At first I thought the questions were a little ignorant. But the more I tried to explain, the more I realised how interesting and complicated the whole story is — and how few of us back home are really across the details either.

🎧 Prefer to listen? Follow this link to listen to the original podcast episode is embedded below.

So I sat down to put together a series on the history of Ireland and the War of Independence: the founding of the Irish Republic, and all the chaos it took to get there. The podcast has been running since 2019, but now I’m starting up this substack for those who might like to read along.

If this was Star Wars we’d need a rolling yellow title sequence to set the scene. These first few articles are our version of that — grossly oversimplified but important context.

A quick timeline of occupation

First off, a quick timeline of English occupation in Ireland. The line “800 years of oppression” gets thrown around a lot, so it’s worth understanding it.

First, in 1169, the Normans invaded, though they ended up largely confined to The Pale, an area around Dublin. Through the 16th century there was a prolonged invasion by the Tudors, which led to Ireland being completely taken over by the British Empire by 1601. And then in 1801, the Act of Union formally joined Ireland to the United Kingdom.

Don’t worry, those dates will not be on the exam.

Since the late 1800s there’d been a huge surge in Irish nationalism, but also a range of different views on how best to achieve independence. To set the scene for where we’re headed, I’m going to try to quickly give you a sense of the different groups bouncing around the country at the turn of the century. And hold onto your hats — there were a lot of them.

ℹ️ This article has been lightly adapted from the original podcasts. Apologies if there are any weird podcastisms that have snuck through!

The cast of characters

Probably the easiest group to classify are the Unionists. Mostly Protestant and strongest in Ulster, these were people who didn’t want to leave the UK. They were happy living in a Protestant-majority country and worried that if Ireland became independent they’d turn into a minority overnight. The way things turned out, you probably couldn’t blame them.

These Unionists formed the Ulster Volunteer Force between 1912 and 1913. Known as the UVF (get used to acronyms — there’s going to be a lot of ‘em) and led by Edward Carson, this became a de facto army whose sole aim was to keep Ireland part of the UK. They liked things how they were, and were willing to fight to defend the status quo. Pretty simple.

UVF members marching through Belfast, 1914. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Next you had your cultural activists. These folks wanted a more Irish Ireland. They weren’t necessarily fighting for an independent Ireland, but were at least determined to de-Anglicise the country. Ireland’s first President, Douglas Hyde, was one of the leaders of the movement and at the time was in fact pro-union. He just wanted to culturally differentiate Ireland from England, and made the argument: what was the point in fighting for an independent Ireland if we were culturally no different from the English? That meant more Irish speakers, more Irish literature and poetry, and Irish sports.

Douglas Hyde, painted by John Butler Yeats, c.1906. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Though the cultural activists weren’t inherently separatist, their groups did become places where separatists would gather — especially the Gaelic Athletic Association. They also inspired those who would later fight for an independent Ireland.

Michael Cusack, founder of the GAA. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Separa-who? Well, they’re the next group: the people who wanted out. And this is where things start getting complicated.

The failed Irish Rebellion of 1798 had led to new kinds of nationalist thinking. By the end of the 1800s, the Irish independence movement came down to two main camps: political activists who believed they could use the system to instigate the change needed, and military activists who believed that violence was the way forward.

At the turn of the century this was roughly broken into Home Rulers and Fenians.

Home Rule was simply the idea that Ireland would remain part of the UK, but with its own parliament. Though around as a concept for a while, it really gained momentum thanks to Charles Parnell in the mid-1880s. His push for Home Rule imploded, but Parnell was a political genius who set the scene for the Irish independence movement of the 1900s. (I’m still planning a whole season on Parnell at some point)

Charles Stewart Parnell. (Brady-Handy Collection, Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Home Rule had been seen as the best Ireland was going to get, and at the turn of the 1900s it was what the majority of Ireland supported (Ulster and the UVF being a tricky exception — how’s that for an understatement?). After Parnell, John Redmond led the Irish Parliamentary Party (or the IPP) in a push to get a Home Rule bill through Westminster. And he was doing a bloody good job of it.

John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, c.1909. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

The last group were those who believed violence was the only way forward. They were roughly called the Fenians, though Fenianism was as much an attitude as it was an organisation. A number of different groups all sat under that vague label, at least by the end of the 1800s.

The longest-running republican group was a secret society set up by a man called James Stephens. An interesting fella — over his lifetime he faked his own death to escape to France, then walked from France back to Ireland, and on arriving home set up his secret society, based on the Freemasons.

