History of the Republic of Ireland
Encyclopedia
The Irish state originally came into being in 1922 as the Irish Free State
, a dominion of the British Commonwealth
, having seceded from the United Kingdom
under the Anglo-Irish Treaty
. It comprises of 26 of Ireland's 32 counties. Since 1949 it has described itself as the Republic of Ireland
.
The Free State was immediately embroiled, on its foundation, in a Civil War between those nationalists who supported the Treaty and those who held out for a fully independent Republic. The pro-Treaty side, organised as Cummann na nGaedheal emerged victorious from the conflict and won subsequent elections. They formed the government of the state until 1932, when they peacefully handed over power to the anti-Treaty faction in Fianna Fail
, who defeated them in an election. The Irish state, despite its violent beginnings, has remained a liberal democracy throughout its existence. A new constitution in 1937 removed many of the links with Britain established under the Treaty and Ireland's neutrality in the Second World War demonstrated it independence in foreign policy matters from Britain. In 1948 Ireland formally left the British Commonwealth and adopted the description of "Republic" for the state.
In the economic sphere, the Irish state has had a mixed performance. On independence, it was one of the wealthier countries in Europe per head of population. However it also inherited from British rule the twin problems of unemployment, emigration, uneven geographical development and lack of a native industrial base. For much of its history, the state has struggled to rectify these problems. Particular peaks of emigration were recorded during the late 1930s, 1950s and 1980s, when the Irish economy recorded little growth.
In the 1930s, Fianna Fail governments attempted to create Irish domestic industries using subsidies and protective tarifs. In the late 1950s, these policies were dropped in favour of free trade with selected countries and encouraging of foreign investment with low taxes. This was expanded when Ireland entered the European Economic Community
in 1972. In the 1990s and 2000s, Ireland experienced an economic boom known as the Celtic Tiger
, in which the country's GDP surpassed many of its European neighbours. . Immigration also surpassed emigration, bringing the state's population up to over 4 million. However, since 2008, Ireland has experienced a severe crisis in the banking sector and with sovereign debt. The resultant economic slump has deepened the effect of the world recession on Ireland.
From 1937 until 1998, the Irish constitution included a claim to the territory of Northern Ireland
, which was claimed as a part of the "national territory". However, the state has also opposed and used its security forces against those armed groups - principally the Provisional Irish Republican Army
, who have tried to unite Ireland by force. This has occurred in the 1950s, throughout the 1970s and 1980s and on a reduced scale, to the present. Irish governments meanwhile tried to broker an agreement to the conflict known as The Troubles
within Northern Ireland from 1968 to the late 1990s. The British government officially recognised the right of the Irish government to be a party to the Northern negotiations in the Anglo-Irish Agreement
of 1985. In 1998, as part of the Good Friday Agreement, the Irish constitution was altered by referendum to remove the territorial claim to Northern Ireland and instead extend the right of Irish citizenship to all the people of the island should they wish to have it.
in 1801 until 6 December 1922 the whole of Ireland
was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
. However, since the 1880s there had been long standing nationalist agitation for autonomy or Home Rule
. Other, more radical voices such as the Irish Republican Brotherhood
called for full independence, but these were in a minority.
In 1912-1913, the Liberal government in Britain proposed a Bill for Home Rule. Alarmed, unionists in the north organised the Ulster Volunteers, an armed militia proposing to resist Home Rule by force. Nationalists in response funded the Irish Volunteers
. Arising out of this stand off, the partition of Ireland was proposed in three way talks between the Irish Parliamentary Party
, the Unionist Party and the British government. In 1914, the UK Parliament enacted a Third Irish Home Rule Bill
but suspended its effect until after World War I
.
The nationalist leader John Redmond
pledged support for the British war effort and many Irishmen served in the British Army (see Ireland in World War I), but the war and the frustration of nationalist ambitions regarding Home Rule led to a radicalisation of Irish nationalism. In 1916, a group of IRB activists within the Irish Volunteers led an insurrection aimed at Irish independence in Dublin, known as the Easter Rising
. The rebellion did not have popular support and was put down within a week, but the execution of its leaders, and the subsequent wholesale arrest of radical nationalist activists proved very unpopular with the nationalist public. Coming directly after the Rising, a further attempt was made at the Irish Convention
to resolve the impasse over Home Rule, but without success. Finally, the British proposal to extend conscription for the war to Ireland provoked widespread resistance, (see Conscription Crisis of 1918) and discredited the Irish Parliamentary Party who had supported the British war effort.
All of these factors led to a swing towards support for Sinn Féin
- the party which was led by veterans of the Easter Rising and which stood for an independent Irish Republic. In the Irish general election, 1918, Sinn Féin won the vast majority of seats, many of which were uncontested. Sinn Féin's elected candidates refused to attend the UK Parliament
at Westminster and instead assembled in Dublin as a new revolutionary parliament called "Dáil Éireann
". They declared the existence of a new state called the "Irish Republic
" and established a system of government to rival the institutions of the United Kingdom.
The first meeting
of the Dáil coincided with an unauthorized shooting of two RIC
men in Tipperary
, now regarded as the outbreak of the Irish War of Independence
. From 1919 to 1921 the Irish Volunteers (now renamed as the Irish Republican Army
, being deemed by the Dáil to be the army of the new Irish Republic) engaged in guerrilla warfare
against the British army, the RIC and paramilitary police units known as the Black and Tans
and Auxiliaries
. The violence started out slowly, with only 19 deaths in 1919, but escalated sharply from the second half of 1920 and in the first six months of 1921 alone there were 1,000 deaths on all sides. The principle political leader of the republican movement was Eamon de Valera
- the President of the Republic. However he spent much of the conflict in the United States, raising money and support for the Irish cause. In his absence, two young men, Michael Collins
and Richard Mulcahy
rose to prominence as the clandestine leaders of the IRA - respectively Director of Intelligence and Chief of Staff of the guerrilla organisation.
There were several failed attempts to negotiate an end to the conflict. In the summer of 1920, the British government proposed the Government of Ireland Act 1920
(which passed into law on 3 May 1921) that envisaged the partition of the island of Ireland into two autonomous regions Northern Ireland
(six northeastern counties) and Southern Ireland
(the rest of the island, including its most northerly county, Donegal). However, this was not acceptable to southern republicans and only the entity of Northern Ireland was established under the Act in 1921. The potential entity of Southern Ireland was superseded in 1922 by the creation of the Irish Free State, meaning that "Southern Ireland" never came into existence.
After further failed talks in December 1920, the guerrilla conflict was brought to an end in July 1921, with a truce agreed between the IRA and the British. Talks were then formally begun in pursuit of a peace settlement.
To some extent, the War of Independence exposed political and religious fissures in Irish society. The IRA killed over 200 civilians as alleged informers in the conflict. It has been alleged that groups like Protestants and ex-servicemen were disproportionately represented in this figure - an argument disputed by other historians. However whether due to violence and intimidation or due to their loyalty to the British presence in Ireland, between 1911 and 1926 some 34 percent of the Free State's Protestant population - or about 40,000 people - left the 26 counties, mostly for Northern Ireland or Britain. While there were many reasons for this, secession from the United Kingdom was a factor in Protestant emigration.
Negotiations between the British and Irish negotiating teams produced the Anglo-Irish Treaty
, concluded on 6 December 1922. The Irish team was led by Michael Collins, who had organised the IRA intelligence during the War of Independence. The British team led by David Lloyd George
and Winston Churchill
were prepared to make concessions on Irish independence but would not concede a republic. Towards the end of negotiations, Lloyd George threatened, "immediate and terrible war" if the Irish did not accept the terms offered.
The Treaty envisaged a new system of Irish self government, known as "dominion status", with a new state, to be called the Irish Free State. The Free State was considerably more independent than a Home Rule Parliament would have been. It had its own police and armed forces and control over its own taxation and fiscal policy, none of which had been envisaged under Home Rule. However, there were some limits to its sovereignty. It remained a dominion of the British Commonwealth and members of its parliament had to swear an oath of loyalty to the British monarch. The British also retained three naval bases - known as the Treaty Ports
. In addition, the Irish state was obliged to honour the contracts of the existing civil service -with the exception of the Royal Irish Constabulary
, which was disbanded, albeit with full pensions - payable by the Irish state.
There was also the question of partition, which pre-dated the Treaty but which was copper-fastened by it. In theory, Northern Ireland was included under the terms of the Treaty but under Article 12 was, given the option to opt out within a month. (See Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922
) Thus for three days from midnight on 6 December 1922 the newly established Irish Free State, in theory included all of the island of Ireland (including Northern Ireland). However, in practice, Northern Ireland was already a functioning autonomous area by this time and it formally left the Irish Free State on 8 December 1922.
As a result of these limits to the Free State's sovereignty, and because the Treaty dismantled the Republic declared by nationalists in 1918, the Sinn Féin movement, the Dáil and the IRA were all deeply split over whether to accept the Treaty. Eamon de Valera, the President of the Republic was the most prominent leader of those who rejected the Treaty. Among other things, he objected to the fact that Collins and the negotiating team had signed it without the authorisation of the Dáil Cabinet.
, President of the Republic and several other cabinet members resigned in protest.
The pro-Treaty leadership of Michael Collins
and Arthur Griffith
, organised in a Provisional Government, set about establishing the Irish Free State created by the Treaty. To this end, they began recruiting for a new army, based initially at Beggar's Bush Barracks in Dublin, composed of pro-Treaty IRA units. They also began recruiting for a new police, the Civic Guard, to replace the RIC which was disbanded as of August 1922.
However a majority of the IRA led by Rory O'Connor
opposed the Treaty, on the grounds that it disestablished the Irish republic, which they argued they were sworn to defend, and that it imposed a declaration of fidelity to the British monarch on Irish parliamentarians. The IRA held a convention in March 1922, in which they renounced their allegiance to the Dáil and vested it in their own Army Council. O'Connor in April led the occupation by anti-Treaty forces of several public buildings in Dublin, notably the Four Courts. Eamon de Valera, while not in command of the anti-Treaty IRA, also led political opposition to the Treaty in a new party named Cumann na Poblachta
.
With two rival Irish armed forces now in the country, civil war looked likely from the spring of 1922. Three events set it off. The first was the election of June 18, 1922, which the pro-Treaty Sinn Féin party won, giving the Free State a popular mandate. The second was the assassination by Irish republicans in London of a retired British general Henry Hughes Wilson
. While it is not clear who ordered the killing, the British government assumed it was the anti-Treaty IRA and ordered Collins to act against them or risk armed British intervention to do it. The third trigger was the kidnapping by the IRA in the Four Courts of Free State general, JJ O'Connell. This combination of events forced the Collins government to assault and take the anti-Treaty positions in Dublin, which it succeeded in doing after a week's fighting in July 1922. Eamon de Valera declared his support for the anti-Treaty IRA after the outbreak of hostilities.
A further military offensive secured Free State control over the other major towns and cites in its territory by the beginning of August. However the war dragged on in a guerrilla form until April 1923. However in August 1922, the Free State was rocked by the death of its two main leaders. Michael Collins was killed in an ambush at Beal na mBlath, Cork, on 22 August 1922 and Arthur Griffith died of a stroke a week earlier. W. T. Cosgrave assumed control of both the Irish Republic's cabinet and the Provisional Government and both administrations disappeared simultaneously shortly afterwards, replaced by the institutions of the Irish Free State on 6 December 1922.
The anti-Treaty IRA under Liam Lynch
tried to use the same guerrilla tactics against the Free State as they had against the British in 1919-1921. However, without the same degree of popular support, they were less effective. A very large number of arrests, some 12,000 in all, and use of a harsh policy of executions (77 prisoners were judicially shot with over 100 more 'unofficially' killed in the field) combined to cripple their forces by April 1923.
The death in action of Lynch in this month led to the anti-Treaty IRA, under the orders of Frank Aiken
and on the urgings of civilian leader de Valera, calling a ceasefire and to "dump arms". There was no negotiated end to the war however.
