The Irish Paradox

The new Irish Republic is a recent phenomenon that emerged through years of rebellions, in-fighting, and surges of nationalism that have been ever-present since the repeated English incursions onto the previously independent island, most recently made into a de jure union during the Acts of Union in 1801 and defended by British forces with violence, most prominently during the late atrocities committed by the Black and Tans shortly before the establishment of the Irish Free State (Jackson 1999, 255). One can hardly wonder how and why the nation would want its independence from an oppressive governmental regime that would use its own paramilitary forces upon its own subjects, but even though Irish Nationalism was certainly a significant force in uniting the Irish in creating such an independent nation, one must also recognize that even within the Irish ranks, divisions and violence as well as religious differences have made Ireland both a nation united over nationalism and divided over the terms of nationalism and religion. While place such as Wales or Scotland have accepted large parts of the English culture, Ireland remain adamant in staying defiantly Irish, even if its efforts in retaining this Irishness was not without conflict, and in many times, ended in disastrous bloodshed. It have created a strange paradox where while foreign rule have been strongly opposed via sometimes extreme violence and protest, but even domestic rule have been not without trouble, sometimes even more intense than that of the violence against the foreign occupiers (Jenks 1948, 48). The Irish propensity to assert not only independence but also an absolute ideology to be asserted upon its fellow countrymen showcased the fierce Irish drive to create a unified identity and sense of self that it had lost for much of the middle and post renaissance era.

Early Independent Ireland and the Normans in Ireland

Prior to 1166, when the Norman Invasion of Ireland, Ireland's independence certainly did not conform to the modern definition to independence, evolved from nations and kingdoms into sovereign states following the Westphalian concept of sovereignty in 1648 (Foster 1989, 40). Instead, as medieval states, the island of Ireland was a collection of states that shared the Celtic heritage but were all "sovereign" nations within their own, as to having its own leaders and a social hierarchy (Lydon 1998, 46). Perhaps as a the Irish national identity, at this moment, have yet to be established, as loyalty was more based on land owned by each family rather than the king, who held more of a police-esque power and also held the power to mobilize troops, resulting in wars (Lydon, 69). The lack of a common enemy made the Irish isolated until the arrival of the sea-faring Vikings (Lydon, 20).

The Vikings were originated from the fjords and surrounding areas in Scandinavia - the word "vik", still a last name in Norway, means "stone channels in the sea". The Vikings raided extensively for land and trade rights and eventually, took over territories as overlords, claiming duchy titles and even kingships, as the case of William the Conqueror of England (Freeman, 8). Despite the fact that Viking raids on Ireland have been a semi-constant event since the 700s, serious attempts to take over Ireland and claim overlordship did not occur until Viking - later Norman- Kingdoms were established in neighboring England and Wales (Lydon, 78). Internal strife in Ireland, most notably between the fight for favors in the court of the "High King of Ireland", a title virtually created out of nothing but by the 1100s, held enough power to be considered a significant political force (Boyce, 29). When the chief of Tyrone was exiled in 1166, he requested help from the Normans, who had just conquered Wales (Lydon, 80).

Led by both the brute force under the leadership of Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl Pembroke, as well as intermarriages, the Normans were able to hold considerable territory in Ireland, with only pockets of resistance (Boyce, 89). However, this resistance formed the first, albeit vague, sense of Irish nationality, even if it was based on an island and not as a nation-state. While technically, the invasion was based on the blessing of the Papal Bull, issued by Adrian IV, in order to cleanse Ireland's corrupt church, in reality it was a traditional Norman landgrab, as it had done in Normandy, Wales, Kievan Rus, and anywhere else they were able to maintain a foothold (Lydon, 24).

In 1171, Henry II Plantagenet, the King of England, landed in Ireland. The pope at the time Alexander III granted Henry the right to become the King of Ireland, creating the first "unified" Kingdom of Ireland (Taylor, 14).

