Politics in the irish free state: the legacy of a conservative revolution

Abstract

This article is based on the premise that the social and political foundations of the geopolitical entity known as the Irish Free State was of a conservative nature, unique in Western Europe. Of course, conservative forces also featured prominently in the early twentieth-century in other European countries. However, they were counterbalanced by forces of opposition sufficiently powerful to generate a social and political balance that was practically nonexistent within the Irish Free State. When exploring the root cause of Ireland's conservative politics, I identify an ideological connection between the lack of radical forces in the Irish Free State and the revolution through which it was established. In other words, the 1916–23 Irish Revolution indisputably laid the foundations of the ideas that were to become the dominant ideology in southern Ireland during the 1920s and 1930s.

Notes

 See Dáil Debates, 2 (1 March 1923): 1909.

 P. S. O’Hegarty, The Victory of Sinn Féin (Dublin: The Talbot Press, 1924), 3–5.

 The phrase “civil disobedience” was used for the very first time by the American radical philosopher, Henry David Thoreau. As a general rule, it refers to any act of non-violent resistance to authorities, laws or policies considered as unfair or pernicious for the well-being of humanity. However, civil disobedience can also be a means to use pressure to obtain reforms meant to enforce democracy, social justice and human rights. In addition to Thoreau, Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King were to be among the most prominent followers of the tenets of civil disobedience. Although not as famous as the latter, Arthur Griffith's theories were nevertheless to influence Gandhi and his disciples. For a brief introduction to the tenets of civil disobedience, see for example Dictionnaire de la pensée politique [Dictionary of Political Thought] (Paris: Hatier, 1989), 172–4. On Arthur Griffith and civil disobedience, see Sean O’Luing, “Arthur Griffith (1871–1922): Thoughts on a Century,” Studies 60 (1971): 127–8.

 Arthur Griffith, The Resurrection of Hungary: A Parallel for Ireland, with Appendices on Pitt's Policy and Sinn Féin (Dublin: Whelan and Son, 1918, orig. 1904), 80, 89, 139–64.

 Ibid., 123–6, 142–50.

 While Sinn Féin could boast 128 branches throughout the country at the peak of its popularity in 1909, on the eve of the 1916 Easter Rising, only one central branch in Dublin was still active through its press organ, Nationality. See O’Hegarty, The Victory of Sinn Féin, 7; Tom Garvin, The Evolution of Irish Nationalist Politics (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1981), 116–7.

 O’Hegarty, The Victory of Sinn Féin; Michael Laffan, “The Unification of Sinn Fein in 1917,” Irish Historical Studies 17 (1970–71): 357–9.

 Laffan, “The Unification of Sinn Féin in 1917,” 368, 375–6.

 The December 1918 General Elections saw the victory of the separatist candidates in 73 constituencies out of 105 over the Irish Parliamentary Party which won only six seats as against 83 during the previous polls held in 1910. See Brian M. Walker, Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801–1922 (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1978), 177–82, 185–91.

 D. George Boyce, Nationalism in Ireland (London: Routledge, 1995), 322–3; Liz Curtis, The Cause of Ireland (Belfast: Beyond the Pale Publications, 1994), 309–10.

 On the domestic front, the political domination of the separatist movement reached its peak in January and June 1920 when Sinn Féin won the various local elections by a wide margin. It was also during the year 1920 that the IRA took over up to 21 counties. See André Guillaume, L’Irlande: une ou deux nations? [Ireland: One or Two Nations?] (Paris: PUF, 1987), 109; Roger Faligot, La Résistance irlandaise, 1916–2000 [The Irish Resistance, 1916–2000] (Rennes: Terre de Brume, 1999), 22.

 O’Hegarty, The Victory of Sinn Féin, 35–6.

 On the Arbitration Courts set up by the Dail, see Mary Kotsonouris, “Revolutionary Justice: The Dáil Eireann Courts,” History Ireland 2(3) (1994): 32–6.

 As an example, it is interesting to note that, on 4 June 1920, the Freeman's Journal published a list of all the police and judicial activities led by the IRA and Sinn Féin, between 15 April and 2 June 1920. See Freeman's Journal (4 June 1920): 3.

 The 1903 Wyndham Act gave the tenants the opportunity to purchase their own farms, by means of loans repayable to the State over 68 years at 3.25% interest. Through this major land reform several centuries of landlordism formally came to an end, for which was substituted peasant proprietorship. See Elie Halévy, Histoire du peuple anglais au XIX ^e siècle—Epilogue I: Les Impérialistes au pouvoir (1895–1905) [History of the English People in the XIXth Century—Epilogue I: The Imperialists in Power] (Paris: Hachette Littérature, 1975, orig. 1926), 374–7.