The Civil War between Irish nationalists created a great deal of bitterness and the Civil War cleavage also produced the two main parties of independent Ireland in the 20th century. The number of dead has yet to be accurately counted but is considered to be around 2,000; at least as high as the number killed in the preceding War of Independence.
The Cummann na nGaedheal governments, led by WT Cosgrave, were highly conservative - being more concerned with establishing the state's basic institutions after the havoc of the Civil War than with social or political reform. According to Kevin O'Higgins, the Minister for Justice, "we were the most conservative group of revolutionaries ever to have carried out a successful revolution".
The Irish Civil Service was largely inherited intact from the British and senior civil servants such as C.J. Gregg were 'lent' to the Irish from London to get the new state's bureaucracy off the ground. The new service, and especially its comptroller, Joseph Brennan were initially most concerned with balancing the state's budget and avoiding long-term in-debtedness The Free State printed its own notes (the punt
), and minted its own coins but their value remained tied to British sterling currency until the 1970s.
Whereas the British had devolved much power to local government in the 1890s, one of the Free State's first acts was to abolish many of the powers of County Council
s and replace them with unelected County managers. This was partly due to the allegiance of some councils to the anti-Treaty side in the Civil War, but also due to the belief that giving power to local government bred corruption. One of the major successes of the Cumman na nGaedheal governments was to establish the police, the Garda Siochana
, as an unarmed and politically neutral force, relatively untainted by the bitterness of the civil war.
On the economic front, the Cosgrave administration saw its role as supporting the Irish agricultural export sector by consolidating farms and improving the quality of their produce. Ernest Blythe, the first Minister for Finance, in a bid to reduce the public debt, cut public expenditure from £42 million in 1923 to £27 million in 1926. The Cumman na nGeadhael governments did not see providing social services as a priority and instead cut income tax from 5 shillings to 3 shillings. One exception to the generally low level of public spending was the Ardnacrusha hydroelectric plant, which provided Ireland's first autonomous source of electricity.
While the last prisoners of the Civil War were released in 1924, the Free State retained extensive emergency powers to intern and even execute political opponents, under a series of Public Safety Acts (1923, 1926 and 1931). These powers were used after the IRA assassinated Minister Kevin O'Higgins
(in revenge for the executions during the Civil War) in 1927 when several hundred IRA suspects were interned.
Initially Cumman na nGaedheal had been popular as the party that had established the state, but by 1932, their economic conservatism and continued repression of anti-Treaty Republicans was becoming unpopular. Fianna Fail won the 1932 election on a programme of developing Irish industry, creating jobs, providing more social services and cutting the remaining links with the British Empire. In 1932, Fianna Fail entered government in coalition with the Labour Party, but a year later they won an absolute majority. They would be in government without interruption until 1948 and for much of the rest of the 20th century.
One of Fianna Fail's first actions in government was to legalise the IRA and to release imprisoned republicans. IRA members began attacking Cumman na nGaedhal supporters, who they considered "traitors" at rallies. This greatly antagonised pro-Treaty Civil War veterans, who in response formed the quasi-fascist Blueshirt (initially the "Army Comrades Association") movement, led by the former Garda Commissioner Eoin O'Duffy
to oppose the IRA. There were frequent riots and occasional shootings between the two factions in the early 1930s. De Valera banned the Blueshirts in 1933, after a threatened march on the Dáil, in imitation of Mussolini's March on Rome
. Not long afterwards, in 1936, De Valera made a clean break with political violence when he banned the increasingly left-wing IRA after they murdered a landlord's agent, Richard More O'Farrell, in a land dispute and fired shots at police during a strike of Tramway workers in Dublin. In 1939 it enacted the Offences against the State Act, for the prosecution of illegal armed groups; an act just as draconian as any legislation previous administrations had passed.
and the Turf Development Board. While this state-led strategy had some positive results, emigration remained high throughout this period, with up to 75,000 leaving for Britain in the late 1930s.
In the course of their pursuit of economic independence, Fianna Fail also provoked what is known as the Anglo-Irish Trade War
with Britain in 1933, by refusing to continue paying back "Land Annuities" -money that Irish farmers had borrowed from the British government since the 1903 Wyndham Act in order to buy their own land. The British in retaliation raised tariffs on Irish agricultural produces, hurting Ireland's export trade. De Valera in turn raised taxes on the importation of British goods. The burden of this standoff fell on the cattle farmers, who could no longer sell their cattle at competitive rates in Britain. Additionally the Fianna Fail government continued to collect half the land annuities as taxation. Police and sometimes troops were used to seize cattle off farmers who would or could not pay. Farmers aggrieved at these policies were one of the principle support bases of the Blueshirt movement
The dispute with Britain was finally settled in 1939. Half of the land annuity debt (c. £90 million) was written off and the rest paid as lump sum. The British also returned to Ireland the Treaty ports, which she had retained since the Treaty of 1922. Irish control over these bases made possible Irish neutrality in the looming Second World War.
over which the British monarch reigned (from 1927 with the title "King of Ireland
"). The Representative of the Crown was known as the Governor-General
. The Free State had a bicameral parliament and a cabinet, called the "Executive Council
" answerable to the lower house of parliament, the Free State Dáil
. The head of government
was called the President of the Executive Council
.
The parliament of the U.K. passed The Statute of Westminster 1931, which granted legislative independence to the six Dominions, Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and South Africa.
In 1932, after Éamon de Valera
and Fianna Fáil
's victory in the general election, the 1922 Irish Free State constitution was amended through a series of legislative changes, was subsequently replaced with a new constitution. This document was drawn up by the De Valera administration. It was approved by the electorate in a plebiscite by a simple majority.
On the 29 December 1937 the new "Constitution of Ireland
" came into effect, renaming the Irish Free State to simply "Éire" or in the English language "Ireland". The Governor-General was replaced by a President of Ireland
and a new more powerful prime minister, called the "Taoiseach
", came into being, while the Executive Council was renamed the "Government
". Though it had a president, the new state was not a republic. The British monarch continued to reign
theoretically as King of Ireland and was used as an "organ" in international and diplomatic relations, with the President of Ireland relegated to symbolic functions within the state but never outside it.
would be set up to revise the borders between the two jurisdictions. The Irish perspective was that this was intended to allow largely nationalist areas of Northern Ireland to join the Free State, and shortly after the establishment of the Free State this commission came into being. However the commission concentrated on economic and topographic factors, rather than the political aspirations of the people who would be living near the new border. In 1925 the Boundary Commission report, contrary to expectations, proposed ceding some small areas of the Free State to Northern Ireland. For a variety of reasons the governments agreed to accept the original Northern Ireland/Southern Ireland
delineation in return for Britain dropping the Irish obligation to share in paying Britain's Imperial debts. The Dáil approved the boundary by a large margin of 71 to 20.
The remnants of the IRA, which had split several times into ever smaller groupings since 1922, embarked on a bombing campaign in Britain (see Sabotage Campaign (IRA)) and some attacks in Northern Ireland (see Northern Campaign (IRA)
), intended to force a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland. Some of its leadership, notably Sean Russell
sought help from Nazi Germany for this project. De Valera, considering this activity a threat to Irish neutrality and therefore to the state's vital interests, interned all active IRA members and executed several. Another was hanged in Northern Ireland for shooting a policeman.
Behind the scenes the Irish state worked with the Allies; in 1940, the government agreed provisionally with Britain that it would accept the entry of British troops and put its own armed forces under their command should the Germans invade Ireland - see Plan W
. There was a provisional German plan for an invasion of Ireland, known as Operation Green
, but it was never carried out. Additionally, Irish fire fighters were sent to Northern Ireland to help fight the fires caused by the German bombing of Belfast in 1941 (See Belfast Blitz
).
There were a number of further examples of cooperation. German pilots who crashed in Ireland were interned while Allied airmen were returned to Britain. There was also mutual sharing of intelligence. For example the date of the D-Day Normandy landings was decided on the basis of transatlantic weather reports supplied by the Irish state. It is estimated that between 50,000 and 150,000 men from Ireland took part, with that number roughly evenly divided between Northern Ireland and the southern state.
Conversely, following the suicide of Adolf Hitler
, de Valera, following diplomatic protocol, controversially offered condolences to the German ambassador.
Economically, the War was a difficult time for the state. Industrial production fell by 25%. Unlike the First World War, when Irish farmers had made substantial profits selling food to Britain, in the Second World War, Britain imposed strict price controls on Irish agricultural imports. Due to the war, imports to Ireland dried up -leading to drive for self-sufficiency in food and strict rationing, which continued until the 1950s. Nevertheless, as a result of neutrality, Ireland emerged from the war having been spared the physical destruction and extreme hardship undergone by combatant nations on the European mainland.
was enacted by the Oireachtas
. That legislation described Ireland as the Republic of Ireland but did not change the country's name
. The international and diplomatic functions previously vested in or exercised by the King were now vested in the President of Ireland who finally became unambiguously the Irish head of state. Under the Commonwealth rules then in force, the declaration of a republic automatically terminated the state's membership of the British Commonwealth
. Unlike India
, which became a republic shortly afterwards, Ireland chose not to reapply for admittance to the Commonwealth.
Though a republic since 1949, the Crown of Ireland Act 1542
that had established the Kingdom of Ireland
was not finally repealed until 1962, along with many other obsolete Parliament of Ireland
statutes. However, long before that, the British Government in its Ireland Act 1949
recognised that "the Republic of Ireland had ceased to be part of His Majesty's dominions" (but would not be "a foreign country" for the purposes of any law).
The state joined the United Nations
in December 1955, after a lengthy veto by the Soviet Union
. Turned away by the veto of France in 1961, the state finally succeeded in joining the European Economic Community
(now known as the European Union
) in 1973.
However, whereas most European countries experienced a sustained economic boom in the 1950s, Ireland did not, its economy growing by only 1% a year during the decade. Ireland as a result experienced sharp emigration of around 50,000 per year during the decade and the population of the state fell to an all-time low of 2.81 million. The policies of protectionism and low public spending which had predominated since the 1930s were widely viewed to be failing.
Fianna Fail's political dominance was broken in 1948-51 and in 1954-1957, when coalitions led by Fine Gael (descendants of Cumman na nGaedheal), and including the Labour Party and Clann na Poblachta
won elections and formed the government. However, the periods of coalition rule did little to radically alter government policies. An initiative by Noel Browne
, the Minister for Health, to introduce the Mother and Child Scheme
, providing free medical care to mothers and children, came to nothing when opposed by the Catholic Church and by private medical practitioners.
Poor economic growth and lack of social services led Sean Lemass, who succeeded the veteran Eamon de Valera as leader of Fianna Fail and as Taoiseach in 1958, to state that if economic performance did not improve, the very future of the independent Irish state was at risk. "[Something] has got to be done now... If we fail everything else goes with it and all the hopes of the past will have been falsified”.
Lemass, along with T.K. Whitaker as Secretary for the Department of Finance set specific plans for economic growth, including planned investment in industrial infrastructure and dropping of many protective tariffs and giving tax incentives to foreign manufacturing companies to set up in Ireland. Attracting foreign direct investment
has remained a central part of Irish economic planning since that time. The economic plans of the Lemass era yielded economic growth of 4% a year between 1959-1973. A result of having more public revenue was more investment in social infrastructure - free secondary education, for instance, was instituted in 1968. Emigration fell as living standards in Ireland went up by 50% and began to catch up with the European average.
However, in the 1970s, the world energy crisis - where OPEC
countries withheld supplies of oil - resulted in rising inflation and a budget deficit in Ireland. From 1973-1977 a coalition government of Fine Gael and Labour tried to keep spending under control by imposing a series of cuts in public spending.
The period of economic crisis of the late 1970s provoked a new economic crisis in Ireland that would endure throughout the 1980s. Fianna Fáil , back in power after the 1977 election, tried to reactivate the economy by increasing public spending, which by 1981 amounted 65% of Irish GNP. Irish national debt in 1980 was £7 billion or 81% of GNP. By 1986, it was over £23 billion - 142% of Irish GNP.
