In the past, many Irish commentators had been fond of pointing to the historic record of Irish émigrés attaining government office in Europe, or even in the Americas, as evidence of the ‘rank political heresy’ of British nationalists, who held as a cardinal belief that Irishmen were unworthy, or even incapable, of ‘ruling and governing at home’. Be that as it may, longstanding Irish claims to be one of the oldest and thereby one of the most suppressed nationalities in Europe had essentially rested on purely cultural premises. Traditionally, being aware of the country’s complete lack of financial clout, many were actually loath to dwell on economic factors, preferring instead to assert that Irishmen ‘could fight for an abstract notion – for love, for glory, for liberty; but they never knew how to take up arms for a countinghouse or a till’.173 The Irish revolution, which was a response to America’s entry into the First World War as much as it was a reaction to the 1916 Rising and Britain’s frustration of Irish desires for self-government, essentially changed this situation. The unilateral setting up of an Irish parliament and civil service was directly linked with a new focus upon seeking diplomatic recognition worldwide and entering the world of international trade. This was the Sinn Féin policy of Arthur Griffith, first spelt out in 1905. Crucially, however, considerable international attention did not translate into the creation of any Irish diplomatic alliances in defiance of Britain. Ireland’s trading profile also revealed very limited international interest in the country. Although the prospect of growing US trade existed, this was far from a central concern of the Americans and did not dictate their diplomatic stance. Meanwhile, the absence of a viable market for Irish goods in France cemented the French inclination to consider Ireland to be, at best, only a small potential factor in European geopolitics. As a result, there was no potential advantage to such foreign powers in taking a direct interest in the Irish case.
There had also been a local dimension to the Irish revolution. Massive recruitment of unarmed men to the volunteer movement in defiance of the British administration in Ireland shaped national perceptions of the revolution as well as levels of disappointment with its outcome. Meanwhile, ever since the 1880s, the sense of the democratic legitimacy of the Irish desire for self-government had actually rested upon the results of UK general elections, including Sinn Féin’s triumphant election campaigns of 1918 and 1921. While some commentators have suggested that de Valera was simply being duplicitious, his ill-advised attempts during 1922 to capitalise upon an extant Irish capacity to work within a UK party-political framework was essentially a reflection of this electoral legacy. Privately, he would admit in later years that he knew in advance how the treaty agreement was going to be used unjustly by Britain as a weapon against Griffith and Collins rather than as an instrument to fulfil either their or the Irish parliament’s declared political goals.174 As Ireland’s attempt to win recognition for an Irish republic had failed to win any international allies, the only remaining alternatives were to act as a ‘restless dominion’ within the British Commonwealth or else to aspire to achieve an entirely non-aligned position in international relations.175 Such considerations would colour the history of the new Irish state up until at least the Second World War as much as a determination to sustain the ideals of Ireland’s initial independence movement.
Endnotes
1 Michael Doorley, Irish-American diaspora nationalism: the Friends of Irish Freedom, 1916–1935 (Dublin, 2005).
2 ‘The Pope, the President and the Peace’, Nationality, 22 Dec. 1917.
3 Nationality, 21 Dec. 1918 (editorial).
4 ‘President Wilson and the Pope’, Irish Independent, 14 January 1919.
5 Dáil Éireann, Miontuaric an chead Dala 1919–1921 (Dublin, 1994).
6 Pierre-Yves Beaurepatre, ‘The universal republic of the freemasons and the culture of mobility in the enlightenment’, French historical studies, vol. 29 no. 3 (summer 2006), 407–31 Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ would later be made the anthem of the European Union.
7 Nationality, 17 Mar., 9 Jun. 1917.
8 Nationality, 17 Mar., 31 Mar., 16 Jun. (quote), 11 Aug. 1917.
9 Nationality, 15 Feb. 1918 (quote).
10 Nationality, 26 Oct., 28 Dec. 1918.
11 Nationality, 9 Nov. 1918.
12 Nationality, 4 Aug. 1917.
13 Nationality, 8 Sep. 1917, 10 Nov. 1917.
14 John J. Horgan, ‘Ireland and world contact’, Studies, vol. 8 no. 29 (Mar. 1919), 35–45.
15 Nationality, 17 Mar., 7 Apr., 14 Apr. 1917.
16 ‘Ireland and the seas’, Nationality, 3 Nov. 1917.
17 Nationality, 23 Jun. 1917, 8 Sep. 1917, 3 Nov. 1917, 17 Nov. 1917, 8 Dec. 1917, 28 Jan. 1918.
18 Nationality, 5 Oct. 1918 (quote), 20 Oct. 1917.
19 Nationality, 10 Aug. 1918, 23 Jun. 1917.
20 Nationality, 17 Mar., 7 Mar., 23 Jun. 1917.
21 Steven Watts, The people’s tycoon: Henry Ford and the American century (New York, 2005), 230–40. ‘The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom’ was an outgrowth of the Woman’s Peace Party, founded by Rosika Schwimmer. Ford funded and joined its Peace Ship to Europe in December 1915.
22 Pádraig Ó Siadhail, Katherine Hughes (Ontario, 2014).
23 Owen McGee, Arthur Griffith (Dublin, 2015), 155–6, 180, 196, 212, 242.