The Irish Revolution, 1916-1923 (10 page)

By the end of 1917 it was clear that a major shift was taking place in Irish nationalist politics. The electorate was losing patience with the IPP's failure to deliver home rule. Many of the local leaders of the Irish Party had defected to Sinn Féin (Fitzpatrick, 1977: 138). Public anger at the harsh British reaction to the Rising was expressed in support for Sinn Féin's candidates in the four by-elections held that year. The shadow of 1916 hung over all of these contests; Plunkett's son had been executed, de Valera had been lucky to escape with his life and he, along with McGuinness and Cosgrave, had been imprisoned for taking part in the insurrection. The Longford contest took place at the time of the first anniversary of the executions, and during all of the campaigns recently released prisoners, including Michael Collins, and relatives of executed or imprisoned rebels, played an important role in canvassing for Sinn Féin. The significance of the by-elections in rejuvenating Sinn Féin is clear from the fact that by the end of 1917 three of the four counties where the party enjoyed its strongest membership proportionally had been the location for these contests – Clare, Longford and Roscommon (Laffan, 1999: 187).

However, the Rising alone does not explain the extent of Sinn Féin's electoral success in 1917; the progress of the war was equally important. When conscription was introduced to Great Britain in 1916, Ireland was exempted, but as casualty figures continued to rise the threat of its extension loomed. During the by-elections, and especially in the Longford contest, Sinn Féin was successful in convincing voters that it was the only party that could defend Ireland from compulsory military service. While the IPP had been instrumental in preventing the extension of conscription to Ireland, it was tainted by its support for voluntary recruitment; Sinn Féin effectively blurred the distinction between both issues, creating the misleading impression that the IPP supported conscription. This issue had particular resonance in rural constituencies, such as Longford, Roscommon and Clare, where Irish farmers were benefiting from the war-time economy and fearful of the prospect that their sons would be forced to join the army. A third factor that determined the outcome of the 1917 by-elections was the spectre of partition. After 1914
it was clear that at least part of Ulster would be excluded in some form from home rule when it came into effect. This reality was strengthened during the abortive 1916 home rule negotiations.

The cumulative effect of the by-election victories was to forge Sinn Féin into a cohesive political party. At the start of 1917 it was still a loose coalition of advanced nationalists and many republicans were still wary of Griffith's earlier support for a dual monarchy in Britain and Ireland, along the lines of Austria and Hungary. Opinion had also been strongly divided on whether or not imprisoned 1916 rebels should contest elections under the party's banner. The close result in contests like Longford indicated that the IPP was not dead yet, and a defeat might have been interpreted as a repudiation of the Rising. However, the four successive victories vindicated the strategy of contesting elections and by the time Sinn Féin held its first
ard fheis
in October 1917, at which de Valera was elected president and the pledge to achieve an ‘independent Irish Republic’ was adopted, it was well placed to challenge the IPP for the political leadership of nationalist Ireland.

ard fheis: Annual
national convention of Sinn Féin.

The defeat of Sinn Féin by the IPP in three successive by-elections early
in 1918 suggested that the previous year's trend was being reversed in part. However, this was merely illusory. Two of these contests (Armagh South in February and Tyrone East in April) took place in Ulster constituencies, where the home rule movement benefited from a stronger grass roots organisation because of the strength of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, which owed much to the controlling influence of the Belfast MP, Joe Devlin. The strength of unionism as a political opponent of nationalism also meant that the home rule movement remained stronger in Ulster than much of the rest of the country.

The third seat held by the IPP was in Waterford City in March, where the vacancy was occasioned by the death of its leader John Redmond. The seat was held comfortably by his son, William Archer Redmond. The younger Redmond was already an MP for Tyrone East and had to resign this seat on his transfer to Waterford; the party held onto his old seat, though by a small margin. The Waterford City by-election was also notable for being the first contest held in Ireland after the passing of the
Representation of the People Act (1918)
, which made it the first Irish parliamentary election in which women were entitled to vote (Laffan, 1999: 112–28).

