Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture

Culture of Ireland

This article is about the modern culture of Ireland and the Irish people. It includes customs and traditions, language, music, art, literature, folklore, cuisine and sport associated with Ireland and Irish people today. However, the culture of the people living in Ireland is not homogeneous...

, language

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

 and history

History of Ireland

The 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...

, and as a sense of pride in 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...

 and in the Irish people

Irish people

The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

. Since the partition of Ireland

Partition of Ireland

The partition of Ireland was the division of the island of Ireland into two distinct territories, now Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland . Partition occurred when the British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1920...

, the term generally refers to support for a united Ireland

United Ireland

A united Ireland is the term used to refer to the idea of a sovereign state which covers all of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland. The island of Ireland includes the territory of two independent sovereign states: the Republic of Ireland, which covers 26 counties of the island, and the...

.

Roots

Ireland has been subject to varying degrees of rule from England since the late 12th century (See Norman Ireland

Norman Ireland

The History of Ireland 1169–1536 covers the period from the arrival of the Cambro-Normans to the reign of Henry VIII of England, who made himself King of Ireland. After the Norman invasion of 1171, Ireland was under an alternating level of control from Norman lords and the King of England...

). The Gaelic Irish

Gaels

The Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....

 resisted this conquest through military and other means, but were organized in small independent lordships and did not have a common political goal such as a centralised independent Irish state. Conflict over the English presence was exacerbated by the Protestant Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

 in England, which introduced a religious element to the 16th century Tudor conquest of Ireland, as almost all of the native Irish remained Catholic. In Ireland, many native Catholic landowners were dispossessed during the Plantations of Ireland

Plantations of Ireland

Plantations in 16th and 17th century Ireland were the confiscation of land by the English crown and the colonisation of this land with settlers from England and the Scottish Lowlands....

 when land was given to Protestant settlers from England and Scotland. In addition, the Plantation of Ulster

Plantation of Ulster

The Plantation of Ulster was the organised colonisation of Ulster—a province of Ireland—by people from Great Britain. Private plantation by wealthy landowners began in 1606, while official plantation controlled by King James I of England and VI of Scotland began in 1609...

, begun in 1609, "planted" a sizable colony of English and Scottish Protestant settlers into the north of Ireland.

The closest Gaelic lords came to waging an identifiably nationalist campaign against the English presence was the rebellion of Hugh O'Neill in the 1590s (known as the Nine Years War 1594-1603), which aimed to expel the English and make Ireland a Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 protectorate

Protectorate

In history, the term protectorate has two different meanings. In its earliest inception, which has been adopted by modern international law, it is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity...

. However, despite claiming to represent a movement of Irish Catholics against English Protestants, O'Neill's forces were a shifting coalition of clans and lords and many historians see O'Neill himself as being primarily motivated by personal ambition - specifically the securing of his authority over Tyrone

Tyrone

The name Tyrone can refer to:*County Tyrone, a county in Northern Ireland, roughly corresponding to the ancient kingdom of Tír Eogain*An Earl of Tyrone*A small steam train which runs between Bushmills and the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland-Places:...

 in Ulster

Ulster

Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...

.

A more significant movement came in the 1640s, after the Irish Rebellion of 1641

Irish Rebellion of 1641

The Irish Rebellion of 1641 began as an attempted coup d'état by Irish Catholic gentry, who tried to seize control of the English administration in Ireland to force concessions for the Catholics living under English rule...

, when a coalition of Gaelic Irish and Hiberno-Norman Catholics set up a de facto independent Irish state to fight the Wars of the Three Kingdoms

Wars of the Three Kingdoms

The Wars of the Three Kingdoms formed an intertwined series of conflicts that took place in England, Ireland, and Scotland between 1639 and 1651 after these three countries had come under the "Personal Rule" of the same monarch...

 (see Confederate Ireland

Confederate Ireland

Confederate Ireland refers to the period of Irish self-government between the Rebellion of 1641 and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649. During this time, two-thirds of Ireland was governed by the Irish Catholic Confederation, also known as the "Confederation of Kilkenny"...

). The Confederate Catholics of Ireland, also known as the Confederation of Kilkenny, emphasised that Ireland was a Kingdom independent from England, though under the same monarch. They demanded autonomy for the Irish Parliament, full rights for Catholics and an end to the confiscation of Catholic owned land. The Confederate cause was destroyed in the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland

Cromwellian conquest of Ireland

The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland refers to the conquest of Ireland by the forces of the English Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Cromwell landed in Ireland with his New Model Army on behalf of England's Rump Parliament in 1649...

 (1649–53) and the old Catholic landowning class was dispossessed permanently.

A similar Irish Catholic monarchist movement emerged in the 1680s and 90s, when Irish Catholic Jacobites

Jacobitism

Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...

 supported James II

James II of England

James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...

 after his deposition in the Glorious Revolution

Glorious Revolution

The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...

. The Jacobites demanded that Irish Catholics would be a majority in an autonomous Irish Parliament, that confiscated Catholic land would be restored and that the Lord Deputy of Ireland

Lord Deputy of Ireland

The Lord Deputy was the King's representative and head of the Irish executive under English rule, during the Lordship of Ireland and later the Kingdom of Ireland...

 would in future be an Irishman. Similarly to the Confederates of the 1640s, the Jacobites were conscious of representing the "Irish nation", but were not separatists and largely represented the interests of the landed class as opposed to all the Irish people. Like the Confederates, they were also defeated in the Williamite war in Ireland

Williamite war in Ireland

The Williamite War in Ireland—also called the Jacobite War in Ireland, the Williamite-Jacobite War in Ireland and in Irish as Cogadh an Dá Rí —was a conflict between Catholic King James II and Protestant King William of Orange over who would be King of England, Scotland and Ireland...

 (1689–91). Thereafter, Irish government and landholding were dominated by the largely English Protestant Ascendancy

Protestant Ascendancy

The Protestant Ascendancy, usually known in Ireland simply as the Ascendancy, is a phrase used when referring to the political, economic, and social domination of Ireland by a minority of great landowners, Protestant clergy, and professionals, all members of the Established Church during the 17th...

. Catholics were discriminated against under the Penal Laws

Penal Laws (Ireland)

The term Penal Laws in Ireland were a series of laws imposed under English and later British rule that sought to discriminate against Roman Catholics and Protestant dissenters in favour of members of the established Church of Ireland....

. See also History of Ireland 1536–1691.

This coupling of religious and ethnic identity principally Roman Catholic and Gaelic

Gaels

The Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....

, as well as a consciousness of dispossession and defeat at the hands of British and Protestant forces came to be seen as enduring features of Irish nationalism. However, the Irish Catholic movements of the 16th century were invariably led by a small landed and clerical elite. Professor Kevin Whelan has comprehensively traced the emergence of the modern Catholic-Nationalist identity that formed in 1760-1830. Irish historian Marc Caball on the other hand claims that "early modern Irish nationalism" began to be established after the Flight of the Earls

Flight of the Earls

The Flight of the Earls took place on 14 September 1607, when Hugh Ó Neill of Tír Eóghain, Rory Ó Donnell of Tír Chonaill and about ninety followers left Ireland for mainland Europe.-Background to the exile:...

 (1607), based on the concepts of "the indivisibility of Gaelic cultural integrity, territorial sovereignty, and the interlinking of Gaelic identity with profession of the Roman Catholic faith".

Early nationalism: Grattan to O'Connell

The Protestant dominated Irish Parliament of the eighteenth century repeatedly called for more autonomy from the British Parliament — particularly the repeal of Poynings' Law, which allowed the latter to legislate for Ireland. They were supported by popular sentiment that came from the various publications of William Molyneux

William Molyneux

William Molyneux FRS was an Irish natural philosopher and writer on politics.He was born in Dublin to Samuel Molyneux , lawyer and landowner , and his wife, Anne, née Dowdall. The second of five children, William Molyneux came from a relatively prosperous Anglican background...

 about Irish constitution independence; this was later reinforced by Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...

's incorporation of these ideas into Drapier's Letters.

Parliamentarians who wanted more self government formed the Irish Patriot Party

Irish Patriot Party

The Irish Patriot Party was the name of a number of different political groupings in Ireland throughout the 18th century. They were primarily supportive of Whig concepts of personal liberty combined with an Irish identity that rejected full independence, but advocated strong self-government within...

, led by Henry Grattan

Henry Grattan

Henry Grattan was an Irish politician and member of the Irish House of Commons and a campaigner for legislative freedom for the Irish Parliament in the late 18th century. He opposed the Act of Union 1800 that merged the Kingdoms of Ireland and Great Britain.-Early life:Grattan was born at...

, who achieved substantial legislative independence in 1782-83. Grattan and radical elements of the 'Irish Whig' party campaigned in the 1790s for Catholic political equality and a reform of electoral rights. He wanted useful links with Britain to remain, best understood by his comment: 'The channel [Irish sea] forbids union; the ocean forbids separation'.

It is also argued today that Grattan's movement was not fully nationalist because many of its adherents were descended from the 'colonial minority' in Ireland. However, other nationalists such as Samuel Neilson

Samuel Neilson

Samuel Neilson was one of the founder members of the Society of United Irishmen and the founder of its newspaper the Northern Star.-Background:...

, Theobald Wolfe Tone

Theobald Wolfe Tone

Theobald Wolfe Tone or Wolfe Tone , was a leading Irish revolutionary figure and one of the founding members of the United Irishmen and is regarded as the father of Irish Republicanism. He was captured by British forces at Lough Swilly in Donegal and taken prisoner...

 and Robert Emmet

Robert Emmet

Robert Emmet was an Irish nationalist and Republican, orator and rebel leader born in Dublin, Ireland...

 were also descended from colonial families that had arrived in Ireland since 1600. From Grattan in the 1770s to Parnell

Charles Stewart Parnell

Charles Stewart Parnell was an Irish landowner, nationalist political leader, land reform agitator, and the founder and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party...

 up to 1890, nearly all the leaders of Irish separatism were Protestant Nationalist

Protestant Nationalist

Irish nationalism has been chiefly associated with Roman Catholics. However, historically this is not an entirely accurate picture. Protestant nationalists were also influential supporters of the political independence the island of Ireland from the island of Great Britain and leaders of national...

s.

