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Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-65073-1 - The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Fein Party, 1916-1923 Michael Laffan Frontmatter More information The Resurrection of Ireland Between 1916 and 1923 Ireland experienced a political as well as a military revolution. This book examines how, after the Easter rising of 1916, radical revolutionaries formed a precarious coalition with (relatively) moderate politi- cians, offering a sustained analysis of the political organisation of Irish repub- licanism during a crucial period. The new Sinn Féin party routed its enemies, co-operated uneasily with the underground Irish government which it had helped to create, and achieved most of its objectives before disintegrating in 1922. Its rapid collapse should not distract from its achievements – in particu- lar its role in ‘democratising’ the Irish revolution. Its successors have dominated the political life of independent Ireland. The book studies in some detail the party’s membership and ideology, and also its often tense relationship with the Irish Republican Army. A final chapter examines the fluctuating careers of the later Sinn Féin parties throughout the rest of the twentieth century. michael laffan is a member of the School of History at University College, Dublin. His previous publications include The Partition of Ireland, 1911–1925 (1983) and, as editor, The Burden of German History 1919–1945 (1988). © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-65073-1 - The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Fein Party, 1916-1923 Michael Laffan Frontmatter More information The Resurrection of Ireland The Sinn Féin Party, 1916–1923 Michael Laffan © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-65073-1 - The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Fein Party, 1916-1923 Michael Laffan Frontmatter More information cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo cambridge university press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521672672 © Michael Laffan 1999 First published in paperback 2005 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1999 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN-13 978-0-521-65073-1 hardback ISBN-10 0-521-65073-9 hardback ISBN-13 978-0-521-67267-2 paperback ISBN-10 0-521-67267-8 paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-65073-1 - The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Fein Party, 1916-1923 Michael Laffan Frontmatter More information To my nephews, Robert, Jack and Bill © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-65073-1 - The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Fein Party, 1916-1923 Michael Laffan Frontmatter More information Contents List of illustrations page viii List of figures and tables x Preface to the Paperback Edition xi Preface xvi Note on the text xix List of abbreviations xx Prologue: before the Easter Rising 1. Irish nationalists: politicians and rebels 3 The Irish Revolution, 1916–1923 2. Rebellion and hibernation, 1916 43 3. Organizers and converts, 1917 77 4. Reverses and victory, 1918 122 5. The party: structures and members 169 6. Policy: beliefs and attitudes 214 7. War and repression, 1919–1921 266 8. Ministers and bureaucrats, 1919–1921 304 9. The treaty and the split, 1921–1922 346 10. The Pact election and the Civil War, 1922–1923 386 Epilogue: After the Civil War 11. Irish republicans: fundamentalists and compromisers 433 Select bibliography 466 Index 491 vii © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-65073-1 - The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Fein Party, 1916-1923 Michael Laffan Frontmatter More information Illustrations 1.1 Sinn Féin propaganda. ‘Sinn Féin – a modern Samson’. Poster, National Museum of Ireland 22 1.2 Sinn Féin propaganda. ‘Vote for Dolan & Sinn Féin’. Leaflet, National Library of Ireland 28 2.1 Retrospective popularity, the Rising, as seen in 1924. ‘Don’t worry about accommodation’. Dublin Opinion, August 1924 45 3.1 An image of N. Roscommon. ‘The old men were carried upon the backs of the young’. Catholic Bulletin, March 1917 82 3.2 Stepping-stones. ‘Ireland, freedom/subserviency’. Leaflet, National Library of Ireland 114 4.1 Sinn Féin propaganda. ‘Separation women’. ‘The Irish Party’s props in Longford’. Leaflet, National Library of Ireland 127 4.2 Anti-recruitment propaganda. ‘Join an Irish regiment to-day’. Poster, National Museum of Ireland 131 4.3 Anti-conscription postcard. ‘First Irish conscript’. Postcard, National Library of Ireland 143 4.4 Griffith and Dillon. ‘The East Cavan handicap’. Irish Fun, July 1918 148 6.1 The new broom. ‘Some work before us’. The Leader, 7 January 1922 219 6.2 