 Patrick Lynch, “The Social Revolution That Never Was,” in The Irish Struggle (1916–1926), ed. Desmond Williams (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), 47. On the original Democratic Programme, see “Thomas Johnson's draft of the Democratic Programme as submitted at their Request to the Sinn Fein Leaders, January, 1919,” in Thomas Johnson's Papers (MS 17124) available for consultation in the National Library of Ireland. On the modifications made to the original draft, see for example the article about the Democratic Programme written by one of the Labour leaders of the time, Cathal O’Shannon, “The 1919 Democratic Programme,” The Irish Times (31 January 1944): 1, (2 February 1944): 3.

 Erhard Rumpf and Anthony Hepburn, Nationalism and Socialism in Twentieth Century Ireland (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1977), 24–5.

 David Fitzpatrick, “The Geography of Irish Nationalism,” Past and Present 78 (1978): 119.

 That the Dáil courts gave judgment in favour of the landlords occurred, notably between 15 April and 2 June 1920, on six occasions out of at least 17 land disputes, recorded by the Freeman's Journal on 4 June 1920 with only one verdict being returned to the advantage of each litigant. As for the other trials, the Irish daily merely mentioned the fact that they had been held. See Freeman's Journal (4 June 1920): 3. On this topic, also see Emil Strauss, Irish Nationalism and British Democracy (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1975), 265; Curtis, The Cause of Ireland, 327; Ronnie Munck, Ireland: Nation, State, and Class Struggle (London: Westview Press, 1985), 103.

 Faligot, La Résistance irlandaise, 22–4; Arthur Mitchell, Labour in Irish Politics, 1890–1930 (Dublin: Irish University Press, 1974), 136–7; John A. Murphy, Ireland in the Twentieth Century (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1975), 10–1; John Hoffman, “The Dialectic Between Democracy and Socialism in the Irish National Question,” in Ireland: Divided Nation, Divided Class, ed. Austen Morgan and Bob Purdie (London: Ink Links, 1980), 141–3.

 Lynch, “The Social Revolution,” 41; Francis Costello, “Labour, Irish Nationalism, and the Social Order During the Anglo–Irish War,” The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 17(2) (1991): 16.

 Murphy, Ireland in the Twentieth Century, 9; Costello, “Labour, Irish Nationalism, and the Social Order During the Anglo–Irish War,” 13.

 In January 1919, the IRA could count on 29,196 men within the framework of the coming War of Independence. Besides, this popularity was never to flag during the next three years since the separatist army could boast a membership of 112,650 volunteers on the eve of the Civil War. See Fitzpatrick, “The Geography of Irish Nationalism,” 129; John O’Beirne-Ranelagh, “The IRB From the Treaty to 1924,” Irish Historical Studies 20 (1976–77): 33.

 As an example, during the Limerick general strike which saw the establishment of a soviet by the workers between 13 and 27 April 1919, the IRA contributed to supply the city secretly with food. On the Limerick Soviet, see Connor Kostick, Revolution in Ireland: Popular Militancy, 1917–23 (London: Pluto Press, 1996), 70–88; James Kemmy, “The Limerick Soviet,” The Irish Times (9 May 1969): 14. It was also in County Cork that, during the War of Independence, a certain number of IRA men—most of the time as individuals—sporadically sided with workers on strike or farmers in conflict with their landlords, especially when the latter were protected by the British army. See Peter Hart, The IRA and its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916–23 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 146–7; Tom Barry, Guerrilla Days in Ireland (Tralee: Anvil Books, 1969), 17.

 Ernie O’Malley, On Another Man's Wound: A Personal History of Ireland's War of Independence (Boulder: Robert Rinehart Publishers, 1999, orig. 1936), 323.

 In this respect, Connor Kostick reveals that, following a social dispute in County Meath which turned to the agricultural labourers’ advantage, despite the intervention of the IRA on behalf of their employers, the Meath Farmers’ Union began collecting money for the republican militiamen, henceforth regarded as allies. Kostick also recounts how the IRA contributed to eradicate in June 1922 the soviets established by workers in County Tipperary. See Kostick, Revolution in Ireland, 188–9.

 Ibid., 179–98; Tim Pat Coogan, The IRA (London: Pall Mall Press, 1970), 47–8; Pierre Joannon, Histoire de l’Irlande [History of Ireland] (Paris: Plon, 1973), 272–3.