Early Resistance and Irish Malcontent in the Middle Ages

While the English were Norman and Anglo-Saxon, the Irish were, at least at this point, Celtic, and the two very different systems obviously caused strife between the rulers and the ruled. The titular "King of Ireland" was kept, but actual power fell to local lords such as the Luke of Leinster (Lydon, 37). The Norman settlers soon lost the majority of support from the English crown, as issues more pressing such as Scotland came about. This gave opportunity for the first, unified Gallic attempt at reasserting a unique, unified Gallic Ireland, free of English outsiders. Scottish leaders such as Robert the Bruce in 1315 actively encouraged the Irish attempt at fighting off the Norman occupiers, and despite the famous loss Robert incurred that ended his rebellion, it also allowed the Irish, not directly involved in the matters on the island of Britain, to regain much of their territories that had been lost (Lydon, 84). The lack of English support made the Irish gain significant footholds, under a nativist banner, and pushes the Hiberno-Normans back to "The Pale" - an area near Dublin, by the late 1400s (Foster 127). As the English presence in Ireland was beginning to become neglected due to the War of the Roses, the War with Scotland, and the War with France, as well as diplomatic intrigue involving major European powers, the "backwater" that was Ireland was able to start to consolidate a common identity against outside invaders (Lydon, 96). The lack of support from London made inhabitants of The Pale "more Irish than the Irish" by the 1500s (The Irish Times 2003); and while the British king retained the title "King of Ireland", it was, much like the later "King of France", a title retained until the Napoleonic Wars, autonomy was maintained to a large degree when the king was unable to attend to Irish affairs (Womersley, 70). An Irish parliament was kept since the 1200s and while for the large part became a pawn of The Pale and English whims, it nevertheless established a "unified" nationalist legislature, slowly changing Ireland from a feudal, fragmented island into one with unified systems of government (Lydon, 91).

Elsewhere, powerful families such as the Earls of Kildare and Leinster were now able to control far more land than before, bucking a trend where small kingdoms ruled smaller areas and relied of subsistence farming (Lydon, 109). Without a nation, there can be no "true nationalism", and while the Earldoms were certainly not nations in the present-day sense, they certainly were proto-governments that represented an experiment in uniting Ireland into a legible and recognized common state, with a common people and a common heritage.

The Bloody 17th Century and the start of Irish Unity

While "nationalism" might be too strong of a word to describe what happened after the Anglican reformation, the 1536 break between the Church of England and the Catholic Church marked another schism in Ireland (Lydon, 227). Once again, the English were intent on making Ireland, nominally English, into a part of the English Anglican Empire, and the Tudors started a reconquest in Ireland (Bagwell, 441). Henry VIII, the king at the time, upgraded the Kingdom of Ireland into a full kingdom under his dominion, giving him both de facto and de jure power to exercise power over Ireland (Bagwell, 443). At a time where large swaths of Ireland remained traditional, Catholic, and away from English rule, English rule in Ireland was tenuous at best outside of The Pale (Bagwell, 450). A resistance movement, not exactly unified in action but certainly unified in goal, attempted to take over the Ireland overtaken by the Normans, and led by Irish noblemen - especially from far away lands such as Kerry and Mayo - have been largely successful, but the military power of Henry VIII was unmatched in Ireland and soon as the leaders of the anti-Tudor faction were systematically executed, or exiled. "Silken Thomas" FitzGerald was a notable example of execution (Lydon, 107).

A policy of "Surrender and Regrant" was imposed by the Tudors, which demanded that traditional Irish lords surrender their lands until they swore allegiance to the king, after which their land was returned (Foster, 69). In practice, the Irish spirit of rebellion made the policy largely one on paper, as the lords in Ireland violated the policy left and right (Lydon, 133). As King Henry died and a constitutional crisis loomed, rebellions broke out, led by the de facto leaders of Ireland such as the Earl of Leinster (Lydon, 140). At the same time, private wars for control broke out in earnest. The Earl of Ormond defeated the Earl of Desmond in 1565 over the right to land succession (Bagwell, 25). The Desmond Rebellions that followed shortly thereafter, first in 1569, when an earnest attempt at ousting the Tudor presence was finally launched, although in the end, failed as not enough Irish men were able to defeat the English (Bagwell, 47). In 1579, another Desmond Rebellion was started, and this time, it was a far bloodier affair. This rebellion gained considerable support from different earls of Ireland and even received Papal military support, the first serious and religious attempt at uniting both the Irish under the Papal banner in military oust a protestant force (Lydon, 141). However, the Papist forces were slaughtered in 1580 and popular support quickly lost steam as the rebellion failed (Lydon, 150).

The Irish desire to drive out the English coincided with both their desire to maintain their own choice of religion - Catholicism - as well as a growing sentiment that a rebellion against a growing power such as England must be completely with the help of more than just a few lords and their private armies. The next attempt at an organized resistance was the Nine Years' War, led by the powerful Earl of Tyrone from the north, and stated in 1594 (O'Connor, 151). This time, with the aid of a trained army under the unified commands of Tyrone and Hugh O'Donnell, they were able to score a victory against the English, a rarity that boosted the moral of the Irish (O'Connor, 153). However, promised Spanish military aid landed in Kinsale, forcing Tyrone to break the English siege. By then the year was 1601 and attrition took its toll on the Irish as the Spanish were defeated, allowing the English to negotiate a peace on favorable terms (O'Connor, 160). The Penal Laws were finally enforced at this time, disbarring Catholics from holding offices or joining the English military (Lydon, 260). Lord Deputies of Ireland would be uniformly Protestant, and open Catholic mass was outlawed, effectively enforcing the Anglican doctrine upon Ireland by force overnight.

