Towards the

Republic of
Ireland
Background:Movements of
opposition to British rule
since the 18th century:
Irish Rebellion (1798).
The main organising force was the
Society of United Irishmen, a
republican revolutionary group
influenced by the ideas of the
American and French revolutions.
France sent an armada in support of
the rebellion, but it failed to land in
Ireland. The uprising was quickly and
brutally suppressed. It stimulated
the passing of the Act of Union
(1800).
Daniel O’Connell and Catholic
Emancipation (1829)
O’Connell was the political leader of Ireland's
Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the
19th century. His mobilization of Catholic Ireland,
down to the poorest class of tenant farmers,
secured the final installment of Catholic
emancipation (removal of restrictions of rights for
the Catholic population in the UK) in 1829 and
allowed him to take a seat in the UK Parliament. He
rejected the use of violence.
He failed in his attempt to have the Act of Union
repealed.
The Fenian Movement

The Fenians were Irish nationalists

organised in secret societies that
fought for Irish Independence using
guerilla and terrorist tactics. They
were active in the 1860s in Ireland,
England and the United States.
American Fenians organised raids
against British Canada. These raids
were an argument in favour of
Canadian Confederation (the process
by which three British North
American provinces, the Province of
Canada, Nova Scotia, and New
Brunswick, were united into one
federation called the Dominion of
Canada, in 1867
The Home Rule League

The Home Rule League or Home Rule Party was a an Irish

political party which campaigned in British Parliament for home
rule for Ireland within the UK. It became especially influential
under the leadership of Charles Stuart Parnell (1877-1890), as
the party held the balance of power between Gladstone’s
Liberals and Conservatives in Parliament.
(Only in 1909 were the Liberals able to gain power without the
votes of Home Rule MPs.)
In the meantime, a more expeditive organization, the Land
League, fought a campaign against evictions in the ‘Land War’
(1879-82) which included boycotting and the use of violence.
Ireland in the early 20th
Century
• Prime Minister Gladstone had decided to
grant Home Rule, but the first Home Rule Bill
of 1886 was rejected, the second bill was
mutilated in 1893.
• The 1914 Home Rule Bill was suspended in
practice for the duration of the First World
War. During the war, the situation in Ireland
was tense and there was resistance to
conscription.
• Easter Rising of 1916: Armed insurrection
against British rule. It only lasted for 6 days.
All the leaders were executed, which
promoted sympathy for Independence.
 • In the election of December 1918, the Republican party Sinn Feinn
won 73 seats out of 81 in the south and its representatives
Irish War of withdrew from Westminster and set up their own unofficial
parliament in the Dublin.
Independence • 1919-1921: Irish War of Independence The Irish Republican Army
(IRA) successfully fought the British Army and the Royal Irish
Constabulary (RIC)
The Irish Free State and the
Irish Civil War
• 1921: Anglo-Irish Treaty. The British grant self-government
to Ireland as a dominion within the Commonwealth, with
the King as Head of State. The Irish Free State is born.
However, this is accompanied by partition of the island:
Ulster, with a Protestant majority remains with the UK.
• 1922-23. Irish Civil War. War ensues between between the
Provisional Government of Ireland and the Irish Republican
Army (IRA) over the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The anti-treaty
opposition sees it as a betrayal of the Irish Republic which
was proclaimed during the Easter Rising of 1916. The war is
won by the pro-treaty Free Irish State forces, who have
British support.
• Michael Collins is an important figure. He was one of the
leaders of the IRA during the War of Independence, and
later a leader of the Provisional Government of the Irish
Free State. He was killed by the IRA in the Civil War.