Modern Irish nationalism with democratic aspirations began in the 1790s when Theobald Wolfe Tone founded the Society of the United Irishmen

Society of the United Irishmen

The Society of United Irishmen was founded as a liberal political organisation in eighteenth century Ireland that sought Parliamentary reform. However, it evolved into a revolutionary republican organisation, inspired by the American Revolution and allied with Revolutionary France...

, and wanted to end discrimination against Catholics, in line with Grattan, and then to found an independent Irish Republic. Tone and most of the United Irish leaders were Protestants and inspired by the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

, wanted a society without sectarian divisions, the continuation of which they attributed to the British domination over the country. They were sponsored by the French Republic which was then the enemy of the Holy See

Holy See

The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

. The United Irishmen led an armed uprising in 1798 (See Irish Rebellion of 1798

Irish Rebellion of 1798

The Irish Rebellion of 1798 , also known as the United Irishmen Rebellion , was an uprising in 1798, lasting several months, against British rule in Ireland...

), which was repressed with great bloodshed. As a result, the Irish Parliament voted to abolish itself in the Act of Union

Act 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...

 of 1800-01 and thereafter Irish MPs sat in London. (See History of Ireland (1801-1922))

Two dominant forms of Irish nationalism arose from these events. One was a radical movement, known as Irish Republicanism

Irish Republicanism

Irish republicanism is an ideology based on the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic.In 1801, under the Act of Union, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merged to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...

, which advocated use of force to found a secular, egalitarian Irish Republic, advocated by groups such as the Young Ireland

Young Ireland

Young Ireland was a political, cultural and social movement of the mid-19th century. It led changes in Irish nationalism, including an abortive rebellion known as the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848. Many of the latter's leaders were tried for sedition and sentenced to penal transportation to...

ers, some of whom launched a rebellion in 1848.

The other nationalist tradition was more moderate, urging non-violent means to seek concessions from the British government. While both nationalist traditions were predominantly Catholic in their support base, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church were opposed to republican separatism on the grounds of its violent methods and secular ideology, while they usually supported non-violent reformist nationalism.

Daniel O'Connell

Daniel O'Connell

Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell (6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847; often referred to as The Liberator, or The Emancipator, was an Irish political leader in the first half of the 19th century...

 was the leader of the moderate tendency. O'Connell, head of the Catholic Association

Catholic Association

The Catholic Association was an Irish Roman Catholic political organisation set up by Daniel O'Connell in the early nineteenth century to campaign for Catholic emancipation within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was one of the first mass-membership political movements in...

 and Repeal Association

Repeal Association

The Repeal Association was an Irish mass membership political movement set up by Daniel O'Connell to campaign for a repeal of the Act of Union of 1800 between Great Britain and Ireland....

 in the 1820s, '30s and '40s, campaigned for Catholic Emancipation

Catholic Emancipation

Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws...

 - full political rights for Catholics - and then "Repeal of the Union", or Irish self-government under the Crown. Catholic Emancipation was achieved, but self-government was not. O'Connell's movement was more explicitly Catholic than its eighteenth century predecessors. It enjoyed the support of the Catholic clergy, who had denounced the United Irishmen and reinforced the association between Irish identity and Catholicism. The Young Ireland

Young Ireland

Young Ireland was a political, cultural and social movement of the mid-19th century. It led changes in Irish nationalism, including an abortive rebellion known as the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848. Many of the latter's leaders were tried for sedition and sentenced to penal transportation to...

ers when members of the Repeal Association

Repeal Association

The Repeal Association was an Irish mass membership political movement set up by Daniel O'Connell to campaign for a repeal of the Act of Union of 1800 between Great Britain and Ireland....

, used traditional Irish imagery such as the Harp and located its mass meetings in sites such as Tara and Clontarf

Clontarf, Dublin

Clontarf is a coastal suburb on the northside of Dublin, in Ireland. It is most famous for giving the name to the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, in which Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, defeated the Vikings of Dublin and their allies, the Irish of Leinster. This battle, which extended to districts...

 which had a special resonance in Irish history.

Repeal Association & Young Ireland

In the late 19th century, Irish nationalism became the dominant ideology in Ireland, having a major Parliamentary

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...

 party in the Parliament of the United Kingdom

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

Westminster

Westminster is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, southwest of the City of London and southwest of Charing Cross...

 that launched a concerted campaign for Repeal of the Act of Union

Act 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...

 or self-government. This period also saw the emergence of militant republican movement called 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...

 (IRB) or Fenians, with an off-shoot named Clan na Gael

Clan na Gael

The Clan na Gael was an Irish republican organization in the United States in the late 19th and 20th centuries, successor to the Fenian Brotherhood and a sister organization to the Irish Republican Brotherhood...

 in the United States, founded by exiled members of the Young Ireland

Young Ireland

Young Ireland was a political, cultural and social movement of the mid-19th century. It led changes in Irish nationalism, including an abortive rebellion known as the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848. Many of the latter's leaders were tried for sedition and sentenced to penal transportation to...

ers.

The Great Famine of 1845-49 caused great bitterness among Irish people against the British government, which was perceived as having failed to avert the deaths of up to a million people. Clan na Gael, led by John Devoy

John Devoy

John Devoy was an Irish rebel leader and exile.-Early life:Devoy was born near Kill, County Kildare. In 1861 he travelled to France with an introduction from T. D. Sullivan to John Mitchel...

 organised Irish veterans of the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 to attack Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, with the intention of demanding a British withdrawal from Ireland. The Irish Republican Brotherhood was set up in Ireland at the same time.

In Ireland itself, the IRB tried an armed revolt in 1867

Fenian Rising

The Fenian Rising of 1867 was a rebellion against British rule in Ireland, organised by the Irish Republican Brotherhood .After the suppression of the Irish People newspaper, disaffection among Irish radical nationalists had continued to smoulder, and during the later part of 1866 IRB leader James...

 but, as it was heavily infiltrated by police informers, the rising was a failure.

Land League

Mass nationalist mobilisation began when Isaac Butt

Isaac Butt

Isaac Butt Q.C. M.P. was an Irish barrister, politician, Member of Parliament , and the founder and first leader of a number of Irish nationalist parties and organisations, including the Irish Metropolitan Conservative Society in 1836, the Home Government Association in 1870 and in 1873 the Home...

's Home Rule League

Home Rule League

The Home Rule League, sometimes called the Home Rule Party, was a political party which campaigned for home rule for the country of Ireland from 1873 to 1882, when it was replaced by the Irish Parliamentary Party.-Origins:...

 (which had been founded in 1873 but had little following) adopted social issues in the late 1870s – especially the question of land redistribution. Michael Davitt

Michael Davitt

Michael Davitt was an Irish republican and nationalist agrarian agitator, a social campaigner, labour leader, journalist, Home Rule constitutional politician and Member of Parliament , who founded the Irish National Land League.- Early years :Michael Davitt was born in Straide, County Mayo,...

 (an IRB. member) founded the Irish Land League in 1879 during an agricultural depression to agitate for tenant's rights. Some would argue the land question had a nationalist resonance in Ireland as many Irish Catholics believed that land had been unjustly taken from their ancestors by Protestant English colonists in the 17th century Plantations of Ireland

Plantations of Ireland

Plantations in 16th and 17th century Ireland were the confiscation of land by the English crown and the colonisation of this land with settlers from England and the Scottish Lowlands....

. Indeed, the Irish landed class was still largely an Anglo-Irish

Anglo-Irish

Anglo-Irish was a term used primarily in the 19th and early 20th centuries to identify a privileged social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy, mostly belonging to the Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until...

 Protestant group in the 19th century. Such perceptions were underlined in the Land league's language and literature. However, others would argue that the Land League had its direct roots in tenant associations formed in the period of agricultural prosperity during the government of Lord Palmerston

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston

Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, KG, GCB, PC , known popularly as Lord Palmerston, was a British statesman who served twice as Prime Minister in the mid-19th century...

 in the 1850s and 1860s, who were seeking to strengthen the economic gains they had already made. Following the depression of 1879 and the subsequent fall in prices (and hence profits), these farmers were threatened with rising rents and eviction for failure to pay rents. In addition, small farmers, especially in the west faced the prospect of another famine in the harsh winter of 1879. At first, the Land League campaigned for the "Three Fs" - fair rent, free sale and fixity of tenure. Then, as prices for agricultural products fell further and the weather worsened in the mid 1880s, tenants organised themselves by withholding rent during the 1886-1891 Plan of Campaign

Plan of Campaign

The Plan of Campaign was a stratagem adopted in Ireland between 1886 and 1891, co-ordinated by Irish politicians for the benefit of tenant farmers, against mainly absentee and rack-rent landlords. It was launched to counter agricultural distress caused by the continual depression in prices of dairy...

 movement.

Militant nationalists such as the Fenians saw that they could use the groundswell of support for land reform to recruit nationalist support, this is the reason why the New Departure

New Departure (Ireland)

The term New Departure has been used to describe several initiatives in the late 19th century where Irish republicans, who were committed to independence from Britain through use of physical force, attempted to find a common ground for cooperation with groups committed to Irish Home Rule through...

