IRELAND.

In January 1914 Ireland was part of the United Kingdom; Irish members of Parliament (MPs) sat at Westminster, legislative and administrative control rested in Whitehall. By the end of that year, it was expected that responsibility for most domestic policy would have passed to a Home Rule parliament and government in Dublin, though this was strongly resisted by Irish unionist politicians and by Britain's Conservative Party to the point where by the summer of 1914 Ireland appeared on the brink of civil war, and discussions were underway to exclude the predominantly Protestant and unionist population of the northeast from the Home Rule settlement. When World War I began in August 1914, Home Rule was placed on the statute book, but its introduction was postponed until the war ended. By then, Home Rule no longer met the aspirations of nationalist Ireland.

A short-lived rebellion at Easter 1916 proclaimed an Irish Republic. At the general election of November 1918, a majority of Irish seats went (many uncontested) to the Sinn Féin Party, which was controlled by veterans of the 1916 Easter Rising and was committed to securing an Irish republic. The Sinn Féin MPs boycotted Westminster, establishing a parliament and administration in Dublin—Dáil Éireann. Simultaneously the Irish Volunteers (later renamed the Irish Republican Army [IRA]), launched a campaign to undermine British rule in Ireland, targeting policemen, local government, and tax offices; their goal was not to defeat the British forces, but to persuade Britain to concede an Irish republic. On the international front Dáil Éireann waged an unsuccessful campaign to secure recognition of an Irish republic at the Versailles Conference; they proved more effective at publicizing atrocities committed by British forces in Ireland in the international press.

The Government of Ireland Act, which became law in December 1920, established two Home Rule–style governments in Ireland—one in Belfast with responsibility for six northeastern counties, and one in Dublin, and a Council of Ireland with equal membership from north and south. The Northern Ireland parliament opened in June 1921; in July a truce was called between British forces and the IRA, opening the way for negotiations for a constitutional settlement. A treaty signed in December 1921 granted Ireland dominion status—considerably greater autonomy than Home Rule—with opt-out rights for the northern government; if they did so, a commission would determine the boundaries between the two states. Dáil Éireann accepted the treaty by 64 votes to 57; opponents claimed that it betrayed the commitment to a republic; the fact that it conceded partition was not a major issue.

THE IRISH FREE STATE, 1922–1937

The Irish Free State came into existence in December 1922 in the midst of a bitter civil war. Although 78 percent of voters in the June 1922 general election supported pro-treaty candidates, the disaffected minority refused to accept this verdict, and within two weeks of the election, the standoff between government and anti-treaty forces flared into civil war. The war ended in May 1923 in victory for the government, achieved through draconian summary justice and the loss of 1,500 lives, including Michael Collins (1890–1922), commander in chief of the Irish army and the dominant figure in the provisional government. The new state got off to an inauspicious start; opponents of the treaty refused to take their seats in Dáil Éireann because this involved an oath of allegiance to the British monarch—a condition of the 1921 treaty; public finances were in a precarious state because of the civil war, and the militarization of Irish society over the previous ten years posed a serious threat to democracy. Between 1914 and 1926, the Protestant population of the Irish Free State fell by one-third; although some of this loss can be explained by the 1914–1918 war and the departure of British troops and officials, others left because they felt insecure and unwanted. Despite these unpromising beginnings, constitutional politics overcame the physical force tradition. In 1926, Eamon de Valera (1882–1975), leader of the anti-treaty Sinn Féin, broke with that party and founded Fianna Fáil; in 1927 he led them into Dáil Éireann, and in 1932 they took office having won a near-majority in the general election. The transition was uneventful; there was no purge of senior army officers and civil servants. By 1932 Irish politics had taken on the shape that it still bears today: two major political parties—Fianna Fáil and Cumann na nGaedheal, later Fine Gael, divided primarily by their attitude toward the 1921 treaty, plus a smaller Labour Party, and some minor short-lived parties.

The Cumann na nGaedheal government that held office until 1932 had worked consistently to expand Irish sovereignty within the British Empire; Fianna Fáil came to office determined to remove the remaining limitations on Irish sovereignty imposed under the 1921 treaty. Relations between Dublin and London were rocky during the early years of de Valera's rule, as Britain resisted any erosion of its residual jurisdiction over Ireland; a trade war—the so-called Economic War—erupted when Ireland ceased making repayments on loans that enabled tenant farmers to buy out their landlords, but in 1938 both sides reached an amicable agreement, and with war looming in Europe, Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) handed over Britain's three remaining naval bases in Ireland, believing that a friendly neutral Ireland would be a more valuable ally.

