IRB & Irish Volunteers 1916 Questions

bobbyss

I have long been confused about the above two organization and if anyone can clarify please put in your bobs worth!!

What roughly was the membership of the IRB pre 1916?

When the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) were set up, the Irish Volunteers (IV) was established to ensure Home Rule passage and soon its membership numbered 140,000 -200,000I believe.

But as the IRB was long established why did they not fulfill that role? Why was there a need for the IV in the first place and how come so many joined? Why didn't the IRB lead this movement? Indeed why would they tolerate another movement (IV) apparently very popular?

If I was a young pro Home Rule person in 1914 and I was prepared to use any means to defend the implementation of HR then surely it would be the IRB I would join and not the IV? Did they not have the same aims?

Why did many of the leaders of the 1916 join both?

Peregrinus

The IRB was a secret, oath-bound organisation, widely seen as extremist and also the subject of constant attention from Dublin Castle. Plus, it was illegal. But in the early twentieth century it was almost moribund, with an aging leadership who looked back to the Fenian rebellion of 1867 but who had little traction in contemporary politics. Over a period of ten years or so it was revitalised by a younger generation basically shafting the old guard and taking over control of the organisation. But it remained a small organisation with a definite reputational problem.

Under its new leadership, the IRB was behind the establishment of the Irish Volunteers. The idea was that the Volunteers would not be illegal, they would not be secret, they would not be openly seditious, they would not have the reputational problems associated with the IRB brand, but they would nevertheless be substantially under IRB leadership, In short, despite having links to other nationalist organisations (Sinn Féin, the Irish Parliamentary Party, the Gaelic League, the GAA) they would be a front for the IRB.

A pro-Home Rule person would not have joined the IRB in 1914 - the IRB did not support home rule; its objective - as the name suggests - was the establishment of a sovereign and independent Irish republic.

The Irish Volunteers, as we know, split in 1914. Effectively, those who didn't know that it was an IRB front or who weren't happy about that left, taking most of the membership with them into the National Volunteers. The remaining Irish Volunteer movement then became more openly separatist and republican, and in fact supplanted the IRB as the leading separatist organisation. After the 1916 Rising a number of leading Republicans - including de Valera - left the IRB, which they regarded as no longer necessary since the Volunteers were now performing its function. Others remained in the IRB, including Michael Collins, who became president in 1920. In 1922 the IRB Supreme Council decided by 11 votes to 4 to back the Treaty. This led to a further split within the now much diminished IRB, and it played little role in the Civil War. It seems to have wound up completely by the mid-1920s, but whether it ever formally dissolved itself or simply ceased to function is not entirely clear - that's the thing with secret organisations; it can be hard to know what happens. That's also the reason why we can't answer your first question - what was the membership pre-1916? We don't know, because they didn't keep membership records.

bobbyss

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118528984#Comment_118528984

Great stuff. Thank you.