 - a decision by the IRB to adopt social issues - occurred in 1879. Republicans from Clan na Gael (who were loath to recognise the British parliament) saw this as an opportunity to recruit the masses to agitate for Irish self government. This agitation, which became known as the "Land War

Land War

The Land War in Irish history was a period of agrarian agitation in rural Ireland in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s. The agitation was led by the Irish National Land League and was dedicated to bettering the position of tenant farmers and ultimately to a redistribution of land to tenants from...

", became very violent when Land Leaguers resisted evictions of tenant farmers by force and the British Army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

 and 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...

 was used against them. This upheaval eventually resulted in the British government subsidising the sale of landlords' estates to their tenants in the Irish Land Acts authored by William O'Brien

William O'Brien

William O'Brien was an Irish nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...

. It also provided a mass base for constitutional Irish nationalists who had founded the Home Rule League

Home Rule League

The Home Rule League, sometimes called the Home Rule Party, was a political party which campaigned for home rule for the country of Ireland from 1873 to 1882, when it was replaced by the Irish Parliamentary Party.-Origins:...

 in 1873. Charles Stewart Parnell

Charles Stewart Parnell

Charles Stewart Parnell was an Irish landowner, nationalist political leader, land reform agitator, and the founder and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party...

 (somewhat paradoxically, a Protestant landowner) took over the Land League and used its popularity to launch the Irish National League

National League (Ireland, 1882)

The Irish National League was a nationalist political party in Ireland. It was founded in October 1882 by Charles Stewart Parnell as the successor to the Irish National Land League after this was suppressed...

 in 1882 to campaign for 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....

.

Cultural nationalism

An important feature of Irish nationalism from the late 19th century onwards has been a commitment to Gaelic

Gaels

The Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....

 Irish culture. A broad intellectual movement, calling itself the Celtic Revival

Celtic Revival

Celtic Revival covers a variety of movements and trends, mostly in the 19th and 20th centuries, which drew on the traditions of Celtic literature and Celtic art, or in fact more often what art historians call Insular art...

 grew up in the late 19th century largely initiated by artists and writers of Protestant or Anglo-Irish background who were concerned with furthering Ireland's individual native and cultural identity. Other organisations for promotion of the Irish language

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

 or the Gaelic Revival

Gaelic Revival

The Gaelic revival was the late-nineteenth-century national revival of interest in the Irish language and Irish Gaelic culture...

 were the Gaelic League and later Conradh na Gaeilge

Conradh na Gaeilge

Conradh na Gaeilge is a non-governmental organisation that promotes the Irish language in Ireland and abroad. The motto of the League is Sinn Féin, Sinn Féin amháin .-Origins:...

. The Gaelic Athletic Association

Gaelic Athletic Association

The Gaelic Athletic Association is an amateur Irish and international cultural and sporting organisation focused primarily on promoting Gaelic games, which include the traditional Irish sports of hurling, camogie, Gaelic football, handball and rounders...

 was also formed in this era to promote Gaelic football

Gaelic football

Gaelic football , commonly referred to as "football" or "Gaelic", or "Gah" is a form of football played mainly in Ireland...

, hurling

Hurling

Hurling is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic origin, administered by the Gaelic Athletic Association, and played with sticks called hurleys and a ball called a sliotar. Hurling is the national game of Ireland. The game has prehistoric origins, has been played for at least 3,000 years, and...

 and Gaelic handball

Gaelic handball

Gaelic handball is a sport similar to Basque pelota, racquetball, squash and American handball . It is one of the four Gaelic games organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association...

 and forbade its members from playing English sports such as association football, rugby union

Rugby union

Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

 and cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

.

Most of the Cultural nationalists were English speakers and their organisations had little impact in the Irish speaking areas or Gaeltacht

Gaeltacht

is the Irish language word meaning an Irish-speaking region. In Ireland, the Gaeltacht, or an Ghaeltacht, refers individually to any, or collectively to all, of the districts where the government recognises that the Irish language is the predominant language, that is, the vernacular spoken at home...

aí, where the language has continued to decline (see article). However, these organisations attracted large memberships and were the starting point for many radical Irish nationalists of the early twentieth century. The main aim was to emphasise an area of difference between Ireland and England, but the majority of the population continued to speak English.

The cultural Gaelic aspect did not extend into actual politics; while nationalists were interested in the surviving Chiefs of the Name

Chiefs of the Name

The Chief of the Name, or in older English usage Captain of his Nation, is the recognised head of a family or clan...

, the descendants of the former Gaelic clan leaders, the chiefs were not involved in politics, nor noticeably interested in the attempt to recreate a Gaelic state.

Home Rule beginnings

Although Parnell and some other Home Rulers, such as Isaac Butt

Isaac Butt

Isaac Butt Q.C. M.P. was an Irish barrister, politician, Member of Parliament , and the founder and first leader of a number of Irish nationalist parties and organisations, including the Irish Metropolitan Conservative Society in 1836, the Home Government Association in 1870 and in 1873 the Home...

, were Protestants, Parnell's party was overwhelmingly Catholic. At local branch level, Catholic priests were an important part of it organisation. Home Rule was opposed by Unionists (those who supported the Union with Britain), mostly Protestant and from Ulster

Ulster

Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...

 under the slogan, "Home Rule is Rome Rule

Rome Rule

"Rome Rule" was a term used by Irish unionists and socialists to describe the belief that the Roman Catholic Church would gain political control over their interests with the passage of a Home Rule Bill...

."

At the time, some politicians and members of the British public would have seen this movement as radical and militant. Detractors quoted Charles Stewart Parnell

Charles Stewart Parnell

Charles Stewart Parnell was an Irish landowner, nationalist political leader, land reform agitator, and the founder and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party...

's Cincinnati speech in which he claimed to be collecting money for "bread and lead". He was allegedly sworn into the secret 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...

 in May 1882. However, the fact that he chose to stay in Westminster following the expulsion of 29 Irish MPs (when those in the Clan expected an exodus of nationalist MPs from Westminster to set up a provisional government in Dublin) and his failure in 1886 to support the Plan of Campaign

Plan of Campaign

The Plan of Campaign was a stratagem adopted in Ireland between 1886 and 1891, co-ordinated by Irish politicians for the benefit of tenant farmers, against mainly absentee and rack-rent landlords. It was launched to counter agricultural distress caused by the continual depression in prices of dairy...

 (an aggressive agrarian programme launched to counter agricultural distress), marked him as an essentially constitutional politician, though not averse to using agitational methods as a means of putting pressure on parliament.

Coinciding as it did with the extension of the franchise

Suffrage

Suffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise, distinct from mere voting rights, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process...

 in British politics — and with it the opportunity for most Irish Catholics to vote — Parnell's party quickly became an important player in British politics. Home Rule was favoured by William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...

, but opposed by many in the British Liberal

Liberal Party (UK)

The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

 and Conservative

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

 parties. 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....

 would have meant a devolved

Devolution

Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. Devolution can be mainly financial, e.g. giving areas a budget which was formerly administered by central government...

 Irish parliament within 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....

. The first two Irish Home Rule Bills were put before the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in 1886 and 1893, but they were bitterly resisted by an alliance of Liberal Unionists and British Conservatives.

Following the fall and death of Parnell in 1891 after a divorce crisis, which enabled the Irish Roman Catholic hierarchy to pressure MPs to drop Parnell as their leader, the Irish Party split into two factions, the INL and the INF

Irish National Federation

The Irish National Federation was a nationalist political party in Ireland. It was founded in March 1891 by former members of the Irish National League who had left the Irish Parliamentary Party in protest when Charles Stewart Parnell refused to resign the party leadership as a result of his...

 becoming practically ineffective from 1892 to 1898. Only after the passing of the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898

Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898

The Local Government Act 1898 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that established a system of local government in Ireland similar to that already created for England, Wales and Scotland by legislation in 1888 and 1889...

 which granted extensive power to previously non-existent county councils, allowing nationalists for the first time through local elections to democratically run local affairs previously under the control of landlord dominated "Grand Juries", and William O'Brien founding the United Irish League

United Irish League

The United Irish League was a nationalist political party in Ireland, launched 23 January 1898 with the motto "The Land for the People" . Its objective to be achieved through agrarian agitation and land reform, compelling larger grazier farmers to surrender their lands for redistribution amongst...

 that year, did the Irish Parliamentary Party reunite under 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...

 in January 1900, returning to its former strength in the following September general election

United Kingdom general election, 1900

-Seats summary:-See also:*MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1900*The Parliamentary Franchise in the United Kingdom 1885-1918-External links:***-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987**...

.

Transformation of rural Ireland

The first decade of the twentieth century saw considerable advancement in rural economic and social development in Ireland where 60% of the population lived. The introduction of local self-government in 1898 created a class of experienced politicians capable of later taking over national self-government in the 1920s. O'Brien's attainment of the 1903 Wyndham Land Act

Irish Land Acts

The Land Acts were a series of measures to deal with the question of peasant proprietorship of land in Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Five such acts were introduced by the government of the United Kingdom between 1870 and 1909...

 (the culmination of land agitation since the 1880s) abolished landlordism

Absentee landlord

Absentee landlord is an economic term for a person who owns and rents out a profit-earning property, but does not live within the property's local economic region. This practice is problematic for that region because absentee landlords drain local wealth into their home country, particularly that...