An Irish view of Britain. ‘The conscripts’ chorus’. Leaflet, National Library of Ireland 225 7.1 ‘Peace offering to Ireland’. The Star, reprinted in the Irish Independent, 16 December 1920 293 viii © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-65073-1 - The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Fein Party, 1916-1923 Michael Laffan Frontmatter More information List of illustrations ix 9.1a Rival images of the Treaty. ‘St Michael driving bad angel out of Paradise’, Dublin Opinion, April 1922 9.1b ‘The butchery of Ireland’, Dublin Opinion, April 1922 352 9.2 Republican propaganda. ‘The free will of the people’, Irish Fun, May 1922 364 9.3 A British view of Collins’s dilemma. ‘The evil genie’, Punch, 12 April 1922 377 10.1 ‘Count Plunkett insures his beard’, Dublin Opinion, July 1922 393 10.2a The pact: an Irish view. ‘The coming elections’, The Leader, 3 June 1922 396 10.2b The pact: a British view. ‘A son of Liberty’, Punch, 21 May 1922 397 10.3 Cartoon images of de Valera, Griffith, Collins, Figgis and Cosgrave. Irish Fun, May 1922 405 10.4 Free state propaganda. ‘This is where he was in 1921’. Leaflet, National Library of Ireland 415 11.1 ‘Midnight assassins raid on Mrs Eamon de Valera’. Watercolour by Countess Markievicz. National Library of Ireland 435 11.2 Cumann na nGaedheal propaganda. ‘The hen that took 5 years to lay an egg’. Poster, National Library of Ireland 445 © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-65073-1 - The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Fein Party, 1916-1923 Michael Laffan Frontmatter More information Figures and tables Figures 4.1 The 1918 election page 167 5.1 Party structure, December 1917 171 5.2 Ratio of inhabitants to each Sinn Féin club, December 1917 186 10.1 The 1922 election 402 Tables 5.1 Ratio of inhabitants per county to each Sinn Féin club, December 1917 187 5.2 Emigration figures for the years spanning the First World War 189 10.1 Percentages of votes in contested seats, 1922, by constituency 401 x © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-65073-1 - The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Fein Party, 1916-1923 Michael Laffan Frontmatter More information Preface to the Paperback Edition By a happy coincidence the hardcover edition of this book was published on 2 December 1999. It was the day when the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998 came into effect. It was the day when the Republic of Ireland amended its con- stitution and abandoned its unqualified claim to the territory of Northern Ireland, replacing this claim with a recognition that ‘a United Ireland shall be brought about only by peaceful means with the consent of a majority of the people, democratically expressed, in both jurisdictions in the island’. And it was the day when the present Sinn Féin party accepted the realities of modern Irish life. Its representatives joined unionists and moderate nationalists as members of a new power-sharing Northern Irish executive, a body which operated under the authority of Westminster. Thereby they finally relinquished a policy that had been outlined 95 years earlier by Arthur Griffith and which had character- ized all the various Sinn Féin parties since then: the refusal to recognize Britain’s role in Ireland, or to participate in parliaments and governments of which they disapproved. The paperback edition of the book is published at the end of 2005, which has been celebrated in different ways by different groups as the centenary year of Sinn Féin. Its appearance or reappearance provides an occasion for reflection on what has, and what has not, occurred during the six years’ interval to the party that currently uses the name. When the IRA’s cease-fire was followed by Sinn Féin’s abandonment of its abstention policy it seemed possible that Northern Ireland might grope its way towards a more normal civic and political culture. The unwillingness of orga- nized unionism to accept nationalists as equal citizens – the ultimate cause of the Northern ‘troubles’ – had long been overcome, at least at the level of struc- tures and institutions. Many people hoped that old, traditional patterns of hatred and violence might slowly fade away. In some respects the optimism of the Good Friday Agreement has been vindicated. Although Northern Ireland remains a polarized society which is characterized by sectarianism, murder, intimidation and robbery, there has not xi © Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-65073-1 - The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Fein Party, 1916-1923 Michael Laffan Frontmatter More information xii Preface to the Paperback Edition been a return to the scale of killing that marked the period from the early 1970s to the mid-1990s.