The Irish Revolution, 1916-1923 (11 page)

One of the most striking features of the conscription crisis was the leadership role adopted by the Roman Catholic Church. A week before the enactment of the conscription bill, the Irish bishops issued a statement warning the government against the proposed measure
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. Local Catholic churches became the focus for much of the campaign of opposition. On Sunday, 21 April, almost two million people signed the anti-conscription pledge outside church gates. On the same day special masses were held in churches where congregations prayed ‘to avert the scourge of conscription’, and parish priests spoke out vehemently against the action of the government. Some even went so far as to incite violence; Father Gaffney, parish priest of Virginia in County Cavan, held that people were justified in shooting those who tried to enforce conscription, and Dr McGinley of Letterkenny in County Donegal felt that passive resistance was a last resort (Travers, 1983: 173).

Many Irish church leaders had initially supported the British war effort, in sympathy with the Belgian Catholic population. However, by mid-1916 they were becoming alienated by British rule in Ireland and felt that the imposition of conscription without public support was unjust. This was compounded by Lloyd George's initial failure to exempt priests and clerical students, a position which was later reversed but not before the damage had been done. The principal reason why church leaders took such a strong guiding role in the campaign against conscription was to ensure that the movement stayed under their control and did not descend into violence and bloodshed. An immediate result of the passing of the Conscription Act was a massive influx of members to the Irish Volunteers, along with the other republican bodies Sinn Féin and Cumann na mBan. Without some form of moderate leadership to channel nationalist anger, the Irish hierarchy feared an armed uprising in Ireland and a repeat of 1916 (aan de Wiel, 2003: 224–30; Travers, 1983).

The extent of opposition made conscription unenforceable in Ireland. Yet, the government never repealed the legislation and the threat remained there
until the end of the war in November 1918, though realistically by May it was clear that it could never be applied. The defeat of conscription was a major embarrassment for Lloyd George and his government's Irish policy. The conscription crisis cemented the rise of Sinn Féin, with the party's membership increasing by almost one-third by mid-1918. The close association between the party's leaders and the Catholic hierarchy added an important aspect of legitimacy to it.

While the IPP had also played a prominent role in the campaign against the enforcement of conscription, it received very little credit from an electorate which criticised it for failing to defeat the passage of the bill in Parliament in the first place. In order to defeat the application of conscription it was forced into an uncomfortable alliance with Sinn Féin. This nationalist unity was short-lived, with Arthur Griffith winning another important by-election for Sinn Féin against the IPP in Cavan East in June 1918. This was the last by-election held before the end of the war and the general election that followed it in December 1918, a contest that would complete the process of Sinn Féin's replacement of the IPP as the largest nationalist party in Ireland (Laffan, 1999: 146–9).

The conscription crisis consolidated further the progress made during 1917 in re-establishing Sinn Féin and the Irish Volunteers after the Rising. All republican organisations, including Cumann na mBan, experienced a massive surge in membership and activity. In Cork most Volunteer companies ‘doubled in size almost overnight’ (Hart, 1998: 239). Many of these proved to be fair weather republicans and by the summer of 1918 had faded away along with any serious threat of conscription. Nevertheless the conscription crisis was an important stage in the radicalisation of the military wing of the republican movement, which had begun to arm itself to defend the country against conscription and became more dedicated to resorting to violence in pursuit of Irish independence (Augusteijn, 1996: 85).

Not long after the effective defeat of conscription a former soldier, who had been a prisoner of war in Germany and recruited to Casement's unsuccessful Irish brigade, was arrested in County Clare, sparking wild rumours of a German conspiracy involving Irish republicans. Despite very flimsy evidence of a German plot the British Government ordered the arrest of senior Sinn Féin members, 73 of whom were seized on 17–18 May, including de Valera and Griffith, but not the up-and-coming leaders such as Michael Collins, Richard Mulcahy and Harry Boland. Collins's mole within the British intelligence system had forewarned him, but de Valera chose imprisonment for its propaganda value (Ward, 1974: 118–19).