The Irish still had problems regarding where their allegiances lay. Many farmers went home to tend to corps by the time the Battle of Kinsale happened, greatly reducing Tyrone's ability to wage war, and so far, not one rebellion stated by an ethnic Irishman have succeeded (O'Connor, 161). Instead of granting amnesty and try to appease the people of Ireland, James I of England's deputies in Ireland started to encroach upon the native lords such as Tyrone, who ultimately fled to Europe with O'Donnell in 1607 (O'Connor, 157). The effective decapitation of the rebellions of Ireland left the island with vacuums to fill, vacuums that included confiscated land and the lack of an effective, recognized leadership, both of which would continue to cause both in-fighting and war against the English in the centuries to come.

In Laois and Offaly, plantations were set up in 1556 as an attempt to Anglicize the Irish (Foster, 313). This, of course, also caused a significant amount of localized violence that was not resolved until the English were able to massacre the displaced families in 1578 (Foster, 333). Serious attempts at introducing English colonists to expropriated plantations came in 1580, in Munster, and Ulster in 1590, partly to punish the Irish but also partly to create cash-cropping that would provide income to a nation competing with colonial powerhouses such as the United Provinces or Spain (Lydon, 149). The Munster example was a failure as poor survey work as well as the lack of English colonists allowed for the plantation to be quickly overran by the forces of Tyrone in the Nine Years' War (O'Connor, 154).

The Ulster plantation, however, was a different example. The landowners in the area, after the Nine Years' War, fled the country, leaving the land effectively under the control of only the crown, and the ascendency of Charles I, a Catholic, also eased tensions, even for just a bit (Lydon, 223). However, the overambitious attempt by Charles to supersede the powers of the Parliament and wage unpopular wars against Presbyterians in 1639 in Scotland caused the English Civil War, partially because Charles wanted to use Catholic soldiers of Ireland in the conflict (Purkiss, 74). The conflict ultimately caused the decapitation of Charles I in 1641 and started the English Commonwealth, but the drive to maintain Ireland as a part of the English system remained (Purkiss, 79). Meanwhile, the Irish, led by landowners of Ulster to the north, preemptively attempted to stop the usage of Irish troops in the war in Scotland in 1641 and rebelled, hoping for a bloodless coup (Lydon, 203). However, the assumed immediate backlash of the English during a time of great uncertainly in England caused a massacre of the settlers by the rebels, as the leaders of the rebellion once again, lacked the ability to maintain leadership. The tradition of Irish in-fighting continued as throughout 1681 - 1682, rebels slaughtered protestant soldiers and civilians alike (Lydon, 255).

The Irish rebellion was, in many ways a religious one. The king was dead, and the power vacuum allowed for the wealthy Catholic landowners, once again united under the banner of both independence of sovereignty and religion, to draft a constitution and declare Ireland a confederacy (Lydon, 300). The confederate constitution was a royalist one, as the one thing the Irish feared more at this point was the protestant invasion that would not only enforce Anglicanism but also turn Ireland back into a dependency of the English Parliament, with no members representing Ireland at the time. While Pope Innocent X sent an envoy to deal compromises between the schism that was evident and volatile between the Protestant policies and the Catholic demands, ultimately, too much concession was given to the Protestants and Ireland for all intents and purposes remained a vassal nation of England, terms unacceptable to the Irish nation, now much more nationalistic after fighting a common enemy for centuries (Manganiello, 275). The next six years were spent as the Irish confederacy attempted to take over Ireland by force, and nearly succeeded, leaving only Ulster, Dublin, and Cork in English possession (Lydon, 300). However, the control of such ports made foreign intervention difficult, and the confederacy, acting largely on its own, was unable to breach the defenses of a well-trained English army in these places.

In 1648, the end of the first English Civil War spelled the end of the first unified attempt at creating an independent, constitutional Ireland, although the confederate nature of the state made it hard or any organized resistance against Oliver Cromwell and his Parliamentarian Army. The Irish Confederate Wars that united, at least vaguely, the nation was over, but the Parliamentary Army was a force to be reckoned with and required a new alliance of the confederated states to rise to the challenge (Foster, 121). However, the Parliamentary Army was far stronger and much more brutal than any force seen before, massacring civilians and quickly defeated the weakened and still rebuilding confederate as well as royalist forces (Foster, 125). Despite Papal support and a previously unseen level of cooperation between the different Earldoms, the lack of experienced tacticians and numerical disadvantages ultimately led to the fall of the Ulster Army, Limerick, and finally, Galway in 1651. By then, Ireland was effectively conquered for the first time by the English in whole (Lydon, 260).

The Irish at this point - finally able to be considered a unified entity instead of separated duchies or earldoms - were treated harshly by the English. Although this had "positive" effects, namely solidarity and the recognition of an Irish identity on a political a military basis, the ability for Ireland to truly contend in the international arena while it was still considered a backwater Catholic island would come in the centuries to come, and the Irish Parliament was still a Protestant-only affair.