, and made it easier for tenant farmer

Tenant farmer

A tenant farmer is one who resides on and farms land owned by a landlord. Tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and management; while tenant farmers contribute their labor along with at times varying...

s to purchase lands, financed and guaranteed by the government. By 1914, 75 per cent of occupiers were buying out their landlords' freehold interest through the Land Commission, mostly under the Land Acts of 1903 and 1909. O'Brien then pursued and won in alliance with the Irish Land and Labour Association

Irish Land and Labour Association

The Irish Land and Labour Association was a progressive movement founded in the early 1890s in Munster, Ireland, to organise and pursue political agitation for small tenant farmers' and rural labourers' rights. Its branches also spread into Connacht. The ILLA was known under different names—Land...

 and D.D. Sheehan, who followed in the footsteps of Michael Davitt, the landmark 1906 and 1911 Labourers (Ireland) Acts, where the Liberal government financed 40,000 rural labourers to become proprietors of their own cottage homes, each on an acre of land. "It is not an exaggeration to term it a social revolution, and it was the first large-scale rural public-housing scheme in the country, with up to a quarter of a million housed under the Labourers Acts up to 1921, the majority erected by 1916", changing the face of rural Ireland.

The combination of land reform and devolved local government gave Irish nationalists an economic political base on which to base their demands for self-government. Some in the British administration felt initially that paying for such a degree of land and housing reform amounted to an unofficial policy of "killing home rule by kindness", yet by 1914 some form of Home Rule for most of Ireland was guaranteed. This was shelved on the outbreak of 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...

 in August 1914.

A new source of radical Irish nationalism developed in the same period in the cities outside Ulster

Ulster

Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...

. In 1896, James Connolly

James Connolly

James Connolly was an Irish republican and socialist leader. He was born in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh, Scotland, to Irish immigrant parents and spoke with a Scottish accent throughout his life. He left school for working life at the age of 11, but became one of the leading Marxist theorists of...

, founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party

Irish Socialist Republican Party

The Irish Socialist Republican Party was a pivotal Irish political party founded in 1896 by James Connolly. Its aim was to establish an Irish workers' republic...

 in Dublin. Connolly's party was small and unsuccessful in elections, but his fusion of socialism and Irish republicanism was to have a sustained impact on republican thought. In 1913, during the general strike known as the Dublin Lockout

Dublin Lockout

The Dublin Lock-out was a major industrial dispute between approximately 20,000 workers and 300 employers which took place in Ireland's capital city of Dublin. The dispute lasted from 26 August 1913 to 18 January 1914, and is often viewed as the most severe and significant industrial dispute in...

, Connolly and James Larkin

James Larkin

James Larkin was an Irish trade union leader and socialist activist, born to Irish parents in Liverpool, England. He and his family later moved to a small cottage in Burren, southern County Down. Growing up in poverty, he received little formal education and began working in a variety of jobs...

 formed a workers militia, the Irish Citizen Army

Irish Citizen Army

The Irish Citizen Army , or ICA, was a small group of trained trade union volunteers established in Dublin for the defence of worker’s demonstrations from the police. It was formed by James Larkin and Jack White. Other prominent members included James Connolly, Seán O'Casey, Constance Markievicz,...

, to defend strikers from the police. While initially a purely defensive body, under Connolly's leadership, the ICA became a revolutionary body, dedicated to an independent Workers Republic in Ireland. After the outbreak of the First World War, Connolly became determined to launch an insurrection to this end.

The Home Rule crisis 1912-14

Home Rule was eventually won by 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...

 and 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...

 and granted under the Third Home Rule Act 1914

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...

. However, Irish self-government was limited by the prospect of partition of Ireland between north and south. This idea had first been mooted under the Second Home Rule Bill

Irish Government Bill 1893

The Government of Ireland Bill 1893 was the second attempt made by William Ewart Gladstone, as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, to enact a system of home rule for Ireland...

 in 1893. In 1912, following the entry of the Third Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons, unionists organised mass resistance to its implementation, organising around the "Ulster Covenant

Ulster Covenant

The Ulster Covenant was signed by just under half a million of men and women from Ulster, on and before September 28, 1912, in protest against the Third Home Rule Bill, introduced by the Government in that same year...

". In 1912 they formed the Ulster Volunteers, an armed wing of both Ulster Unionism and the Orange Order who stated that they would resist Home Rule by force. British Conservatives supported this stance. In addition, British officers based at the Curragh

Curragh

The Curragh is a flat open plain of almost 5,000 acres of common land in County Kildare, Ireland, between Newbridge and Kildare. This area is well-known for Irish horse breeding and training. The Irish National Stud is located on the edge of Kildare town, beside the famous Japanese Gardens. Also...

 indicated that they would be unwilling to act against the UVF should they be ordered to.

In response, Nationalists formed their own paramilitary group, 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"...

, to ensure the implementation of Home Rule. It looked for several months in 1914 as if civil war was imminent between the two armed factions. Only the All-for-Ireland League

All-for-Ireland League

The All-for-Ireland League , was an Irish, Munster-based political party . Founded by William O'Brien MP, it generated a new national movement to achieve agreement between the different parties concerned on the historically difficult aim of Home Rule for the whole of Ireland...

 party advocated granting every conceivable concession to Ulster to stave off a partition amendment. Redmond rejected their proposals. The amended Home Rule Act was passed and placed with Royal Assent

Royal Assent

The granting of royal assent refers to the method by which any constitutional monarch formally approves and promulgates an act of his or her nation's parliament, thus making it a law...

 on the statute books, but was suspended after the outbreak of 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...

 in 1914, until the end of the war. This led radical republican groups to argue that Irish independence could never be won peacefully and gave the northern question little thought at all.

World War I and the Easter Rising

The Irish Volunteer movement was divided over the attitude of their leadership to Ireland's involvement

Ireland and World War I

During World War I , Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which entered the war in August 1914 as one of the Entente Powers, along with France and Russia, when it declared war to halt the military expansion of the Central Powers, consisting of the German Empire, the...

 in World War I. The majority followed 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...

 in support of the British and Allied

Allies of World War I

The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...

 war effort, seeing it as the only option to ensure the enactment of Home Rule after the war, Redmond saying "you will return as an armed army capable of confronting Ulster's opposition to Home Rule". They split off from the main movement and formed the National Volunteers

National Volunteers

The National Volunteers was the name taken by the majority of the Irish Volunteers that sided with Irish Parliamentary Party leader John Redmond after the movement split over the question of the Volunteers' role in World War I.-Origins:...

, and were among the 180,000 Irishmen who served in Irish regiments of the Irish 10th and 16th Divisions of the New British Army

Kitchener's Army

The New Army, often referred to as Kitchener's Army or, disparagingly, Kitchener's Mob, was an all-volunteer army formed in the United Kingdom following the outbreak of hostilities in the First World War...

 formed for the War.

A minority of the Irish Volunteers, mostly led by members of 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...

 (IRB), refused to support the War and kept their arms to guarantee the passage of Home Rule. Within this grouping, another faction planned an insurrection against British rule in Ireland, while the War was going on. Connolly, the labour leader, first intended to launch his own insurrection for an Irish Socialist Republic decided early in 1916 to combine forces with the IRB. In April 1916, just over a thousand dissident Volunteers and 250 members of the Citizen's Army launched 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...

 in the Dublin General Post Office

General Post Office (Dublin)

The General Post Office ' in Dublin is the headquarters of the Irish postal service, An Post, and Dublin's principal post office...

 and, in the Easter Proclamation, proclaimed the independence of 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...

. The Rising was put down within a week, at a cost of about 500 killed, mainly unengaged civilians. Although the rising failed, Britain's General Maxwell

John Maxwell (British Army officer)

General Sir John Grenfell Maxwell GCB, KCMG, CVO, DSO, PC was a British Army officer and colonial governor. He served in the Mahdist War in the Sudan, the Boer War, and in the First World War, but he is best known for his role in the suppression of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland and subsequent...

 executed fifteen of the Rising's leaders and arrested some 3000 political activists which led to widespread public sympathy for the rebel's cause. Following this example, physical force republicanism

Physical force Irish republicanism

Physical force Irish republicanism, is a term used to describe the recurring appearance of non-parliamentary violent insurrection in Ireland between 1798 and the present...

 became increasingly powerful and, for the following seven years or so, became the dominant force in Ireland, securing substantial independence but at a cost of dividing Ireland

Partition of Ireland

The partition of Ireland was the division of the island of Ireland into two distinct territories, now Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland . Partition occurred when the British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1920...

.

The Irish Parliamentary Party was discredited after Home Rule had been suspended at the outbreak of World War I, in the belief that the war would be over by the end of 1915, then by the severe losses suffered by Irish battalions in Gallipoli

Battle of Gallipoli

The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli, took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War...

 at Cape Helles and on the Western Front

Western Front (World War I)

Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...

. They were also damaged by the harsh British response to the Easter Rising, who treated the rebellion as treason in time of war when they declared martial law in Ireland. Moderate constitutional nationalism as represented by the Irish Party was in due course eclipsed by 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...

 — a hitherto small party which the British had (mistakenly) blamed for the Rising and subsequently taken over as a vehicle for Irish Republicanism.

Two further attempts to implement Home Rule in 1916 and 1917 also failed when 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...

, leader of the Irish Party, refused to concede to partition while accepting there could be no coercion of Ulster. An 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 deadlock was established in July 1917 by the British Prime Minister, Lloyd George

David Lloyd George

David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...

, its members both nationalists and unionists tasked with finding a means of implementing Home Rule. However, Sinn Féin refused to take part in the Convention as it refused to discuss the possibility of full Irish independence. The Ulster unionists

Ulster Unionist Party

The Ulster Unionist Party – sometimes referred to as the Official Unionist Party or, in a historic sense, simply the Unionist Party – is the more moderate of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland...

 led by Edward Carson insisted on the partition of six Ulster counties from the rest of Ireland stating that the 1916 rebellion proved a parliament in Dublin could not be trusted.

