Ireland since 1922 - a democracy or not ? Diarmuid Ferriter seems to think not.

Bannasidhe

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

I agree with the analysis of our current system. My question though was "What form of government was envisaged by the 1916 leaders?" It could be added to that what form of government did War of Independence leaders envisage, or did they consider anything other than a separatist idea.

The 1916 leaders were executed so we can only go on their written or expressed views on this. I often ask questions and have a good idea of the answer but in this case I am not familiar with what the likes of Pearse, Clarke and Connolly would have wished should Ireland have got independence in 1916. Connolly and Pearse have left alot of writings but was there any detail into the form of government they would have liked. Connolly's socialist republic might not have suited the other signatories and it presumably would have required the democratic support of the whole country. As a conservative agricultural island a socialist government, even if republican may not have had support.

So to extend the question, What form of government was envisaged by the 1916 leaders and did they detail the practical aspects of how it would function? If we are to contrast what we have now with the wishes of 1916 then we need to look at what they wanted.

Some of Connolly's views can be gleaned from articles such as Erin’s Hope. The End and the Means (1897) http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1897/erin/hope.htm

There can be little doubt that Connolly favoured a socialist republic.

CDfm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Relate to what-

What form of government was envisaged by the 1916 leaders?

I have often asked people was James Connolly a democrat.

Lots of people will not commit to an answer, but, he did lead a group of suffragettes into the rising.

And one might say that he was .

@golfwallah

Although Social Partnership is not in the Constitution, its origins, the Programme for National Recovery (PNR) can be traced back to the General Elections of 1987.

From my own recollection and Wiki searches, the PNR was one of the explicit Fianna Fail election promises, that led to their winning in 1987.

This may well have been a wheeze to take the Unions out of Labour.

It is a bit odd that Labour isn't the declared political wing of the ICTU but for all other intents exercises considerable power with a foot in both camps.

But lets kick back to 1916 and an issue would have been patronage. I read something about heading Cork Port and Fire Service for instance not being available as jobs to Irish Catholics.

In 1916 there was not a universal franchise so these things bodies were not responsible to the people.

I think we would be on safe territory saying that the leaders of 1916 envisaged a parliament and that the parliament exercised power and the organs of state reported to it.

I do not think anyone envisaged that our politicians would deliberately build structures and coalitions with groups to get around the authority of parliament.

Would they have had an issue with civil service Mandarins and Trade Union leaders taking over and not being responsible and subservient to parliament . ? Would they have had a problem with the Civil Service developing power bases with interest groups and client representative groups.

Is the system responsible to the people and the Dail . ?

CDfm

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Some of Connolly's views can be gleaned from articles such as Erin’s Hope. The End and the Means (1897) http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1897/erin/hope.htm

There can be little doubt that Connolly favoured a socialist republic.

Did he favour a democratic form of government with universal suffrage ?

Bannasidhe

CDfm wrote: »

Did he favour a democratic form of government with universal suffrage ?

Given that the Irish Citizen's Army was the only military force involved in 1916 which allowed women to bear arms and hold commissions as officers - which was why Markievicz fought as a member of the ICA - I think we can posit Connolly was in favour of universal suffrage.

What he was not in favour of was elites who were granted special privileges, easy access to government or allowed to dictate policy.
I think he would be horrified by recent events and how Irland turned out. Markievicz also held strong socialist views - Diane Norman's Terrible Beauty is the best work I have read on her.

I think one of the differences between Connolly/ Markievicz and the IRB/Irish Volunteers camp was motivation. C and M were of the belief that the only way the Irish working class (including farm labourers) were going to achieve any measure of fairness of employment and legal rights was in an independent Ireland where as the IRB/IV were acting out of a Brits Out/Patriotism place.

Ironically, neither C nor M could have foreseen how WWI would undermine the British class system and the whole concept of Imperialism and WWII would herald in a Labour government and the NHS in the UK.

So while the left became sidelined (and vilified) in the Free State and Republic - it came to power in Westminster and was able to implement the kind of legislation Connolly wished to see in an independent Ireland - legislation he believed would never be possible in the UK.

P. Breathnach

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Given that the Irish Citizen's Army was the only military force involved in 1916 which allowed women to bare arms ...

I don't often pick up on typos, but...

Bannasidhe

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I don't often pick up on typos, but...

oops ...

was distracted by the chocolate ice cream (with extra chocolate) I was making...