Cromwell's reforms were drastic. Confiscation, transportation, and all sorts of harsh measures were imposed upon participants of the confederacy (Lydon, 275). However, one very important change occurred during the Act of Settlement of 1652 - combatants for the confederacy were considered legal combatants (but not the 1641 rebels). The 1662 settlement that came after the restoration of the monarchy, gave back some of the lands confiscated, but was equally harsh on the leaders of the rebellion (Lydon, 277). While the age during which all such bloodshed happened was one of bloody punishments and methods of execution considered today inhumane, the belittlement of Irish rights even when it supported the loyalist cause certainly only increased the rift between the Irish and the English. Furthermore, the favoring of the Old English Catholics in The Pale over the Gallic Irish around the nation undoubtedly was an unpopular measure as well.

Before the decade was over, more conflicts were to be fought over Ireland, and once again over religion. James II, the new English king, was popular in Ireland, as he was Catholic and garrisoned Ireland with Catholic troops. However, his popularity in England itself was shaky at best and in a Protestant nation, and after the birth of his son, putting another Catholic successor to the throne of an Anglican nation (Ashley, 9). William of Orange, Stadtholder of the United Provinces, was viewed as the ideal candidate. His mother was the daughter of Charles I, and his wife was the daughter of James II (Ashley, 13). Most importantly, however, they were both Protestant. An invasion was planned, and where better than Ireland, the stronghold of Catholicism. An invasion to take over the English throne, in religious flux since Henry VIII, was undertaken (Ashley, 70).

William attacked Ulster first, the strongest point in Ireland. English and Scottish were actually the defenders, and while they were loyal to James, they were also poorly armed and were in no shape to fight a well-organized army, allowing the Siege of Derry to be carried on through spring until the French King Louis XIV intervened. For a brief moment, James became the King of the Catholic Kingdom of Ireland - a parliamentary, not an absolute one, of course - but it did not last long as William definitively defeated the Jacobites at the Battle of Boyne in 1690 and the Protestant faction took definitive power on the English throne (Lydon, 211-215).

The Victorians, Religion, and Nationalism

The ascension of William marked a definitive split between a period of extreme violence - with Ireland and Irish Catholics losing virtually all of the battles - as well as a period of time compromise (Lydon, 220). The Parliament repealed some of the Penal Laws by the late 1700s and early 1800s, especially giving the right to vote to Catholics, as well as the purchasing of free land (Jackson, 59). Violence during this time was largely confined to the complex wars of succession in Europe, and the most significant event of the era would be the Act of Union in 1801 which made Ireland officially a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (Jackson, 23). De facto annexation and English rule as a colony have existed for centuries, but to be directly a part of the home islands of the UK both prevented serious rebellions from happening easily - a la America - and at the same time, allowed for a greater amount of interactions between the islands. The economy of Ireland now became both dependent and profitable based on the cross-channel trade with ports such as Blackpool, Liverpool, and Bristol (Lydon, 370). In 1798, The United Irishmen, an organization founded with the principles of the American and French revolutions, attempted a rebellion, but were once again crushed by the British (Lydon, 271-275). The French promised to help and even sent a warship loaded with troops, but were unable to land due to weather, and therefore unable to aid the feeble cause of the nascent organization, but not before massacres and atrocities have been committed by both sides, especially on religious grounds (Jackson, 20). The Act of Union also dissolved the Irish Parliament outright, but allowed Irishmen to be elected into the English Parliament (Lydon, 290-291). The move both allowed more representation for Irish rights - at least on paper at first - as wells tied Ireland and England politically, making any attempts at creating an independent Irish Parliament harder due to the lack of an existing framework native to Ireland, as there was before. As the Victoria era approached, the roots of Irish Nationalism have started to become not only a clear-cut concept, but also one that had its share of successes, failures, martyrs, and certainly became a troublesome issue for the Parliament with its frequent uprisings and grievances, not to mention the religious difference, now filtering through into ports on the west coast of Great Britain. The migrants are largely poor, unskilled, and arrived to either book passage to America or Canada or do menial labor as maids or cleaners (Scally, 193). While the integration of the different sorts of persons in the kingdom certainly was a preferred sight, the migrants did not simply bring their physical selves, but also their cultural selves, especially in major towns like Liverpool. The difference between the Liverpool and Manchester natives and the newly arrived Irish certainly stood out in the bustling industrial towns at the start of the industrial revolution (Scally, 111).