The Convention's work was disrupted in March 1918 by Redmond's death and the fierce German Spring Offensive

Spring Offensive

The 1918 Spring Offensive or Kaiserschlacht , also known as the Ludendorff Offensive, was a series of German attacks along the Western Front during World War I, beginning on 21 March 1918, which marked the deepest advances by either side since 1914...

 on the Western Front, causing Britain to attempt to extend conscription to Ireland unwisely linked with immediate implementation of Home Rule. This "dual policy" was extremely unpopular, opposed both by the Irish Parliamentary Party under its new leader John Dillon

John Dillon

John Dillon was an Irish land reform agitator from Dublin, an Irish Home Rule activist, a nationalist politician, a Member of Parliament for over 35 years, and the last leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party....

, the All-for-Ireland Party

All-for-Ireland League

The All-for-Ireland League , was an Irish, Munster-based political party . Founded by William O'Brien MP, it generated a new national movement to achieve agreement between the different parties concerned on the historically difficult aim of Home Rule for the whole of Ireland...

 as well as Sinn Féin and other national bodies. It resulted in the Conscription Crisis of 1918. In May at the height of the crisis 73 prominent Sinn Féiners were falsely arrested on the grounds of an alleged German Plot. Both these events contributed to a widespread rise in support for Sinn Féin and the Volunteers. The Armistice

Armistice with Germany (Compiègne)

The armistice between the Allies and Germany was an agreement that ended the fighting in the First World War. It was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on 11 November 1918 and marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, although not technically a surrender...

 ended the war in November followed by elections.

Militant separatism and Irish independence

In the General election of 1918, Sinn Féin won 73 seats, 25 of these unopposed, or statistically nearly 70% of Irish representation, under the British "First past the post" voting-system, but had a minority representation in Ulster. They achieved a total of 476,087 (46,9%) of votes polled for 48 seats, compared to 220,837 (21,7%) votes polled by the IPP for only six seats, who due to the "first past the post" voting system did not win a proportional share of seats. Unionists (including Unionist Labour) votes were 305,206 (30,2%)

The Sinn Féin MPs refused to take their seats in Westminster, 27 of these (the rest were either still imprisoned or impaired) setting up their own Parliament called Dail Éireann

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"...

 in January 1919 and proclaimed the Irish Republic to be in existence. Nationalists in the south of Ireland, impatient with the lack of progress on Irish self-government, tended to ignore the unresolved and volatile Ulster situation, generally arguing that unionists had no choice but to ultimately follow. On September 11, 1919, the British proscribed the Dáil, it had met nine times, declaring it an illegal assembly, Ireland being still part 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...

. In 1919, a guerilla war broke out between 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...

 (IRA) (as the Irish Volunteers were now calling themselves) and the British security forces (See 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...

).

The campaign created tensions between the political and military sides of the nationalist movement. The IRA, nominally subject to the Dáil, in practice, often acted on its own initiative. At the top, the IRA 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 Richard Mulcahy

Richard Mulcahy

Richard James Mulcahy was an Irish politician, army general and commander in chief, leader of Fine Gael and Cabinet Minister...

, operated with little reference to Cathal Brugha

Cathal Brugha

Cathal Brugha was an Irish revolutionary and politician, active in the Easter Rising, Irish War of Independence, and the Irish Civil War and was the first Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann.-Background:...

, the Dáil's Minister for Defence or 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...

, the President of 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...

 - at best giving them a supervisory role. At local level, IRA commanders such as Dan Breen

Dan Breen

Daniel "Dan" Breen was a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. In later years, he was a Fianna Fáil politician.-Background:...

, Sean Moylan

Seán Moylan

Seán Moylan was a Commandant of the Irish Republican Army and later a Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil politician...

, Tom Barry

Tom Barry

Thomas Barry was one of the most prominent guerrilla leaders in the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence.-Early life:...

, Sean MacEoin, Liam Lynch and others avoided contact with the IRA command, let alone the Dáil itself. This meant that the violence of the War of Independence rapidly escalated beyond what many in Sinn Féin and Dáil were happy with. 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:...

, for example, favoured passive resistance over the use of force, but he could do little to affect the cycle of violence between IRA guerrillas and Crown forces that emerged over 1919-1920. The military conflict produced only a handful of killings in 1919, but steadily escalated from the summer of 1920 onwards with the introduction of the paramilitary police forces, 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 Auxiliary Division

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....

 into Ireland. From November 1920 to July 1921, over 1000 people lost their lives in the conflict (compared to c.400 up to then).

At the same time, in Ulster in the north east, a sectarian war broke out, when in July 1920, loyalists

Ulster loyalism

Ulster loyalism is an ideology that is opposed to a united Ireland. It can mean either support for upholding Northern Ireland's status as a constituent part of the United Kingdom , support for Northern Ireland independence, or support for loyalist paramilitaries...

, aided in some cases by the Ulster Special Constabulary

Ulster Special Constabulary

The Ulster Special Constabulary was a reserve police force in Northern Ireland. It was set up in October 1920, shortly before the founding of Northern Ireland. It was an armed corps, organised partially on military lines and called out in times of emergency, such as war or insurgency...

, attacked the Catholic/Nationalist population in reprisal for IRA actions. This conflict, which ran roughly from the summer of 1920 to the summer of 1922, claimed a further 550 lives, of whom 58% were Catholic civilians. Nationalists portrayed this as "pogrom

Pogrom

A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...

" and the Dáil organised a boycott of goods from Belfast in response.

Dividing Ireland

Meanwhile, the British tried to solve the conflict with another, fourth Home Rule Act. This was largely dictated by Unionist leader Sir Edward Carson

Edward Carson, Baron Carson

Edward Henry Carson, Baron Carson PC, PC , Kt, QC , often known as Sir Edward Carson or Lord Carson, was a barrister, judge and politician from Ireland...

 and simplified by Sinn Féin's abstentionism from Westminster. Carson secured a separate Home Rule regime for six of the nine Ulster counties (being the only four Unionist majority counties but also including two http://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/h1918.htm counties with Nationalist majorities) as 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...

, with the remaining 26 counties of Ireland forming 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...

 with its own institutions. This settlement, enshrined in 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...

, was unacceptable to Irish nationalists, who sought to establish an independent and undivided 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...

. Elections to the Home Rule institutions were held in May 1921. The parliament 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...

 first sat on 7 June, while most of the representatives elected unopposed for Southern Ireland, together with like-minded delegates from the north, constituted themselves as the Second Dáil

Second Dáil

The Second Dáil was Dáil Éireann as it convened from 16 August 1921 until 8 June 1922. From 1919–1922 Dáil Éireann was the revolutionary parliament of the self-proclaimed Irish Republic. The Second Dáil consisted of members elected in 1921...

 and boycotted the devolved institutions. The legislation had allowed for a Council of Ireland that would enable cross-border links to be established, with a target of unity after 50 years, but this was also rejected.

Southern Ireland never became a functioning political entity, and, following a truce between the IRA and the British beginning on 11 July 1921, a political settlement was reached in 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...

 of December 1921. Meanwhile, violence in the new territory of Northern Ireland continued. The Treaty offered Ireland as a whole independence within 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...

 and a status comparable to that of Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. The new "Irish Free State" would have control of its own army, police and economy, and British troops would be withdrawn.

Northern Ireland was to be permitted to opt out of this arrangement and remain as a separate entity within the UK. While in future years the resulting continuation of partition would prove the most enduringly controversial element of the settlement, the most contentious issue at the time was the link with the British Crown - the "Crown-in-Ireland" - to which Irish politicians would have to swear an oath of loyalty. To some, this was a betrayal of the cause of the Irish Republic. The issue of Northern Ireland was partially neutralised by a provision in the Treaty for a Boundary Commission

Boundary Commission (United Kingdom)

Boundary Commissions in the UK are non-departmental public bodies responsible for determining the boundaries of constituencies for elections to the Westminster Parliament, the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales. There are four boundary commissions in the United Kingdom: one...

 that would redraw the border with Northern Ireland by 1925. It was widely believed that this would cede large parts of Northern Ireland to the Free State, and that Northern Ireland would cease to be an economically viable unit. In any event, the IRA were, under Michael Collins, already organising clandestine military operations against the Northern state by early 1922.

The Second Dáil

Second Dáil

The Second Dáil was Dáil Éireann as it convened from 16 August 1921 until 8 June 1922. From 1919–1922 Dáil Éireann was the revolutionary parliament of the self-proclaimed Irish Republic. The Second Dáil consisted of members elected in 1921...

 ratified the treaty on 7 January 1922, and the subsequent general election

Irish general election, 1922

The Irish general election of 1922 took place in Southern Ireland on 16 June 1922, under the provisions of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty to elect a constituent assembly paving the way for the formal establishment of the Irish Free State...

 on 16 June endorsed this decision. Anti-treaty "republicans", however, argued that the electorate only accepted the Treaty under threat of renewed war by the British. Anti-treaty politicians included the President of the Dáil, 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 two ministers, Cathal Brugha

Cathal Brugha

Cathal Brugha was an Irish revolutionary and politician, active in the Easter Rising, Irish War of Independence, and the Irish Civil War and was the first Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann.-Background:...

 and Austin Stack

Austin Stack

Austin Stack was an Irish revolutionary and politician.-Early life:Stack was born in Ballymullen, Tralee, County Kerry. He was educated at the Christian Brothers School in Tralee. At the age of fourteen he left school and became a clerk in a solicitor's office. A gifted Gaelic footballer, he...

. Collins tried to negotiate a compromise between the pro- and anti-Treaty factions - for example, by proposing a constitution containing no references to the King - but the British insisted on strict adherence to the Treaty settlement. The IRA Executive disavowed the authority of the Dáil in April 1922, and in July 1922, Collins, under pressure from the British, attacked anti-Treaty IRA units who had occupied the Four Courts

Four Courts

The Four Courts in Dublin is the Republic of Ireland's main courts building. The Four Courts are the location of the Supreme Court, the High Court and the Dublin Circuit Court. The building until 2010 also formerly was the location for the Central Criminal Court.-Gandon's Building:Work based on...

 building in Dublin. This led to the Irish Civil War

Irish Civil War

The Irish Civil War was a conflict that accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State as an entity independent from the United Kingdom within the British Empire....

