Success Flashcards
Robert Emmet 1803
> “The success…lay in the very need to ennoble failure.” (Kee)
> The real success of the Emmet Rebellion was the legacy Emmet left, especially with his immortalising Dock Speech with the words “let no man write my epitaph… until Ireland has taken her place among the nations of the world”.
> Emmet became a martyred legacy to future revolutionary nationalists; for example his face was put on Fenian Brotherhood bonds circulated in the late 1800s.
Irish Confederation 1848
> “As revolution the rising was a pathetic farce; as revolutionary theatre… it was a gesture against death and despair.” (O’Cathaoir)
> Francis Meagher brought the Irish Tricolour into the mainstream as a symbol of Irish Independence.
> The dispersal instead of execution meant that the men involved could lay the foundations for the future of Irish Nationalism; Gavan Duffy with the League of North and South, James Stephens the IRB.
> It was the men of 1848 that “began the task of stringing together an artificial but seductive necklace of violent nationalism” (Hoppen)
Fenian Uprising 1867
> Real “significance lay in the sequel” (Lee) with the Fenians; the events of the Manchester Martyrs and Clerkenwell Prison explosion.
a) The Execution of the Manchester Martyrs caused outrage across Ireland; this was the first rebel execution since Robert Emmet. 30,000 attended the mock funerals. “The Manchester Martyrs saved the Fenians from ignominy and ridicule” (Bartlett)
b) Clerkenwell saw the deaths of 12 innocent deaths and 120 injuries. England’s focus was on Ireland; Gladstone decided here that his “mission was to pacify Ireland” upon winning in the 1868 election.
> The Gladstonian reforms of 1869 were:
- The Provisions of the Irish Church Act which was the disestablishment of the Ascendancy; the Maynooth Grant and Regium Donum were cut, all Church of Ireland property (except churches) were confiscated. This symbolised the end of the Ascendancy class.
-The 1870 Land Act made the Ulster Custom Law, and tenants’ rights were improved.
> Gladstone had enacted the “social revolution in Ireland before its political revolution” (Laffan)
> The IRB retreated underground and became a “lingering sentiment” (Kee) before raising its head in the early 20th Century and engaging in the Easter Rising and Anglo-Irish Treaty which finally brought Independence; the Fenians central aim.
> Isaac Butt, a Unionist lawyer and leader of the Amnesty Association who fought for Fenians in court, became a convinced Nationalist by the Fenians and formed the Home Government Association which became the Home Rule League, better known as the IPP.
Young Ireland
> Contributed ideas integral to future Nationalism: Patrick Pearse cites the “4 evangelists of Nationalism” as Davis, Lalor, Mitchel and Tone. Davis’s work on secular republicanism and Gaelic language revival would have been a big influence.
> Fintan Lalor’s ahead-of-his-time agrarian radical message of “The Land of Ireland for the People of Ireland” and tenant’s rights would resonate throughout the rest of the century. Michael Davitt of the New Departure for example.
> Francis Meagher was the one who brought the Irish tricolour home from France, now the symbol of the Irish Republic.
> Young Ireland was where future Nationalists were cultivated: Gavan Duffy emerged with the TRL and the IIP, Charles Kickham who would found the IRB paper “The Irish People” and James Stephens and John O’Mahony the Fenians.
Daniel O’Connell 1823-1829
> The aim of achieving Emancipation was achieved in 1829 under the Catholic Relief Act; the central aim of the campaign had been achieved. “We had our own Waterloo” (O’Connell)
O’Connell had successfully mobilised Ireland’s population in politics; he should be credited with being one of the first in Europe to do so.
O’Ferrall states that O’Connell “single-handedly” built Irish Nationalism in the early 19th century.
Daniel O’Connell 1829-1843
> Historians disagree over what exactly Repeal was. O’Connell says “that the foul dishonour should not last” but Jackson says that beneath the populist rhetoric it was “created as a tool” to press for reforms, and that is exactly what it achieved.
