A chara, – Niall Holohan's contention that the 1916 Easter Rising should be viewed as the start of an Irish civil war is thought-provoking ("Rising should be seen as start of ongoing civil war", Opinion & Analysis, August 3rd). However, I would like take issue with a number of the points he raises.
He is of course correct that the 1916 leaders lacked a popular mandate. But I imagine few, if any, revolutionaries put themselves before an electorate prior to embarking on a revolution. It is also true that the Sinn Féin vote achieved in December 1918 did amount to approximately 47 per cent of the popular vote, but it is also true that quite a number of Sinn Féin candidates were elected unopposed, as had often been the case with members of the Irish Parliamentary Party standing for election in the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.
Furthermore, the Irish Labour movement supported Irish independence, which is why the decision was taken to stand aside in the 1918 election.
In the six northeastern counties, an electoral pact was agreed with the Irish Parliamentary Party to maximise the nationalist vote, hardly the actions of an organisation that was allegedly intimidating Redmondite supporters elsewhere.
Northern Ireland was indeed a sectarian state, where Catholics suffered large-scale discrimination, especially in employment and housing. The same cannot be said of the Irish Free State, where Protestant property and interests were safeguarded.
I do not see how the 1916 leaders are responsible for perceived democratic failures or intermittent strife over the last 100 years. In 1916, the leaders of the Easter Rising were executed. Dead people cannot be held responsible for the actions and failures of those born long after they had passed away. – Is mise,
PÁDRAIG de BÚRCA,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Átha Cliath.
Sir, – Further to Niall Holohan’s opinion piece, if anything the notional civil war to which he refers started well before 1916. In the summer of 1914 there were two armed volunteer militias on the island, each committed respectively to supporting and opposing home rule.
The European conflagration that erupted on August 4th, 1914, saved Ireland from its civil war over partition.
There was no electoral pact between Sinn Féin and Labour in advance of the 1918 general election.
While there was undoubtedly pressure on Labour to withdraw, the pragmatic decision to abstain was taken solely by the Labour Party, in the face of its inability to field a suitable slate of candidates; a number of prominent Labour figures, including Constance Markievicz, had opted to stand in the Sinn Féin interest.
The only electoral pact in 1918 was in Ulster, where the remnant of the Irish Party and Sinn Féin agreed not to run against each other in all but one constituency in which there were nationalist majorities, thus ensuring that a nationalist split did not cede seats to unionists.
Unionists were the big winner in Ulster in 1918 but the scenario presented by Mr Holohan is a more accurate reflection of the electoral history of Northern Ireland after 1921, and especially after the abolition of proportional representation in parliamentary elections in 1929, than of the result of the 1918 general election.
To see a direct causal link between the Irish revolution and either the troubles or the economic war is a post-hoc fallacy that fails to take account of numerous other factors. One might as well blame the British land acts for the economic war, as without them there would have been no annuities to refuse payment of.
The decade of centenaries is proving to be a wonderful opportunity to explore and analyse further the process by which partition and independence evolved. I hope that Mr Holohan will avail of this opportunity to educate himself on what actually happened, as no amount of wishful thinking will change the reality of these events or create a fantasy past that he and others would prefer to have been the outcome of the political upheaval experienced on this island 100 years ago. – Yours, etc,
Dr MARIE COLEMAN,
School of History
and Anthropology,
Queen’s University Belfast.
Sir, – Niall Holohan doubtless intends to be provocative in his views on 20th-century Irish history. There is merit in his analysis of the political divide on the island being equivalent to a century-long civil war. He cannot, however, be permitted to set aside historical truths in order to ease his post-Redmondite thesis.
The partition of Ireland, under the ongoing home rule process, was already a political reality by 1916, having its roots in the 1912 Ulster Covenant (and the later illegal arming of the UVF).
The proportion of votes cast for Sinn Féin in the 1918 election would have been over 60 per cent, if the 25 constituencies where the Irish Party declined to even oppose Sinn Féin had voted, while the Labour Party had strong electoral prospects in only a handful of Dublin constituencies.
Voter intimidation, by the way, was not confined to Sinn Féin supporters, as the Irish Party was well versed in such tactics. The partition of Ireland did not grow out of “the 1921-22 settlement” either; it had become fact in the British 1920 Government of Ireland Act. Only one “state” emerged from that period, as the six Ulster counties remained within the UK as a regional government. – Yours, etc,
DERMOT QUINN,
Sutton,
Dublin 13
Sir, – Sinn Féin took 73 of Ireland’s 105 parliamentary seats in 1918 with 46.9 per cent of the votes cast, and Mr Holohan wants us think that they pulled a fast one.
In 1906 John Redmond’s Irish Party took 82 seats with less than 50 per cent of the votes cast and nobody shouted “foul”.
In 1886 Parnell’s party won 84 seats with 48.6 per cent of the votes cast, while his unionist opponents, who won 50.4 per cent, took a mere 17 seats. Nobody cried “we wuz robbed”.
The common factor in 1886 and 1906 was that unionists chose not to stand where they were not wanted. In 1906 they put up no candidates in 73 constituencies. In 1886 they put up no candidates in 66 constituencies.
In 1918 Sinn Féin took 25 of their 73 seats unopposed. Unionists didn’t stand where they would have lost their deposits. Nationalists likewise. A factor which has escaped most commentators is that nationalists did not put candidates forward in constituencies in 1918 that they had lost in 1908 to William O’Brien’s “All For Ireland League”. – Yours, etc,
DONAL KENNEDY,
London.