Myth and propaganda of the unpopuliarity of 1916 ?

McArmalite

CDfm wrote: »

I am not accepting the British line - I am asking questions because the PR elements that got dished out to me in my schooldays don't sit that well with me.

I have always had misgivings about the blood sacrifice issue. My grandfather did too and he was part of the West Cork Brigade.My grandfather was anti treaty btw but the Civil War left him cold and my uncle emigrated as a result of it.

" I am not accepting the British line " Really :eek:

CDfm

There were other groups involved in the Rising too who had socialist principles and a different world view ICA/ITGWU.I am sure they did not see things along sectarian lines and had "cross border" links.

Didnt the Irish party have an MP in Liverpool.

Partition or war wasn't on everyones agenda.

But was emigration of the protestants/unionists from the south an objective too?

brianthebard

CDfm wrote: »

Thanks.

Was Trinity used as a base or something when the British regrouped- it does look fortress like and must have had some kind of Territorial Army based there?

There were some Trinity reserves there to begin with. When the Rising began it could have been taken easily but a day or two afterwards when the British Forces began to regroup it became a very useful position for them.

McArmalite wrote: »

" I am not accepting the British line " Really :eek:

Come on now this thread is about questioning myths which CDfm is just doing out loud. I think its going well so far so there's no need to mock people for asking questions and being sceptical. Its hardly surprising that people don't automatically assume everything they were taught in school is wrong, and most of it was not. This thread should be about separating agendas that have been represented in history, not having a go at people if they don't agree with yours.

brianthebard

CDfm wrote: »

There were other groups involved in the Rising too who had socialist principles and a different world view ICA/ITGWU.I am sure they did not see things along sectarian lines and had "cross border" links.

Didnt the Irish party have an MP in Liverpool.

Partition or war wasn't on everyones agenda.

But was emigration of the protestants/unionists from the south an objective too?

Yes indeed the ITGWU was a truly all Ireland organisation and had been very successful before the war but its ranks were gutted by recruitment under duress. During strikes in Belfast in 1909 or 1911 (can't remember) it had seen workers of all faiths join together in solidarity which convinced Connolly that it would not be difficult to bring workers away from sectarianism.

I think its fair to say that Partition was the policy of Ulster Unionists more than anyone else, it was certainly not sought by any Irish nationalists or republicans. From the beginning of the Unionist organisation when Carson went to Belfast to organise it there was an admission that only Ulster could expect to stay within the Union. I don't believe there was an official policy or objective to relocate protestants or unionists on behalf of Irish Republicans, but as the war of independence continued it did seem to take on more sectarian elements imo which hardened attitudes.

DublinDes

CDfm wrote: »

A majority should also respect a significant majority. Its about esteem innit.

Well as we all know too well the catholic church dominated the country in too many ways. Still, we never approached the sectarianism of the unionists in the 6 county's as wrong as things were down here.

CDfm

Who would you think were the movers and shakers who shaped partition.

I mean Anna Sheehy Skeffington was anti-treaty and she was a colleague of Anna Haslam the suffragette and pacifist. Both Cork women.

I am bringing this up as you had broad coalitions and in the 1919 elections women over 30 had the vote along with all men over 18.

So the political landscape had changed considerably in terms of the composition of the electorate.

Was this significant in the myths that arose in that it was addressed to a different audience?

The other issue - politicians in the Home Rule Party - did they swap over to Sinn Fein or was it all new blood?

EDIT - my gran had a picture of Countess Markievicz in the parlour because of the suffrage issue and even JFK wasnt fit to be in the same room as her.

CDfm

DublinDes wrote: »

Well as we all know too well the catholic church dominated the country in too many ways. Still, we never approached the sectarianism of the unionists in the 6 county's as wrong as things were down here.

Its a legacy we have.

CDfm

brianthebard wrote: »

Yes indeed the ITGWU was a truly all Ireland organisation and had been very successful before the war but its ranks were gutted by recruitment under duress. During strikes in Belfast in 1909 or 1911 (can't remember) it had seen workers of all faiths join together in solidarity which convinced Connolly that it would not be difficult to bring workers away from sectarianism.

When we say myth I have often wondered about the influence of the press/media? Was there national press? What did people read.

