Ireland Read online

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Joseph Coohill earned his doctorate in Modern History at the University of Oxford, and is a specialist in the history of nineteenth-century Britain and Ireland.

  IRELAND

  A SHORT HISTORY

  JOSEPH COOHILL

  A Oneworld Book

  First published in North America, Great Britain & Australia

  by Oneworld Publications, 2000

  This revised edition published in 2014

  Copyright © Joseph Coohill 2000, 2014

  The moral right of Joseph Coohill to be identified as

  the Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance

  with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved

  Copyright under Berne Convention

  A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-78074-384-4

  eBook ISBN 978-1-78074-536-7

  Oneworld Publications

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  London WC1B 3SR

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  For Thomas Patrick Coohill

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Preface

  Pronunciation guide for Irish words

  Map

  INTRODUCTION

  ONE IRELAND: PREHISTORY TO 1534

  Geography

  Prehistoric Ireland

  Early Irish society

  Early Christian Ireland

  The age of the Vikings

  Norman Ireland (1169–1300)

  Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Ireland

  Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Ireland (1400–1534)

  Interpretations – Ancient & early-medieval Ireland

  Interpretations – Medieval Ireland

  TWO AN ENGLISH CONQUEST? FROM THE TUDORS TO THE ACT OF UNION

  The Tudors

  Stuart Ireland (1603–60)

  Ireland during the Restoration and the Jacobite War (1660–91)

  Ireland under the Penal Laws (1691–1778)

  Ireland 1775–1800

  Interpretations

  THREE O’CONNELL, RELIGION AND POLITICS, 1800–48

  O’Connell and Catholic emancipation

  The Catholic Association and the Catholic Rent

  Political pressure and the granting of emancipation

  Repeal

  Young Ireland

  Economy, society and religion

  Interpretations

  FOUR THE FAMINE, 1845–52

  Preconditions

  The Blight

  The coming of famine

  The soup

  Hunger, disease and emigration

  The extension of the Poor Law

  New relief policies

  Effects

  Interpretations

  FIVE FENIANISM AND THE LAND, 1848–81

  The three Fs and the Tenant League

  Fenianism

  The land problem resurfaces

  The Land League and the Land War

  Religion

  Interpretations – Fenianism

  Interpretations – Land War

  SIX HOME RULE, 1870–93

  Isaac Butt and the origins of Home Rule

  The rise of Parnell

  Parnell’s fall

  Conservative and unionist opposition to Home Rule

  Interpretations

  SEVEN NATIONALISM, UNIONISM AND IRISH IDENTITY, 1891–1922

  Land reforms continue

  Rural and urban life

  Gaelic revival

  Nationalism and unionism, 1891–1914

  War in Europe and war in Ireland, 1914–22

  Interpretations

  Interpretations – the Easter Rising

  Interpretations – partition

  Interpretations – nationalism and unionism

  EIGHT THE MAKING OF TWO IRELANDS, 1922–66

  The Irish Free State, 1922–32

  Northern Ireland, 1922–32

  The Free State and Éire, 1932–49

  Northern Ireland, 1932–66

  The Republic of Ireland, 1949–66

  Interpretations

  NINE TROUBLES AND TRIUMPHS, 1966–94

  The Reuplic of Ireland, 1966–82

  Northern Ireland and the Troubles, 1966–82

  Ireland since 1982–94

  The peace process

  Social and political life in the Republic

  Interpretations

  TEN FROM THE GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT TO THE 21ST CENTURY

  Implementing peace and governance

  Ireland in recent decades

  ELEVEN THEMES IN IRISH HISTORY

  Bibliography and Further Reading

  Index

  Acknowledgements

  Many people helped me with this book, and I am very grateful to them. My students at the Oxford summer programmes of St. Bonaventure University and the University of Massachusetts, as well as my students at The Pennsylvania State University and Duquesne University helped me understand how to present Irish history to a new audience. I am also grateful for the suggestions offered by Jeremy Black, Alan O’Day, Diane Winston, Amy-Woodson-Boulton, Michael Salevouris, Pat McDevitt, and Melinda Grimsley-Smith. The publisher, editors and staff at Oneworld, especially James Magniac, have provided constant encouragement. Barry Riordan provided great help with the pronunciation guide for Irish words. Sandra Levis provided much-needed advice about improving my approach to Ireland before 1800, as well as sensitive and sensible editing. Thanks to Meg Davies for the original copy-edit and index, to Deborah Martin for the originial proofread and to Jenny Page for the copy-edit and proofread of this revised edition. Thanks also to Jillian Luff for the drawing of the original map.

  The book is dedicated to my father, an Irish-American in the best sense of the word.