James Stephens, founder of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

The idea was to slowly amass enough followers to create an army large enough that open insurrection against the British would be possible — all while keeping the group as hush-hush as possible. Formed in 1858 and originally meant to be a completely invisible group referred to just as “the organisation,” by 1873 they had officially formed as the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Or the IRB.

Obviously, trying to garner mass support while staying a secret society was a relatively tricky business, and the Fenians never really managed to square that circle. They ran several newspapers, sent out pamphlets, and had delegates moving back and forth between America and Britain. Not exactly low-key. And though this didn’t stick to the original plan, it did manage to create a very dedicated, loyal, and passionate membership.

In fact, there’s some debate over whether we can call them a secret society at all. Some argue it was just the British government’s gross ineptitude at intelligence-gathering that made the group seem “secret” — a misnomer pushed to make the British government seem less incompetent, and because it makes the IRB sound a lot cooler. Which, to be fair, it definitely does.

They were Republicans, but the flavour of republicanism varied and was, it seems, purposefully vague. This remained the case with most Republicans right up to independence. They wanted separation from Britain, and held vague ideals of a Republic, but — as is often the case with rebel forces and married men alike — they were so focused on the separating that few considered what to do once successful. As Michael Collins said, “the cause was not the Irish Republic” but rather “a liberation from English occupation.” So the Fenians, or IRB, were Republicans more differentiated by their willingness to use force than by a clear-cut Republican ideal.

Side note. One Republican group that did have a clear vision was the Irish Socialist Republican Party, led by James Connolly. They believed that without a systematic overhaul, any separation would be pointless. Connolly argued that an Irish state run by capitalists would not solve anything. He’s a super interesting guy, who some would argue was bang on the money. Lucky for him, he was long dead before the Celtic Tiger popped up, was followed by a mass banking crisis, and then followed by Ireland becoming a tax haven for tech behemoths.

James Connolly, founder of the Irish Socialist Republican Party. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Anyway...

You also had Sinn Féin. Now, Sinn Féin are a complicated one, and always have been. But they’re who we need to focus on. When I say Sinn Féin, most people will jump to the modern political party that used to be the political arm of the IRA. That is getting waaaay ahead of ourselves. That’s not really these guys.

Founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, Sinn Féin’s idea was to amalgamate all the disparate Irish independence groups into one solid unit. In 1907, Bulmer Hobson joined Griffith and brought a whole bunch of smaller nationalist movements together under Sinn Féin’s banner.

Arthur Griffith, founder of Sinn Féin. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Bulmer Hobson. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Bulmer is fascinating. A Protestant, a Republican, and a member of the IRB. He was hated by a lot of the IRB membership, especially the more radical lads who led the 1916 Rising. Why hated? Well, because Griffith and Bulmer took a kind of middle ground between the Home Rulers and the more violent IRB. They leaned closer to the IRB — and, confusingly, a lot of Sinn Féin members were IRB men — but Bulmer believed in a purely defensive stance. He did not support openly attacking the British unless provoked, or unless supported by the majority of the country.

Griffith wasn’t particularly liked by the IRB either, as he believed in a dual-monarchy system. This would create an independent Irish state that shared its monarch with Britain. It had worked for Hungary, so why not for Ireland, Griffith reasoned.

So together their position was one of passive resistance — economic boycott, tax strikes, civil disobedience, and abstention from Westminster — with Griffith, at least, looking for a dual monarchy. These were fairly unpopular opinions, disliked by both the politically minded Home Rulers and the more radical IRB.

Where things stood

So let’s recap. We have the Unionists and the UVF under Edward Carson; the cultural lads led by Douglas Hyde; the Home Rulers of the Irish Parliamentary Party under John Redmond; the secret society known as the IRB, run by a Supreme Council; and Sinn Féin, led by Arthur Griffith.

Obviously there were a plethora of other smaller groups, but these are the main ones you need to know about to set the scene for the first Dáil, created by Sinn Féin in 1919.

But yeah… we ain’t there yet. I thought we would be by the end of this piece, but what are you going to do.

In 1907, Sinn Féin did not grab the public imagination at all — and wouldn’t for another ten years. The IRB wasn’t huge either. Though a lot of the Irish wanted an independent country and were fiercely nationalistic, most just didn’t want to join a secret society.

Home Rule was the in thing. It was supported by the majority of the public and had made huge inroads. By 1913 it was all but certain to happen.

Then World War One happened instead. And things got even messier.

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