This massive public debt hindered Irish economic performance throughout the 1980s. The governments of Charles Haughey
's Fianna Fail and Garret FitzGerald
's (Fine Gael/Labour) borrowed even more, and income tax rates went up to between 35% and 60% of wage earners' income. The combination of high taxes and high unemployment caused emigration to pick up again, with up to 40,000 leaving the country each year in that decade. Power alternated between the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, with some governments not even lasting a year, and in one case, three elections in a period of 18 months.
Starting in 1989 there were significant policy changes with economic reform, tax cuts, welfare reform, an increase in competition, and a ban on borrowing to fund current spending. There was also a "Social Partnership Agreement" with the trade unions, whereby unions agreed not to strike in return for gradual, negotiated pay increases. These policies was started by the 1989–1992 Fianna Fáil
/Progressive Democrat government, with the support of the opposition Fine Gael
, and continued by the subsequent Fianna Fail/Labour government (1992-1994) and Fine Gael/Labour Party/Democratic Left governments (1994-1997). This was known as the Tallaght Strategy
, where the opposition promised not to oppose certain necessary economic measures brought in by the government of the day.
The Irish economy returned to growth by the 1990s but unemployment remained high until the second half of that decade.
In the 1950s, the IRA launched a campaign of attacks on Northern security targets along the border (the Border Campaign
). The Irish government first detained the IRA's leaders under the Offences Against the State Act and later introduced internment for all IRA activists. This helped to halt the campaign in its tracks, which was called off in 1962. In the aftermath of this episode, the southern government under Sean Lemass
, himself an IRA veteran of the War of Independence and Civil War, tried to forge closer ties with the authorities in Northern Ireland in order to promote peaceful cooperation on the island. He and Northern premier Terence O'Neill
exchanged visits, the first of the respective heads of state since the very early days of partition in 1922.
However, in 1969, the Irish government found itself placed in a very difficult position when conflict erupted in Northern Ireland in the form of rioting in Derry
, Belfast
and other urban centres. The violence arose out of agitation by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
for the redress of grievances of Catholics and nationalists in Northern Ireland. Two episodes in particular caused concern - the Battle of the Bogside
in Derry, in which nationalists fought the police for three days and the rioting in Belfast
, in which several Catholic neighbourhoods were attacked and burned by loyalists.
Taoiseach Jack Lynch
in a televised address, said, "we can not stand by and watch innocent people being injured and perhaps worse", comments taken to mean that Irish troops would be sent over the border to assist Northern nationalists. This was not done, but Irish Army field hospitals were set up and some money and arms were covertly supplied to nationalist groups for self-defence. Government ministers, Charles Haughey
and Neil Blaney
, were later put on trial for allegedly supplying arms to republican paramilitaries.
At the same time, the Provisional IRA, emerged from the 1969 rioting intending to launch an armed campaign against the Northern state. Unlike the IRA campaign of the 1950s, this campaign was viewed as having considerable public support among Northern nationalists and for this reason, Irish governments did not introduce internment as they had previously, in the absence of a political settlement in Northern Ireland. The Gardai and the Irish Army were, however, used to try to impede the activities of republican paramilitary groups throughout the conflict known as the Troubles
. These activities included bank robberies, kidnappings and occasional attacks on the Irish security forces as well as attacks over the border. There were also sometimes attacks by loyalist paramilitary groups in southern territory, notably the Dublin and Monaghan bombings
of 1975, which killed 33 people.
In 1985, the Irish government was part of the Anglo-Irish Agreement
, in which the British government recognised that the Irish government had a role to play in a future peace settlement in the North. In 1994, the Irish government was heavily involved in negotiations which brought about an IRA ceasefire.
In 1998, the Irish authorities were again party to a settlement, the Good Friday Agreement
, which set up power-sharing institutions within Northern Ireland, North-South instructions and links between the various components of the United Kingdom
and Ireland
. The Irish state also changed Articles 2 and 3 of the constitution to acknowledge both the existence of Northern Ireland and the desire of Irish nationalists for a united Ireland. Even in the wake of the post-Good Friday Agreement incorporation of the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin into electoral politics, there remain several republican paramilitary groups who wish to use force to destabilise Northern Ireland - such as the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA. Irish security forces continue to be used to try to prevent attacks by such groups.
By the 1980s, many were calling for liberalisation of the state's laws, particularly a review of the bans on divorce, contraception, abortion and homosexuality. However, they were also opposed by well-organised groups who accused the reformers of being irreligious and "anti-family". That decade saw bitter disagreement between socially conservative, principally religious, elements and liberals over a series of referendums.
In 1983, the Pro-Life Amendment Campaign campaigned for and won a referendum, explicitly including a ban on abortion into the constitution - the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland
. In 1985, it was made legal to buy condoms and spermicides without prescription, but it was not until 1993 that all restrictions on information and sale of contraceptives were abolished. In 1986, the Fine Gael/Labour coalition proposed to remove the ban on divorce. This was opposed by Fianna Fail and the Catholic Church and the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution Bill, 1986 (Ireland) was defeated in a referendum.
Since 1992 the state has become less socially conservative. Liberalisation has been championed by figures like Mary Robinson
, a radical feminist senator who became President of Ireland
, and David Norris, who led the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform
. Homosexual sex was decriminalised by an act of parliament in 1993.
While abortion remains illegal in Ireland, the constitutional ban on it was softened somewhat in 1992. After a referendum in that year, the Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution Bill, 1992 (Ireland) was approved, which made it legal to perform an abortion to save the life of a mother, to give information about abortion and to travel to another country for an abortion. In 1995, after a referendum, the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland
legalised divorce.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, these questions were deeply divisive in the Republic of Ireland and exposed deep social cleavages between religious and secular-minded people, urban and rural, middle and working classes. While issues such as divorce, contraception and homosexuality have become accepted by many and have ceased to be matters of serious political debate, these issues remain controversial among some . Legalising abortion in particular remains controversial and according to some opinion polls up to 70% support the ban on abortion as it currently stands .
bishop, Eamon Casey
, fathered a child by a divorcée caused a major reaction, as did the discovery of child abuse by a large number of clerics, notably the infamous paedophile Father Brendan Smyth (the incompetent handling of a request for the extradition of Smyth brought down an Irish government in 1994). Another bishop, McGee, subsequently resigned over his mishandling of child abuse cases in his diocese.
It was also revealed, in the 2000s, after an enquiry, the Ryan Commission
, that there had been widespread physical and sexual abuse of children in the Church-run Industrial School
s and orphanages from the 1920s until the 1960s. These were institutions which were set up to house children of unmarried or poor parents. In some cases, it was revealed, these children had been forcibly removed from their parents by the state and put into institutions where they were badly fed and clothed and in some cases beaten and raped.
All of these revelations very deeply damaged the moral authority of the Catholic Church. (See also Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Ireland
)
Also in the 1990s, a series of tribunals began inquiring into major allegations of corruption against senior politicians. Ray Burke
, who served as Minister for Foreign Affairs
in 1997 was gaoled on charges of Tax Evasion
in January 2005. The Beef Tribunal in the early 1990s found that that major food companies, notably in Iraq
had been given preferential treatment by the Fianna Fail government in return for donations to that party. Former Taoisaighs Charles Haughey and Bertie Ahern
were also brought before Tribunals to explain their acceptance of very large personal donations of money to them by private businessmen.
. One factor in this was by attracting foreign investment by offering very low taxes on profits (corporations taxes which were set at 12%) and by investing in education – offering a well educated work force at relatively low wages and access to the now-open European market. The second factor was getting public spending under control by a series of agreements, termed ‘social partnership’ with the trade unions – where gradual increases in pay were awarded in return for no industrial action. However it was not until the second half of the 1990s that figures for unemployment and emigration were reversed.
By the early 2000s, the Republic had become the second richest (in terms of GDP per capita, adjusted for purchasing power parity) member of the European Union, had moved from being a net recipient of EU funds to a net contributor, and from a position of net emigration to one of net imigration. In 2005, its per capita GDP (adjusted for purchasing power parity) became the second highest in the world (behind Switzerland
) with 10 percent of the population born abroad. The population grew to an all-time high for the state of about 4.5 million.
By 2000 Ireland had a substantial budget surplus and the first decade of the new millennium also saw a significant expansion of public spending on infrastructure and social services. As against this, several state-run industries were also privatised – Eircom for instance. In 2002, Irish national debt was 32% of GNP and fell further until 2007.
The Celtic Tiger started in the mid 1990s and boomed until 2001, when it slowed down, only to pick up again in 2003. It slowed again in 2007 and in June 2008 the Irish Economic and Social Research Institute
(ESRI) predicted that Ireland would go into recession briefly before growth would resume.
However, since 2001, the Irish economy had been heavily dependent of the property market and when this crashed in 2008, the country's economy was badly hit.
' or drying up of loans from abroad. Much of the Irish economy and public finances had also depended on the property market and its collapse at roughly the same time as the banking crisis, sent shudders throughout the Irish economy. It also meant that revenue collected by the state fell radically.
This situation was compounded by the assumption by the state of the banks' debts in 2008. The Irish government led by Brian Cowen
, following a late-night meeting with all the senior banking officials in the country on September 30 2008, agreed to cover all of the banks debts. This debt, now estimated at over €50 billion, (over half of which will be paid to Anglo-Irish Bank , a particularly reckless lender) imposed a heavy burden on the tax-payer and severely damaged Ireland's ability to borrow money from the International Bond markets.
The second problem is that public spending, which rose steeply in the 2000s, was now unsustainable. The total Irish budget deficit as of November 2010, stood at 93 billion or up to 120% of GNP . As it was not clear how much money would be needed to revitalise the banks – to clear their debts and supply them with enough money to start lending again – the international markets were unwilling to lend Ireland money at an interest rate it could afford.
Under pressure from the European Union, which feared a ‘run’ (selling causing a collapse in value) of the euro, Ireland was forced to accept a 16-year loan of €85 billion at just under 6% interest from IMF and EU itself. Not only were the interest rates of the loan high, but the deal also involved a humiliating loss of sovereignty, in which Irish budgets had to first be approved by other parliaments of the EU - notably that of Germany
.
The political result of this crisis was the fall of the Cowen government and a shattering defeat for Fianna Fail in the Irish general election, 2011, in which the party won just 17% of the vote and retained only 19 out of its 166 seats in the Dáil. Emigration from Ireland has again picked up and many remain anxious about the economic future.
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...
, a dominion of the British Commonwealth
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
, having seceded from the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
under the Anglo-Irish Treaty
Anglo-Irish Treaty
The Anglo-Irish Treaty , officially called the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was a treaty between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and representatives of the secessionist Irish Republic that concluded the Irish War of...
. It comprises of 26 of Ireland's 32 counties. Since 1949 it has described itself as the Republic of Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
.
The Free State was immediately embroiled, on its foundation, in a Civil War between those nationalists who supported the Treaty and those who held out for a fully independent Republic. The pro-Treaty side, organised as Cummann na nGaedheal emerged victorious from the conflict and won subsequent elections. They formed the government of the state until 1932, when they peacefully handed over power to the anti-Treaty faction in Fianna Fail
Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party , more commonly known as Fianna Fáil is a centrist political party in the Republic of Ireland, founded on 23 March 1926. Fianna Fáil's name is traditionally translated into English as Soldiers of Destiny, although a more accurate rendition would be Warriors of Fál...
, who defeated them in an election. The Irish state, despite its violent beginnings, has remained a liberal democracy throughout its existence. A new constitution in 1937 removed many of the links with Britain established under the Treaty and Ireland's neutrality in the Second World War demonstrated it independence in foreign policy matters from Britain. In 1948 Ireland formally left the British Commonwealth and adopted the description of "Republic" for the state.
In the economic sphere, the Irish state has had a mixed performance. On independence, it was one of the wealthier countries in Europe per head of population. However it also inherited from British rule the twin problems of unemployment, emigration, uneven geographical development and lack of a native industrial base. For much of its history, the state has struggled to rectify these problems. Particular peaks of emigration were recorded during the late 1930s, 1950s and 1980s, when the Irish economy recorded little growth.