Just by mere virtue of being different, from a nation that have had a nationalist bent for centuries and even enjoyed times of independence, nationalism began to flourish in earnest. Despite the best efforts to Anglicize the Irish, the Irish identity survived, especially in the early waves of immigration to the New World, starting in the early 1800s. The attempt to integrate Ireland into a unified identity encompassing the United Kingdom can certainly be called a failure. While harsh measure such as English education flourished and in the later part of the century, great poets such as Nobel Laureate William Butler Yeats, produced some of the finest English-language poetry ever written, there never existed in the British Isles an idea of a "United-Kingdom-ian" (Jackson, 300). Gallic education was largely neglected, and the British used the most grassroots of methods - education - to Anglicize Ireland into a part of its dominion, dominated by wealthy, English landowners while most of the Irish still lived in dilapidated shacks, barely worthy of being called a house (Scally, 20). One must also recognize the fact that land was largely owned by the few elite, who had now expanded into Ireland and built manors and then leased the land out, via middlemen, to farmers, from whom a tax of collected, the landlord was often absent (Lydon, 294). While the landlord certainly had an air of authority by mere right to own the land, his subordinates, in many cases, were unpopular and even if they might be Irishmen themselves, they certainly gained no favor from the farmers they collected taxes from.

The Famine, Malcontent, and Parnell's Vision of Home Rule

The absentee owners, however, were able to evict the farmers who occupied the land, especially during the potato famine of the 1840s (Scally, 107). Potatoes were, at the time, the most space and calorie efficient food crop, and for the smaller and smaller plots of land divided from generation to generation as the Penal Laws only allowed for the equal division of one's land to all of one's sons, cash-cropping became secondary to survival as there was barely any land to grow crops at all (Jackson, 75). When the potato crops began to fail, the first to starve were obviously the subsistence farmers, who ventured out looking for work (Jackson, 79). Yet, even cash-croppers needed food, and the absentee landlords were more intent on evicting non-producing farmers rather than provide aid for the sake of future production (Scally, 109). Further, the local Poor Laws Union demanded payment for each worker toiling on each farm, making it highly unprofitable to for landlords, many of themselves not exactly in the best of financial situations, to evict workers and instead, consolidate farms that in many cases, had no workers to work in, further exacerbating the famine (Scally, 110).

As Ireland was not yet as industrialized as England, each farming slump produced more and more mortgage for the owners of the estate, which in turn, increased the amount of loans, interests, and ultimately, the ability to run the estates at the previous capacity. Migrant workers who needed no lodging and did not qualify for almshouses were the first to go, but by 1847, two years into the famine, even the established yeomen farmers were forced off their land by the crown due to their inability to pay rent. The evicted were sent to Britain or its dominions to eek out a living, with little more than the clothes on their backs. The British government, recently indoctrinated with the esteemed Adam Smith, decided to attempt a complete laissez-faire non-intervention policy, allowing cattle and produce to be exported when the local population was unable to afford such luxuries (Jackson 63-64). Private charities were also encouraged, instead of government-led organizations, and the quality and quantity of such charities in an era where private enterprise and private, secular charities were still in a state of infancy certainly were not as effective as one would expect in regards to the system Smith proposed. Later, the Corn Laws - import tariffs designed to keep disallow cheap, foreign corn from flooding the British market, were repealed in 1849, catching the last year of the famine (Lydon, 300). However, the effects of the law were minimal at best when applied, as it became more of a political squabbling point in Parliament between the defenders of the rights of the commoners and the rights of the estate-owners. By 1850, the importation of corn had indeed provided much more staples for the consumer at a lower price, and agricultural wages have also increased. The repeal of the Corn Laws, an important step in trial-and-error laissez-faire versus protectionism, ultimately did not help the famine much, but it did gave rise to a middle class, able to work in urban environments, which also included the Irish that moved to Albion and set the stage for at least the financial and social gathering points to exercise the nationalism that had existed for so long, especially aggravated by the terrible atrocity that was the potato famine (Jackson, 85).

While theories abound on how the famine got out of hand, the facts remain that the death toll from the famine was extraordinary, a humanitarian disaster. The inability for the British government to help Ireland significant - despite significant donations given by individuals including the Queen - spurred another rebellion in 1848 - the Young Irelander Rebellion (Jackson, 48-58). The timing coincided with a wave of liberal rebellions in Europe such as France, Prussia, Austria, and Baden, but the Irish were, once again, acting almost impulsively and passionately, attacking police and once again, only saved by the actions of a clergyman (Jackson, 61). The Young Ireland movement attempted to repeal the Act of Union, but even though the organization garnered considerable support and even published a newspaper for three years especially during a time where famine limited the ability for commoners to take up arms and fight, once their desire to peacefully secede from the UK fell into an armed conflict, the movement quickly died out (Lydon, 300). The Irish, by the late 1800s, has a common enemy, and for some, a common goal, but their enemy was the most powerful nation in the world at the time, and small rag-tag bands of Irish revolutionaries - a feature since the early days of anti-British sentiment involving farmers and now involving students, simply had no ability or power to challenge the greatest empire on earth with guns and cannons alone. The famine of the 1800s, while devastatingly destroyed the already feeble image of the British administration, also left the nation in a state lacking resources for immediate independence from the British, requiring a different approach to slowly gain self-rule, the ultimate goal since the first Plantagenet invasion of Ireland under Henry II. The Irish, never won a single revolution against the British, needed to use the Parliament and politics, and a Home Rule Party, started by Isaac Butt in 1873 (Jackson, 110). The party's method of attempting to create an independent Irish State, not an ad hoc confederacy without any planned central leadership, marked a significant and serious attempt at garnering support for the Irish independence movement (Foster, 181). Home rule, strictly speaking, was not complete independence, but more a form of autonomy while still maintaining links to the United Kingdom. The Irish were beginning to think more pragmatically rather than their previous policy of rebellion after rebellion, but it still needed a strong leader who could assert control in Parliament and garner popular support as well as make strong, well founded arguments for Irish self-rule. This man, an MP from Meath and later from Cork, was Charles Stewart Parnell (Jackson, 137).