P. Breathnach

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

I agree with the analysis of our current system. My question though was "What form of government was envisaged by the 1916 leaders?" ...

It might be an interesting question, but I don't think it a significant issue. Once Ireland became independent, the matter of government became the business of the people of Ireland. De Valera, with whom I would find little common ground, recognised this in formulating the 1937 Constitution and submitting it to a referendum of the people. That trumps any claim made on behalf of the 1916 leaders, the first Dáil, or the leaders of the war of independence.

P. Breathnach

Bannasidhe wrote: »

oops ...

was distracted by the chocolate ice cream (with extra chocolate) I was making...

Sleeves rolled up, I presume.

Bannasidhe

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Sleeves rolled up, I presume.

Wearing a Mrs Doyle type housecoat with a couple of enfield rifles hidden in the chicken coop in case the auxies came a calling.
I wanted to ensure I could bear arms while bare armed in tribute to Mná na hÉireann:p

jonniebgood1

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Originally Posted by CDfm View Post
Did he favour a democratic form of government with universal suffrage ?

Given that the Irish Citizen's Army was the only military force involved in 1916 which allowed women to bear arms and hold commissions as officers - which was why Markievicz fought as a member of the ICA - I think we can posit Connolly was in favour of universal suffrage.

What he was not in favour of was elites who were granted special privileges, easy access to government or allowed to dictate policy.

Regarding democracy I would point out the obvious- The participants in the rising were 'revolutionary nationalists'. The other notable in this point is that the other group of nationalists could be considered 'constitutional nationalists'. My inference being that democracy was not their no. 01 aim.

Dr.Nightdub

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Regarding democracy I would point out the obvious- The participants in the rising were 'revolutionary nationalists'. The other notable in this point is that the other group of nationalists could be considered 'constitutional nationalists'. My inference being that democracy was not their no. 01 aim.

Not necessarily. One group wanted to establish independent democracy within Ireland by revolutionary means, one by constitutional means.

CDfm

Dr.Nightdub wrote: »

Not necessarily. One group wanted to establish independent democracy within Ireland by revolutionary means, one by constitutional means.

Pre 1916 Arthur Griffith's Sinn Fein was into dual monarchy.

The Home Rule Party had the Home Rule Act 1914.

Did the Irish Citizen Army have a formula ?

Did the Irish Volunteers have a policy ?

jonniebgood1

Dr.Nightdub wrote: »

Not necessarily. One group wanted to establish independent democracy within Ireland by revolutionary means, one by constitutional means.

This is what I am searching for. Democracy is not mentioned in the Proclamation. What form of government was sought by Clarke, Mac Diarmada, MacDonagh, Pearse, Ceannt and Plunkett- did they have a preference.

golfwallah

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

This is what I am searching for. Democracy is not mentioned in the Proclamation. What form of government was sought by Clarke, Mac Diarmada, MacDonagh, Pearse, Ceannt and Plunkett- did they have a preference.

Although there is conditional mention in the Proclamation of “the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women”, there is no mention of democracy.

Good article in the Irish Times today, 10/04/2012, on this subject: “A greater paradox is that the State that ultimately emerged owed more to the democratic tradition of O’Connell, Parnell and Redmond than to the cult of blood sacrifice and mystical nationalism personified by 1916 leaders like Pearse and McDonagh.
See: http://www.irishtimes.com/indepth/oireachtas/90-years-of-democracy.htm

Reekwind

CDfm wrote: »

Did he favour a democratic form of government with universal suffrage ?

Hard to say really. Connolly's thinking was never particularly rigid and the wider Social-Democratic movement to which he, tenuously, belonged was also in a state of theoretical flux at the time. That said, his syndicalist influences aside, there's little in Connolly's writings to suggest that he held anything other than a orthodox Second International conception of the state; ie, public ownership of the economy and the state was still thought of primarily as an extension or opening of pre-existing parliamentary bodies

Thus the IRSP's 1893 manifesto called for:

1. Nationalisation of railways and canals.
2. Abolition of private banks and money-lending institutions and establishment of state banks, under popularly elected boards of directors, issuing loans at cost.
3. Establishment at public expense of rural depots for the most improved agricultural machinery, to be lent out to the agricultural population at a rent covering cost and the management alone.
4. Graduated income tax on all incomes over £400 per annum in order to provide funds for pensions to the aged infirm and widows and orphans.
5. Legislative restriction of the hours of labour to 48 per week and establishment of a minimum wage.
6. Free maintenance for all children.
7. Gradual extension of the principle of public ownership and supply of all the necessaries of life.
8. Public control and management of National Schools by boards elected by popular ballot for that purpose alone.
9. Free education up to the highest university grades.
10. Universal suffrage