In the 1930s, Fianna Fail governments attempted to create Irish domestic industries using subsidies and protective tarifs. In the late 1950s, these policies were dropped in favour of free trade with selected countries and encouraging of foreign investment with low taxes. This was expanded when Ireland entered the European Economic Community
European Economic Community
The European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) The European Economic Community (EEC) (also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking world, renamed the European Community (EC) in 1993The information in this article primarily covers the EEC's time as an independent...
in 1972. In the 1990s and 2000s, Ireland experienced an economic boom known as the Celtic Tiger
Celtic Tiger
Celtic Tiger is a term used to describe the economy of Ireland during a period of rapid economic growth between 1995 and 2007. The expansion underwent a dramatic reversal from 2008, with GDP contracting by 14% and unemployment levels rising to 14% by 2010...
, in which the country's GDP surpassed many of its European neighbours. . Immigration also surpassed emigration, bringing the state's population up to over 4 million. However, since 2008, Ireland has experienced a severe crisis in the banking sector and with sovereign debt. The resultant economic slump has deepened the effect of the world recession on Ireland.
From 1937 until 1998, the Irish constitution included a claim to the territory of Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
, which was claimed as a part of the "national territory". However, the state has also opposed and used its security forces against those armed groups - principally the Provisional Irish Republican Army
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
, who have tried to unite Ireland by force. This has occurred in the 1950s, throughout the 1970s and 1980s and on a reduced scale, to the present. Irish governments meanwhile tried to broker an agreement to the conflict known as The Troubles
The Troubles
The Troubles was a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland which spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe. The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast...
within Northern Ireland from 1968 to the late 1990s. The British government officially recognised the right of the Irish government to be a party to the Northern negotiations in the Anglo-Irish Agreement
Anglo-Irish Agreement
The Anglo-Irish Agreement was an agreement between the United Kingdom and Ireland which aimed to help bring an end to the Troubles in Northern Ireland...
of 1985. In 1998, as part of the Good Friday Agreement, the Irish constitution was altered by referendum to remove the territorial claim to Northern Ireland and instead extend the right of Irish citizenship to all the people of the island should they wish to have it.
Separatism, rebellion and partition
From UnionAct of Union 1800
The Acts of Union 1800 describe two complementary Acts, namely:* the Union with Ireland Act 1800 , an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, and...
in 1801 until 6 December 1922 the whole of Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
. However, since the 1880s there had been long standing nationalist agitation for autonomy or Home Rule
Home rule
Home rule is the power of a constituent part of a state to exercise such of the state's powers of governance within its own administrative area that have been devolved to it by the central government....
. Other, more radical voices such as the Irish Republican Brotherhood
Irish Republican Brotherhood
The Irish Republican Brotherhood was a secret oath-bound fraternal organisation dedicated to the establishment of an "independent democratic republic" in Ireland during the second half of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century...
called for full independence, but these were in a minority.
In 1912-1913, the Liberal government in Britain proposed a Bill for Home Rule. Alarmed, unionists in the north organised the Ulster Volunteers, an armed militia proposing to resist Home Rule by force. Nationalists in response funded the Irish Volunteers
Irish Volunteers
The Irish Volunteers was a military organisation established in 1913 by Irish nationalists. It was ostensibly formed in response to the formation of the Ulster Volunteers in 1912, and its declared primary aim was "to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to the whole people of Ireland"...
. Arising out of this stand off, the partition of Ireland was proposed in three way talks between the Irish Parliamentary Party
Irish Parliamentary Party
The Irish Parliamentary Party was formed in 1882 by Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nationalist Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons at...
, the Unionist Party and the British government. In 1914, the UK Parliament enacted a Third Irish Home Rule Bill
Home Rule Act 1914
The Government of Ireland Act 1914 , also known as the Third Home Rule Bill, was an Act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom intended to provide self-government for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.The Act was the first law ever passed by the Parliament of...
but suspended its effect until after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
The nationalist leader John Redmond
John Redmond
John Edward Redmond was an Irish nationalist politician, barrister, MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party from 1900 to 1918...
pledged support for the British war effort and many Irishmen served in the British Army (see Ireland in World War I), but the war and the frustration of nationalist ambitions regarding Home Rule led to a radicalisation of Irish nationalism. In 1916, a group of IRB activists within the Irish Volunteers led an insurrection aimed at Irish independence in Dublin, known as the Easter Rising
Easter Rising
The Easter Rising was an insurrection staged in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic at a time when the British Empire was heavily engaged in the First World War...
. The rebellion did not have popular support and was put down within a week, but the execution of its leaders, and the subsequent wholesale arrest of radical nationalist activists proved very unpopular with the nationalist public. Coming directly after the Rising, a further attempt was made at the Irish Convention
Irish Convention
The Irish Convention was an assembly which sat in Dublin, Ireland from July 1917 until March 1918 to address the Irish Question and other constitutional problems relating to an early enactment of self-government for Ireland, to debate its wider future, discuss and come to an understanding on...
to resolve the impasse over Home Rule, but without success. Finally, the British proposal to extend conscription for the war to Ireland provoked widespread resistance, (see Conscription Crisis of 1918) and discredited the Irish Parliamentary Party who had supported the British war effort.
All of these factors led to a swing towards support for Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...
- the party which was led by veterans of the Easter Rising and which stood for an independent Irish Republic. In the Irish general election, 1918, Sinn Féin won the vast majority of seats, many of which were uncontested. Sinn Féin's elected candidates refused to attend the UK Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
at Westminster and instead assembled in Dublin as a new revolutionary parliament called "Dáil Éireann
Dáil Éireann (1919-1922)
Dáil Éireann was the revolutionary, unicameral parliament of the unilaterally declared Irish Republic from 1919–1922. The Dáil was first formed by 73 Sinn Féin MPs elected in the 1918 United Kingdom general election. Their manifesto refused to recognise the British parliament at Westminster and...
". They declared the existence of a new state called the "Irish Republic
Irish Republic
The Irish Republic was a revolutionary state that declared its independence from Great Britain in January 1919. It established a legislature , a government , a court system and a police force...
" and established a system of government to rival the institutions of the United Kingdom.
The first meeting
First Dáil
The First Dáil was Dáil Éireann as it convened from 1919–1921. In 1919 candidates who had been elected in the Westminster elections of 1918 refused to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom and instead assembled as a unicameral, revolutionary parliament called "Dáil Éireann"...
of the Dáil coincided with an unauthorized shooting of two RIC
Royal Irish Constabulary
The armed Royal Irish Constabulary was Ireland's major police force for most of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. A separate civic police force, the unarmed Dublin Metropolitan Police controlled the capital, and the cities of Derry and Belfast, originally with their own police...
men in Tipperary
Soloheadbeg
Soloheadbeg is a small townland, some two miles outside Tipperary Town, near Limerick Junction railway station.The place is steeped in Irish history, for it was here that King Mahon of Thomond and his brother Brian Ború defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Solohead in 968...
, now regarded as the outbreak of the Irish War of Independence
Irish War of Independence
The Irish War of Independence , Anglo-Irish War, Black and Tan War, or Tan War was a guerrilla war mounted by the Irish Republican Army against the British government and its forces in Ireland. It began in January 1919, following the Irish Republic's declaration of independence. Both sides agreed...
. From 1919 to 1921 the Irish Volunteers (now renamed as the Irish Republican Army
Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary military organisation. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916...
, being deemed by the Dáil to be the army of the new Irish Republic) engaged in guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
against the British army, the RIC and paramilitary police units known as the Black and Tans
Black and Tans
The Black and Tans was one of two newly recruited bodies, composed largely of British World War I veterans, employed by the Royal Irish Constabulary as Temporary Constables from 1920 to 1921 to suppress revolution in Ireland...
and Auxiliaries
Auxiliary Division
The Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary , generally known as the Auxiliaries or Auxies, was a paramilitary organization within the Royal Irish Constabulary during the Irish War of Independence....
. The violence started out slowly, with only 19 deaths in 1919, but escalated sharply from the second half of 1920 and in the first six months of 1921 alone there were 1,000 deaths on all sides. The principle political leader of the republican movement was Eamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera was one of the dominant political figures in twentieth century Ireland, serving as head of government of the Irish Free State and head of government and head of state of Ireland...
- the President of the Republic. However he spent much of the conflict in the United States, raising money and support for the Irish cause. In his absence, two young men, Michael Collins
Michael Collins
- Politics :* Michael Collins , Irish Labour party politician, Lord Mayor Of Dublin 1977–1978* Michael Collins , Irish revolutionary leader, soldier, and politician...
and Richard Mulcahy
Richard Mulcahy
Richard James Mulcahy was an Irish politician, army general and commander in chief, leader of Fine Gael and Cabinet Minister...
rose to prominence as the clandestine leaders of the IRA - respectively Director of Intelligence and Chief of Staff of the guerrilla organisation.
There were several failed attempts to negotiate an end to the conflict. In the summer of 1920, the British government proposed the Government of Ireland Act 1920
Government of Ireland Act 1920
The Government of Ireland Act 1920 was the Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which partitioned Ireland. The Act's long title was "An Act to provide for the better government of Ireland"; it is also known as the Fourth Home Rule Bill or as the Fourth Home Rule Act.The Act was intended...
(which passed into law on 3 May 1921) that envisaged the partition of the island of Ireland into two autonomous regions Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
(six northeastern counties) and Southern Ireland
Southern Ireland
Southern Ireland was a short-lived autonomous region of the United Kingdom established on 3 May 1921 and dissolved on 6 December 1922.Southern Ireland was established under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 together with its sister region, Northern Ireland...
(the rest of the island, including its most northerly county, Donegal). However, this was not acceptable to southern republicans and only the entity of Northern Ireland was established under the Act in 1921. The potential entity of Southern Ireland was superseded in 1922 by the creation of the Irish Free State, meaning that "Southern Ireland" never came into existence.
After further failed talks in December 1920, the guerrilla conflict was brought to an end in July 1921, with a truce agreed between the IRA and the British. Talks were then formally begun in pursuit of a peace settlement.
To some extent, the War of Independence exposed political and religious fissures in Irish society. The IRA killed over 200 civilians as alleged informers in the conflict. It has been alleged that groups like Protestants and ex-servicemen were disproportionately represented in this figure - an argument disputed by other historians. However whether due to violence and intimidation or due to their loyalty to the British presence in Ireland, between 1911 and 1926 some 34 percent of the Free State's Protestant population - or about 40,000 people - left the 26 counties, mostly for Northern Ireland or Britain. While there were many reasons for this, secession from the United Kingdom was a factor in Protestant emigration.
Anglo-Irish Treaty
Anglo-Irish Treaty
The Anglo-Irish Treaty , officially called the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was a treaty between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and representatives of the secessionist Irish Republic that concluded the Irish War of...
, concluded on 6 December 1922. The Irish team was led by Michael Collins, who had organised the IRA intelligence during the War of Independence. The British team led by David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
and Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
were prepared to make concessions on Irish independence but would not concede a republic. Towards the end of negotiations, Lloyd George threatened, "immediate and terrible war" if the Irish did not accept the terms offered.
The Treaty envisaged a new system of Irish self government, known as "dominion status", with a new state, to be called the Irish Free State. The Free State was considerably more independent than a Home Rule Parliament would have been. It had its own police and armed forces and control over its own taxation and fiscal policy, none of which had been envisaged under Home Rule. However, there were some limits to its sovereignty. It remained a dominion of the British Commonwealth and members of its parliament had to swear an oath of loyalty to the British monarch. The British also retained three naval bases - known as the Treaty Ports
Treaty ports
The treaty ports was the name given to the port cities in China, Japan, and Korea that were opened to foreign trade by the Unequal Treaties.-Chinese treaty ports:...
. In addition, the Irish state was obliged to honour the contracts of the existing civil service -with the exception of the Royal Irish Constabulary
Royal Irish Constabulary
The armed Royal Irish Constabulary was Ireland's major police force for most of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. A separate civic police force, the unarmed Dublin Metropolitan Police controlled the capital, and the cities of Derry and Belfast, originally with their own police...
, which was disbanded, albeit with full pensions - payable by the Irish state.
