Sinn Fein and the IRA
Irish journalist Arthur Griffith (survivor of 1916) founded the Irish Nationalist Society Sinn Fein, which means ‘We Ourselves’, in 1905. It is the political arm of the IRA.
The surviving rebels from 1916 went to prison. Upon their release, they and many others joined the Sinn Fein Party. Sinn Fein wanted independence for Ireland and they said Ireland should be a free republic.
The popularity of Sinn Fein increased after the Easter Rising of 1916 because the British Government made another mistake, (the first being the ruthless executions of the rebels) by imposing martial law on Ireland and imprisoning people such as Arthur Griffith. As a result in 1917 Sinn Fein won two parliamentary by-elections and by the end of 1917, there were about 250,000 members of Sinn Fein.
In May 1918, the British Government did not learn from their mistakes and instead tried to introduce conscription (compulsory time in military service) into Ireland. John Dillon, the new leader of the Nationalists, said to British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, “All of Ireland will rise against you”. He was right, when the Irish Nationalists heard his proclamation they walked out of Westminster and alongside Sinn Fein setup an anti-conscription campaign.
In 1918, there was a British General Election in which Sinn Fein won 73 seats out of 105 that were set aside for the Irish MPs in Westminster and the older Nationalist Party only won 7. The Sinn Fein MPs refused to go to Westminster, and setup a new parliament in Dublin called the Dail, who’s President was a survivor from Easter Rising of 1916 called Eamon de Valera. It was becoming clear that Sinn Fein was adopting the role of the leading opponents of British rule in Ireland.
Michael Collins (another survivor from 1916) organised volunteer soldiers into the Irish Republican Army, (the new name for the Irish Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteers) who in January 1919 carried out an attack on two policemen of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) which killed them. The British arrested Republican leaders and banned all talk of independence. However Collins escaped from prison and began a guerrilla war against the British-‘War of Independence’ and he organised murder squads, bombings and spying, this continued throughout 1919. In September 1919, the British Government banned the Dail and Sinn Fein but the IRA continued its attacks on the RIC.
The British Government recruited about 7,000 ex-soldiers to form a special force nicknamed the ‘Black and Tans’ to support the RIC and end the IRA’s violence. They were brutal in their methods. The Auxiliaries were created in 1920 to replace those officers who were resigning from the RIC. They were made up of ex-army officers and were an ill-disciplined and violent group also.
By 1921, both sides were tired of fighting so Lloyd George offered to split Ireland into two parts, the North and the South and he produced a signed treaty on 6th December 1921. Michael Collins, the military leader of the IRA, accepted even though he knew many in Sinn Fein would not accept the partition. Eamon de Valera refused to accept the treaty which resulted in Sinn Fein splitting up into groups, the pro-treaty group led by Collins and the anti-treaty group led by de Valera. There was a bloody civil war between the Republicans (De Valera’s group) and the Free State Government, (Collins was chairman of the provisional government) that lasted from June 1922 to May 1923. Michael Collins was killed during the war in 1922.
Eventually after 4 years of conflict a truce was made and there was an uneasy peace in Ireland because many Republicans were still bitter and felt, Ulster should never have been allowed to remain within the United Kingdom. Plus Protestant Unionists would not agree to a united independent Ireland so Ireland remained divided.
An Uneasy Truce
In 1932 Eamon de Valera became Prime Minister of Ireland and he introduced a new constitution in 1937 which called for a united Ireland and said Northern Ireland had no right to exist. It was in that same year that the Irish Free State was renamed Eire. During the Second World War 1939-45 Eire refused to contribute and declared itself a neutral country but Eire helped Northern Ireland with the worst effects of the bombing raids. Another change which occurred was in 1949, Prime Minister John Costello took Eire out of the British Commonwealth and the country became the Republic of Ireland on Easter Monday, 18th April 1949.
After the treaty of 1921, the Protestant Unionists wanted to keep Northern Ireland linked to Britain. They always made sure they kept economic and political power in Northern Ireland. The police (the Royal Ulster Constabulary-RUC) recruited extra forces to maintain security, these men were known as the ‘B Specials’ who were violent and treated Catholic Civilians unfairly.
Protestant Unionists dominated politics in Northern Ireland because Ulster would always send a majority of Protestant MPs to Westminster, and most of the Northern Ireland Parliament was made up of Unionist MPs. They had control in local councils as well. It was hard for poor Catholics to get on the electoral roll because votes were only given to householders and property owners. Electoral Ward boundaries were fixed to give Unionist candidates the best chance of election success so they would become the Councillors. Therefore Protestants were given better jobs and homes meaning Catholics found it difficult to get a council house, decent jobs or education. The health services and transport in Catholic areas were worse than in Protestant areas too. Many Catholics in the North felt like second-class citizens.
In 1963, the Homeless Citizens’ League was formed to end the injustices done to Catholics which later became known as the Campaign for Social Justice. Terence O’Neil, the new Unionist Prime Minister of N. Ireland, promised reforms to help Catholics but these reforms were slow to come so the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) was formed in 1967. They organised protests and marches to complain about their treatment.
The first Civil Rights march took place in August 1968, and it was a peaceful rally but on the 5th October 1968 violence broke out in the march in Londonderry between the marchers and outraged Protestant Orangemen. The march was broken up by the RUC who beat the marchers with their batons as they charged into the crowd.
In early 1969, the Catholics built barricades to protect themselves from all the violence and riots because they now felt that they could expect no protection from the police (RUC) who were seen to be biased to Protestants. The Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV) tried to discredit Catholics by blaming the IRA for some terrorist explosions which damaged electricity and water supplies to Belfast. In reality they were the work of the UPV who were making the Catholics appear to be vandals and terrorists.