The effect of the German plot arrests on Sinn Féin has been equated with the party having been ‘beheaded’. Most of its senior leaders were interned, including the moderate wing represented by Griffith. Effective control of the
party now fell to the more radical republican cadre of Collins, Mulcahy and Boland, who were closely connected to the Irish Volunteers and the IRB. As the military men gained the upper hand, the likelihood of the revolution taking on more of a military than a political form increased (Laffan, 1999: 145–6). If the German plot arrests represented an act of revenge by the government on Sinn Féin for the humiliation of conscription, the long-term effect was counter-productive.

THE 1918 GENERAL ELECTION

The incarceration of Sinn Féin's leaders failed to prevent the party from completing its takeover of Irish nationalist politics at the general election which eventually took place in December 1918. Sinn Féin had been preparing for the election since July and spent the latter half of the year recruiting suitable candidates. The standing committee of the party controlled nominations and in the absence of the more moderate leaders, Collins and Boland appear to have exerted influence in ensuring the choice of IRB members in some cases. Three women were selected – Constance Markievicz in the St Patrick's Division of Dublin, Winifred Carney (Belfast Victoria) and Hanna Sheehy- Skeffington, although the latter declined the offer. By the end of the war in November 1918 a full slate of candidates had been decided upon (Laffan, 1999: 153–5).

An important part of Sinn Féin's preparations for the election was the compilation of a manifesto and once again the radical republican influence of Boland, Collins and Father O’Flanagan was visible
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. It dedicated the party to achieving an independent ‘Irish Republic’. This was to be achieved by withdrawing from Westminster and establishing in its stead in Ireland ‘a constituent assembly comprising persons chosen by the Irish constituencies’. It also included a commitment to pursue Ireland's claim for independence at the post-war peace conference. The most significant phrase in the document was the commitment to use ‘any and every means available to render impotent the power of England to hold Ireland in subjection by military force or otherwise’. This was a deliberately vague wording that could later be construed as representing a mandate to pursue independence by military as well as political means.

The 1918 general election was ‘one of the greatest electoral landslides in western Europe in the twentieth century’ (Coakley, 1995: 31). The result – 73 seats for Sinn Féin, 6 for the IPP and 26 for the Unionists (mostly in Ulster) – signalled the completion of the process whereby Sinn Féin replaced the Irish Party as the political representative of nationalist Ireland. This trend was personified by the defeat of the IPP's leader, John Dillon, by de Valera in
Mayo East, where the latter took two-thirds of the votes cast in a constituency represented by Dillon since 1885, and in which he was only opposed on one previous occasion in the acrimonious 1892 election than followed the Parnell split. Indeed the IPP's performance was even weaker than its six seats would suggest. Only two of those – Joe Devlin in Belfast Falls (who soundly defeated de Valera, winning 72 per cent of the vote) and William Redmond in Waterford City – were won in outright contests with Sinn Féin. Devlin had one of the strongest personal political machines in the country and Redmond was defending the seat held for many years by his late father and party leader, John Redmond, and while there was still residual Redmondism there he had less than 500 votes to spare over his Sinn Féin opponent. The remaining four seats were effectively ceded to the party in Ulster constituencies where a pact was agreed with the assistance of local Catholic bishops to ensure that the nationalist vote would not split and gift seats to unionists (Laffan, 1999: 160–8). The election of the veteran T. P. O’Connor in Liverpool, the only IPP MP elected outside Ireland, brought its parliamentary representation to seven.

The fact that the IPP was in a position to nominate candidates in many Ulster constituencies was an indication that the party retained a stronger hold on nationalist political sentiment there and that Sinn Féin had failed to make the same inroads in the north as it had in the south during the previous two years. The electoral pact between Sinn Féin and the IPP in Ulster makes it difficult to gauge the true electoral strength of either party; however, in constituencies where the pact did not operate and unionists were returned, the Irish Party tended to gain the greater portion of the nationalist vote. In the only constituency where voters failed to abide by the terms of the pact, Down East, the IPP candidate came second ahead of the Sinn Féin representative (Hepburn, 2008: 199). This constituency provided a good example of why the bishops and some nationalist politicians agreed the electoral pact. The combined nationalist vote was 8,238, but because it was split the seat was ceded to a unionist who polled 6,007.