There was also the question of partition, which pre-dated the Treaty but which was copper-fastened by it. In theory, Northern Ireland was included under the terms of the Treaty but under Article 12 was, given the option to opt out within a month. (See Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922
Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922
The Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, passed in 1922 to confirm the Constitution of the Irish Free State, and to ratify the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty....
) Thus for three days from midnight on 6 December 1922 the newly established Irish Free State, in theory included all of the island of Ireland (including Northern Ireland). However, in practice, Northern Ireland was already a functioning autonomous area by this time and it formally left the Irish Free State on 8 December 1922.
As a result of these limits to the Free State's sovereignty, and because the Treaty dismantled the Republic declared by nationalists in 1918, the Sinn Féin movement, the Dáil and the IRA were all deeply split over whether to accept the Treaty. Eamon de Valera, the President of the Republic was the most prominent leader of those who rejected the Treaty. Among other things, he objected to the fact that Collins and the negotiating team had signed it without the authorisation of the Dáil Cabinet.
Civil War
On a vote of 64 to 57, the Dáil narrowly passed the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 7 January 1922. Éamon de ValeraÉamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera was one of the dominant political figures in twentieth century Ireland, serving as head of government of the Irish Free State and head of government and head of state of Ireland...
, President of the Republic and several other cabinet members resigned in protest.
The pro-Treaty leadership of Michael Collins
Michael Collins (Irish leader)
Michael "Mick" Collins was an Irish revolutionary leader, Minister for Finance and Teachta Dála for Cork South in the First Dáil of 1919, Director of Intelligence for the IRA, and member of the Irish delegation during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations. Subsequently, he was both Chairman of the...
and Arthur Griffith
Arthur Griffith
Arthur Griffith was the founder and third leader of Sinn Féin. He served as President of Dáil Éireann from January to August 1922, and was head of the Irish delegation at the negotiations in London that produced the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921.-Early life:...
, organised in a Provisional Government, set about establishing the Irish Free State created by the Treaty. To this end, they began recruiting for a new army, based initially at Beggar's Bush Barracks in Dublin, composed of pro-Treaty IRA units. They also began recruiting for a new police, the Civic Guard, to replace the RIC which was disbanded as of August 1922.
However a majority of the IRA led by Rory O'Connor
Rory O'Connor
Rory O'Connor may refer to:* Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair, , king of Connacht and High King of Ireland* Rory O'Connor , an Irish Republican of the 1920s, who fought in the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War...
opposed the Treaty, on the grounds that it disestablished the Irish republic, which they argued they were sworn to defend, and that it imposed a declaration of fidelity to the British monarch on Irish parliamentarians. The IRA held a convention in March 1922, in which they renounced their allegiance to the Dáil and vested it in their own Army Council. O'Connor in April led the occupation by anti-Treaty forces of several public buildings in Dublin, notably the Four Courts. Eamon de Valera, while not in command of the anti-Treaty IRA, also led political opposition to the Treaty in a new party named Cumann na Poblachta
Cumann na Poblachta
Cumann na Poblachta was an Irish republican political party.The party was founded on 15 March 1922 by Éamon de Valera. It opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and was composed of the anti-Treaty wing of Sinn Féin...
.
With two rival Irish armed forces now in the country, civil war looked likely from the spring of 1922. Three events set it off. The first was the election of June 18, 1922, which the pro-Treaty Sinn Féin party won, giving the Free State a popular mandate. The second was the assassination by Irish republicans in London of a retired British general Henry Hughes Wilson
Henry Hughes Wilson
Field Marshal Sir Henry Hughes Wilson, 1st Baronet, GCB, DSO, was an Anglo-Irish field marshal and Irish Unionist politician. He was one of the most senior British Army officers of World War I and played an important role in Anglo-French miltary relations both before the war and in 1914...
. While it is not clear who ordered the killing, the British government assumed it was the anti-Treaty IRA and ordered Collins to act against them or risk armed British intervention to do it. The third trigger was the kidnapping by the IRA in the Four Courts of Free State general, JJ O'Connell. This combination of events forced the Collins government to assault and take the anti-Treaty positions in Dublin, which it succeeded in doing after a week's fighting in July 1922. Eamon de Valera declared his support for the anti-Treaty IRA after the outbreak of hostilities.
A further military offensive secured Free State control over the other major towns and cites in its territory by the beginning of August. However the war dragged on in a guerrilla form until April 1923. However in August 1922, the Free State was rocked by the death of its two main leaders. Michael Collins was killed in an ambush at Beal na mBlath, Cork, on 22 August 1922 and Arthur Griffith died of a stroke a week earlier. W. T. Cosgrave assumed control of both the Irish Republic's cabinet and the Provisional Government and both administrations disappeared simultaneously shortly afterwards, replaced by the institutions of the Irish Free State on 6 December 1922.
The anti-Treaty IRA under Liam Lynch
Liam Lynch
Liam Lynch may refer to:*Liam Lynch , general in the Irish Republican Army*Liam Lynch , musician, writer, and movie director...
tried to use the same guerrilla tactics against the Free State as they had against the British in 1919-1921. However, without the same degree of popular support, they were less effective. A very large number of arrests, some 12,000 in all, and use of a harsh policy of executions (77 prisoners were judicially shot with over 100 more 'unofficially' killed in the field) combined to cripple their forces by April 1923.
The death in action of Lynch in this month led to the anti-Treaty IRA, under the orders of Frank Aiken
Frank Aiken
Frank Aiken was a commander of the Irish Republican Army and later an Irish politician. A founding-member of Fianna Fáil, Aiken was first elected to Dáil Éireann in 1923 and at each subsequent election until 1973...
and on the urgings of civilian leader de Valera, calling a ceasefire and to "dump arms". There was no negotiated end to the war however.
The Civil War between Irish nationalists created a great deal of bitterness and the Civil War cleavage also produced the two main parties of independent Ireland in the 20th century. The number of dead has yet to be accurately counted but is considered to be around 2,000; at least as high as the number killed in the preceding War of Independence.
The Free State, 1922–1939
Immediately after the Civil War, elections were held in which anti-Treaty Sinn Féin were allowed to participate. Although many of their candidates, including Eamon de Valera, were imprisoned, they won about one third of the vote. However the pro-Treaty side, organised in Cummann na nGaedheal, won a comfortable majority and went on to form the government of the new state until 1932.The Cummann na nGaedheal governments, led by WT Cosgrave, were highly conservative - being more concerned with establishing the state's basic institutions after the havoc of the Civil War than with social or political reform. According to Kevin O'Higgins, the Minister for Justice, "we were the most conservative group of revolutionaries ever to have carried out a successful revolution".
The Irish Civil Service was largely inherited intact from the British and senior civil servants such as C.J. Gregg were 'lent' to the Irish from London to get the new state's bureaucracy off the ground. The new service, and especially its comptroller, Joseph Brennan were initially most concerned with balancing the state's budget and avoiding long-term in-debtedness The Free State printed its own notes (the punt
Punt
Punt may refer to:In boats:*Punt , a flat-bottomed boat with a square-cut bow developed on the River Thames*Norfolk Punt, a type of racing dinghy developed in Norfolk*Cable ferry, known as a punt in Australian EnglishIn people:...
), and minted its own coins but their value remained tied to British sterling currency until the 1970s.
Whereas the British had devolved much power to local government in the 1890s, one of the Free State's first acts was to abolish many of the powers of County Council
County council
A county council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries.-United Kingdom:...
s and replace them with unelected County managers. This was partly due to the allegiance of some councils to the anti-Treaty side in the Civil War, but also due to the belief that giving power to local government bred corruption. One of the major successes of the Cumman na nGaedheal governments was to establish the police, the Garda Siochana
Garda Síochána
, more commonly referred to as the Gardaí , is the police force of Ireland. The service is headed by the Commissioner who is appointed by the Irish Government. Its headquarters are located in the Phoenix Park in Dublin.- Terminology :...
, as an unarmed and politically neutral force, relatively untainted by the bitterness of the civil war.
On the economic front, the Cosgrave administration saw its role as supporting the Irish agricultural export sector by consolidating farms and improving the quality of their produce. Ernest Blythe, the first Minister for Finance, in a bid to reduce the public debt, cut public expenditure from £42 million in 1923 to £27 million in 1926. The Cumman na nGeadhael governments did not see providing social services as a priority and instead cut income tax from 5 shillings to 3 shillings. One exception to the generally low level of public spending was the Ardnacrusha hydroelectric plant, which provided Ireland's first autonomous source of electricity.
While the last prisoners of the Civil War were released in 1924, the Free State retained extensive emergency powers to intern and even execute political opponents, under a series of Public Safety Acts (1923, 1926 and 1931). These powers were used after the IRA assassinated Minister Kevin O'Higgins
Kevin O'Higgins
Kevin Christopher O'Higgins was an Irish politician who served as Vice-President of the Executive Council and Minister for Justice. He was part of early nationalist Sinn Féin, before going on to become a prominent member of Cumann na nGaedheal. O'Higgins initiated the An Garda Síochána police force...
(in revenge for the executions during the Civil War) in 1927 when several hundred IRA suspects were interned.
Fianna Fail comes to power
The political representatives of the anti-Treaty side had re-grouped in 1926 as Fianna Fail, leaving a only a minority of intransigent republicans in Sinn Féin and the IRA -who refused to recognise the legitimacy of the state. Fianna Fail initially refused to take their seats after being elected to the Dáil. However, they entered the parliament in 1927, in part to disassociate themselves from the killing of Kevin O'Higgins.Initially Cumman na nGaedheal had been popular as the party that had established the state, but by 1932, their economic conservatism and continued repression of anti-Treaty Republicans was becoming unpopular. Fianna Fail won the 1932 election on a programme of developing Irish industry, creating jobs, providing more social services and cutting the remaining links with the British Empire. In 1932, Fianna Fail entered government in coalition with the Labour Party, but a year later they won an absolute majority. They would be in government without interruption until 1948 and for much of the rest of the 20th century.
One of Fianna Fail's first actions in government was to legalise the IRA and to release imprisoned republicans. IRA members began attacking Cumman na nGaedhal supporters, who they considered "traitors" at rallies. This greatly antagonised pro-Treaty Civil War veterans, who in response formed the quasi-fascist Blueshirt (initially the "Army Comrades Association") movement, led by the former Garda Commissioner Eoin O'Duffy
Eoin O'Duffy
Eoin O'Duffy was in succession a Teachta Dála , the Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army , the second Commissioner of the Garda Síochána, leader of the Army Comrades Association and then the first leader of Fine Gael , before leading the Irish Brigade to fight for Francisco Franco during...
to oppose the IRA. There were frequent riots and occasional shootings between the two factions in the early 1930s. De Valera banned the Blueshirts in 1933, after a threatened march on the Dáil, in imitation of Mussolini's March on Rome
March on Rome
The March on Rome was a march by which Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party came to power in the Kingdom of Italy...
. Not long afterwards, in 1936, De Valera made a clean break with political violence when he banned the increasingly left-wing IRA after they murdered a landlord's agent, Richard More O'Farrell, in a land dispute and fired shots at police during a strike of Tramway workers in Dublin. In 1939 it enacted the Offences against the State Act, for the prosecution of illegal armed groups; an act just as draconian as any legislation previous administrations had passed.
Economic nationalism and Trade War with Britain
Fianna Fail's economic programme marked a sharp break with their predecessors in Cumman na nGaedheal. Instead of Free Trade, which benefited mainly substantial farmers, Fianna Fail pursued the nationalist aim of establishing Irish domestic Industries, which were protected from foreign competitors by tarifs and subsidies. Fianna Fail made it mandatory for foreign companies to have a quota of Irish members on their boards. They also set up a large number of semi-state companies such as the Electricity Supply BoardElectricity Supply Board
The Electricity Supply Board , is a semi-state electricity company in Ireland. While historically a monopoly, the ESB now operates as a commercial semi-state concern in a liberalised and competitive market...
and the Turf Development Board. While this state-led strategy had some positive results, emigration remained high throughout this period, with up to 75,000 leaving for Britain in the late 1930s.