, fought between the new Free State forces

Irish Army

The Irish Army, officially named simply the Army is the main branch of the Defence Forces of Ireland. Approximately 8,500 men and women serve in the Irish Army, divided into three infantry Brigades...

, composed of pro-treaty IRA men and others (including thousands of veterans

The Royal Dublin Fusiliers

The Royal Dublin Fusiliers was an Irish infantry Regiment of the British Army created in 1881, one of eight Irish regiments raised and garrisoned in Ireland, with its home depot in Naas...

 of the First World War

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...

), and the majority of the old IRA, led by Liam Lynch

Liam Lynch (general)

Liam Lynch was an officer in the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence and the commanding general of the anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army during the Irish Civil War.-Early life:...

, who rejected the Treaty. The war had petered out by spring 1923, and the anti-Treaty forces laid down their arms in May. The Civil War cost more lives than the War of Independence - its most famous casualty being Michael Collins - saw the commission of atrocities by both sides

Executions during the Irish Civil War

The executions during the Irish Civil War took place during the guerrilla phase of the Irish Civil War . This phase of the war was bitter, and both sides, the government forces of the Irish Free State and the anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army insurgents, used executions and terror in what...

, and generated bitter divisions that disfigured Irish politics and society for most of the rest of the century. It also removed IRA pressure from Northern Ireland at a crucial time in the latter's history.

The Free State

After independence and the Civil War, and with the formation of Dáil Éireann (Irish Free State)

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...

 after the Irish general election, 1923

Irish general election, 1923

The Irish general election of 1923 was held on 27 August 1923. The newly elected members of the 4th Dáil assembled at Leinster House on 19 September when the new President of the Executive Council and Executive Council of the Irish Free State were appointed. The election was held just after the end...

, the government pursued conservative economic and social policies and took a firm line against the republican movement.

In 1925, the Boundary Commission

Boundary 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...

 set up under the Treaty completed its report. Leaks to the press generated shock among some nationalists: instead of ceding large areas of the North to the Free State, the latter would receive only a small part of south Armagh and Fermanagh, and would actually lose part of eastern Donegal. As a result, the report was never published or acted upon. The Free State, the British and Northern Irish governments accepted the 1920 border almost exactly, and in return the Free State's obligation under the Treaty to pay part of the British national debt was cancelled. At the same time, the Council of Ireland was shelved.

The post-Civil War divisions in Irish nationalism, which also reflected earlier divisions between constitutional politicians and radical separatists, were institutionalised in the Free State's two main political parties, Cumann na nGaedheal (later becoming 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 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...

. The latter party was founded after Sinn Fćin voted in March 1926 to continue abstentionism from the Free State institutions. 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...

 resigned as its leader in response and set up a new, semi-constitutional republican party with a view to entering parliamentary politics. Up until the late 1930s, street violence between Free State and republican partisans was still common, especially between the quasi-fascist Blueshirts and the IRA. The latter's support, however, fell away after the creation of Fianna Fáil, which vigorously cracked down on it in the 1930s. The thirties also saw the onset of a period of extreme economic stagnation brought about by 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...

.

The Free State had an intensely nationalistic culture. Irish

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

 was made compulsory in education and for all civil and public servants, although it has not been successfully revived as an everyday language yet. A Catholic ethos was also prominent in public life; divorce and contraception were banned, and a censorship system with heavily religious overtones was established.

"Éire" and the Republic of Ireland

In 1937, the Fianna Fáil government secured the enactment of a new constitution, drafted mainly by Éamon de Valera. Under this document, the Free State was replaced by a new political regime named simply "Ireland" ("Éire

Éire

is the Irish name for the island of Ireland and the sovereign state of the same name.- Etymology :The modern Irish Éire evolved from the Old Irish word Ériu, which was the name of a Gaelic goddess. Ériu is generally believed to have been the matron goddess of Ireland, a goddess of sovereignty, or...

" in Irish) which claimed jurisdiction over the whole of the island. The last-mentioned provision

Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution of Ireland

Article 2 and Article 3 of the Constitution of Ireland were adopted with the constitution as a whole on 29 December 1937, but completely revised by means of the Nineteenth Amendment which took effect on 2 December 1999...

 enormously antagonised Unionists in Northern Ireland, who viewed it as an illegal extraterritorial claim, and it was eventually revised in the 1990s under the terms of the Belfast 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...

.

It was also in the 1930s that the Irish government recovered control of the "Treaty Ports

Treaty Ports (Ireland)

Following the establishment of the Irish Free State, three deep water Treaty Ports at Berehaven, Queenstown and Lough Swilly were retained by the United Kingdom as sovereign bases in accordance with the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 6 December 1921...

" from the British. This helped the Irish state to maintain a policy of neutrality

Neutrality (international relations)

A neutral power in a particular war is a sovereign state which declares itself to be neutral towards the belligerents. A non-belligerent state does not need to be neutral. The rights and duties of a neutral power are defined in Sections 5 and 13 of the Hague Convention of 1907...

 in World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. At the same time, the Fianna Fáil governments of de Valera interned and executed IRA men for attacks on Northern Ireland.

In 1940, the government of Neville Chamberlain

Neville Chamberlain

Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...

 promised to accept the principle of a united Ireland and to work towards achieving the same in return for Irish participation in the War. De Valera refused.

In 1948, the First Inter-Party Government pulled Ireland out of the 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...

 and formally declared that the Irish state was a Republic

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 British government of Clement Attlee

Clement Attlee

Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...

 responded to this unilateral move by giving the Northern Unionists a guarantee

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...

 that they would not be forced into a united Ireland

United Ireland

A united Ireland is the term used to refer to the idea of a sovereign state which covers all of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland. The island of Ireland includes the territory of two independent sovereign states: the Republic of Ireland, which covers 26 counties of the island, and the...

 without their agreement.

Northern Ireland

In Northern Ireland, the mainly Catholic nationalist community formed a minority in a largely Protestant and Unionist

Unionism in Ireland

Unionism in Ireland is an ideology that favours the continuation of some form of political union between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain...

 state. From 1922 onwards, the northern unionists never felt persuaded to join the Republic for any reason, and their position became entrenched. Most nationalists were of a moderate outlook. In 1918, they had largely voted for the constitutional Nationalist Party

Nationalist Party (Ireland)

The Nationalist Party was a term commonly used to describe a number of parliamentary political parties and constituency organisations supportive of Home Rule for Ireland from 1874 to 1922...

 rather than 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...

, a pattern repeated in subsequent years. They did not generally support the IRA's "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...

" in the 1950s. Even after the outbreak of the "Troubles" in the late 1960s, Sinn Féin failed to win a majority of Catholic votes until 2001, by which time it had moved away somewhat from its violent past.

The IRA became increasingly oriented towards Marxist politics in the late 1960s, leading to a split between the left-wing Official IRA

Official IRA

The Official Irish Republican Army or Official IRA is an Irish republican paramilitary group whose goal was to create a "32-county workers' republic" in Ireland. It emerged from a split in the Irish Republican Army in December 1969, shortly after the beginning of "The Troubles"...

 and the more traditionally nationalistic Provisional IRA

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...

 in 1969. The "Officials" largely ceased armed activity in 1972.

In the meantime, left-wing activists, inspired more by contemporary student radicalism and the American civil rights movement than by traditional Irish nationalism, had launched a campaign for civil rights

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 nationalist population. Starting from 1968, this professedly cross-community campaign ignited fears of IRA-inspired subversion among Unionists, and the resulting violent backlash in turn revived the Provisional IRA (the "Provos") as an armed or terrorist force. The PIRA launched a violent campaign against the state 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...

, with the aim of creating a new, all-Ireland 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...

. The "Troubles" that emerged from these struggles lasted until the late 1990s. (See History of Northern Ireland

History of Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is today one of the four countries of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, having been created as a separate legal entity on 3 May 1921, under the Government of Ireland Act 1920...

.)

In the meantime, Northern Ireland's Nationalist Party

Nationalist Party (Northern Ireland)

The Nationalist Party† - was the continuation of the Irish Parliamentary Party, and was formed after partition, by the Northern Ireland-based members of the IPP....

 (a very different entity from the pre-partition Nationalist Party) began to be seen as an irrelevance, and was replaced as the majority voice of moderate nationalism by John Hume

John Hume

John Hume is a former Irish politician from Derry, Northern Ireland. He was a founding member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, and was co-recipient of the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize, with David Trimble....

's Social Democratic and Labour Party

Social Democratic and Labour Party

The Social Democratic and Labour Party is a social-democratic, Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. Its basic party platform advocates Irish reunification, and the further devolution of powers while Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom...

 (SDLP) in the 1970s.

The SDLP advocated power-sharing with Unionists within Northern Ireland. While many northern nationalists came to support the IRA, whom they perceived as their defenders, especially in the early years of the Troubles, 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...

 did not take part in electoral politics. Sinn Féin candidates began to displace the SDLP from some nationalist constituencies after the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike

1981 Irish hunger strike

The 1981 Irish hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest during The Troubles by Irish republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. The protest began as the blanket protest in 1976, when the British government withdrew Special Category Status for convicted paramilitary prisoners...

, when the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands

Bobby Sands

Robert Gerard "Bobby" Sands was an Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army and member of the United Kingdom Parliament who died on hunger strike while imprisoned in HM Prison Maze....

 was elected to the British Parliament in a by-election. In the by-election that followed Sands's death, Owen Carron

Owen Carron

Owen Gerard Carron is an Irish republican activist and who was Member of Parliament for Fermanagh and South Tyrone from 1981 to 1983.Carron is the nephew of former Nationalist Party politician John Carron....