  Preface

  Ireland is fortunate to have had a great many excellent historians, and their work shows the deep complexity of its history. In addition to countless specialized studies and works concerned with the pre-1800 period, Irish history is well served by three outstanding modern histories. These are: Roy Foster’s Modern Ireland 1600–1972 (1989), Alvin Jackson’s Ireland 1789–1998: Politics and War (1999), and Theodore Hoppen’s Ireland Since 1800: Conflict and Conformity (second edition, 1999). Each of these books, however, presumes some knowledge of Irish history and is, as Alvin Jackson wrote, ‘not a primer’. This book is a history of Ireland (concentrating on the post-1800 period) that will provide students and general readers with enough background to tackle these more sophisticated works. In addition to historians, social scientists have produced a great number of important works that students of Irish history should read. Some of these include Brian Graham’s In Search of Ireland: a Cultural Geography (1997), Anthony Heath, Richard Breen, and Christopher Whelan’s Ireland North and South: Perspectives from Social Science (1999), and Jörg Neuheiser and Stefan Wolff’s Peace at Last?: the Impact of the Good Friday Agreement on Northern Ireland (2002). But history, and especially Irish history, is more than analysis of facts. Interpretations are at least as important, and historians of Ireland have been debating these interpretations for decades. Good recent discussions of interpretations of Irish history, which have influenced this book greatly, are Eberhard Bort’s Commemorating Ireland: History, Politics, Culture (2004), Claire Connolly’s Theorizing Ireland (2003), Lawrence McBride’s Reading Irish Histories (2003), R.V. Comerford’s Ireland: Inventing the Nation (2003), Clare Carroll and Patricia King’s
Ireland and Postcolonial Theory (2003), Ian McBride’s History and Memory in Modern Ireland (2001), Laurence Geary’s Rebellion and Remembrance in Modern Ireland (2001), Stephen Howe’s Ireland and Empire (2000), Patrick O’Mahony and Gerard Delanty’s Rethinking Irish History (1998),

  D. George Boyce and Alan O’Day’s The Making of Modern Irish History (1996), Ciaran Brady’s Interpreting Irish History (1994), John Whyte’s Interpreting Northern Ireland (1989), Mark Williams and Stephen Paul Forrest’s Constructing the Past: Writing Irish History, 1600–1800 (2010), Mary McAufliffe, Katherine O’Donnell, and Leeann Lane’s Palgrave Advances in Irish History (2009), Hugh Kearney’s Ireland: Contested Ideas of Nationalism and History (2007), Evi Gkotzaridis’s Trials of Irish History: Genesis and Evolution of a Reappraisal 1938-2000 (2006); and Marianne Elliot’s important and arresting When God Took Sides: Religion and Identity in Ireland – Unfinished History (2009), which has made me rethink many of my historical assumptions. It would be impossible to cover every issue of Irish history and its interpretation in a short book such as this. Choices have had to be made, and I knowingly sacrificed a few historical subjects in order to focus on those questions I thought most general readers would wish to have covered extensively. Accordingly, topics such as the Irish abroad (the Irish diaspora), Ireland as part of the ‘celtic fringe’ with Scotland and Wales, Ireland and the rest of Europe (except for very recent decades), and Ireland’s place in the British Empire have received only oblique comment. This book, therefore, is admittedly insular, a true island history. I hope this focus proves acceptable.

  In order to keep this book as accessible as possible, I have dispensed with traditional references in the main text, but the context should make clear the sources of my material and quotations. Full details of the books and articles mentioned in the text, as well as others of value, are listed in the Bibliography and Further Reading section at the end of this book. A close reading of the books mentioned above, however, should arm any interested person with everything needed to discuss Irish history confidently.

  Pronunciation Guide for Irish Words

  The Irish language is an important part of Irish history and Irish identity. It suffered a gradual demise following the English conquest of the island. A strong attempt at reviving and strengthening it started in the late nineteenth century, and it became the official first language of the Republic of Ireland in 1937. It is still taught in schools and still spoken in various regions of the country (mainly the west and south). Often referred to as ‘gaelic’, ‘Irish’ is a more accurate term because ‘gaelic’ covers a family of languages. A number of Irish words appear in this book, and this pronunciation guide gives phonetic help using ordinary English words and sounds rather than formal linguistic phonetics. For instance, Sinn Féin is listed here as pronounced ‘shin fain’, and Éire as ‘air-uh’.Words of more than one syllable have been divided by a hyphen where it is felt this will help good pronunciation. The full list of Irish words in this book follows, along with pronunciation guides. Phonetic guides are given when each word first appears in the text. English translations are given for both the literal meaning and the way in which the word is used today. For example, ‘taoiseach’ comes from the old Irish word meaning chieftain, but today refers to the Prime Minister of Éire.

  Irish words

  Pronunciation

  English translation

  Connacht

  conn-uckt

  (western province of Ireland)

  Connradh na Gaeilge

  conn-rah nah gale-geh

  Gaelic League

  Cuchulainn

  coo-cullen

  the mythic warrior and ‘defender of Ulster’

  Cumann na nGaedheal

  cummann nah gale

  party [or group, society, circle] of the Irish

  Dáil Éireann

  dawl air-un

  council [or gathering] of Ireland (the lower house of the parliament of Éire)

  Éire

  air-uh

  Ireland

  Fianna Fáil

  feena foil

  warriors of destiny [or soldiers of Ireland]

  (political party in the Republic of Ireland)

  fine

  finna

  family [or group, race]

  Fine Gael

  finna gale

  tribe of the Irish [or Irish race] (political party in the Republic of Ireland)