In the course of their pursuit of economic independence, Fianna Fail also provoked what is known as the Anglo-Irish Trade War
Anglo-Irish Trade War
The Anglo-Irish Trade War was a retaliatory trade war between the Irish Free State and the United Kingdom lasting from 1932 until 1938...
with Britain in 1933, by refusing to continue paying back "Land Annuities" -money that Irish farmers had borrowed from the British government since the 1903 Wyndham Act in order to buy their own land. The British in retaliation raised tariffs on Irish agricultural produces, hurting Ireland's export trade. De Valera in turn raised taxes on the importation of British goods. The burden of this standoff fell on the cattle farmers, who could no longer sell their cattle at competitive rates in Britain. Additionally the Fianna Fail government continued to collect half the land annuities as taxation. Police and sometimes troops were used to seize cattle off farmers who would or could not pay. Farmers aggrieved at these policies were one of the principle support bases of the Blueshirt movement
The dispute with Britain was finally settled in 1939. Half of the land annuity debt (c. £90 million) was written off and the rest paid as lump sum. The British also returned to Ireland the Treaty ports, which she had retained since the Treaty of 1922. Irish control over these bases made possible Irish neutrality in the looming Second World War.
Constitutional status
The Free State from 1922-1937 was a constitutional monarchyConstitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution, whether it be a written, uncodified or blended constitution...
over which the British monarch reigned (from 1927 with the title "King of Ireland
King of Ireland
A monarchical polity has existed in Ireland during three periods of its history, finally ending in 1801. The designation King of Ireland and Queen of Ireland was used during these periods...
"). The Representative of the Crown was known as the Governor-General
Governor-General of the Irish Free State
The Governor-General was the representative of the King in the 1922–1937 Irish Free State. Until 1927 he was also the agent of the British government in the Irish state. By convention the office of Governor-General was largely ceremonial...
. The Free State had a bicameral parliament and a cabinet, called the "Executive Council
Executive Council of the Irish Free State
The Executive Council was the cabinet and de facto executive branch of government of the 1922–1937 Irish Free State. Formally, the role of the Executive Council was to "aid and advise" the Governor-General who would exercise the executive authority on behalf of the King...
" answerable to the lower house of parliament, the Free State Dáil
Dáil Éireann (Irish Free State)
Dáil Éireann served as the directly elected lower house of the Oireachtas of the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1937. The Free State constitution described the role of the house as that of a "Chamber of Deputies". Until 1936 the Free State Oireachtas also included an upper house known as the Seanad...
. The head of government
Head of government
Head of government is the chief officer of the executive branch of a government, often presiding over a cabinet. In a parliamentary system, the head of government is often styled prime minister, chief minister, premier, etc...
was called the President of the Executive Council
President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State
The President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State was the head of government or prime minister of the Irish Free State which existed from 1922 to 1937...
.
The parliament of the U.K. passed The Statute of Westminster 1931, which granted legislative independence to the six Dominions, Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and South Africa.
In 1932, after Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera was one of the dominant political figures in twentieth century Ireland, serving as head of government of the Irish Free State and head of government and head of state of Ireland...
and Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party , more commonly known as Fianna Fáil is a centrist political party in the Republic of Ireland, founded on 23 March 1926. Fianna Fáil's name is traditionally translated into English as Soldiers of Destiny, although a more accurate rendition would be Warriors of Fál...
's victory in the general election, the 1922 Irish Free State constitution was amended through a series of legislative changes, was subsequently replaced with a new constitution. This document was drawn up by the De Valera administration. It was approved by the electorate in a plebiscite by a simple majority.
On the 29 December 1937 the new "Constitution of Ireland
Constitution of Ireland
The Constitution of Ireland is the fundamental law of the Irish state. The constitution falls broadly within the liberal democratic tradition. It establishes an independent state based on a system of representative democracy and guarantees certain fundamental rights, along with a popularly elected...
" came into effect, renaming the Irish Free State to simply "Éire" or in the English language "Ireland". The Governor-General was replaced by a President of Ireland
President of Ireland
The President of Ireland is the head of state of Ireland. The President is usually directly elected by the people for seven years, and can be elected for a maximum of two terms. The presidency is largely a ceremonial office, but the President does exercise certain limited powers with absolute...
and a new more powerful prime minister, called the "Taoiseach
Taoiseach
The Taoiseach is the head of government or prime minister of Ireland. The Taoiseach is appointed by the President upon the nomination of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas , and must, in order to remain in office, retain the support of a majority in the Dáil.The current Taoiseach is...
", came into being, while the Executive Council was renamed the "Government
Irish Government
The Government of Ireland is the cabinet that exercises executive authority in Ireland.-Members of the Government:Membership of the Government is regulated fundamentally by the Constitution of Ireland. The Government is headed by a prime minister called the Taoiseach...
". Though it had a president, the new state was not a republic. The British monarch continued to reign
Reign
A reign is the term used to describe the period of a person's or dynasty's occupation of the office of monarch of a nation or of a people . In most hereditary monarchies and some elective monarchies A reign is the term used to describe the period of a person's or dynasty's occupation of the office...
theoretically as King of Ireland and was used as an "organ" in international and diplomatic relations, with the President of Ireland relegated to symbolic functions within the state but never outside it.
Status of Northern Ireland
The Anglo-Irish Treaty provided that should Northern Ireland choose not be included in the Free State, a Boundary CommissionBoundary Commission (Ireland)
The Irish Boundary Commission was a commission which met in 1924–25 to decide on the precise delineation of the border between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland...
would be set up to revise the borders between the two jurisdictions. The Irish perspective was that this was intended to allow largely nationalist areas of Northern Ireland to join the Free State, and shortly after the establishment of the Free State this commission came into being. However the commission concentrated on economic and topographic factors, rather than the political aspirations of the people who would be living near the new border. In 1925 the Boundary Commission report, contrary to expectations, proposed ceding some small areas of the Free State to Northern Ireland. For a variety of reasons the governments agreed to accept the original Northern Ireland/Southern Ireland
Southern Ireland
Southern Ireland was a short-lived autonomous region of the United Kingdom established on 3 May 1921 and dissolved on 6 December 1922.Southern Ireland was established under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 together with its sister region, Northern Ireland...
delineation in return for Britain dropping the Irish obligation to share in paying Britain's Imperial debts. The Dáil approved the boundary by a large margin of 71 to 20.
World War II, neutrality, and "The Emergency" 1939-1945
The outbreak of the Second World War put the state and the de Valera government in a difficult situation. It came under pressure from Britain and later the USA, to enter the war ,or at least to allow the allies to use its ports. However, there remained a minority who felt that national independence had yet to be achieved and who were resolutely opposed to any alliance with Britain. For this reason, de Valera ensured that the state remained neutral throughout the War which was officially known as the "Emergency". The state's decision to adopt neutrality was influenced by memories of the Anglo-Irish War and the Civil War, and the state's lack of military preparedness for involvement in a war.The remnants of the IRA, which had split several times into ever smaller groupings since 1922, embarked on a bombing campaign in Britain (see Sabotage Campaign (IRA)) and some attacks in Northern Ireland (see Northern Campaign (IRA)
Northern Campaign (IRA)
Northern Campaign is a term used to describe attacks involving volunteers of the Irish Republican Army during the Second World War between September 1942 and December 1944. It was a plan conceived by the then IRA Northern Command to launch attacks within Northern Ireland during this period...
), intended to force a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland. Some of its leadership, notably Sean Russell
Sean Russell
Sean Russell is the name of:*Seán Russell , Irish republican*Sean Russell , Canadian author of fantasy literature...
sought help from Nazi Germany for this project. De Valera, considering this activity a threat to Irish neutrality and therefore to the state's vital interests, interned all active IRA members and executed several. Another was hanged in Northern Ireland for shooting a policeman.
Behind the scenes the Irish state worked with the Allies; in 1940, the government agreed provisionally with Britain that it would accept the entry of British troops and put its own armed forces under their command should the Germans invade Ireland - see Plan W
Plan W
Plan W, during the Second World War, was a plan of joint military operations between Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland devised between 1940 and 1942, to be executed in the event of an invasion of Ireland by Nazi Germany....
. There was a provisional German plan for an invasion of Ireland, known as Operation Green
Operation Green
Operation Green or Case Green was the name of three separate cancelled German military operations during the Second World War.*Fall Grün , the planned invasion of Czechoslovakia, to be carried out in September 1938...
, but it was never carried out. Additionally, Irish fire fighters were sent to Northern Ireland to help fight the fires caused by the German bombing of Belfast in 1941 (See Belfast Blitz
Belfast Blitz
The Belfast Blitz was an event that occurred on the night of Easter Tuesday, 15 April 1941 during World War II. Two hundred bombers of the German Air Force attacked the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland. Nearly one thousand people died as a result of the bombing and 1,500 were injured. In terms...
).
There were a number of further examples of cooperation. German pilots who crashed in Ireland were interned while Allied airmen were returned to Britain. There was also mutual sharing of intelligence. For example the date of the D-Day Normandy landings was decided on the basis of transatlantic weather reports supplied by the Irish state. It is estimated that between 50,000 and 150,000 men from Ireland took part, with that number roughly evenly divided between Northern Ireland and the southern state.
Conversely, following the suicide of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, de Valera, following diplomatic protocol, controversially offered condolences to the German ambassador.
Economically, the War was a difficult time for the state. Industrial production fell by 25%. Unlike the First World War, when Irish farmers had made substantial profits selling food to Britain, in the Second World War, Britain imposed strict price controls on Irish agricultural imports. Due to the war, imports to Ireland dried up -leading to drive for self-sufficiency in food and strict rationing, which continued until the 1950s. Nevertheless, as a result of neutrality, Ireland emerged from the war having been spared the physical destruction and extreme hardship undergone by combatant nations on the European mainland.
1949 - Declaring a Republic
On 18 April 1949, the Republic of Ireland ActRepublic of Ireland Act
The Republic of Ireland Act 1948 is an Act of the Oireachtas which declared the Irish state to be a republic, and vested in the President of Ireland the power to exercise the executive authority of the state in its external relations, on the advice of the Government of Ireland...
was enacted by the Oireachtas
Oireachtas
The Oireachtas , sometimes referred to as Oireachtas Éireann, is the "national parliament" or legislature of Ireland. The Oireachtas consists of:*The President of Ireland*The two Houses of the Oireachtas :**Dáil Éireann...
. That legislation described Ireland as the Republic of Ireland but did not change the country's name
Names of the Irish state
There have been various names of the Irish state, some of which have been controversial. The constitutional name of the contemporary state is Ireland, the same as the island of Ireland, of which it comprises the major portion...
. The international and diplomatic functions previously vested in or exercised by the King were now vested in the President of Ireland who finally became unambiguously the Irish head of state. Under the Commonwealth rules then in force, the declaration of a republic automatically terminated the state's membership of the British Commonwealth
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
. Unlike India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, which became a republic shortly afterwards, Ireland chose not to reapply for admittance to the Commonwealth.
Though a republic since 1949, the Crown of Ireland Act 1542
Crown of Ireland Act 1542
The Crown of Ireland Act 1542 is an Act of the Parliament of Ireland , declaring that King Henry VIII of England and his successors would also be Kings of Ireland. Since 1171 the monarch of England had held the title Lord of Ireland...
that had established the Kingdom of Ireland
Kingdom of Ireland
The Kingdom of Ireland refers to the country of Ireland in the period between the proclamation of Henry VIII as King of Ireland by the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 and the Act of Union in 1800. It replaced the Lordship of Ireland, which had been created in 1171...
was not finally repealed until 1962, along with many other obsolete Parliament of Ireland
Parliament of Ireland
The Parliament of Ireland was a legislature that existed in Dublin from 1297 until 1800. In its early mediaeval period during the Lordship of Ireland it consisted of either two or three chambers: the House of Commons, elected by a very restricted suffrage, the House of Lords in which the lords...
statutes. However, long before that, the British Government in its Ireland Act 1949
Ireland Act 1949
The Ireland Act 1949 is a British Act of Parliament that was intended to deal with the consequences of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 as passed by the Irish parliament...
recognised that "the Republic of Ireland had ceased to be part of His Majesty's dominions" (but would not be "a foreign country" for the purposes of any law).