 The June 1922 General Elections saw the victory of the pro-treaty faction of Sinn Féin—led by Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith—with 58 seats out of 128 as against 36 only for their anti-treaty rivals—led by Eamon de Valera. In addition to the various Sinn Féin candidates, there were 17 Labour members of the Dáil, seven Farmers, six Independents and four Unionists from Trinity College. See Walker, Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 104–8.

 In this respect, it must be noted that the Cumann na nGaedheal government led by William Cosgrave also got support from the shop-keepers, the major national dailies—the Irish Independent, Cork Examiner and Irish Times—and the various Churches. See Terence Brown, Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, 1922–1985 (London: Fontana Press, 1985), 45.

 Isabelle Rufflé, Du néocolonialisme au dragon celte: Croissance et dépendance de l’économie irlandaise au XX ^e siècle [From Neocolonialism to the Celtic Tiger: Growth and Dependency of the Irish Economy in the XXth Century], PhD thesis, University of Rennes II (France), December 2002, 35, 41–2, 53. On the social background of the Cumann na nGaedheal voters, also see Tom Garvin, “Nationalist Elites, Irish Voters and Irish Political Development: A Comparative Perspective,” Economic and Social Review 8(3) (1977): 177–9; Peter Mair, “Labour and the Irish Party System Revisited: Party Competition in the 1920s,” Economic and Social Review 9(1) (1977): 64.

 Ibid., 34.

 Richard English, Radicals and the Republic: Socialist Republicanism in the Irish Free State, 1925–1937 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 86–95.

 As early as November 1917, de Valera had admitted that the separatists would be unable to liberate the country without the help and support of the workers. Hence this appeal made by the president of Sinn Féin to labour: “We ask labour to join with us to free the country … When labour frees this country—helps to free it—labour can look for its own share of its patrimony.” See Irish Opinion (1 December 1917): 4.

 This last point is well illustrated notably by the desperate housing conditions in Dublin City. According to the 1926 census, there were over 800,000 people in the Free State living in overcrowded dwellings, most of which were located in the slum tenements of North Dublin City. Such unhealthy housing conditions inevitably resulted in a high infant mortality rate in Dublin. Similarly, when the old age pensions were reduced in 1924, many pensioners were left in harsh living conditions from that time on. To that one may add the fact that, by 1929, the number of unemployed highly increased as a consequence of the American slump which led many Irish emigrants to return to the motherland. See Rufflé, Du néocolonialisme au dragon celte, 49; Brown, Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, 16.

 See Dáil Debates, 9 (30 October 1924): 562.

 The 1920s emigration rate was thus twice as high as those of the 1900s and the 1910s put together. See Rufflé, Du néocolonialisme au dragon celte, 49.

 Quoted in Michael Adams, Censorship: The Irish Experience (Dublin: Scepter Books, 1968), 48.

 Ibid., 49.

 Garvin, “Nationalist Elites, Irish Voters and Irish Political Development,” 179.

 According to the Dictionary of Political Thought, there are two major types of populism. The first, referred to as agrarian populism—which appeared in Russia and in the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century—is a set of radical doctrines and movements supposed to represent the socioeconomic interests of a peasantry victimized by urban elites and economic modernity; hence their propensity to glorify the community traditions inherent in rural life. Another kind of populism takes on a political form, the advocates of which usually appeal to the people as a whole—as opposed to a particular social class—whose interests they claim to represent. See Dictionnaire de la pensée politique, 610–3. We may safely infer from this that Fianna Fáil undoubtedly drew in many respects its ideological inspiration notably from both agrarian and political populisms, as it is succinctly hinted—among other examples—in the following passages taken from its 1932 electoral programme: “We pledge ourselves further not to use our majority to pursue a vindictive course against any minority, but to govern fairly in the interests of all sections of the community … We believe also in the ruralisation of industry, not in its concentration in large cities.” See The Irish Press (12 February 1932): 5.

 De Valera, to quote but one significant example in this respect, stated on 26 October 1927: “We have, as an ideal towards which we will work, the ideal that the individuals who are living in the country should have the fullest life possible, that they should not be merely wage-slaves or simply spending their lives to make money for somebody or other.” See Dáil Debates, 21 (26 October 1927): 397.

 See The Nation (27 August 1927): 4. On the attack on banking by the official organ of Fianna Fáil, also see The Nation (16 April 1927), (5 October 1929): 2, 4.