Parnell was far more of an extremist than Butt, and soon ousted Butt in 1877 as the head of the Home Rule League (Jackson, 140). Despite the fact that Parnell was not a great public speaker, he nevertheless had the foresight and negotiation skills that incited confidence amongst its supporters (Lydon, 314). He also restructured the infamously loosely confederated Irish spectrum into one that was orderly and created the first party whip in Parliament (Lydon, 318). By 1882, the previously loose movement have been transformed into the Irish Parliamentary Party, and held significant seats in the Parliament in London (Lydon, 317). Parnell knew that solidarity in the newly-formed party would require harsher measures than previous customs in dealing with the composition of political parties. Parnell's party demanded an oath and was far more of a "militaristic" party with specific goals in mind than the previous political parties such as the Whigs or the Conservatives (Jackson, 141). However, even though the party was organized much like a small-scale military, Parnell, like Butt before him, realized that a full out armed rebellion against the Britons was unwinnable, so he used the charisma he was able to win in Parliament to enact sweeping changes that pitted the new but organized party against the Whigs and Tories in a serious challenge. Parnell focused on allowing the Irish Catholics to own land once again, and supported the establishment in Ireland of an Irish National Land League, created to reclaim confiscated lands taken by the Protestants in Ireland. Benjamin Gladstone promptly declared the act illegal and arrested the leaders of the movement, including Parnell (Jackson, 140). After being released, instead of sinking into obscurity, Parnell redoubled his efforts in restoring Irish rights by forming the new National League in late 1882 (Jackson, 141). For all intents and purposes a part of the Irish Parliamentary Party, the National League was focused on grooming potential MPs that favored the Irish home rule cause (Lydon, 314-316). The result was less than satisfactory as the only important achievement Parnell was able to attain was to put the concept of "home rule" on the agenda of Parliament, as well as organize a small but dedicated Irish faction, intent on restoring rights and property lost to the English during the hundreds of years of warfare before.

Parnell's early death in 1891 prevented him from gathering more support for a peaceful home rule in Ireland before the turn of the century, and without the charismatic and headstrong leader, the Irish Parliamentary Party no longer posed the same threat as it did a mere decade ago. Instead, while the seeds of home rule via land reform - namely the transfer of previously confiscated lands from Protestant hands to Catholic hands - took hold by 1900 (Lydon, 316). Seventy-six nationalists were voted into Parliament, establishing support for home rule in the highest echelon of the British government. Soon, tenant farmers and cooperative farms started to appear in Ireland, on land previously owned by the crown or Protestants (Foster, 200).

It was unfortunate that even before the premature death of Parnell, two factions - the Parnellites and the anti-Parnellites were already at odds against each other. Their differences were small and petty, mostly over the divorce proceedings of Katharine O'Shea, Parnell's married mistress. The public outcry created two parties that had basically the same goal - home rule - and it was not until 1899 when moral outcry died after the death of Parnell and Irish MPs took control of the Parliament in overwhelming numbers would the transition from British rule to home rule appear peaceful for the first time since the Norman Invasions (Lydon, 316). Although Parnell was unable to see his vision completed, his grandiose foresight in encouraging home rule via political reasons finally at least bore fruit, even if Europe hinged on the edge of the First World War, plunging the entire continent, including Ireland, into chaos.

War, Easter, Black and Tans, and Civil War

The Irish finally gained an upper hand in controlling its own fate by 1912. The Parliament Act of 1911 allowed the House of Commons to override the decisions of the House of Lords by delaying the vote by two years, allowing the majority Irish House of Commons to finally pass the Third Home Rule Bill in 1914, giving home rule to Ireland in the form of a bicameral parliament, partial participation of Irish MPs in Westminster, while allowing a Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to remain in power in Ireland (Jackson, 162). The bill gave Dublin the power to rule over Ireland.