The state joined the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
in December 1955, after a lengthy veto by the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Turned away by the veto of France in 1961, the state finally succeeded in joining the European Economic Community
European Economic Community
The European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) The European Economic Community (EEC) (also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking world, renamed the European Community (EC) in 1993The information in this article primarily covers the EEC's time as an independent...
(now known as the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
) in 1973.
Economic, political and social history, 1945-1990
Ireland emerged from the Second World War in better condition than many European countries, having been spared direct involvement in the war and with an income per capita higher than that of most belligerent countries. Ireland also benefited from loans from the Marshal Plan of $36 million, at 2% interest.However, whereas most European countries experienced a sustained economic boom in the 1950s, Ireland did not, its economy growing by only 1% a year during the decade. Ireland as a result experienced sharp emigration of around 50,000 per year during the decade and the population of the state fell to an all-time low of 2.81 million. The policies of protectionism and low public spending which had predominated since the 1930s were widely viewed to be failing.
Fianna Fail's political dominance was broken in 1948-51 and in 1954-1957, when coalitions led by Fine Gael (descendants of Cumman na nGaedheal), and including the Labour Party and Clann na Poblachta
Clann na Poblachta
Clann na Poblachta , abbreviated CnaP, was an Irish republican and social democratic political party founded by former Irish Republican Army Chief of Staff Seán MacBride in 1946.-Foundation:...
won elections and formed the government. However, the periods of coalition rule did little to radically alter government policies. An initiative by Noel Browne
Noel Browne
Noël Christopher Browne was an Irish politician and doctor. He holds the distinction of being one of only five Teachtaí Dála to be appointed Minister on their first day in the Dáil. His controversial Mother and Child Scheme in effect brought down the First Inter-Party Government of John A...
, the Minister for Health, to introduce the Mother and Child Scheme
Mother and Child Scheme
The Mother and Child Scheme was a healthcare programme in the Republic of Ireland that would later become remembered as a major political crisis involving primarily the Irish Government and Roman Catholic Church in the early 1950s....
, providing free medical care to mothers and children, came to nothing when opposed by the Catholic Church and by private medical practitioners.
Poor economic growth and lack of social services led Sean Lemass, who succeeded the veteran Eamon de Valera as leader of Fianna Fail and as Taoiseach in 1958, to state that if economic performance did not improve, the very future of the independent Irish state was at risk. "[Something] has got to be done now... If we fail everything else goes with it and all the hopes of the past will have been falsified”.
Lemass, along with T.K. Whitaker as Secretary for the Department of Finance set specific plans for economic growth, including planned investment in industrial infrastructure and dropping of many protective tariffs and giving tax incentives to foreign manufacturing companies to set up in Ireland. Attracting foreign direct investment
Foreign direct investment
Foreign direct investment or foreign investment refers to the net inflows of investment to acquire a lasting management interest in an enterprise operating in an economy other than that of the investor.. It is the sum of equity capital,other long-term capital, and short-term capital as shown in...
has remained a central part of Irish economic planning since that time. The economic plans of the Lemass era yielded economic growth of 4% a year between 1959-1973. A result of having more public revenue was more investment in social infrastructure - free secondary education, for instance, was instituted in 1968. Emigration fell as living standards in Ireland went up by 50% and began to catch up with the European average.
However, in the 1970s, the world energy crisis - where OPEC
OPEC
OPEC is an intergovernmental organization of twelve developing countries made up of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. OPEC has maintained its headquarters in Vienna since 1965, and hosts regular meetings...
countries withheld supplies of oil - resulted in rising inflation and a budget deficit in Ireland. From 1973-1977 a coalition government of Fine Gael and Labour tried to keep spending under control by imposing a series of cuts in public spending.
The period of economic crisis of the late 1970s provoked a new economic crisis in Ireland that would endure throughout the 1980s. Fianna Fáil , back in power after the 1977 election, tried to reactivate the economy by increasing public spending, which by 1981 amounted 65% of Irish GNP. Irish national debt in 1980 was £7 billion or 81% of GNP. By 1986, it was over £23 billion - 142% of Irish GNP.
This massive public debt hindered Irish economic performance throughout the 1980s. The governments of Charles Haughey
Charles Haughey
Charles James "Charlie" Haughey was Taoiseach of Ireland, serving three terms in office . He was also the fourth leader of Fianna Fáil...
's Fianna Fail and Garret FitzGerald
Garret FitzGerald
Garret FitzGerald was an Irish politician who was twice Taoiseach of Ireland, serving in office from July 1981 to February 1982 and again from December 1982 to March 1987. FitzGerald was elected to Seanad Éireann in 1965 and was subsequently elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fine Gael TD in 1969. He...
's (Fine Gael/Labour) borrowed even more, and income tax rates went up to between 35% and 60% of wage earners' income. The combination of high taxes and high unemployment caused emigration to pick up again, with up to 40,000 leaving the country each year in that decade. Power alternated between the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, with some governments not even lasting a year, and in one case, three elections in a period of 18 months.
Starting in 1989 there were significant policy changes with economic reform, tax cuts, welfare reform, an increase in competition, and a ban on borrowing to fund current spending. There was also a "Social Partnership Agreement" with the trade unions, whereby unions agreed not to strike in return for gradual, negotiated pay increases. These policies was started by the 1989–1992 Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party , more commonly known as Fianna Fáil is a centrist political party in the Republic of Ireland, founded on 23 March 1926. Fianna Fáil's name is traditionally translated into English as Soldiers of Destiny, although a more accurate rendition would be Warriors of Fál...
/Progressive Democrat government, with the support of the opposition Fine Gael
Fine Gael
Fine Gael is a centre-right to centrist political party in the Republic of Ireland. It is the single largest party in Ireland in the Oireachtas, in local government, and in terms of Members of the European Parliament. The party has a membership of over 35,000...
, and continued by the subsequent Fianna Fail/Labour government (1992-1994) and Fine Gael/Labour Party/Democratic Left governments (1994-1997). This was known as the Tallaght Strategy
Tallaght Strategy
In Irish politics, the Tallaght Strategy was a policy followed by the Fine Gael party starting in 1987. Under this policy, the Fine Gael opposition party would not oppose economic reforms proposed by the Fianna Fáil minority government in the national interest...
, where the opposition promised not to oppose certain necessary economic measures brought in by the government of the day.
The Irish economy returned to growth by the 1990s but unemployment remained high until the second half of that decade.
Relationship with Northern Ireland 1945-1998
The official position of the Irish state, as laid out in the 1937 constitution, was that the territory of the state comprised the whole island of Ireland, but that its laws applied only to the territory of the Free State, as outlined in the 1922 Treaty. Thereafter the policies of Irish governments pursued the peaceful unification of Ireland through the pressure groups such as the anti-Partition League. However, at the same time, the state recognised that paramilitary groups - in particular the IRA - were also a threat to its own security. Furthermore their attacks on Northern Ireland could drag the Irish state into an unwanted confrontation with Britain.In the 1950s, the IRA launched a campaign of attacks on Northern security targets along the border (the Border Campaign
Border Campaign
The Border Campaign may refer to several armed campaigns, in particular:*The US Army's Mexican Border Campaign of 1916-17*The Irish Republican Army's Border Campaign of 1956-62...
). The Irish government first detained the IRA's leaders under the Offences Against the State Act and later introduced internment for all IRA activists. This helped to halt the campaign in its tracks, which was called off in 1962. In the aftermath of this episode, the southern government under Sean Lemass
Seán Lemass
Seán Francis Lemass was one of the most prominent Irish politicians of the 20th century. He served as Taoiseach from 1959 until 1966....
, himself an IRA veteran of the War of Independence and Civil War, tried to forge closer ties with the authorities in Northern Ireland in order to promote peaceful cooperation on the island. He and Northern premier Terence O'Neill
Terence O'Neill
Terence Marne O'Neill, Baron O'Neill of the Maine, PC was the fourth Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and leader of the Ulster Unionist Party...
exchanged visits, the first of the respective heads of state since the very early days of partition in 1922.
However, in 1969, the Irish government found itself placed in a very difficult position when conflict erupted in Northern Ireland in the form of rioting in Derry
Derry
Derry or Londonderry is the second-biggest city in Northern Ireland and the fourth-biggest city on the island of Ireland. The name Derry is an anglicisation of the Irish name Doire or Doire Cholmcille meaning "oak-wood of Colmcille"...
, Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
and other urban centres. The violence arose out of agitation by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was an organisation which campaigned for equal civil rights for the all the people in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 1970s...
for the redress of grievances of Catholics and nationalists in Northern Ireland. Two episodes in particular caused concern - the Battle of the Bogside
Battle of the Bogside
The Battle of the Bogside was a very large communal riot that took place during 12–14 August 1969 in Derry, Northern Ireland. The fighting was between residents of the Bogside area and the Royal Ulster Constabulary .The rioting erupted after the RUC attempted to disperse Irish nationalists who...
in Derry, in which nationalists fought the police for three days and the rioting in Belfast
1969 Northern Ireland Riots
During 12–17 August 1969, Northern Ireland was rocked by intense political and sectarian rioting. There had been sporadic violence throughout the year arising from the civil rights campaign, which was demanding an end to government discrimination against Irish Catholics and nationalists...
, in which several Catholic neighbourhoods were attacked and burned by loyalists.
Taoiseach Jack Lynch
Jack Lynch
John Mary "Jack" Lynch was the Taoiseach of Ireland, serving two terms in office; from 1966 to 1973 and 1977 to 1979....
in a televised address, said, "we can not stand by and watch innocent people being injured and perhaps worse", comments taken to mean that Irish troops would be sent over the border to assist Northern nationalists. This was not done, but Irish Army field hospitals were set up and some money and arms were covertly supplied to nationalist groups for self-defence. Government ministers, Charles Haughey
Charles Haughey
Charles James "Charlie" Haughey was Taoiseach of Ireland, serving three terms in office . He was also the fourth leader of Fianna Fáil...
and Neil Blaney
Neil Blaney
Neil Terence Columba Blaney was a senior Irish politician. He was first elected to Dáil Éireann in 1948 as a Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála representing Donegal East. Blaney served as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs , Minister for Local Government and Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries...
, were later put on trial for allegedly supplying arms to republican paramilitaries.
At the same time, the Provisional IRA, emerged from the 1969 rioting intending to launch an armed campaign against the Northern state. Unlike the IRA campaign of the 1950s, this campaign was viewed as having considerable public support among Northern nationalists and for this reason, Irish governments did not introduce internment as they had previously, in the absence of a political settlement in Northern Ireland. The Gardai and the Irish Army were, however, used to try to impede the activities of republican paramilitary groups throughout the conflict known as the Troubles
The Troubles
The Troubles was a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland which spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe. The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast...
. These activities included bank robberies, kidnappings and occasional attacks on the Irish security forces as well as attacks over the border. There were also sometimes attacks by loyalist paramilitary groups in southern territory, notably the Dublin and Monaghan bombings
Dublin and Monaghan Bombings
The Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 17 May 1974 were a series of car bombings in Dublin and Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland. The attacks killed 33 civilians and wounded almost 300 – the highest number of casualties in any single day during the conflict known as The Troubles.A loyalist...
of 1975, which killed 33 people.
In 1985, the Irish government was part of the Anglo-Irish Agreement
Anglo-Irish Agreement
The Anglo-Irish Agreement was an agreement between the United Kingdom and Ireland which aimed to help bring an end to the Troubles in Northern Ireland...
, in which the British government recognised that the Irish government had a role to play in a future peace settlement in the North. In 1994, the Irish government was heavily involved in negotiations which brought about an IRA ceasefire.
In 1998, the Irish authorities were again party to a settlement, the Good Friday Agreement
Belfast Agreement
The Good Friday Agreement or Belfast Agreement , sometimes called the Stormont Agreement, was a major political development in the Northern Ireland peace process...