Representation of the People Act (1918)
: Legislation extending the vote to women over 30 and widening the franchise generally.

THE POST-RISING VOLUNTEERS

The arrests that followed the Rising did further damage to Eoin MacNeill's rump Irish Volunteers. Martial law prohibited all public gatherings and meetings with the result that there was very little organised republican activity for the
remainder of the year. However, a recovery was noticeable in early 1917 as republicanism began to gain a new stimulus from Sinn Féin's by-election victories. In Clare a new county brigade and a number of battalions were formed in February 1917 under the guidance of the county's three leading republican families – the O’Donnells, Brennans and Barretts (Fitzpatrick, 1977: 205). The re-emergence of the Volunteers was especially noticeable in areas of the country where Sinn Féin was growing on the back of its electoral successes. In Longford, a small Volunteer company was formed in Ballinalee at Easter 1917, around the time of the Longford by-election and the organisation continued to spread throughout the county in the second half of the year (Coleman, 2003: 78). Frequently, branches of both Sinn Féin and the Volunteers were formed at the same time in the same locations and consisting largely of the same personnel. There was very little distinction between both organisations at local level at this stage in 1917, which was partly deliberate as meetings of Sinn Féin clubs were often used as cover for Volunteer activity. This was also the case at national level where the Volunteer convention took place secretly in October 1917 at the same time as the Sinn Féin
ard fheis
.

Much of the reorganisation was carried out by 1916 veterans who had been released at Christmas. The communal experience of prison camps, such as
Frongoch
in north Wales, had provided them with an important opportunity to forge networks and make plans for reorganisation which were duly acted upon after their release. The release of the remaining internees from the Rising in June 1917 was a further fillip to the Volunteers. A third republican organisation to undergo a post-Rising recovery at this time was the IRB, with the re-establishment of a permanent Supreme Council under the presidency of Thomas Ashe after the prisoners' release in June (Hart, 2005: 141). Many of those who were travelling around the country setting up Volunteer corps, including Collins, Ashe and Mulcahy, were leading figures in the IRB and its recovery also had an impact on the continuing progress of the Volunteers.

Frongoch
: Prison camp in north Wales where many of the 1916 prisoners were interned.

Alarmed at the rising tide of republicanism the authorities began to apply the war-time Defence of the Realm Regulations more thoroughly and this new policy resulted in the arrest of Ashe for making what was deemed to be a seditious speech at Ballinalee in County Longford in August. His death the following month – as a result of force-feeding in Dublin's Mountjoy Prison where he had undertaken a hunger strike in an effort to receive recognition as a political prisoner – was another landmark in the re-establishment of the Volunteers. His funeral was the first opportunity for the Volunteers to stage a large militant display since the Rising and afterwards drilling and marching by local units became much more widespread (Augusteijn, 1996: 65). The recovery of the Volunteers throughout 1917 was epitomised by the staging of a convention on 27 October 1917 at which a new executive was
elected that included Richard Mulcahy as Director of Training and Michael Collins as Director of Organisation (Valiulis, 1992: 24–5). By the end of 1917 the Volunteers were beginning to recover from the devastation of the Rising. National and local structures had been re-established, a new leadership was in place and the country was moving noticeably in a more republican direction.

THE IRISH CONVENTION

Following the failure of the 1916 home rule negotiations the British Government was still seeking a solution to the Irish question. It was now hoped that the Irish could produce a solution themselves and this led to the establishment of an Irish Convention that sat for nine months between July 1917 and April 1918. The convention was chaired by Sir Horace Plunkett, a one-time constructive unionist who had come around to supporting dominion home rule and still hoped that a home rule solution which did not encompass partition could be achieved. Its 95 members had a slim nationalist majority and included members of the IPP, unionists, members of local government bodies, clergymen from the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland as well as prominent individuals in Irish society including the Provost of Trinity College Dublin, where the convention's meetings took place. Sinn Féin boycotted its proceedings and only a small number of individuals with advanced nationalist opinions attended, including Erskine Childers, Edward MacLysaght, an independent nationalist from Clare, and the writer George Russell (Æ).

