Coakley Chapter One Foundation of Statehood

 Ireland recognizing the Easter Rising as a formative part of their history

 Ireland was shaped by British rule
 Before British rule; Ireland had few signs of European Statehood
 After the Norman; Lordships were established in Ireland resulting in Irish statehood
 The Tudor began to take hold in the sixteenth century
 The rebellion against the English is historic with the Ulster Gaelic Leaders O’Neill and
O’Donnell in 1594-1603, the Gaelic and Anglo Norman forces against Cromwell in
1641-50 under the Confederation of Kilkenny and the alliance of Irish supporters of
King James II
 The Lord Luitent was the King’s representative in Ireland
 He was advised on everyday affair by a Privy Council of chief offical and on longer
term matter by a Great Council
 In the new house of Commons; Ireland had 100 Mps (15%)
 The house of Lords had 32 members 28 of whom would sit for live and four rotating
protestants
 The Lord was the formal head of government and also ACTED AS HEAD OF SOCIAL
LIFE
 The day to day running of the country was often left to his Chief Sectary who
managed the Irish affairs in the house of commons being a prominant member of
the governing party
 In the 18th to 20th century power slowly transferred from Lord Lietuentant to the
Chief Sectary similar to the shift in power from King to PM in Brittain
 The LL old residance is now the presidents house
 Ireland reamined constitutionally distincy from Brittain
 UK parliament enacted policies on education, heatlh and land reform but seperate
legislation in other areas was passed
 Such as Ireland passing 71 acts exclusive to it
 Ireland was governed in practise by British elite in Dublin castle who looked as Irish
Catholics as disloyal second class citizens
 Irish elections were direct, public voting was enforced during 1872 with the Ba,lot
Act which enforced secret voting stopping intimidation annd in 1885 seat distrubtion
was changed to adapt to population size (prior all constiunecies got 2 seats)
 The vote was finally given to catholic in 1793 and the in 1829 catholics were allowed
to sit in the house of commons
 A number of London based civil services had Irish branches such as the Irish tresurt
 They merged with the Anlo-Irish customs amalgamation of 1823
 Modern party politics began in 1880s
 In the first phase of growth; political life was dominated by parliamentary parties
with groups of Mps without any kind of regular electoral organisation to provide
support in elections
 Irish MPs at this point where either Tories or Whigs; with the Tories having a
stronger protestant connection thus doing better in the North than South
 Tories controlled around 75% of the North but only 45^ of the South
 Second Phase; electoral parties more rigid with consistant party policies
 This phases started in the 1830-1880; Whigs becaame the liberals and increasingly
came to represent Catholics whilst the Tories became the protestant party
 MPs were supported on a consituency laber by Indendent Clubs for Whigs and
Constitutional Clubs on the Conservative side
 This was ususual as these clubs developed at a remarkably early stage in Irish politics
and the liberal-conservative divide have sectarian overtones which was weird as
liberalism was associated with anti-clergicalism across the rest of EUrope
 As voting was restricted to the wealthy; protestants were over represented although
they only controlled 24% in the South and voted consistantly for Tories
 Catholics on the other hand weren’t loyal to the liberal and shifted to Irish interest
parties at points such as the Home RUle Party and the Repeal Party
 The third phase was the birth of mass parties
 THe Irish National League was used as a constituency organisation of the home rule
party
 The prominance of the Home Rule party resulting in a stricty protestant catholic
divide
 With the ROI nationalists won almost all of the seats
 The National League was doinant until 1890 when Parnell had a divorce scandal
which fractured the party
 Franchise expansion resulted in more cahtolics being able to vote
 The division in Irish society made the Home RUle party dominant
 THe nationalists party was able to make the government bring in home rule bills
when it was in a position of power
 THe first bill created an autonomous parliament in Dublin responsible for a wide
range of devolved powers but was defeated in the commons
 The second bill was defeated in the Lords after passing in the commons
 The third bill became law due to altering the Lord’s veto
 Implementation of home rule was delaed by the war and oppoition in Ulster
 The protestant believed that the Act of Union benifited industrialisation and the
economy and could be threatened by home rule
 The stalemate of the implementation of Home Rule lead to the Rise in radical
nationalism
 Nationalist who viewed the British as military overlords who supressed catholics and
confsicated their land had the view that British trade policy had stifled Irish
industrialization and the Act of Union was procured by bribery and corruption
 In their view the British were indifferent to Irish poverty during the famine
 They viewed British Rule as damaging whilst ignoring the benifits it brought
 As they viewed British rule as a product of military force; they believed it could be
reversed by the same means
 The political seperatism resuling in the IRish League and the IRB
 Easter rising lasted a weak; the execution of the leaders shifted Irish opinion in
favour of indendendence
 Sinn Féin afterwards gained 73/105 seats surplanting the Nalists party
 Sinn Féin tooks this as a separtist mandate and refused to take their seats in British
parliament and instead created their own revolutionary parliament in Dáil Eareann
 They foguth a seperatist gurerilla war
 After treaty was signed the Governance of Ireland Act established the Irish Free
State and Northern Ireland
 Voting in the South was achieved via means of STV
 The King was still head of the South, Brittain retained seaports
 Although the treaty was ratified it resulted in the Civil War
 The Irish states was challenged by the Unionists who wanted to remain in the UK’s
rule and nationalists who after De Valera became the main alternative accepted the
Free State
 Some argued that this was a failure of the rebellion
 After the war; Cumman na nGaedhael led by Cosgrave set a conservative
government
 The government moved to ban divorced, restricted alcohol and consored films
 The government promoted the Irish language and commisions a large hydroelectric
scheme
 They struggled with later years due to their inability to gain more freedom
 The Army Mutiny of 1924 where senior offers demanded action against partition and
second was the leaking of the boundary commision reports which only had minor
changes
 De Velara responded to the declining support for Sinn Féin due to their
absentionism by creating a new part called Fianna Fail
 The next election both big parties cgained seats
 Fianna Fail formed a government with Labour support and the transfer of power
occured peaceful
 They changed the constitutions by eliminating anti-republican sentiments such as
the oath of allegiance and the privy council in london
 Although the Brittish objected to this the Statute of Westimister authorised
Commonwealth states to amend British legislation that affected it
 Ireland also refused to pay land annutites which resulted in a trade war
 An argeement resulted in a once of payment and Brittain ceding control of the ports
 Cumman nGaedfael merged with the Blueshirts
 THis organisation was anti-communist and authoritarian
 O’Duffy the new leader was replaced with Cosgrave
 Its share of the vote dropped until 1948
 In 1948 it came into government and declared the state a republic whilst in power;
making Ireland fully independent
 The civil service in post 1922 was intact but many senior offical were purged or
retired
 The new civil service had 20,000
 The main problems with teachers was training them in the Irish language
 The Garda were established to replaced the RUC; the force was unarmed and
civiliian which helped it win over the peiople
 The Irish Amry replaced the British;l buily up with pro-treaty Ira
 It went from 50,000 soldiers in 1926 to 16,000 the following year to only 6,700 by
1932
 Government departments were reshuffled and renamed, denctentralisation
resulting in partially civil service dispersion during 1997/2011 and public finance
crisis that began in 2008 resulted in salary cuts, recruitment embargos etc.
 The traditional party system was shaken up by three developments:
 The first was the rise of SInn Féin becoming a major radical left party
 The second was the emergence of socialists such as Peopople Before Porift
 Third is the support for independent TDS