O’Connell was a conservative and would not push for social revolution; he only spoke this way to keep support.
> Successes under the Lichfield House Compact in the form of:
- Tithe Rentcharge Act 1838
- Poor Relief Act 1838
- Municipal Corporations Act 1840
- Thomas Drummond’s Under-Secretaryship that was critical of the Ascendancy and impartial in public appointments.
> Successful in mobilising and creating cohesion between Catholicism, Young Ireland’s Wolfe-Tonian Nationalism and his own Constitutionalism.
> O’Connell had steered the narrative of Nationalism now to about “ending, mending or defending” the Union (Bartlett); this was one of his many legacies to Nationalism.
TRL and IIP
- the 3Fs became main-stream in Nationalist thinking thanks to the TRL, and became a flagship of the vastly more successful Land League.
- The TRL was the first Constitutionalist movement in 19th Century Ireland to unify both Protestants and Catholics.
- The first Independent Irish parliamentary party was formed.
Parnell and the Land League
> Parnell’s aims had been achieved in the form of the 1881 Land Act which granted Duffy’s 3Fs, the 1882 Arrears Act and the transfer of momentum into support for Home Rule. “Quite revolutionary” (Cronin)
> “The most extraordinary mass movement in Irish History” (Lee)
> not only had the masses not been so politically energised since the days of O’Connell, the revolutionary and constitutional strands of nationalism had not been so intertwined since Repeal.
> A true success was how united the Land League had been.
> Jackson suggests Parnell was the only 19th Century leader that had overcome sectarianism rooted in Irish society.
> The constitutional tactics of the Land League in the form of Boycotting, Picketing and rent strikes as well as offering financial and legal support to eviction threatened tenants were a breakthrough that played an integral part in getting Gladstone to make a “substantial concession” (Rees)
Parnell and Home Rule
> The Home Rule movement temporarily aligned with the Conservatives in 1885, and managed to tease out the Ashbourne Land Act, as well as repeal of the 1881 Coercion Act.
> Home Rule had made the IPP the first proper party; salaries and a centralised structure with a grassroots support mean that “the party had been hammered and honed into a superb political instrument”(Lee)
> Gladstone was still a Home Ruler, as he demonstrated by proposing the 2nd HR Bill in 1893 which actually passed in the House of Commons (vetoed by lords). Like Grattan and Plunket at the beginning of the century, Gladstone had demonstrated to the players of the next century that Home Rule could be won.
> Conservatives began offering “Constructive Unionism” after 1885 which offered a slew of reform of favourable Irish acts; to name a few:
a) Balfour Land Act (subsidised purchasing of land for tenants) 1891
b) Congested Districts Board set up to help discern increasing investment for industry in the West and North West. 1891
c) Local Government Act (1898) which democratised county councils.
Grattan and Plunket
> The issue of Emancipation was raised in Parliament
>Plunket’s bills proved that O’Connell’s Emancipation campaign could be successful.
Gaelic League
- League had 43 branches by 1897, but by 1908 600 had been established.
- The real success of the League was the introduction of Gaelic to the 1904 schools’ curriculum; but as Lee states, the League achieved its initial aim of arresting the decline of the language but failed to revive it as a vernacular.
- Never did the number of Irish speakers get above 15%. In fact Irish has largely been confined to 7 major Gaeltachts, where even then only 67% of people speak Irish daily.
GAA
- Formed in 1884 by Michael Kusack, and had the principle aim of replacing the most widely played sports in Ireland, which were British in origin.
- A sophisticated system of competitions was devised, and early on Archbishop Croke and other conservatives gave their support.
- The IRB joined too with the aim of spreading its radical message, and by the 1890s held a majority of seats on the council.
- The GAA banned British sports. They could be considered a success; in the modern day Gaelic football and hurling are the most popular sports in Ireland.