, who had been Sands' campaign manager, won with an increased number of votes. This awakened the Sinn Féin leadership under Gerry Adams

Gerry Adams

Gerry Adams is an Irish republican politician and Teachta Dála for the constituency of Louth. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he was an abstentionist Westminster Member of Parliament for Belfast West. He is the president of Sinn Féin, the second largest political party in Northern...

 to the possible gains they could make in future elections and by a political, as distinct from "military", strategy. Since the IRA ceasefire of 1994, Sinn Féin have become the largest nationalist party in the Northern Ireland, overtaking the SDLP in 2001. They have also won an improved share of votes in 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,...

.

In 1998, both Sinn Féin and the SDLP signed the Belfast 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 instituted power sharing within a devolved government in Northern Ireland. Sinn Féin says that its long term goal is still a united Ireland

United Ireland

A united Ireland is the term used to refer to the idea of a sovereign state which covers all of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland. The island of Ireland includes the territory of two independent sovereign states: the Republic of Ireland, which covers 26 counties of the island, and the...

. The implementation of the Belfast Agreement has been the subject of protracted struggles over the last few years, and continues to be so at the present time.

Note that Ulster nationalism

Ulster nationalism

Ulster nationalism is the name given to a school of thought in Northern Irish politics that seeks the independence of Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom without becoming part of the Republic of Ireland, thereby becoming an independent sovereign state separate from England, Scotland and Wales...

 is not a part of the phenomenon of Irish nationalism but rather a different take on the status of Northern Ireland.

Present day

Political parties seen as representing the moderate nationalist tradition include 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...

, 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 the SDLP

Social Democratic and Labour Party

The Social Democratic and Labour Party is a social-democratic, Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. Its basic party platform advocates Irish reunification, and the further devolution of powers while Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom...

. The main party currently representing Irish republicanism is 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...

.

Republic of Ireland

Irish nationalism has changed dramatically since the Free State era, and particularly since the 1960s, with growing prosperity signalling new economic and social priorities. A changing relationship with Northern Ireland has also had its effect.

Emotional allegiances and rivalries dating from the Civil War have faded to a large extent, but the influence of the Civil War is still apparent in the differing interpretations of the State's history espoused by 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...

, whose predecessors founded the Free State, 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...

, the descendants of the Anti-Treaty Republicans. Both parties, however, aspire to a United Ireland

United Ireland

A united Ireland is the term used to refer to the idea of a sovereign state which covers all of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland. The island of Ireland includes the territory of two independent sovereign states: the Republic of Ireland, which covers 26 counties of the island, and the...

. Irish Governments have stated since 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 that they will respect the will of the people of Northern Ireland to decide its future. However, the Agreement also stated that the Irish government had a legitimate role in Northern Irish politics as "advisor". In 1998, as part of the Good Friday Agreement, Articles 2 and 3 of the 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...

, which claimed de jure sovereignty over Northern Ireland and created great resentment among unionists, were amended to remove the explicit territorial claim.

Until 1985, the militant republican party 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...

 refused to take its seats in the Republic's legislature, continuing the policy of their predecessors in the 1920s, due to their refusal to recognise the legitimacy of the Irish state. This stance is now maintained only by the small Republican Sinn Féin

Republican Sinn Féin

Republican Sinn Féin or RSF is an unregisteredAlthough an active movement, RSF is not registered as a political party in either Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland. minor political party operating in Ireland. It emerged in 1986 as a result of a split in Sinn Féin...

 party, though 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...

 itself still at certain times takes an ambivalent attitude towards recognising the legitimacy of the State.

Irish nationalists, on the whole, have not viewed integration into 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...

 as a threat to Irish sovereignty. Several reasons can be advanced to explain this. Firstly, Ireland until recently, was a net beneficiary of EU funds. Secondly integration into the European project has meant that Ireland is less dependent on Britain, economically and politically.

Nationalism in many modern European countries may find expression in hostility towards foreign immigration - for example, in the Front National

Front National

Front National can mean:* Front National , a French political party* Front National , a World War II French Resistance group* Front National , a Belgian political party...

 of Jean Marie Le Pen in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. At present, this is not true of Irish nationalism, despite large and rapid immigration into Ireland in recent years. Currently, no major Irish nationalist party campaigns explicitly against immigration. This does not, however, mean that there is no anti-immigrant sentiment in Ireland. In 2004, Ireland revoked, in a referendum

Referendum

A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...

, a clause in the constitution added in 1998 that said that anyone born in Ireland was automatically an Irish citizen. The concern of the Irish people was that this was subverting the control of immigration by entitling any couple who had a child to stay in the country, regardless of their legal status. This referendum was opposed by the Labour Party

Labour Party (Ireland)

The Labour Party is a social-democratic political party in the Republic of Ireland. The Labour Party was founded in 1912 in Clonmel, County Tipperary, by James Connolly, James Larkin and William X. O'Brien as the political wing of the Irish Trade Union Congress. Unlike the other main Irish...

 and 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...

 and has drawn criticism from some human rights bodies, including Amnesty International

Amnesty International

Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...

 as it has led to a situation where Irish citizens are being deported, with their parents, to countries where they may have no right of citizenship.

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is still part of the United Kingdom, but has a substantial nationalist minority who would prefer to be part of a united Ireland

United Ireland

A united Ireland is the term used to refer to the idea of a sovereign state which covers all of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland. The island of Ireland includes the territory of two independent sovereign states: the Republic of Ireland, which covers 26 counties of the island, and the...

. In 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...

, the term "nationalist" is used to refer either to the Catholic

Roman 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...

 population in general or the supporters of the moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party

Social Democratic and Labour Party

The Social Democratic and Labour Party is a social-democratic, Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. Its basic party platform advocates Irish reunification, and the further devolution of powers while Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom...

. "Nationalism" in this restricted meaning refers to a political tradition that favours an independent, united Ireland achieved by non-violent means. The more militant strand of nationalism, as espoused by 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...

, is generally described as "republican" and was regarded as somewhat distinct, although modern Sinn Féin is a constitutional party committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic means.

For historical reasons outlined above, almost all nationalists in Northern Ireland are Catholics. The traditional nationalist view of Northern Ireland was that it was created artificially out of the only part of Ireland that had a Protestant and Unionist majority. According to this view, the last time that an all Ireland election happened was in the December 1918 election

Irish (UK) general election, 1918

The Irish general election of 1918 was that part of the 1918 United Kingdom general election that took place in Ireland. It is seen as a key moment in modern Irish history...

, when a majority of seats (73 out of 105 seats) with 46.9% of votes in Ireland went to Sinn Féin and for Irish independence. This view has been superseded by the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which was supported by the Irish government and both Sinn Féin and the SDLP, and was endorsed by referendums held simultaneously in both parts of the island. The Agreement stipulates that the status of Northern Ireland cannot be changed without the expressed consent of a majority within Northern Ireland. In theory, northern nationalists are now committed to "power sharing" with unionists, with a long term goal of a united Ireland achieved with unionist consent.

There is a perception among some nationalists, and among informed opinion in Great Britain, that Catholics will come to outnumber Protestants in the coming decades, with the result that a majority in Northern Ireland will favour a united Ireland. Catholic religious affiliation, however, does not translate straightforwardly into support for a united Ireland, and opinion south of the border is also somewhat ambivalent towards the prospect, which would entail a significant financial burden for the southern 26 counties.

Criticism of Irish nationalism

Irish nationalism has been criticised as failing to take into account the diversity and complexity of the cultural and religious identities of people living on the island of Ireland, and in particular those of the people of Northern Ireland.

The most obvious challenge to traditional conceptions of Irish nationalism is posed by the Protestant population of Northern Ireland. While Irish nationalists consider this community as composed of fellow Irishmen and Irishwomen, most (but not all) Northern Ireland Protestants consider themselves to be primarily or exclusively Britons, or identify as neither but as Ulster

Ulster

Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...

men instead:

• A 1971 study found that only 20% of Protestants named "Irish" as the way they thought of themselves.
• The 1984 report of the nationalist New Ireland Forum recognised that Unionists generally regard themselves as being British (but also stated that they generally regard themselves as Irish).
• Four polls taken between 1989 and 1994 revealed that when asked to state their national identity, over 79% of Northern Ireland Protestants replied "British" or "Ulster" with 3% or less replying "Irish".
• A 1999 survey revealed that 78% of Protestants felt "Strongly British", while 51% felt "Not at all Irish" and 41% only "weakly Irish".
• Data from other studies up to 2006 confirms the predominantly British identity of Protestants.

The polls also show that not all Northern Ireland Catholics consider themselves to be Irish, and some consider themselves British to a certain degree.

The 1998 Belfast 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 is endorsed by the Northern Ireland nationalist parties (the SDLP

Social Democratic and Labour Party

The Social Democratic and Labour Party is a social-democratic, Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. Its basic party platform advocates Irish reunification, and the further devolution of powers while Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom...

 and 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...

) and the main parties in 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,...

, recognises the validity of alternative loyalties, containing a commitment to "recognise the birthright of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both, as they may so choose, and accordingly confirm that their right to hold both British and Irish citizenship is accepted by both Governments and would not be affected by any future change in the status of Northern Ireland.".

Official declarations of this sort, however, do not necessarily reflect the practical outlook or conduct of the nationalist community in Northern Ireland. A 1997 publication by Democratic Dialogue stated that "It is clear that many in Northern Ireland are willing to tolerate the Other's cultural identity only within the confines of their own core ideology... most nationalists have extreme difficulty in accepting unionists' Britishness or, even if they do, the idea that unionists do not constitute an Irish ethnic minority which can ultimately be accommodated within the Irish nation...." The publication also stated that "Irishness is a highly contested identity, subject to fundamentally different nationalist and unionist perceptions which profoundly affect notions of allegiance and group membership".

