Ireland in the imperial imagination: British nationalism and the Anglo-Irish Treaty

ABSTRACT

The signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6 December 1921 was a watershed moment in modern Irish history. In addition to copper-fastening the partition of the island, the agreement catalysed the bifurcation of revolutionary Sinn Féin and set in train the processes that culminated, ultimately, in the outbreak of a bitter Civil War the following June. The events that led to the Treaty and the debates on it in Dáil Éireann have received extensive treatment from historians. However, scholars have paid far less attention to the impact of the Treaty on British politics; in particular, they have neglected to explore how the concession of limited Irish self-government impacted Britain’s national self-image at a time of crucial imperial adjustment following the Great War. This article will examine the range of arguments proffered for and against the Treaty in the House of Commons and the House of Lords and suggest that Parliamentary opposition to the settlement was underpinned by a sense of imperial-national feeling, one guided by an attitude of conscious superiority to non-British elements that can be understood productively as a form of British nationalism.

KEYWORDS:

• Irish free state
• British-Irish relations
• Anglo-Irish Treaty
• Sinn Féin
• British Empire
• nationalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. House of Commons Debate (hereafter, HC), 14 December 1921, vol 149 cc32-3.

2. HC, 12 April 1922, vol 153 cc509-36.

3. HC, 16 December 1921, vol 149 cc305-63.

4. Hopkinson, War of Independence, Kindle Location 4634.

5. Pakenham, Peace by Ordeal, 295–298.

6. Cahillane, Drafting the Irish Free State Constitution.

7. Knirck, Imagining Ireland’s Independence; and Weeks and Ó Fathartaigh, ed., The Treaty.

8. Even most British-focused accounts of the War of Independence only very briefly survey the reception of the Treaty in Westminster. Furthermore, as A.G. Hopkins has emphasised, very few studies of decolonisation account for the impact of dominion-nationalism on concepts of Britishness; strikingly, his recent attempt to correct this oversight makes no mention of Ireland. See, for example, Boyce, Englishmen and Irish Troubles, 172–86; Morgan, Consensus and Disunity; Mansergh, The Unresolved Question, 196–217; Matthews, Fatal Influence; Moulton, Ireland and the Irish, 135–156; Gibbons, The British Labour Party, 110–18; and Hopkins, “Rethinking Decolonization,” 211–47.

9. Churchill, The Aftermath, 290.

10. Colley, Britons; and Kumar, English National Identity.

11. Langlands, “Britishness or Englishness?” 64.

12. Fanning, Fatal Path, Kindle Location 4655.

13. O’Callaghan, British High Politics; and Warren, “Lord Salisbury and Ireland,” 203–24.

14. Hopkinson, Irish War of Independence, Kindle Location 4472.

15. Ellis, “The Methods of Barbarism,” 49–64.

16. Éamon de Valera interview with Chicago Tribune Representative, 13 May 1921, University College Dublin archives (hereafter, UCDA), Desmond and Mabel FitzGerald papers, P80/46 (3).

17. John Clynes and George Barnes in HC, 14 December 1921, vol 149 cc6-26.

18. Townend, The Road to Home Rule, 11; see also, McMahon et al., eds., Ireland in an Imperial World; and Regan-Lefebvre, Cosmopolitan Nationalism in the Victorian Empire; Cumpston, “Some Early Indian Nationalists.”

19. Manela, The Wilsonian Moment.

20. Walsh, Bitter Freedom, 1–70.

21. Collins, The Path to Freedom, 84, 88.

22. Memorandum by Seán T. O’Ceallaigh to Pope Benedict XV, 18 May 1920, National Archives of Ireland (hereafter, NAI), Department of Foreign Affairs files (hereafter, DFA), ES Paris 1920.

23. Jack Jones, HC, 19 February 1920, vol 125 cc1110-222; see also, William Wedgwood Benn, HC, 21 February 1921, vol 138 cc555-624.

24. Lord Edward Morris, House of Lords Debate (hereafter, HL), 16 December 1921, vol 48 cc135–217.

25. HC, 14 December 1921, vol 149 cc43-8.

26. Sir Robert Thomas in HC, 14 December 1921, vol 149 cc48–124.

27. HC, 15 December 1921, vol 149 cc133–258.

28. HL, 14 December 1921, vol 48 cc5–56.

29. Toye, “The Rhetorical Culture of the House of Commons,” 273; see also, “Lloyd George’s War Rhetoric,” 24–29.

30. Morgan, Revolution to Devolution, 104.

31. HC, 16 December 1921, vol 149 cc305–63.

32. HC, 14 December 1921, vol 149 cc6–26.

33. See, Rear Admiral Thomas Adair in HC, 14 December 1921, vol 149 cc48–124.

34. Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience, 230.

35. Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, HL, 15 December 1921, vol 48 cc58–134; Lord Ampthill, HL, 16 December 1921, vol 48 cc135–217.

36. HC, 15 December 1921, vol 149 cc133-258. Ironically, such rhetoric is deeply evocative of the contributions of anti-Treaty speakers in the Dáil where the settlement was ritually condemned as a “a Treaty of surrender, subjection, servitude, slavery”; see, for example, the contribution of J.J. O’Kelly in Dáil Debates (henceforth, DD), 22 December 1921.