However, immediately, the Protestants of Ulster rebelled and armed themselves, demanding the exclusion of the terms of the home rule. The Ulster Union Party was vehemently against Catholic rule, and the Nationalists demanded solidarity on the island (Jackson, 236). Negotiations between the two sides ended with neither side satisfied with the result, and while no violence broke out for the time being, Ireland was divided into the Protestant Ulster North and the Catholic South on a "temporary basis" by late 1914, at the eve of WWI (Jackson, 212).

As a part of the British Empire, many Irishmen joined on the side of the British, but not all were in favor of fighting against a nation they did not consider their own. After years of negotiating a peaceful transition of power, the Easter Rising of 1916 in Dublin, started by a rag-tag local army that quickly proclaimed an independent Ireland free from British rule, took over Dublin, but was quickly defeated six days later in bloody manner by British reinforcements (Foster, 238). While the rebels were not received popularly initially, the harsh and violent treatment of the rebels by the British set the tone for the volatile relations between Ireland and Britain. The fifteen years of negotiated peace after Parnell's death had come to an end.

The British were unable to capture all of the leaders of the uprising, namely de Varela, Collins, and Brugha, and these leaders were to become the key players in the later war of Irish Independence. The Irish people rallied behind the militant Sinn Fein party after the following election, and the party won overwhelmingly in 1918 during the Irish Parliamentary elections (Lydon, 342-343). After the end of WWI, Sinn Fein declared the independence of Ireland once again, and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) was formed, just in time to counter the British forces, nicknamed the Black and Tans (Lydon, 366). With atrocities committed by both sides and the aftermath of WWI still fresh in the minds of the soldiers, the government in London quickly drafted and passed a fourth Home Rule Bill in 1920, giving Ulster to the Protestants and the rest of Ireland to the Catholics (Lydon, 275).

In late 1921, the British government finally allowed an Irish Free State to obtain independence (Jackson, 256). The Anglo-Irish treaty allowed for Ireland to become a self-governing dominion of the UK, while still under the nominal suzerainty of the British king (Jackson, 257). The proposed treaty split Ireland once again, creating a rather displeased IRA side, who wanted to see the entirety of Ireland united as one nation (Lydon, 310). The President de Varela was anti-treaty, while Michael Collins, his compatriot during the Easter Rising, was in favor of the treaty (Jackson, 270). The key point of whether Ireland should be a dominion or a republic was the key dispute and caused the ensuing Civil War, as per Irish tradition almost.

The treaty was ratified in 1922, and the war between the pro-treaty and anti-treaty forces started almost immediately. The civil war was to last a month and incur more casualties than the War of Independence (Lydon, 348). Neither side wanted to be embroiled in a war so quickly after the signing of the treaty, but the stubbornness of the Irish and their split between Collins and de Valera ultimately made some sort of confrontation unavoidable (Lydon, 330). The 1922 election in Ireland gave the Pro-Treaty party the majority and power at the same time. De Valera and Sinn Fein, however, rejected the results and were prepared, in traditional Irish fashion as we've seen, to take over the Free State and create an Irish Republic (Jackson, 340).

The ideal was bold, and in an ironic twist, the Free State allowed their former enemies, the British, to support their efforts in their civil war (Jackson, 395). The Free State criticized the British aid in both material goods as well as the recruitment by the Free State of ethnic Irishmen who were veterans of WWI. However, such words were unable to incite much support for the Republicans as the Free State forces quickly defeated the much more underarmed and underfunded anti-Treaty IRA. The caveat emptor, of course, was that the A in IRA stood for Army, and guerilla fighting led by paramilitary units simply continued. Collins was killed in an ambush by the guerillas, but by then, despite the best efforts of de Varela, the Free State effectively controlled the majority of the island (Lydon, 361).

Following the de facto victory, in a prime example where there in war, there are seldom good or bad sides, only victors and losers, the Free State committed some of the greatest military atrocities seen in Ireland during the modern era. The Free State government enacted a "Public Safety Bill", as a way to counter the guerilla activities, in late September, 1922 (Lydon, 341). However, by the time the bill came into force in mid October, the war was effectively over save for isolated guerilla contacts, and the captured anti-Treaty Nationalists were treated not as prisoners of war, but rather, criminals (Lydon, 342).

