The
Context and Development of Irish Literature:
History, Poetry, Landscape
Chapter
Four: From Home Rule to Civil War: Ireland in the
Early 20th Century, page two
With the turn of the 20th century,
it was clear that "the Irish Question" had to be
settled in a decisive way. Pressure for Home Rule was growing,
and in 1905 a new radical, militant, nationalist group was
formed, called "Sinn Fein," meaning
"ourselves alone," led by Arthur Griffith. The great
problem now was less that Britain wanted to hang on to its
colonial possessions, and more that in the North of Ireland,
the Ulster area, dwelt a Protestant majority determined to
resist Catholic rule. This Protestant group, largely the
descendants of the more radical Protestant settlers (mainly
Scots Presbyterians) who began coming over in the 16th
and 17th centuries, considered themselves both
loyal members of the United Kingdom, and also authentically
Irish, proud upholders of the Anglo-Irish Protestant
Tradition.
In response to Sinn Fein, the Ulster
Protestants formed the Ulster Volunteers, basically a
citizens’ army, and pledged to resist violently any
imposition of Catholic Home Rule. In response to the Ulster
Volunteers, the Catholics then formed the Irish Volunteers,
a Catholic citizens’ army determined to fight for Catholic
Rule. (Many of its leaders came from an underground group
called the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which itself
grew out of the Fenian Brotherhood of the 1860's; the eventual
result of this organization would be the Irish Republican
Army, or IRA, which of course still survives in Northern
Ireland today.) A civil war seemed imminent, between the
Protestant Unionists (favoring continued union with
Great Britian) and the Catholic Nationalists (favoring
an independent, Catholic-ruled Ireland) when World War I broke
out in 1914. John Redmond, leader of the Irish
Parliamentary Party, felt that by supporting England's war
effort the Irish would encourage eventual Home Rule, and so
he urged a cessation of
hostilities until the Great War was over.
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