The resilience of the Irish Party in Ulster can be explained in part by the fact that it faced serious political competition in the form of organised unionism, so had not become lazy and apathetic as it had in the southern constituencies where it had not faced any serious electoral opposition since the Parnell split. Unlike the United Irish League (the party's local organisation in the south), the Ancient Order of Hibernians had remained strong and active in the north under the tutelage of Devlin, whose
Irish News
was also an important source of support for the party within the Ulster nationalist community. Sinn Féin's policy of abstention from Westminster also concerned many nationalist voters, who feared the prospect of an imperial Parliament legislating for Ireland in which the only serious Irish political representation would be unionist.

Sinn Féin's resounding victory is usually seen as the most significant outcome of the 1918 general election. However, the contest was also important in consolidating unionist political dominance in Ulster. Of the 30 seats in the six counties that would become Northern Ireland, 23 were won by unionists, including three Labour Unionists. Devlin was the only nationalist to be returned among the nine Belfast City MPs. The confinement of unionism to Ulster was also confirmed by the fact that only two unionists were returned for southern constituencies, the University of Dublin (Trinity College) and the Rathmines division of Dublin City, where the combined nationalist vote was only 54 votes behind the successful unionist candidate, Maurice Dockrell.

The resounding success of Sinn Féin can be explained by a number of factors. First, the election was held under the first-past-the-post electoral system;
proportional representation by single transferable vote
favours smaller parties and could have helped the IPP. The fact that Sinn Féin only won 47 per cent of the votes cast is sometimes cited as detracting from the extent of its victory. However, this does not take into account the large number of southern constituencies that were uncontested because the IPP was simply unable to field candidates. Twenty-five Sinn Féin candidates were returned unopposed in republican strongholds like counties Kerry and Cork. Had these constituencies been contested it is likely that Sinn Féin would have enjoyed substantial majorities. In contests in the 26 counties that would become the Irish Free State, Sinn Féin's share of the vote rose to almost 65 per cent. Therefore, the number of uncontested seats meant that the figure for Sinn Féin's proportion of the vote distorted the party's true level of support. While 25 might appear to be a significant number of seats to have been conceded without a contest, the 1918 general election was in fact one of the most hotly contested since the Parnell split and in fact a higher number of seats were contested than in any election since 1892; in the preceding general election in December 1910, 63 of the 101 Irish constituencies had not been contested and only 19 of the 44 by-elections held in the meantime were contested.

Proportional representation by single transferable vote (PRSTV)
: An electoral system based on multipleseat constituencies, in which voters vote numerically in order of preference (1, 2, 3 . . . ), and votes are allocated accordingly until all seats are filled. Favours smaller parties.

Between 1910 and 1918 there had been a major reform of the franchise which benefited Sinn Féin and which explains also the dominance of unionists in Ulster. The Representation of the People Act (1918) extended voting rights to all adult males (not just householders) over the age of 21 and women over 30 if they or their husbands were on the electoral register for local elections, resulting in the Irish electorate almost trebling from 698,000 in 1910 to 1,931,000 in 1918. Because of the unusually long time between the general elections a significant number of voters from 1910 had passed away and it is estimated that about 70 per cent of the 1918 electorate were first-time voters. As such the IPP had probably lost some of its traditional voters and many of the new young voters had no existing affiliation. The byelection campaigns of 1917 and 1918 also showed that Sinn Féin was more
likely to attract support from the youth. The franchise extension necessitated a redistribution of seats. In Belfast, where the number of seats rose from four to nine, this was seen as favouring unionists (Laffan, 1999: 151; Hepburn, 2008: 198).