37. HC, 14 December 1921, vol 149 cc48–124.

38. HL, 16 December 1921, vol 48 cc135–217.

39. See note 27 above.

40. HL, 15 December 1921, vol, 48 cc58–134; HL, 16 December 1921, vol 48 cc135–217.

41. Lord Farnham, HL, 16 December 1921, vol 48 cc135–217.

42. HL, 14 December 1921, vol 48 cc5–56; see also, Sir Hamar Greenwood, HC, 15 December 1921, vol 149 cc133–258.

43. See note 27 above.

44. See note 37 above.

45. Loughlin, Labour and the Politics of Disloyalty, 22.

46. Rupert Gwynne, HC, 15 December 1921, vol 149 cc133–258.

47. Colonel Gretton, HC, 15 December 1921, vol 149 cc133–258.

48. HC, 14 December 1921, vol 149 cc48–124; see also, Sir John Butcher, Ibid.

49. See, for example, the Marquess of Salisbury, HL, 16 December 1921, vol 48 cc135–217.

50. See, Harkness, “Ireland,” 114–34.

51. Manela, Wilsonian Moment, 40.

52. See note 38 above.

53. Salisbury, “Disintegration”, 559–95.

54. Manchester Guardian, 17 June 1921.

55. See note 27 above.

56. Ibid.

57. HL, 15 December 1921, vol, 48 cc58–134.

58. Silvestri, “The Sinn Fein of India,” 461; and Gallagher, “Nationalisms and the Crisis of Empire,” 355.

59. Rear Admiral Thomas Adair, HC, 14 December 1921, vol 149 cc48–124.

60. HL, 15 December 1921, vol, 48 cc58–134; see also, Lord Sydenham, HL, 16 December 1921, vol 48 cc135–217.

61. For more on the significance of anti-socialism in inter-war Conservative party politics, see Green, Ideologies of Conservativism, 114–134.

62. Churchill, The Great War, 1520.

63. DD, 1 March 1923.

64. Ronald McNeill and Stephen Gwynne, HC, 15 December 1921, vol 149 cc133–258.

65. Peatling, “Home Rule for England,” 71–90.

66. Colley, Britons, 5.

67. Hechter, Internal Colonialism.

68. Colley, Britons, 6.

69. See note 27 above.

70. Ibid.

71. Ibid.

72. Aughey, “On Britishness,” 46–48.

73. Dicey, England’s Case Against Home Rule, 16–17.

74. Amery, The Case Against Home Rule, 63.

75. Pakenham, Peace by Ordeal, 356.

76. HL, 15 December 1921, vol 48 cc58–134.

77. See note 31 above.

78. See note 27 above.

79. Times, 10 October 1920; and Balfour, “A Note on Home Rule,” 43.

80. Curtis, Apes and Angels; and De Nie, The Eternal Paddy; and Nelson, Irish Nationalists.

81. Bell, Reordering the World, 96.

82. Davies, The First English Empire, 113–41; Gillingham, “Images of Ireland,” 16–22; and Bowden, The Empire of Civilisation, 133, 218.

83. Kumar, English National Identity, 84.

84. Arnold, Celtic Literature, 11.

85. Kerr, “Empire to Commonwealth,” 83–98.

86. See note 32 above.

87. Stephen Gwynne, HC, 15 December 1921, vol 149 cc133–258.

88. See note 57 above.

89. See 32 note above.

90. See note 38 above.

91. See note 27 above.

92. Brinkley, “Dean Acheson,” 599–608.

93. See note 57 above.

94. See note 28 above.

95. Ibid.

96. General Dockell, HC, 15 December 1921, vol 149 cc133–258.

97. See note 38 above.

98. HC, 15 December 1921, vol 149 cc133–258. It is worth noting that although Macquisten called the Treaty “a wonderful thing”, he did not vote to ratify the instrument “because of the treatment of Ulster.”

99. See note 27 above.

100. Ibid.

101. See note 76 above.

102. Hopkinson, Green Against Green, 112–114.

103. HC, 26 June 1922, vol 155 cc1693–811.

104. Hopkinson, War of Independence, Kindle Location 303–314; and Fanning, Fatal Path, Kindle Location 844–913.

105. Irish Independent, 10 June 1922.

106. Report from Michael MacWhite to Minister for Foreign Affairs, 1 March 1922, UCDA, Michael MacWhite papers P194/202.

107. Fanon, Wretched of the Earth, 148–206.

108. Howe, Ireland and Empire; Kenny ed., Ireland and the British Empire; and MacDonagh ed., Was Ireland A Colony?

109. Bigand, “End of the Empire,” 9–25.

110. Fitzpatrick, “Ireland and the Empire,” 494.

111. Gillespie, “Explorers, Exploiters and Entrepreneurs,” 152.

112. Colley, “Britishness and Otherness,” 314.

113. Kumar, “Nation and Empire,” 575–608.

114. See note 76 above.

115. Garvin, 1922, 52.

116. Churchill, HC, 15 December 1921, vol 149 cc133–258.

117. Alfred, 1st Viscount Milner, “Credo”, Times, 27 July 1925.

118. Gilbert, The Stricken World, 450.

119. See note 38 above.

120. Kendle, Federal Solution, 235.

121. DD, 19 December 1921.

122. For an informed, critical introduction to this approach, see Howe, “Internal Decolonization?” 286–304.

123. See note 38 above.