In 1937 de Valera replaced the hastily written 1922 Constitution, which reflected the limitations of the 1921 treaty, with the constitution that remains operative in the twenty-first century. The name of the state was given as Ireland (Éire in the Irish language); the territory of the state consisted of all of Ireland, but "pending the reintegration of the national territory," the laws enacted by the Irish parliament would only have jurisdiction over twenty-six counties. Partition was a low priority for the newly independent Irish state; in 1926 when it emerged that the boundary commission would recommend only marginal changes in the borders between the two Irelands, including some loss of territory by the Irish Free State, the Dublin government agreed that the report of the commission would be suppressed; it was only when the constraints on Irish sovereignty had been resolved that Dublin turned its attention to partition.

A GAELIC AND CATHOLIC STATE

In cultural terms, the first twenty years of the new state were marked by introversion and cultural protection. Pro- and anti-treaty nationalists were equally committed to a state that embodied a Catholic and Gaelic ethos, and these causes served to unite and to heal political divisions, though at the expense of alienating the 5 percent of the population who were Protestant. However, the parties were divided on economic matters, with Fianna Fáil espousing self-sufficiency—tillage farming, small farms, heavily protected industries, whereas Fine Gael favored cattle farming and closer economic links with Britain. Self-sufficiency and a more generous attitude toward public spending helped Ireland to weather the economic crisis of the 1930s; although times were tough, few farms went bankrupt, and despite the cessation of emigration there was no mass unemployment, and the quasi-fascistic Blueshirt movement did not present a serious threat to democracy. By the late 1930s, the economic and social policies of the two major parties had converged, as had their positions on Anglo-Irish relations, so that changes in government in independent Ireland have rarely brought dramatic shifts in policy.

NORTHERN IRELAND, 1920–1939

Northern Ireland too had a violent birth; between June 1920 and June 1922, 428 people were killed and 1,766 injured; many houses and businesses were destroyed and Catholic workers were forced to abandon jobs in the shipyards. Most Catholics, who constituted one-third of the population, opted out of the new state, hoping that the boundary commission would resolve their position—such expectations were especially strong in western and southern areas, which had a Catholic majority. When the boundary commission dashed these hopes in 1926, the key structures of the Northern Ireland state were already in place, including a school system that favored the Protestant communities and a security service dominated by former Protestant paramilitaries. While the electoral arithmetic in a state polarized by religion made a change of government highly unlikely, the removal of proportional representation (imposed by Britain in 1918 in order to safeguard Ireland's Protestants) in parliamentary and local elections, and some very distorted electoral boundaries, reduced nationalist political representation and denied them control of some local authorities. Catholics were also seriously underrepresented among senior civil servants, because of concerns about their loyalty. In hindsight, unionist fears of an imminent takeover by Dublin were excessive; it was only in 1938 when the final trappings of British control had been removed that de Valera turned his attention to partition, but the political rhetoric emanating from independent Ireland reinforced the beleaguered attitude of Ulster unionism and served to consolidate Northern Ireland as a one-party state.

WARTIME IRELAND, 1939–1945

The war years exposed major shortcomings in the Northern Ireland government; at least 1,100 civilians died in air raids during 1941 because of inadequate air defenses, and an estimated 220,000 fled Belfast in panic; industrial unrest was three to four times greater than in Britain. However, the fact that Northern Ireland participated on the Allied side, whereas independent Ireland remained neutral, undoubtedly strengthened Northern Ireland's links with the rest of the United Kingdom, particularly in the face of Dublin's postwar campaign against partition. The postwar introduction of comprehensive state health welfare services, comparable with the rest of the United Kingdom, and the 1944 Butler Act granting entitlement to secondary schooling, were initially regarded with suspicion by the frugal, self-sufficient Ulster unionists, but they soon realized that these measures provided tangible evidence of the benefits of the United Kingdom, and a means of differentiating Northern Ireland from independent Ireland.