All of which is distinctly tame by later standards and very much in the SPD model. This programme called for a 'democratic republic' that would merely serve as the predecessor for the 'socialist republic'

But... there's no doubt that Connolly was in step with the Zimmerwald Left and it wouldn't be remarkable to describe him as a proto-Leninist. He almost certainly would have been an enthusiastic supporter of the Russian Revolution, even if the lack of organisation would have rendered the IRSP a poor candidate for Bolshevisation. When the fringes of the European revolutionary wave did begin to lap at Britain and Ireland (in Glasgow, Belfast, Limerick, etc) it took the form of local soviets/councils rather than Social-Democratic orthodoxy and the call for the Workers' Republic appeared much more radical in tone

So it's perhaps best to suggest that conceptions of the Workers' Republic were, in line with European trends, quite different in 1916 than the Civil War years

jonniebgood1 wrote:

My inference being that democracy was not their no. 01 aim.

What was their objective? Even Connolly, the most theoretically literate and sanest of the 1916 leaders, was fairly inconsistent by the standards of his international peers. I don't think that Pearse and the the romantics had any real vision for Ireland's future

It's worth noting, however, that the grassroots independence movement that did develop - both in its labour and nationalist orientated forms - was generally democratic in nature and operated under the assumption that Ireland would be a democracy. Perhaps it fell into this by default, the ballot box being Sinn Fein's springboard to power, but there did exist the germ of a genuinely democratic society. The tragedy is that this was never allowed to develop fully

golfwallah

CDfm wrote: »

We are a small country and there are 166 TD's .

Did a bit of digging on Google and found the Progress Report on the Programme for Government, dated March 2012 (under Political Reform, Reduction in number of TDs), which gives the following info:
The Electoral (Amendment) Act 2011 provided for change in terms of reference of the Constituency Commission to effect that the number of TDs will be reduced to between 153 and 160. A Constituency Commission was established in July 2011 with a remit to report to the Chairman of the Dáil no later than 3 months after the Central Statistics Office (CSO) publish their final report on population results. The CSO is due to publish these results in March 2012.
New legislation will then be required to address the Commission’s recommendations. See also http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/eng/Publications/Publications_2011/PfG_Progress_Report_March_2012.pdf

CDfm wrote: »

They are not on the boards reporting to the Dail?

Not sure what you mean by this, whether it's about Dail attendance or the jobs TDs are given. I would be more concerned about what meaningful work and results TDs are achieving (aside from holding clincs, availing of photo opportunities, etc.). Maybe you could research that one yourself and let us know?

CDfm

golfwallah wrote: »

Not sure what you mean by this, whether it's about Dail attendance or the jobs TDs are given. I would be more concerned about what meaningful work and results TDs are achieving (aside from holding clincs, availing of photo opportunities, etc.). Maybe you could research that one yourself and let us know?

What I mean that with the exception of voting on the party leader and taoiseach the backbench td's do little

the dail gets by-passed as a decision making body and ot rubberstamps agreements etc

so at best the dail is marginalized

golfwallah

CDfm wrote: »

What I mean that with the exception of voting on the party leader and taoiseach the backbench td's do little

Can you produce evidence to support this, to lend a bit more weight to your argument? Maybe I'm not as clued in as you to what TDs do every day, but AFAIK, most if not all, are involved in Dail committees, etc.

There could be more and I've no idea how much of their time such activities take up, but a bit more research would be helpful before drawing the conclusion that they "do little". Wouldn't you agree?

CDfm

golfwallah wrote: »

Can you produce evidence to support this, to lend a bit more weight to your argument? Maybe I'm not as clued in as you to what TDs do every day, but AFAIK, most if not all, are involved in Dail committees, etc.

There could be more and I've no idea how much of their time such activities take up, but a bit more research would be helpful before drawing the conclusion that they "do little". Wouldn't you agree?

Do you look at a TD as being a constituency errand boy or a parliamentarian.? For errand boy read parish pump politics as opposed to clientism.

By that definition the late Tony Gregory was a very successful TD.