The Irish Times was a "protestant" newspaper as far as I recollect.
When I was growing up the Indo was FG and the Irish Press FF.Did they have a national readership? Did there distribution reach towns and villages?

So were papers partisan and they influence or have national coverage as we know it or did you have local/regional papers who carried their message and were they partisan? For example, the Cork Examiner was a regional paper that became national, the Anglo Celt , Waterford News and Star etc.

You also have sectoral papers etc. Just say the Farmers Journal -I read somewhere that this has a significant protestant readership so presumably all this originated somewhere.

brianthebard

CDfm wrote: »

Who would you think were the movers and shakers who shaped partition.

I mean Anna Sheehy Skeffington was anti-treaty and she was a colleague of Anna Haslam the suffragette and pacifist. Both Cork women.

I am bringing this up as you had broad coalitions and in the 1919 elections women over 30 had the vote along with all men over 18.

So the political landscape had changed considerably in terms of the composition of the electorate.

Was this significant in the myths that arose in that it was addressed to a different audience?

I'm confused by what 'it' is-partition? Also confused about how the suffragette movement applies here, care to expand on it? The Irish Press wasn't around in 1916 btw. The Independent was and was a fairly conservative paper (imo at least) although nothing like the Irish Times.

CDfm

brianthebard wrote: »

I'm confused by what 'it' is-partition? Also confused about how the suffragette movement applies here, care to expand on it? The Irish Press wasn't around in 1916 btw. The Independent was and was a fairly conservative paper (imo at least) although nothing like the Irish Times.

Haslam was a Cork Quaker and I knew some of her relatives one of whom met me when I first worked in Dublin. Local Woman( Im from East Cork) gets Stephens Green Memorial- I had never heard of her at school.The Quakers are good people.I had also been amused about the Park Keeper in Stephens Green having tea with Countess Markievicz mid rising and getting a medal for saving rare birds bullets wizzing past etc.

So what I am saying is that other than nationalists and republicans others too had a vested interest in the rising and the franchise. So the " coalition" crossed religious and even political divides.Markievicz was there for a reason and hooked her group up with Connolly and the Irish Citizen Army. Connolly would have viewed himself representing working class protestants as well.

There were also a group on the fringes, Yeats, Sean O'Casey, Douglas Hyde etc all with an interest in the Cultural Revival and all Protestants. Markievicz you could class as moving in artistic circles but Hyde was hardly Bohemian.

So there was integration and various interest groups represented in the rising that crossed the religious and social divides.How come sectarian emigration then occured from the south.

If it was today -the Markievicz issue would have been headlines as " "Cookie Countess Leads Rebels".

So taking these movements as such (and I am homing in on the Suffragette one simply because it wasn't explained in school) how representative were they of the General Population.

The newspapers ( I knew the Press was post Independence) but was the press politically partisan? Was there such a thing as the National Press. Would it have had an ideology that would have reinforced a sectarian feeling.

So we have all these good people and cross-religious connections and we have the franchise issue that crosses the divide and we have partition.

What was the electoral support for Unionism in the South. Given the Home Rule Party it must have had Protestant support in the South for its electoral successes given the voting system at that time.

Now I know some will say Carson was a Hitler like figure with a private army and he started it and it led to partition. In Limerick in 1900 or so didn't you have a "jewish" boycott that caused jews to leave- many got as far as Cork.:pac:Did this happen to protestant businesss?

The other thing is random burning of Protestant Houses in the whole period. Was there tribal score settling? How were Protestant businesses treated and was there a sectarian divide as such that caused or fed partition and migratation of protestants.

So anecdotaly at least I have come accross bits I didn't learn as part of official history and I would like to know what else is there.

So Haslam would have been a mover and shaker in Suffragette issues and charity work. Were there others?