Irish nationalist organisations (1791-present)

19th Century

• Irish Confederation
  Irish Confederation
  The Irish Confederation was an Irish nationalist independence movement, established on 13 January 1847 by members of the Young Ireland movement who had seceded from Daniel O'Connell's Repeal Association. Historian T. W...
  
  
• Irish Independence Party
  Irish Independence Party
  The Irish Independence Party was an nationalist political party in Northern Ireland, founded in October 1977 by Frank McManus and Fergus McAteer...
  
  
• Irish National Invincibles
  Irish National Invincibles
  The Irish National Invincibles, usually known as "The Invincibles" were a radical splinter group of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and leading representatives of the Land League movement, both of Ireland and Britain...
  
  

20th century

• 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:...
  
  
• Saor Eire
  Saor Éire
  Saor Éire was a left-wing political organisation established in September 1931 by communist-leaning members of the Irish Republican Army, with the backing of the IRA leadership. Notable among its founders was Peadar O'Donnell, former editor of An Phoblacht and a leading left-wing figure in the...
  
  
• Saor Uladh
  Saor Uladh
  Saor Uladh - was a short-lived paramilitary organisation in Northern Ireland in the 1950s.Seen as a splinter group of the Irish Republican Army, it was formed in County Tyrone by Liam Kelly and Phil O'Donnell in 1953...
  
  
• Republican Congress
  Republican Congress
  The Republican Congress was an Irish republican political organisation founded in 1934, when left-wing republicans left the Irish Republican Army. The Congress was led by such IRA veterans as Peadar O'Donnell, Frank Ryan and George Gilmore. It was a socialist organisation and was dedicated to a...
  
  
• People's Democracy
  People's Democracy
  People's Democracy was a political organisation that, while supporting the campaign for civil rights for Northern Ireland's Catholic minority, stated that such rights could only be achieved through the establishment of a socialist republic for all of Ireland...
  
  
• 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...
  
  
• Official Irish Republican Army
• Social Democratic and Labour Party
  Social Democratic and Labour Party
  The Social Democratic and Labour Party is a social-democratic, Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. Its basic party platform advocates Irish reunification, and the further devolution of powers while Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom...
  
  
• Workers' Party of Ireland
  Workers' Party of Ireland
  The Workers' Party is a left-wing republican political party in Ireland. Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970 after a split within the party, adopting its current name in 1982....
  
  
• Irish Republican Socialist Party
  Irish Republican Socialist Party
  The Irish Republican Socialist Party or IRSP is a republican socialist party active in Ireland. It claims the legacy of socialist revolutionary James Connolly, who founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party in 1896 and was executed after the Easter Rising of 1916.- History :The Irish Republican...
  
  
• Irish National Liberation Army
  Irish National Liberation Army
  The Irish National Liberation Army or INLA is an Irish republican socialist paramilitary group that was formed on 8 December 1974. Its goal is to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a socialist united Ireland....
  
  
• Continuity Irish Republican Army
  Continuity Irish Republican Army
  The Continuity Irish Republican Army, otherwise known as the Continuity IRA and styling itself as Óglaigh na hÉireann, is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that aims to bring about a united Ireland. It emerged from a split in the Provisional IRA in 1986 but did not become active until...
  
  
• Real Irish Republican Army
  Real Irish Republican Army
  The Real Irish Republican Army, otherwise known as the Real IRA , and styling itself as Óglaigh na hÉireann , is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation which aims to bring about a united Ireland...
  
  
• 32 County Sovereignty Movement
  32 County Sovereignty Movement
  The 32 County Sovereignty Movement, often abbreviated to 32CSM or 32csm, is an Irish republican political organisation.The 32CSM's objectives are:* "The restoration of Irish national sovereignty"....
  
  

See also

• Robert Erskine Childers
  Robert Erskine Childers
  Robert Erskine Childers DSC , universally known as Erskine Childers, was the author of the influential novel Riddle of the Sands and an Irish nationalist who smuggled guns to Ireland in his sailing yacht Asgard. He was executed by the authorities of the nascent Irish Free State during the Irish...
  
  
• Mary Alden Childers
• Michael Corcoran
  Michael Corcoran
  Michael Corcoran was an Irish American general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and a close confidant of President Abraham Lincoln. As its colonel, he led the 69th New York regiment to Washington, D.C. and was one of the first to serve in the defense of Washington by building Fort...
  
  
• Thomas Davis
  Thomas Osborne Davis (Irish politician)
  Thomas Osborne Davis was a revolutionary Irish writer who was the chief organizer and poet of the Young Ireland movement.-Early life:...
  
  
• Kevin Izod O'Doherty
  Kevin Izod O'Doherty
  Kevin Izod O'Doherty was an Irish Australian politician.-Biography:O'Doherty was born in Dublin on 7 September 1823, although other sources indicate that he may have been born in June 1824 and Charles Gavan Duffy, in his My Life in Two Hemispheres, states that O'Doherty was still under age when he...
  
  
• Michael Doheny
  Michael Doheny
  Michael Doheny was an Irish writer and member of the Young Ireland movement.-Early life:The third son of Michael Doheny, of Brookhill, he was born at Brookhill, near Fethard, Co. Tipperary, and married a Miss O'Dwyer of that county...
  
  
• Charles Gavan Duffy
  Charles Gavan Duffy
  Additional Reading*, Allen & Unwin, 1973.*John Mitchel, A Cause Too Many, Aidan Hegarty, Camlane Press.*Thomas Davis, The Thinker and Teacher, Arthur Griffith, M.H. Gill & Son 1922....
  
  
• James Fintan Lalor
  James Fintan Lalor
  James Fintan Lalor was an Irish revolutionary, journalist, and “one of the most powerful writers of his day.” A leading member of the Irish Confederation , he was to play an active part in both the Rebellion in July 1848 and the attempted Rising in September of that same year...
  
  
• Terence MacManus
  Terence MacManus
  Terence Bellew MacManus was a radical Irish rebel who participated in the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848. Sentenced to death for treason, he and several other participants were given commuted sentences in 1849 and transported for life to Van Diemen's Land in Australia...
  
  
• John Martin
  John Martin (Ireland)
  John Martin was an Irish nationalist activist who progressed from early militant support for Young Ireland and Repeal, to non-violent alternatives such as support for tenant farmers' rights and eventually as the first Home Rule MP, for Meath 1871-1875...
  
  
• Thomas Francis Meagher
  Thomas Francis Meagher
  -Young Ireland:Meagher returned to Ireland in 1843, with undecided plans for a career in the Austrian army, a tradition among a number of Irish families. In 1844 he traveled to Dublin with the intention of studying for the bar. He became involved in the Repeal Association, which worked for repeal...
  
  
• John Mitchel
  John Mitchel
  John Mitchel was an Irish nationalist activist, solicitor and political journalist. Born in Camnish, near Dungiven, County Londonderry, Ireland he became a leading member of both Young Ireland and the Irish Confederation...
  
  
• D. P. Moran
  D. P. Moran
  David Patrick Moran , better known as simply D. P. Moran, was an Irish journalist, activist and cultural-political theorist, known as the principle advocate of a specifically Gaelic Catholic Irish nationalism during the early 20th century...
  
  
• John Dooley Reigh
  John Dooley Reigh
  John Dooley Reigh was a cartoonist whose work generally supported Irish nationalism. His birthplace is unknown, and little is known of his early life. He first emerged as an artist in Dublin. His cartoons were usually signed J.D...
  
  
• Patrick O'Donoghue
• John Edward Pigot
  John Edward Pigot
  John Edward Pigot was an Irish music collector.Pigot was born in Kilworth, Co. Cork and became friendly with Thomas Davis of the Young Ireland movement. They published advertisements in The Nation asking those who had Irish tunes to send them in. This started the Pigot Collection. He studied...
  
  
• Thomas Devin Reilly
  Thomas Devin Reilly
  Thomas Devin Reilly was an Irish revolutionary, Young Irelander and journalist.-Early years:He was born in Monaghan Town, the son of a solicitor, and completed his education at Trinity College, Dublin...
  
  
• Irish Race Conventions
  Irish Race Conventions
  The Irish Race Conventions were a disconnected series of conventions held in Europe and America between 1881 and 1994. None was concerned in defining the Irish as an ethnic race, but they were arranged to discuss some pressing or emerging political issues at the time concerning Irish Nationalism....
  
  
• Protestant Irish nationalists
• Cultural imperialism
  Cultural imperialism
  Cultural imperialism is the domination of one culture over another. Cultural imperialism can take the form of a general attitude or an active, formal and deliberate policy, including military action. Economic or technological factors may also play a role...
  
  
• Welsh nationalism
  Welsh nationalism
  Welsh nationalism emphasises the distinctiveness of Welsh language, culture, and history, and calls for more self-determination for Wales, which may include more Devolved powers for the Welsh Assembly or full independence from the United Kingdom.-Conquest:...
  
  
• Scottish nationalism
  Scottish national identity
  Scottish national identity is a term referring to the sense of national identity and common culture of Scottish people and is shared by a considerable majority of the people of Scotland....
  
  
• Cornish nationalism
• Celtic League
  Celtic League (political organisation)
  The Celtic League is a non-governmental organisation that promotes self-determination and Celtic identity and culture in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall and the Isle of Man, known as the Celtic nations. It places particular emphasis on the indigenous Celtic languages...
  
  
• List of active autonomist and secessionist movements

External links

• Irish Nationalism (Archived 2009-10-31) - ninemsn Encarta (short introduction)