In many respects, World War II was de Valera's finest hour. He preserved Ireland's neutrality despite the threats posed by IRA collusion with Germany, and pressure from Winston Churchill (1874–1965) and to a lesser extent the United States; he gave considerable but discreet assistance to the Allies, and the country came through the war unscathed despite severe shortages of supplies. However, as in the north, the war exposed serious political limitations. Mass emigration had been a feature of Irish life since the early nineteenth century, but until the 1940s the Irish government had been able to convince itself that emigration was declining. During the war years, however, a growing number of Irish men and women emigrated to Britain, attracted by full employment and wartime earnings.

ISOLATION AND ECONOMIC DECLINE, 1945–1960

The ten to fifteen years immediately after the end of the war were a missed opportunity for independent Ireland. The country was denied membership in the United Nations until 1956 because of wartime neutrality, which enhanced an already strong tendency toward introversion. Ending partition became the primary focus of Irish foreign policy; they refused to join NATO because it would involve recognizing U.K. boundaries. The coalition government that took office in 1948 proclaimed a republic (which came into effect in 1949) in order to remove the gun from Irish politics. In order to ease Northern Ireland fears over the declaration of a republic, Westminster passed the 1949 Ireland Act, which stated that any decision over the future status of Northern Ireland was a matter for the Northern Parliament. In 1956 the IRA launched "Operation Harvest," a series of raids mounted from the south, in order to end partition. IRA men were interned by both the Dublin and Belfast governments; the campaign ended in 1962.

During the 1950s, the Irish Republic and East Germany were the only two European countries with a declining population. The population of independent Ireland fell by almost 5 percent and over 400,000 men and women emigrated; they were part of the European-wide migration of workers from less developed rural and agrarian economies to more developed industrial economies. Economic failure challenged Ireland's claim to independence; Britain absorbed over 80 percent of merchandise exports and most Irish emigrants. By the late 1950s, the depressed state of the economy and proposals to create a European free trade area prompted a redirection of economic policy from self-sufficiency toward free trade and attracting foreign direct investment. In 1959, de Valera became president of Ireland, and the office of Taoiseach (prime minister) passed to Sean Lemass (1899–1971).

LEMASS AND O'NEILL: THE 1960S

Although Lemass, like de Valera, was a veteran of the 1916 Rising, his pragmatism, his focus on economic growth and industrial development, attracting foreign industrial investment, building closer economic and political links with Britain, and bringing Ireland into the European Economic Community (EEC), marked a major change from the previous focus on small farms and protected Irish-owned industries. Emigration fell sharply during the 1960s; living standards rose, and for the first time in the history of the state more people were employed in manufacturing industry than in agriculture. Economic prosperity coincided with a rise in Ireland's traditionally low marriage rate, a fall in the age of marriage, and clear evidence that Irish couples were controlling fertility. The 1960s also brought an easing in the stringent censorship of publications, and the first signs of a public debate over issues on which Irish legislation continued to reflect the teaching of the Catholic Church, such as divorce and contraception.

There are strong similarities between Lemass and Terence O'Neill (1914–1990), who became prime minister of Northern Ireland in 1963. Both men focused on economic development and attracting foreign industrial investment—and in this respect Northern Ireland was much more successful; both were of the opinion that economic prosperity could overcome deep-seated political divisions. The O'Neill-Lemass meeting in January 1965, the first meeting between leaders of the two governments since 1922, was seen as inaugurating a new relationship between the two Irelands. Lemass believed that a prosperous independent Ireland offered a better way of promoting a united Ireland than a militant anti-partition campaign, and O'Neill once remarked that if Catholics were given good jobs and better housing conditions then they would behave like Protestants. Both were proved wrong. O'Neill's liberal rhetoric and public gestures such as a visit to a Catholic school (the first by a prime minister of Northern Ireland) served to raise expectations among Catholics and atavistic fears among unionists, but he proved slow to remedy major grievances such as the partisan allocation of local authority housing and the lack of universal adult suffrage in local elections. In 1967 the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), which took its name and its methods from the U.S. civil rights movement of that decade, began a series of marches to highlight discrimination in Northern Ireland, which provoked sometimes violent responses from militant unionists and the Royal Irish Constabulary. In November 1968 when O'Neill, under pressure from the British government, announced a program of reform that fell short of NICRA demands, many Ulster unionists were outraged by this apparent capitulation to British pressure. O'Neill resigned as prime minister in April 1969, having failed to secure sufficient support from moderate Catholics in a general election. By then Northern Ireland was increasingly polarized between intransigent unionist and rising Catholic militancy.