Firing squads were used at first, sometimes for minute crimes. In response, the IRA started to execute captured Free State soldiers (Jackson, 285). Revenge killings were carried out en masse by both sides during December (Jackson, 294). The Free State also executed prisoners of the war, numbering around 80, between December and February (Lydon, 340). Even after the war ended officially on May 24, 1923, unofficial executions continued. In one of the more famous incidents, Republican soldiers were used as human landmine detectors (Jackson, 300). The brutality and inhumane acts of the assertion of the Irish Free State, while certainly did not aid in its popularity, did indeed establish itself as the sole, recognized government of Ireland. The IRA continued to fight against Northern Island today, following the agenda of having one united Ireland. Factionalism in Ireland still exists, just as the old days, under the same ideologies. The Provisional IRA's attacks on Northern Ireland, branded as terrorist acts by the British government have been sporadic since the establishment of the Irish Republic in 1949. Even though senseless violence - occasionally against civilians - certainly cannot be praised, the fighting spirit of the Irish and their stubbornness in holding onto their independence.

The Irish Spirit

The Irish might be viewed as a paradoxical ethnicity. Ireland doesn't merely fight outside invaders - Vikings, Normans, or the English. They also fought amongst themselves, outwardly a sign of internal trouble and discontent, with different kingdoms, especially prior to the Norman Invasion, attempting to assert power via in-fighting. Later, as the pro-Treaty and anti-Treaty sectors of the escalated into senseless atrocities committed in broad daylight under the most inhumane conditions, it might seem that by the 1920s, the Irish nation was not a truly unified entity, more content on attacking each other for power and prestige rather than the governing a prosperous nation and benefitting its citizens on a grander level, on par with international standards. The Free Staters fought for independence - or at least self-rule - and the Unionists fought for unity with Northern Ireland, both basic tenants of the Irish identity but the cause of a bloody civil war. While the factions certainly had their own priorities, both values have been a part of the Irish spirit and culture. Even though they come into conflict on occasion, for the most part, the Irish desired both unity and independence, and were not afraid to use force or political intrigue to achieve such means.

The Irish showed remarkable unity when a common enemy presented themselves. Ireland had never been a powerful nation militarily, especially compared to its neighbors such as England or France. However, the solidarity it could muster in times of crisis has been amazing. The Irish had no qualms in either assimilate its invaders - as it had done to the Old English in The Pale - or ignore the orders of the invaders completely, as the more powerful Earls have done under the Tudors' "Surrender and Regrant" policy. While this inevitably led to war, conquest, and a myriad of failed conquests, the fact that such anti-occupation actions were continually being undertaken despite bloodshed and more and more restrictive policies placed upon Ireland showed a perseverance and stubbornness that, while not yet explicitly stated, showed a desire for a unified Ireland. Independence and unity are the two tenants of Irish nationhood, and countless Irishmen have defended these principles to the death, all during internal wars to assert a unified stronger state within Ireland, and perhaps even the entire island.

The Irish spirit also rested in religion. Ireland was one of the first Catholic nations in the world, and the wars regarding religion during the reformation ravaged Ireland. However, Catholicism was not the only religion in Ireland - Protestantism took root and became a significant part of the Irish landscape during the end of British rule. While conflicts between the two remained, the desire for both sides of the religious divide - both Irishmen - to maintain their own choice of religion shows a clear, independence desire to keep one's religion. The Irish have not shied away from asking for religious help from other nations to gain back independence, but all of these efforts have failed, resulting in even more British influence in Ireland, and leaving areas such as Ulster for British Protestant colonizers to take over in numbers.

Yet, the Irish were resilient, and while militarily they were unable to compete against the English, they used the English laws against them in aiding their cause for independence. Certainly, a large number emigrated, but many stayed and worked the land as their ancestors did, despite increasingly oppressive laws such as the Penal Laws. The Catholic Irish, by the end of the Williamite Wars, were content on using the policy of Anglicization to their advantage. The Act of Union in 1801 was used ultimately by powerful leaders such as Parnell to ensure home rule. The small rebellions that occurred during the 1700s and the famine of the 1800s made Ireland a burden, and while the famine became a humanitarian disaster, it certainly had a role in the increased sympathy towards the Irish. Parnell and his cohorts took advantage and organization and by using an English Parliament staffed by Irishmen, effectively started the process for self-rule. The Irish War of Independence in the early 20th Century also showed the shrewdness of the Irish, coming at a time where the English were weary of another devastating war.

Yet, even the atrocities committed during the chaos of the war were certainly a part of the Irish spirit of independence and "unity". The Unionists wanted a united Ireland, one that have not existed for centuries, while the pragmatic Free-Staters were focused on the existence of an autonomous state, which later did become a fully independent nation after all. While the issues regarding the division of Ireland have yet to pass, the paths Ireland took to ensure autonomy and independence showed the spirit of the Irish, even if in practice they came in conflict. The desire and perseverance in avoiding foreign rule, not only by warfare but also political chicanery, also showed as a part of the Irish spirit of independence and unity. The Irish refused to become just another plantation and colony of their much more powerful neighbor, nor would they be absorbed into a nation with a different cultural and historical heritage than themselves. As of today, their independence and work towards unity show the indomitable spirit of the Fighting Irish, a force, as the British have learned, to be reckoned with.

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