, which set up power-sharing institutions within Northern Ireland, North-South instructions and links between the various components of the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. The Irish state also changed Articles 2 and 3 of the constitution to acknowledge both the existence of Northern Ireland and the desire of Irish nationalists for a united Ireland. Even in the wake of the post-Good Friday Agreement incorporation of the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin into electoral politics, there remain several republican paramilitary groups who wish to use force to destabilise Northern Ireland - such as the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA. Irish security forces continue to be used to try to prevent attacks by such groups.
Social liberalisation
In the late twentieth century, Irish society underwent rapid social change. After the introduction of free education in the late 1960s, many more people had access to second and third level qualifications. The relative economic success of the 1960s and 1970s also decreased emigration, meaning that Ireland became a younger and much more urban society than before. The spread of television and other mass media also exposed Irish citizens to a far wider range of influences than previously. All of these factors loosened the power of the traditional political parties and the Catholic Church over society.By the 1980s, many were calling for liberalisation of the state's laws, particularly a review of the bans on divorce, contraception, abortion and homosexuality. However, they were also opposed by well-organised groups who accused the reformers of being irreligious and "anti-family". That decade saw bitter disagreement between socially conservative, principally religious, elements and liberals over a series of referendums.
In 1983, the Pro-Life Amendment Campaign campaigned for and won a referendum, explicitly including a ban on abortion into the constitution - the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland
Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland
The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland introduced a constitutional ban on abortion. It was effected by the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution Act, 1983, which was approved by referendum on 7 September 1983 and signed into law on the 7 October of the same year.-Changes to the...
. In 1985, it was made legal to buy condoms and spermicides without prescription, but it was not until 1993 that all restrictions on information and sale of contraceptives were abolished. In 1986, the Fine Gael/Labour coalition proposed to remove the ban on divorce. This was opposed by Fianna Fail and the Catholic Church and the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution Bill, 1986 (Ireland) was defeated in a referendum.
Since 1992 the state has become less socially conservative. Liberalisation has been championed by figures like Mary Robinson
Mary Robinson
Mary Therese Winifred Robinson served as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002. She first rose to prominence as an academic, barrister, campaigner and member of the Irish Senate...
, a radical feminist senator who became President of Ireland
President of Ireland
The President of Ireland is the head of state of Ireland. The President is usually directly elected by the people for seven years, and can be elected for a maximum of two terms. The presidency is largely a ceremonial office, but the President does exercise certain limited powers with absolute...
, and David Norris, who led the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform
Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform
The Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform was an organisation set up to campaign for the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in the 1970s...
. Homosexual sex was decriminalised by an act of parliament in 1993.
While abortion remains illegal in Ireland, the constitutional ban on it was softened somewhat in 1992. After a referendum in that year, the Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution Bill, 1992 (Ireland) was approved, which made it legal to perform an abortion to save the life of a mother, to give information about abortion and to travel to another country for an abortion. In 1995, after a referendum, the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland
Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland
The Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland repealed the constitutional prohibition of divorce. It was effected by the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution Act, 1995, which was approved by referendum on 24 November 1995 and signed into law on 17 June 1996.-Changes to the...
legalised divorce.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, these questions were deeply divisive in the Republic of Ireland and exposed deep social cleavages between religious and secular-minded people, urban and rural, middle and working classes. While issues such as divorce, contraception and homosexuality have become accepted by many and have ceased to be matters of serious political debate, these issues remain controversial among some . Legalising abortion in particular remains controversial and according to some opinion polls up to 70% support the ban on abortion as it currently stands .
National scandals
Part of the reason why, by the 1990s, social liberalisaton was widely accepted was that the Catholic Church was hit by a very damaging series of scandals in that decade. The revelation that one senior CatholicRoman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
bishop, Eamon Casey
Eamon Casey
Eamon Casey is Roman Catholic Bishop Emeritus of Galway and Kilmacduagh, Ireland.-Priest and bishop:...
, fathered a child by a divorcée caused a major reaction, as did the discovery of child abuse by a large number of clerics, notably the infamous paedophile Father Brendan Smyth (the incompetent handling of a request for the extradition of Smyth brought down an Irish government in 1994). Another bishop, McGee, subsequently resigned over his mishandling of child abuse cases in his diocese.
It was also revealed, in the 2000s, after an enquiry, the Ryan Commission
Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse
The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse is one of a range of measures introduced by the Irish Government to investigate the extent and effects of abuse on children from 1936 onwards. It is commonly known in Ireland as the Ryan Commission , after its chair, Justice Seán Ryan...
, that there had been widespread physical and sexual abuse of children in the Church-run Industrial School
Industrial school
In Ireland the Industrial Schools Act of 1868 established industrial schools to care for "neglected, orphaned and abandoned children". By 1884 there were 5,049 children in such institutions....
s and orphanages from the 1920s until the 1960s. These were institutions which were set up to house children of unmarried or poor parents. In some cases, it was revealed, these children had been forcibly removed from their parents by the state and put into institutions where they were badly fed and clothed and in some cases beaten and raped.
All of these revelations very deeply damaged the moral authority of the Catholic Church. (See also Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Ireland
Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Ireland
The Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Ireland is a major chapter in the worldwide Catholic sexual abuse scandal. Unlike the Catholic sexual abuse scandal in the United States, the scandal in Ireland included cases of high-profile Catholic clerics involved in illicit heterosexual relations as well as...
)
Also in the 1990s, a series of tribunals began inquiring into major allegations of corruption against senior politicians. Ray Burke
Ray Burke
Raphael Patrick "Ray" Burke is an Irish former Fianna Fáil politician. He is a former Teachta Dála and government minister who was convicted and jailed on charges arising from political corruption in office...
, who served as Minister for Foreign Affairs
Minister for Foreign Affairs (Ireland)
The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade is the senior minister at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in the Government of Ireland. Its headquarters are at Iveagh House, on St Stephen's Green in Dublin; "Iveagh House" is often used as a metonym for the department as a whole.The current...
in 1997 was gaoled on charges of Tax Evasion
Tax evasion
Tax evasion is the general term for efforts by individuals, corporations, trusts and other entities to evade taxes by illegal means. Tax evasion usually entails taxpayers deliberately misrepresenting or concealing the true state of their affairs to the tax authorities to reduce their tax liability,...
in January 2005. The Beef Tribunal in the early 1990s found that that major food companies, notably in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
had been given preferential treatment by the Fianna Fail government in return for donations to that party. Former Taoisaighs Charles Haughey and Bertie Ahern
Bertie Ahern
Patrick Bartholomew "Bertie" Ahern is a former Irish politician who served as Taoiseach of Ireland from 26 June 1997 to 7 May 2008....
were also brought before Tribunals to explain their acceptance of very large personal donations of money to them by private businessmen.
The "Celtic Tiger" era
The state had had a disappointing economic performance for much of its existence, but it became one of the fastest growing economies in the world by the 1990s, a phenomenon known as the Celtic TigerCeltic Tiger
Celtic Tiger is a term used to describe the economy of Ireland during a period of rapid economic growth between 1995 and 2007. The expansion underwent a dramatic reversal from 2008, with GDP contracting by 14% and unemployment levels rising to 14% by 2010...
. One factor in this was by attracting foreign investment by offering very low taxes on profits (corporations taxes which were set at 12%) and by investing in education – offering a well educated work force at relatively low wages and access to the now-open European market. The second factor was getting public spending under control by a series of agreements, termed ‘social partnership’ with the trade unions – where gradual increases in pay were awarded in return for no industrial action. However it was not until the second half of the 1990s that figures for unemployment and emigration were reversed.
By the early 2000s, the Republic had become the second richest (in terms of GDP per capita, adjusted for purchasing power parity) member of the European Union, had moved from being a net recipient of EU funds to a net contributor, and from a position of net emigration to one of net imigration. In 2005, its per capita GDP (adjusted for purchasing power parity) became the second highest in the world (behind Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
) with 10 percent of the population born abroad. The population grew to an all-time high for the state of about 4.5 million.
By 2000 Ireland had a substantial budget surplus and the first decade of the new millennium also saw a significant expansion of public spending on infrastructure and social services. As against this, several state-run industries were also privatised – Eircom for instance. In 2002, Irish national debt was 32% of GNP and fell further until 2007.
The Celtic Tiger started in the mid 1990s and boomed until 2001, when it slowed down, only to pick up again in 2003. It slowed again in 2007 and in June 2008 the Irish Economic and Social Research Institute
Economic and Social Research Institute
The Economic and Social Research Institute is a think tank in Dublin, Ireland. Its research focuses on Ireland's economic and social development in order to inform policy-making and societal understanding....
(ESRI) predicted that Ireland would go into recession briefly before growth would resume.
However, since 2001, the Irish economy had been heavily dependent of the property market and when this crashed in 2008, the country's economy was badly hit.
The crash 2008 - present and IMF intervention
The Irish banks had invested heavily in loans to property developers and were facing ruin as result of the property markets collapse and also the international 'Credit crunchCredit crunch
A credit crunch is a reduction in the general availability of loans or a sudden tightening of the conditions required to obtain a loan from the banks. A credit crunch generally involves a reduction in the availability of credit independent of a rise in official interest rates...
' or drying up of loans from abroad. Much of the Irish economy and public finances had also depended on the property market and its collapse at roughly the same time as the banking crisis, sent shudders throughout the Irish economy. It also meant that revenue collected by the state fell radically.
This situation was compounded by the assumption by the state of the banks' debts in 2008. The Irish government led by Brian Cowen
Brian Cowen
Brian Cowen is a former Irish politician who served as Taoiseach of Ireland from 7 May 2008 to 9 March 2011. He was head of a coalition government led by Fianna Fáil which until 23 January 2011 had the support of the Green Party and independent TDs.Cowen was also leader of Fianna Fáil from 7 May...
, following a late-night meeting with all the senior banking officials in the country on September 30 2008, agreed to cover all of the banks debts. This debt, now estimated at over €50 billion, (over half of which will be paid to Anglo-Irish Bank , a particularly reckless lender) imposed a heavy burden on the tax-payer and severely damaged Ireland's ability to borrow money from the International Bond markets.
The second problem is that public spending, which rose steeply in the 2000s, was now unsustainable. The total Irish budget deficit as of November 2010, stood at 93 billion or up to 120% of GNP . As it was not clear how much money would be needed to revitalise the banks – to clear their debts and supply them with enough money to start lending again – the international markets were unwilling to lend Ireland money at an interest rate it could afford.
Under pressure from the European Union, which feared a ‘run’ (selling causing a collapse in value) of the euro, Ireland was forced to accept a 16-year loan of €85 billion at just under 6% interest from IMF and EU itself. Not only were the interest rates of the loan high, but the deal also involved a humiliating loss of sovereignty, in which Irish budgets had to first be approved by other parliaments of the EU - notably that of Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
The political result of this crisis was the fall of the Cowen government and a shattering defeat for Fianna Fail in the Irish general election, 2011, in which the party won just 17% of the vote and retained only 19 out of its 166 seats in the Dáil. Emigration from Ireland has again picked up and many remain anxious about the economic future.
See also
- History of IrelandHistory of IrelandThe first known settlement in Ireland began around 8000 BC, when hunter-gatherers arrived from continental Europe, probably via a land bridge. Few archaeological traces remain of this group, but their descendants and later Neolithic arrivals, particularly from the Iberian Peninsula, were...
- Names of the Irish stateNames of the Irish stateThere have been various names of the Irish state, some of which have been controversial. The constitutional name of the contemporary state is Ireland, the same as the island of Ireland, of which it comprises the major portion...
- Irish poundIrish poundThe Irish pound was the currency of Ireland until 2002. Its ISO 4217 code was IEP, and the usual notation was the prefix £...
(former currency unit) - GUBUGUBUGUBU is an acronym standing for grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented.The phrase was paraphrased from a comment by then Taoiseach of Ireland, Charles Haughey, while describing a strange series of incidents in the summer of 1982 that led to a double-murderer being apprehended in the...
- Timeline of Irish historyTimeline of Irish historyThis is a timeline of Irish history. To read about the background to these events, see History of Ireland. See also the list of Lords and Kings of Ireland and Irish heads of state and the list of years in Ireland....