VIOLENCE IN NORTHERN IRELAND, 1969–1973

August 1969 is commonly seen as the beginning of "the Troubles." A traditional Protestant march in Derry ended in a riot; violence spread to Belfast, resulting in 7 deaths and the destruction of 179 properties, of which 83 percent were occupied by Catholics. Britain sent troops to the province, initially to protect the nationalist population, but within months they were coming under attack from the Provisional IRA, which was formed early in 1970. What began as an effort to redress Catholic grievances within a framework of the United Kingdom and civil rights had reverted to a more traditional struggle between British forces and the IRA.

Events in Northern Ireland caught the Dublin government unprepared. No government minister or department was responsible for Northern Ireland, and they had no contingency plans. The government came under pressure to invade Northern Ireland to protect the Catholic population; a speech by the Taoiseach Jack Lynch (1917–1999) stating that the "Irish government can no longer stand by and see innocent people injured and perhaps worse" heightened expectations. Although wiser counsels prevailed, in May 1970, in events that remain obscure, Lynch dismissed two cabinet ministers—Charles Haughey and Niall Blaney—on suspicion of involvement in a conspiracy to import arms for the IRA, but they were acquitted of these charges in court. Sympathies for Northern Ireland nationalists continued to rise in the south following the introduction of internment (which was directed exclusively against Catholics) in Northern Ireland in August 1971; they peaked in late January 1972 (Bloody Sunday) when British forces shot dead thirteen unarmed men during an illegal civil rights march in Derry. Britain put pressure on the Northern Ireland government to transfer control of security services to Westminster; when they resigned rather than accede, the Northern Ireland parliament was prorogued, and direct rule was introduced on 24 March 1972.

FROM SUNNINGDALE (1973) TO THE BELFAST AGREEMENT (1998)

When violence erupted in Northern Ireland in August 1969, the British government refused to concede that Dublin might have a role in finding a solution; however, this had changed by the early 1970s. The Sunningdale Agreement of December 1973, signed by politicians from both communities in Northern Ireland and by the British and Irish governments, set out a framework for the future government of Northern Ireland based on two principles: devolved government where power would be shared between politicians of different political traditions, and an all-Ireland dimension. The agreement collapsed within months when the newly elected minority Labour government in Britain capitulated to Protestant paramilitary protests and direct rule was restored. Although this was expected to be a temporary arrangement, the devolved government was not restored until 1998. The intervening years were punctuated by cycles of violence: the IRA's attempt to drive Britain from Northern Ireland through bombings and shootings in Northern Ireland and in Britain, Protestant paramilitary violence against the Catholic community, and deaths of some innocent civilians and terrorists at the hands of the security forces. IRA prisoners kept up pressure to be treated as political prisoners, ultimately embarking on a series of hunger strikes that resulted in ten deaths. Sinn Féin, the political wing of the IRA, mobilized sympathy for hunger strikers to capture electoral support in Northern Ireland and the Republic; their success (13.4 percent of the vote in the 1983 Westminster election) strengthened the hand of those who wished to employ a dual political and military strategy, described by one member as a ballot paper in one hand and an Armalite rifle in the other. However, the process of achieving an IRA ceasefire and Sinn Féin's inclusion in what came to be known as the "peace process" proved extremely tortuous, involving lengthy and initially secret talks between the Sinn Féin leadership; John Hume (b. 1937), leader of the moderate nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) party; and British and Irish ministers and representatives and U.S. politicians. It was frequently derailed by some violent atrocity. A joint declaration by British Prime Minister John Major (b. 1943) and Taoiseach Albert Reynolds (b. 1932) in December 1993, the Downing Street Declaration, invited all who had permanently rejected armed force to take part in talks on the future of Northern Ireland. The declaration set out the broad parameters for a settlement: a statement that Britain had no selfish strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland; recognition and respect for all traditions in Northern Ireland; an acknowledgement that any change in the status of Northern Ireland would only come with the consent of the majority of the people. This opened the way for an IRA ceasefire on 31 August 1994 that broke down in February 1996 and was not reinstated until July 1997. The Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement of April 1998 restored devolved government to Northern Ireland with an executive drawn from all the major parties, together with cross-border institutions and a British-Irish Council. The Dublin government undertook to amend Articles 2 and 3 of its constitution, which could be interpreted as laying claim to Northern Ireland. Since 1998 IRA activity has been much reduced; however, the failure to secure the decommissioning of IRA weapons has resulted in the collapse of the power-sharing executive and the restoration of direct rule. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Northern Ireland provided guarantees of equality in employment, housing, and cultural recognition for both Catholic and Protestant communities; however, the "Troubles" inflicted severe damage on the economy. Although the number of children attending multidenominational schools is rising, housing is more segregated by religion than in 1911. In politics the communities are more divided than ever, with support increasing for the more extremist parties, the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin, at the expense of more moderate nationalist and unionist parties.