Sinn Féin's participation was not initially seen as essential to the convention's success; by June 1917 it still had a long way to go in establishing itself as the main nationalist political party in Ireland. Even without the input of republicans, the convention suffered terminal internal divisions, from an early stage. The main point of contention was the level of fiscal autonomy that would be conceded to Ireland under a home rule settlement. This had already proved to be a controversial aspect of the third home rule bill. On the unionist side, Ulster and southern unionists were divided, with the southern unionist leader Lord Midleton arguing for a compromise under which a home rule parliament would have control over internal taxation and excise duties, with the imperial parliament retaining the privilege of imposing customs duties, whereas Ulster unionists wanted Westminster to control both customs and excise.

The IPP's influence at the convention was hampered by the ill-health of John Redmond, who died on 6 March 1918. He was replaced as party leader by John Dillon. A month after Redmond's death a minority report was passed
by 44 members of the Irish Convention, with 29 voting against. Two dissenting minority reports were also published. In hindsight the convention was often viewed as having been doomed from the outset by Sinn Féin's boycott, but this ignored the fact that a settlement was close to being agreed by all the parties as late as January 1918 but was scuppered by hardline unionist insistence on a partitionist outcome. The Irish Convention was yet another failed attempt to solve the Irish home rule question while the war was in progress, and by the time of its conclusion in April 1918 it had been overshadowed by political developments in Westminster, where the Prime Minister had finally bowed to pressure to extend conscription to Ireland (O’Day, 1998: 280–5; Jackson, 2003: 177–83).

THE CONSCRIPTION CRISIS

In March 1918 the German Army launched its last effort to win the war. The British Army now required more manpower to deal with this new threat and Lloyd George began to consider the option of conscripting Irishmen. He did so in spite of advice to the contrary from his Irish advisers, including Sir Edward Carson and the Chief Secretary for Ireland, H. E. Duke, who warned that Britain might as well conscript Germans. Lloyd George ignored this counsel and sought to sweeten the pill for the Irish by promising to introduce home rule simultaneously. However, having been duped by Lloyd George during the negotiations on home rule that took place after the Rising, IPP leaders were justifiably distrustful of the Prime Minister on this occasion. When the Military Service Act was passed in the House of Commons on 16 April 1918 John Dillon led his members out of the chamber in protest and returned to Ireland to join the efforts to prevent its implementation
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.

In view of the extent of opposition to extending conscription to Ireland the question of why the Prime Minister persisted with such a counterproductive policy must be addressed. Opposition to conscription in Ireland and among Lloyd George's Irish advisers was counter-balanced by strong support for the move within British society, the military and political establishment and Britain's war-time allies. Public opinion in Britain, where most men between the ages of 18 and 41 had been subject to the draft since 1916, held a very poor opinion of Irish ‘shirkers’ and felt that Ireland should play its part in the war effort in the same way as the rest of the United Kingdom. Prominent politicians and senior military leaders encouraged the Prime Minister to draw on the excess manpower available in Ireland. The French, who were suffering crippling casualty figures, could not understand why a part of the United Kingdom remained exempt from conscription (aan de Wiel, 2003: 205–9).

The enormity of Lloyd George's mistake became apparent immediately as all sections of political opinion, apart from unionism, united in an unprecedented show of unity to prevent conscription from being put into effect. Political rivals from Sinn Féin and the IPP came together on platforms at public meetings to voice their shared opposition to the measure. A meeting of Irish political leaders, including Dillon, Griffith and de Valera, was convened at the Mansion House in Dublin, at which a pledge was adopted ‘Denying the right of the British Government to enforce compulsory service in this country’, and promising ‘to resist conscription by the most effective means at our disposal’. The Labour Party and trade union movement also played a central role in the campaign, calling a general strike on 23 April, which was widely observed outside of Belfast (Laffan, 1999: 133–8).