I had a couple of threads before on the corporate state.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=69753787

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=70585963

John Bruton is very forthright saying Ireland is run by civil servants who use the Dail to rubberstamp their rule. Now if you have a conversation with party political types they sidestep the issue as by definition what it is saying is that TD's have little power or influence.

Bruton is by profession a barrister and pointedly refused the FG nomination for the Presidency.

This is history and not politics so we can say what we want.

EDIT & of course Lemass

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056256224

So has the balance shifted from the Dail and the people to an "unelected" corporate state elite.

HavingCrack

Reekwind wrote: »

. I don't think that Pearse and the the romantics had any real vision for Ireland's future

Did De Valera have any particular vision for Ireland in 1916 or did his views develop later? I am not overly familiar with his political views until the War of Independance and Civil War.

franc 91

I seem to have seen in one of the RTE programmes on the subject that when De Valera got away to America after having narrowly escaped the firing squad, he presented himself as the President of Ireland and set up his base in a very fashionable and expensive hotel. He was then given a thorough political education by important members of the Irish community, which he found useful later on. On his (secret) return to Ireland, he was told that Collins was the 'Big Man' to which he is said to have replied 'We'll see about that'.

CDfm

franc 91 wrote: »

I seem to have seen in one of the RTE programmes on the subject that when De Valera got away to America after having narrowly escaped the firing squad, he presented himself as the President of Ireland and set up his base in a very fashionable and expensive hotel. He was then given a thorough political education by important members of the Irish community, which he found useful later on. On his (secret) return to Ireland, he was told that Collins was the 'Big Man' to which he is said to have replied 'We'll see about that'.

Who did he meet in the US.

Pearse had been to the US on fundraising trips & for his school tapping Bulmer Hobson's people for donations. Collins had not been a Pearse fan and more impressed by Connolly.

So Dev & Collins may have had ideological differences back to 1916.

franc 91

I'm far from being knowledgeable on this but I do however suggest that you have a look at the programmes about De Valera that are now available on YouTube such as - 'De Valera, Ireland's Hated Hero' (BBC 2) episodes 1 - 4 and 'De Valera versus Churchill' RTE Factual episodes 1 - 6, as well as Michael Collins, Wanted Man, The Man who Lost Ireland srl

CDfm

franc 91 wrote: »

I'm far from being knowledgeable on this but I do however suggest that you have a look at the programmes about De Valera that are now available on YouTube such as - 'De Valera, Ireland's Hated Hero' (BBC 2) episodes 1 - 4 and 'De Valera versus Churchill' RTE Factual episodes 1 - 6, as well as Michael Collins, Wanted Man, The Man who Lost Ireland srl

Oh, I know lots about Irish History but this is a gap in irish history that rarely gets mentioned. Getting a discussion going on it is fairly amazing.

It's political , though in 1900 there was no such thing as a democracy anywhere in the world based on universal suffrage so people should not be so coy discussing it.

http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/7310

franc 91

Well that's why it's so useful and interesting to be guided by someone as talented and frank as Diarmaid Ferriter. I'm not Irish, I'm a complete outsider to all of this, but I'm not at all sure that this kind of programme could have been broadcast 20 or 30 years ago. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, you can also see on YouTube the six episodes of 'Hang up your brightest colours' or 'the Life and Death of Michael Collins', an very impassioned presentation by the Welshman Kenneth Griffith. As they explain it all there, this film was originally commisioned for ATV and was ready to be broadcast in 1973, but Lew Grade didn't dare allow it on the screen - ATV broadcast in the (English) Midlands where there was a sizeable Irish working population. The British establishment definitely wouldn't haven't appreciated it being shown.

HemlockOption

I can't understand why this country is planning celebrating 100 years of 'independence'. This suggests that we have built something to be proud of. Manifestly, we have not.

CDfm

HemlockOption wrote: »

I can't understand why this country is planning celebrating 100 years of 'independence'. This suggests that we have built something to be proud of. Manifestly, we have not.

Well its currently 90 years and 100 will be in ten years in 1922. 2022

What I am trying to trace is the form of government and the political structures envisaged by the nations founders.

It is the centenary of the Ulster Covenant this year.

jonniebgood1

HemlockOption wrote: »

I can't understand why this country is planning celebrating 100 years of 'independence'. This suggests that we have built something to be proud of. Manifestly, we have not.

If you have something constructive to add to the conversation then by all means proceed. If not then steer clear. Any query on this should be PM'd to me.

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