestantism on the brain’, ibid., 12 July 1924.
61 ‘A question of names’, ibid., 2 July 1921; ‘Avis’ [William Dawson], ‘Words, words, words!’, ibid., 9 July 1921; ‘The names “Catholic” and “marriage”‘, ibid., 16 July 1921.
62 ‘Substance and soul’, ibid., 17 Dec. 1921.
63 ‘No appreciable diminution’, ibid., 25 Nov. 1922; ‘The midnight treaty’, ibid., 21 June 1924.
64 Diarmuid Ó Cruadlaoich, Step by step from the Republic back into the Empire [c. 1934], pp 6–7; Kotsonouris, Retreat from revolution, pp 81–7; Keogh, Dermot, Ireland and the Vatican (Cork, 1994), pp 12, 25–6,54Google Scholar; Dawson, ‘Arthur Clery’, p. 79.
65 Kotsonouris, Retreat from revolution, pp 121–4; N.A.I, file D/Jus H140, esp. memo by P. Ó Síocháin, Department of Finance, to Minister for Home Affairs, 10 Sept. 1923.
66 Dawson, ‘Arthur Clery’, pp 80–81; Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, ‘Arthur Clery: an appreciation’ in An Phoblacht, 3 Dec. 1932; Ó Cruadlaoich, Step by step, p. 11. His impoverishment should not be overstated (he visited the Continent regularly and gave his students an annual dinner in a Dublin restaurant; his estate at probate was £1,337 7s. 2d.), but since his day-to-day lifestyle was austere, his poverty was overestimated.
67 ‘The Maoris — and us’ in The Leader, 21 Jan. 1928; ‘Decimation’, ibid., 3 Nov. 1928.
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69 ‘The independence movement of 1948’ in The Leader, 30 Sept. 1922.
70 Republicans often presented political issues in religious terms: see Garvin, Tom, 1922: the birth of Irish democracy (Dublin, 1996), pp 23-4Google Scholar, 33–4, 42–4, 49–50, 133–4, 143, 147–51.
71 ‘High Church and Low’ in The Leader, 17 Nov. 1923; ‘English policy in Ireland’, ibid., 4 Aug. 1923; ‘The military crisis’, ibid., 24 Mar. 1924; ‘The Church of England’, ibid., 24 Mar. 1928; ‘The Devil’s sacrament and act of faith’, ibid., 12 July 1930.
72 ‘The 80% solution’, ibid., 6 July 1929; ‘Horses and asses: or the Freemason and the ballot box’, ibid., 11 Oct. 1924.
73 ‘Horses and asses: or the Freemason and the ballot box’, ibid., 11 Oct. 1924; ‘Protestantism on the brain’, ibid., 12 July 1924.
74 Marchand, Philip, Marshall McLuhan: the medium and the messenger (Toronto, 1989), pp 27-8Google Scholar,48-9,70,130-32,148-9,155.
75 ‘The return of the middle ages’ in Studies, xiv, no. 58 (June 1925), pp 231-7Google Scholar. For an earlier, more pessimistic, view of the cinema see ‘The Fifth Horseman’ in The Leader, 8 Sept. 1923.
76 ‘The name “republic” ’ in The Leader, 25 Oct. 1924. This article constitutes one of the few clear statements to emerge in the course of a long and acrimonious controversy with an Irish-American contributor in 1924–5, during which Clery is remarkably flippant and evasive.
77 Ward, Margaret, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington (Cork, 1997), p. 277 Google Scholar.
78 The voting figures (all counts) are in Gallagher, Michael (ed.), Irish elections, 1922–44: results and analysis (Limerick, 1993), p. 76 Google Scholar. For the campaign see Andrews, Man of no property, p. 60.
79 Mary MacSwiney to Clery, 8 Nov. 1928 (U.C.D.A., MacSwiney papers, P48a/363 (68)) (I owe this reference to Brian S. Murphy); obituary for Clery in Irish Press, 21 Nov. 1932.
80 Curran, Under the receding wave, p. 129.
81 ‘The Ulster egg’ in The Leader, 24 Jan. 1931; ‘A premature hatching’, ibid., 21 Feb. 1931;‘Ulster will bite’, ibid., 1 Nov. 1930.
82 ‘Two suggestions to Fianna Fáil’, ibid., 19 Mar. 1932; ‘The English and the oath’, ibid., 26 Mar. 1932.
83 T. MacF., ‘Arthur Clery’ in The Leader, 21 Nov. 1942; Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, ‘Arthur Clery: an appreciation’ in An Phoblacht, 3 Dec. 1932.
84 Ó Cruadlaoich, Step by step, p. 11.
85 For a general analysis of these strategies of evasion see O’Halloran, Partition and the limits of Irish nationalism.
86 The research for this article was undertaken with the assistance of a British Academy postdoctoral research fellowship and a grant for photocopying from the Queen’s University of Belfast. Earlier versions were delivered at the annual conference of the Political Studies Association of Ireland in October 1996 and a British Academy junior fellows’ seminar in January 1998. I am grateful to Professor Paul Bew, Dr Brian S. Murphy, Dr Margaret O’Callaghan and Professor Roy Foster for their comments.