  Gárda Siochána

  garda shee-eh-caw-nah

  guardians of the peace (the police)

  Leinster

  lenn-ster

  (eastern province of Ireland)

  Munster

  munn-ster

  (southern province of Ireland)

  Sinn Féin

  shin fain

  ourselves (political party in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland)

  taoiseach

  tee-shook [or tee-shock]

  chieftain [or leader]

  (Prime Minister)

  tuath

  too-ah

  people or community

  Ulster

  ull-ster

  (northern province of Ireland)

  Introduction

  History is important to most societies, and nowhere is this more true than in Ireland. Irish history gives us more than the story of an island off the western European coast: its interpretations have provided various groups of people living there with justification for their ideas of nationality and identity. One of the most important things this book attempts to show is how diverse Irish history and culture is, but also how starkly different readings of that history have shaped its politics and society. Perhaps in no other country has the work of historians gained such importance in the popular mind. Interpretations of Irish history, from whatever period, ancient or modern, seem to have an immediate relevance to modern Irish society. This is because the issues raised by that history, particularly those issues raised by Ireland’s relations with Britain, run in parallel with contemporary questions about the political and cultural make-up of Ireland, and what it means to be Irish. There are several reasons why interpretations of Irish history have been so different. One is that history has often been used to bolster political ideologies. Another is that, as in many countries, the writing of history became more professional in the twentieth century. But perhaps the main reason is that Irish history is very complex, and is so compelling, and historians have never ceased to find new avenues for exploration and interpretation. Ireland: A Short History tries to present both a general narrative of Irish history (concentrating on the modern period) and a guide to the interpretations of major historians and commentators. If this book shows how difficult it is to make solid generalizations about Ireland, the Irish and Irish history, then it will have accomplished its main goal.

  Chapters one and two provide brief histories of Ireland before 1800, chapters three to eight examine specific periods and events in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and chapters nine and ten complete the history to the present day. Chapters one through nine contain sections entitled ‘Interpretations’, in which the main arguments of historians and other writers are discussed. These interpretative sections cannot hope to be comprehensive, but try to address some of the major and most interesting questions from each chapter. The discussion of various interpretations is necessarily brief and the definition of the schools of thought cannot be considered strict.

  These interpretative discussions may also give the impression that historical arguments change with every generation, and there is some truth to that. A very broad generalization of interpretations of Irish history would point to three major schools – the traditional, revisionist and post-revisionist. Traditional interpretations are generally those produced from the late 1800s to the end of the 1940s; revisionists took over from the early 1950s until the early 1990s, when a group of post-revisionists started to question both the motives and the conclusions of the revisionists. With the new century, the tr
aditionalist-revisionist-post-revisionist scheme has been set aside by many Irish historians who have been looking at entirely new questions, especially those dealing with Ireland’s part in the British empire (and the attending questions relating to colonialism and post-colonial theory), memory and commemoration, and the construction of Irish identities outside the realm of political history.

  This explanation of schools of thought is, of course, an oversimplification, but it is a reasonable one. Histories written in the ‘traditional’ period did share many characteristics. They were generally not the work of professional historians (partly because that profession, at least in Ireland, appeared slowly in the twentieth century), they often had a strong underlying political agenda and they did not use historical sources in an extensive and sophisticated way (as later twentieth-century historians would claim to). To many traditionalists, Irish history was either the noble and tragic struggle of the long-suffering Irish against their British oppressors (which is the nationalist version), or an equally strong struggle of Protestants in Ulster to retain their separate identity from the rest of the Irish population (which is the unionist version). The traditional nationalist interpretation has generally received more attention than the traditional unionist interpretation, partly because it was propagated through nationalist writings published in Ireland, Britain and the United States.

  ‘Revisionists’ were those historians who trained more professionally in the twentieth century, analysed more sources and treated them more critically than some previous historians had done. They often came to the conclusion that Irish history was much more complicated than either traditional school would have it. Further, they argued, the actions of the British government towards Ireland were not universally hostile and oppressive, and their motives were not always wicked. An important strain of the revisionist interpretation has been known as the ‘liberal’ or ‘inclusivist’ interpretation. These liberals and inclusivists have stressed the broad sweep of Irish culture and the diversity of Irish identity, as well as the deep complexities of the Irish past. ‘Post-revisionists’, however, generally think that the revisionists have gone too far in their willingness to relieve the British of blame for Irish problems. Since the post-revisionists share the same degree of historical professionalization and critical methodology as the revisionists, they do not see a need to reinterpret the previous generation’s work simply on the basis of higher-quality analysis. This, they would argue, has freed them from a reluctance to analyse the motives and morals of historical actors. And, although the historians who have moved into newer areas of inquiry since the mid-1990s (those dealing with questions outside the traditionalist-revisionist-post-revisionist paradigms) have not been given an interpretative label (or ‘school’ designation), they clearly represent a new departure from the battle over the interpretation of Irish history. In many ways, their studies on the new issues in Irish history, such as memory and commemoration, material culture, and transnational studies are more in line with much of the work that is being done in western history generally in the twenty-first century.