FROM CRISIS TO BOOM: THE IRISH ECONOMY AFTER 1973

Although Northern Ireland dominated television screens and the diaries of Dublin politicians since 1969, it had surprisingly little impact on domestic politics in the Irish Republic, except during periods of high emotion such as the hunger strikes. The key issues were the economy and pressures to change Irish social legislation in response to changes in Irish society. EEC membership in 1973 coincided with the oil crisis that brought a sharp downturn in economic growth in Western Europe. However, the initial impact was softened by the benefits of EEC membership, especially to the farming sector. By the early 1980s, the Irish economy was caught in a vicious cycle of double-digit unemployment and inflation, heavy government borrowing, lack of economic growth, and rising emigration. This pattern was eventually broken in the late 1980s with the introduction of a more cautious approach to government spending that gave priority to productive investment, the drive to attract high-tech multinational companies to invest in Ireland with the promise of low tax rates and access to the European Union's single market, and lower personal tax rates. By the late 1990s, the Irish economy was the most dynamic in Europe with double-digit growth, and significant immigration.

A POST-CATHOLIC IRELAND?

The years from the 1970s to the 1990s saw a series of divisive political campaigns over access to contraception and divorce and securing a constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion (which was already outlawed), which reflected the tensions between those who were seeking to preserve a legislative system that reflected Catholic moral teaching, and those who believed that legislation should reflect the realities of contemporary Irish society. Contraceptives became freely available only in 1985; the constitutional ban on divorce was removed (by the narrowest of margins) in 1995; a constitutional "pro-life" (anti-abortion) amendment was passed in 1983 but was subsequently modified. Although church attendance remains high by European standards (63 percent of Catholics attend church every week), the authority of the Catholic Church has been seriously eroded, and declining numbers of religious have forced them to withdraw from schools and other institutions. Growing immigration from Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia has strengthened the case for diluting Catholic influence in Irish society.

IRELAND IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

There are several dimensions to Ireland's history over the past one hundred years: one is the retarded rate of economic development from 1914 to the 1990s—north and south—and the exceptionally rapid and belated catch-up in the decade around the turn of the twenty-first century in independent Ireland to become one of the wealthiest countries in Europe; the reversal of the population decline that began in the mid-nineteenth century, so that the population of all Ireland in 2005 was at the level of the 1860s; the convergence in demographic and economic patterns with other Western states; the belated emergence of more multicultural and multi-ethnic states and the tensions that this brings. Another story concerns the birth of two states in the aftermath of World War I and their different trajectories. For many years, the Northern Ireland crisis was seen as a religious war that was an anachronism in twentieth-century Europe; at the beginning of the twenty-first century it looks like a precursor to the ethnic wars and terrorist threats that emerged at the end of the last millennium. While political leaders in Belfast, Dublin, London, and even Washington have devoted considerable attention to securing a long-term political settlement in Northern Ireland, this does not appear to be a major concern for most Irish people, provided that peace continues; a substantial majority of the population of Northern Ireland are happy with direct rule from London, and the majority of the population of independent Ireland have no wish or expectation of a united Ireland. It seems probable that the two Irish states born in the 1920s will continue to go their separate, but associated, ways.

See alsoAdams, Gerry; British Empire; British Empire, End of; Easter Rising; IRA; Northern Ireland; Paisley, Ian; Sinn Féin; United Kingdom.

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Mary E. Daly