 Thus stated for instance Gerry Boland on 2 November 1927: “In Russia, at any rate, they treat labour on a human basis, not as a commodity to be bartered about … They took into consideration the human element.” See Dáil Debates, 21 (2 November 1927): 694.

 See The Irish Press (6 February 1932): 7.

 Kieran Allen, “Forging the Links: Fianna Fail, the Trade Unions and the Emergency,” Saothar 16 (1991): 48.

 By November 1931, the official organ of the Irish Trade Union Congress and Labour Party, The Watchword, was convinced that: “They (Fianna Fáil) will be advocating the Labour Party programme in its entirety before long.” As a result of that conviction, just a few weeks after Fianna Fáil had won the February 1932 General Elections, it was decided that: “The Party … will give general support to the new Government in dealing with economic and social questions, such as unemployment, housing, widows’ and orphans’ pensions, transport, and the strengthening of the industrial and agricultural position of the country—where the measures introduced are not in conflict with the policy of the Labour Party.” See The Watchword (21 November 1931): 5 and (2 March 1932): 1.

 See The Irish Press (13 May 1932): 5.

 Kieran Allen, Fianna Fáil and Irish Labour: From 1926 to the Present (London: Pluto Press, 1997), 16–21.

 Ibid., 25–6.

 Among other significant examples, we can quote the following extract from a lecture delivered in January 1931 by the Fianna Fáil Senator, Joseph Connolly: “I believe in a Christian Social State and that the absence of Christianity from the every-day life of Christians is the root cause of all our social problems and misery.” See The Nation (31 January 1931): 2.

 On this topic see, for example, Pierre Milza, Les Fascismes [Fascisms] (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1991), 304–16; Jean-Christian Petitfils, La Droite en France: de 1789 à nos jours [The Right-Wing in France: From 1789 to the Present] (Paris: PUF, Coll. “Que sais-je?”, 1994), 7, 106–9, 112–4; François Borella, Les Partis politiques en Europe [Political Parties in Europe] (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1986), 100, 135–6.

 In September 1929, de Valera went as far as to state that “Fianna Fáil could do for Ireland what fascism did for Italy.” See The Irish Independent (16 September 1929): 3.

 Allen, Fianna Fáil and Irish Labour, 34.

 Ibid., 15–22.

 A fact which was admitted by Fianna Fáil's official organ notably on 9 July 1927: “Although not technically a workers’ party, they (Fianna Fáil) are mainly so, and they have certainly been elected by the workers.” See The Nation (9 July 1927): 7.

 On the different conservative hues, see notably Anthony Giddens, Beyond Left and Right: The Future of Radical Politics (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994), 23–59; Andrew Heywood, Political Ideas and Concepts: An Introduction (London: The Macmillan Press, 1994), 286–93; Andrew Heywood, Political Ideologies: An Introduction (London: The Macmillan Press, 1998), 66–102; Nigel Ashford and Stephen Davids, A Dictionary of Conservative and Libertarian Thought (London: Routledge, 1991), 45–51; Noël O’Sullivan, Conservatism (London: Dent and Sons, 1976), 22–31.

 On the Constitution of Ireland enacted by the People on 1 July 1937, see “Tithe an Oireachtais: Houses of the Oireachtas,” Available at: http://www.oireachtas.ie/ViewDoc.asp?fn=/home.asp. (16 August 2004).

 It must be noted that the oxymoron “conservative revolution” is also used to refer to two schools of thought. The first was launched in 1918 by German intellectuals who questioned the ideological legacy of the Enlightenment which was to be embodied notably in the liberal and capitalist Weimar Republic forced on Germany, according to them, by her enemies after World War I. What they aimed at was to re-establish the position of spiritual and temporal leadership as enjoyed by Germany in Europe at the time of the medieval Holy Roman Empire. The second ideological movement which sought to bring about a “conservative revolution” was initiated in the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1970s as a reaction against not only state interference in economic and social affairs but also what was considered to be the 1960s permissive society. The Anglo–American conservative revolutionaries therefore stood for unregulated capitalism and the restoration of moral values. See, for example, Roger Woods, The Conservative Revolution in the Weimar Republic (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996); Tim Hames and Andrew Adonis, A Conservative Revolution? The Thatcher–Reagan Decade in Perspective (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994).

 On this topic, see for example Olivier Coquelin, La Révolution conservatrice: Genèse idéologique de l’Irlande politique et sociale, 1800–1923 [The Conservative Revolution: Ideological Genesis of Political and Social Ireland, 1800–1923], PhD thesis, University of Rennes II (France), June 2004.