The Newspapers , how were they. The Irish Times survived independence but were there others that didnt? Were they influencial?

brianthebard

Oh god, you're actually throwing out so many ideas and names at the minute that its very confusing. Fwiw Hyde was a poet and playwright and friend of Yeats so was quite bohemian. I mention this because you appear to be making a series of assumptions which while not intended badly are distracting. I guess the best way to explain this is that the only organisation or group which wanted partition were Ulster Unionists. They of course did not want Home Rule or a 26 county free state either but were forced to accept that a small statelet in the North was the best they could hope to hold on to as time went on.
The newspaper issue was far greater and complex than you realise, I think you should look for books by Frank Shovlin and Tom Clyde if you have time and access to a library. These books detail the hundreds, perhaps thousands of papers and journals written in Ireland in the past 100 years or more. Every movement had its paper- the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society had the Homestead, the Conservatives had the Times, the ITGWU/ICA had the Irish Worker and later the Workers' Republic, Yeats had the Spark (I think), the IVF had An Claidheamh Soluis, etc, etc, etc. I'm not trying to berate you but there's literally no way I can answer your question. This is actually a phd type topic.

Now as for emigration after independence by protestants I know less about this. You should perhaps think about it in the same terms as a lot of other British Colonies where after independence was granted to the natives a large section of the settler population left for Britain/Europe/US. Some would certainly have left because of violence, especially if they were known to have supported Britain in the War. Some would have left out of fear and uncertainty about how the country would be run, whether their wealth would be repossessed, etc. There are many reasons why protestants and unionists would have moved to the new Northern Ireland or abroad.

CDfm

brianthebard wrote: »

Oh god, you're actually throwing out so many ideas and names at the minute that its very confusing. Fwiw Hyde was a poet and playwright and friend of Yeats so was quite bohemian. I mention this because you appear to be making a series of assumptions which while not intended badly are distracting.

I wouldn't have looked on Hyde as a Boho but I take your point.

I guess the best way to explain this is that the only organisation or group which wanted partition were Ulster Unionists. They of course did not want Home Rule or a 26 county free state either but were forced to accept that a small statelet in the North was the best they could hope to hold on to as time went on.

Thanks for the answer Brian - I have often been confused by the myths as I had extended family connections thru many groups and their versions wouldn't fit the history. So I do agree it right to challenge the myths.

So they ( the Unionists) really were the movers behind it.

I saw recently in respect of the 1969 "proposed NI invasion" that Lynch would have had problems raising 3000 soldiers while the B Specials alone were 8,000 in the north.

Was there much action in the War of Independence in the North?

I'm not trying to berate you but there's literally no way I can answer your question. This is actually a phd type topic.

I appreciate that and its only because it is certainly more complex than I was taught.

Snickers Man

I think that one of the problems with a simplistic view of 1916 is that it tends to obscure the fact that there was actually a broad spectrum of nationalist opinion in Ireland at the time of the First World War, not all of it sympathetic to the IRB.

Yes, many people in Ireland, particularly among the Catholic population, were instinctively nationalist in that they believed themselves to be Irish first and British a very distant second, if at all. Nonetheless, many were none too keen to sever links with the empire entirely.

In those days before globalisation as we now know it, the Empire was a world-wide trading block to which Irish entrepreneurs and business people wanted to maintain access. Put bluntly, they didn't want an end to the Empire; they just wanted a more prominent place within it. And they wanted a greater control of local Irish affairs.

On the second point, if not the first, they would have been in common cause with people of all classes. The average man on the street couldn't have given a monkey's for William Martin Murphy's plans to expand his transport business into other countries around the world (which he did) but they could readily have bought the line that "if we were in charge, the famine wouldn't have happened because we wouldn't have let it" which the British couldn't really argue against.

There are parallels, not exact ones, I have to say but similar enough to the debate about the Lisbon treaty. Looking around me in recent days I see posters proclaiming "Vote yes for jobs" which remind us that our economic policy is inextricably linked to membership of the EU. I suspect that many people round WWI time would have felt that Ireland's economic future would have been very much within the bounds of the British Empire.

There were of course the extreme "Ourselves Alone" republicans (NB NOT Sinn Fein at the time who were the ultimate proponents of a partnership of equals with the British government) who wanted nothing to do with Britain, and the Socialists of the Citizen Army whose vision was for a proletarian self sufficient republic free of the taint of British capital.

Think of the Nationalists of 1914-16 as being the forebears of the Yes to Lisbon element with the Republicans being closer to the "Ireland says NO" camp.

There was a range of opinions and points of view back then as there is now.
This should not be a surprise.

TheScribbler

I think your point is well made