Mass Support Flashcards
Robert Emmet’s 1803 rebellion
- “Characterised by a lack of popular support” (Rees).
- Uprisings did not occur over the country like Emmett had expected.
- Wicklow and Kildare rebels who were originally going to engage in the rebellion withdrew their support.
- France, who originally was thought to have supported the rebellion, did not support it.
Without any support outside the 300 rebels led by Emmett, he was bound to fail.
Daniel O’Connell 1823-1829
-He had support for his movement; the Catholic Rent of a penny a month meant even the poorest Irish peasants could afford to join the CA.
-O’Connell connected the Emancipation issue to the issues that mattered to peasants; such as being forced to pay Tithes.
-The Association had 500,000 members (1/14th Irish Population)
The Rent “transformed the CA from a small club into a mass movement” (Reynolds)
Daniel O’Connell 1829-1845
-Initially, O’Connell did not open up the movement for mass support as he had done with Emancipation, instead, he pushed for reform in Parliament.
- 1832: 39 Irish MPs pledge support to Repeal, and in 1834 the motion put forward on discussing Repeal was defeated by over 500 votes to the 39.
- The Lichfield House Compact 1835-1840 was the second tactic in which the Whigs and Irish MPs allied themselves to give the Whigs a majority and to produce reforms for Ireland. This only produced 3 notable reforms.
- It was only in 1840 that O’Connell opened Repeal to the masses by starting the Loyal National Repeal Association, which collected the “Repeal Rent”.
- LNRA saw membership of 3,000,000 members by 1843 and had the “critical” (Cronin) help of the Catholic hierarchy.
- “Monster Meetings” (Times) held in 1843 (Repeal Year) each had a turnout of over 100,000 and had sites selected on historical relevance (Tara: crowning of High Kings)
- Young Ireland: The Nation had readership of 250,000 in Repeal Rooms
- Support from middle class and liberal protestants that had existed in Emancipation did not transfer to repeal.
Charles Gavan Duffy in the 1850s
- Promisingly yes; the League gained support amongst surviving Repealers and some Catholic Bishops.
- Initially the organisation united both Protestant and Catholic tenants.
Irish Confederation’s 1848 Rebellion
-The rebellion only had the support of thousands initially.
-It became apparent William Smith O’Brien could not feed his army (there was a famine after all) and
The “clerical admonition” (O’Cathaoir) of local clergy who feared a massacre was afoot
-This dropped the rebellion to a mere 100 diehard supporters.
Young Ireland
- The Nation had a readership of 250,000 and was circulated in repeal rooms. However they were definitely a fringe group
- O’Connell disagreed with them in several areas: Queens University Act, how to remember the United Irishmen, pursuit of a Whig Alliance and mostly whether or not the use of violence was acceptable
- violence split the Young Ireland and Repeal Association apart in 1846 when Francis Meagher gave his “Sword Speech” declaring violence a necessary avenue.
Fenian Uprising of 1867
- By 1865 thousands of men had been recruited into the IRB, by their local IRB “cells”.
- “numerically the Fenians never amounted to more than a small majority” Moody
- Hundreds of thousands of bonds circulated in the US (redeemable after Ireland’s independence)
- Terrance McManus’s funeral in 1861 was given an elaborate funeral in both Dublin and New York which was attended by thousands.
- The “The Irish People” was edited and managed by Charles Kickham and O’Donovan Rossa and was widely circulated.
- This suggests Moody’s view, while correct may ignore the breadth of support given to the IRB.
- Comerford calls this lack of full commitment from all IRB members: “patriotism as a pastime”
Parnell and The Land League
- The New Departure of 1879 was an agreement between Michael Davitt, founder of the Land League, Charles Stewart Parnell who was leader of the Home Rule Party and John Devoy, leader of Clan na Gael (The new sister organisation for the IRB).
- Each organisation had something to offer. The Home Rule Party had won 60 seats (more than half) in 1874 and so clearly had large support. But as well as this, Clan na Gael had huge support in the USA and raised massive wealth in donations for the Land League to function. The National Land League itself captured a pan-Irish sentiment that was rising; the question of land. -Undoubtedly the New Departure Movement had mass support; The National Land League was called “an elemental force” and “the most remarkable mass movement in Irish history” by Lee.
Parnell and Home Rule
- 1884 the Third Reform Act was passed, which granted common franchise across the UK.
- The number of men eligible to vote in Ireland trebled to 700,000; in 1885 and 1886 a General Election was held that increased the number of IPP seats from 60 in 1874 to a sustained 86 (“The 86 of ‘86” as they were known).
- Yet the Land League replacement, the National League was the electoral organisation that provided grass roots support across Ireland for the replacement for the Home Rule Party; the IPP (Irish Parliamentary Party). Without this mass support the IPP would not have held the balance of power in parliament for decades to come, but the effective and centralising reorganisation of the Nationalist Party as well as “Parnellism” meant that mass support could all be channelled into Parnell’s Home Rule idea.
- However, by 1890 as Parnell became undone, mass support split into the “Parnellite” and “Anti-Parnellite” factions; the party was effectively 2 parties, something that ran counter to the deliberate centralisation of the IPP at the start of the 1880s.