In 1969, the Provisional IRA split from the official IRA because they were committed to military action to drive out the British and the other IRA wished to re-unite Ireland by peaceful means. In the beginning there were about 30 Provisionals in Belfast but they soon grew in numbers and became the main force behind Irish Nationalism.
Marches held by the Protestant Orange Order and the Apprentice Boys increased the violence in Derry in August 1969 because riots broke out and the police became involved in the riots again. The fighting between Catholics and Protestants got out of control, consequently after two days of rioting, Chichester Clark, the new Prime Minister of N. Ireland (Terence O’Neil resigned in April 1969), asked the Government in Westminster to send in British Troops to restore order.
The Provisional IRA began a terrorist campaign and the troops had to start searching Catholic houses for weapons and suspects and so the violence continued into the 1970’s. In February 1971, the first British soldier was killed (Ensign Robert Curtis) by an IRA gunman. As the violence increased, The British Government sent in more troops but in August 1971 the Stormont Government decided to use internment (imprisonment without trial). Brian Faulkner thought that internment would make people think twice before joining in on the fighting; instead it just worsened people’s anger.
Nearly all the arrests made, about 1600 by December 1971, were Catholics. The Provisionals who posed as the defenders of Catholics were soon controlling Catholic streets and these became ‘no-go’ areas for the police and army. The Protestants had soldiers too, the Ulster Volunteer Force and a new group called the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) formed in early 1972.
Bloody Sunday 1972
A Catholic Civil Rights march was planned to take place on 30th January 1972, in Londonderry, to demand the end of the internment policy, because it was discovered by The Compton Commission that conditions the internees were kept in were immoral and unhealthy. After the introduction of internment marches had been banned but people were determined to go ahead with it anyway. The march began fairly harmlessly until crowds gathered at the army barriers and started stone throwing to which the army responded with water cannon and rubber bullets. As the fighting intensified, firing began and British Troops fired on the crowd, killing thirteen civilians and wounding many others. This is known as Bloody Sunday. Although the British swore that it was fired on first therefore fired back, marchers said that the army fired the first shots. As a result of the horrific event the British army was no longer seen as peace keepers but as an occupying force, who was mostly interested in looking after the Protestants. There was no Home Rule for Northern Ireland and the IRA gained support and sympathy overseas, particularly from the USA.
Violence on all sides was out of control. The IRA carried out a series of bombing campaigns; in 1972 the IRA bombed pubs in Birmingham, killing 19 and injuring 182 and in 1973 Harrods was bombed in London. Northern Ireland now became news world-wide and the world’s opinion condemned the British policy. However, the Stormont Government was abolished and ‘Direct Rule’ was imposed on Northern Ireland from London on 24th March 1972 to try to stop a civil war.
In 1973, the Sunningdale Agreement led to power-sharing. Power-sharing was introduced to give the Catholics more say in the way Northern Ireland was run. People in N. Ireland tended to vote for the person who was of their own religion so it was hard for Catholics to get elected because there were always more Protestants than Catholics. In 1974, the British Government tried to set up an Assembly and an Executive to rule N. Ireland with Catholics having fair share of power. It worked like this; members of the Assembly were elected but Catholics had guaranteed seats on the Executive. Unfortunately, a lot of Protestants felt the Catholics got too many seats in the Executive (they got 4 out of 11) so the Ulster Worker’s Council held a General Strike. The power-sharing collapsed because after 5 months of strikes the British Government dropped the power-sharing scheme.
The IRA didn’t stop campaigning, even when they were in prison they kept up protests in an attempt to embarrass the British Government and keep their Nationalist support. The IRA prisoners were kept at the Maze Prison, in high security ‘H’ blocks. In 1972, IRA prisoners began being treated as political prisoners which meant they no longer had to work in prison or wear prison uniform. These privileges didn’t last. In 1976, they were taken away from the prisoners and the IRA prisoners began the “Blanket Protest” that was them going around in nothing but blankets, so they wouldn’t have to wear the uniform. In 1978, the prisoners got their revenge on the guards and made a point about the conditions they lived in by smearing their faeces on the walls of their cells. In 1980, IRA prisoners began hunger strikes as another protest which ended in the death of Bobby Sands in 1981, the leader of the hunger strikes, followed by 10 others that same year. The IRA stopped the hunger strikes still keeping the massive support they had. More than 50,000 people attended Bobby Sands’ funeral and there were always many volunteers in the Maze Prison prepared to start a hunger strike again.
Meanwhile, the IRA members outside of prison were busy also:
1979 Airey Neave MP, Conservative spokesperson for Northern Ireland,
Killed.
1979 Lord Mountbatten (Queen Elizabeth II’s uncle) killed and 15
soldiers killed on the same day.
1982 Hyde Park and Regent’s Park bombings
1983 Harrods bombing. 38 IRA prisoners escaped from the Maze
Prison.
1984 Brighton bombing at the Conservative Party Conference. One
Conservative MP and 6 leading members of the Party killed.
I think the biggest impact on the conflict of Ireland was the Easter Rising because it was a turning point in history. It changed people’s opinions of the British and made them want to support the Nationalists. They also thought the leaders of the Rising were heroes instead of troublemakers, whose cause was worthy and worth fighting for. The executions affected the mood of the Irish people and more people helped in the struggle to bring independence. People began to see organisations like Sinn Fein and the IRA in a different light and gave their support which powered all the events which followed such as the marches, Bloody Sunday, the Civil War etc.
The British Government’s Obstacles to Peace
The British Government has tried to deal with the Irish ‘Troubles’ over the years since 1972 but hardly any have been successful….
After 1980, Margaret Thatcher’s Government said they would let Northern Ireland join Eire if that was what the majority of the people wanted. In 1982, Margaret’s Government tried once more to set up a new Irish Assembly. It didn’t work because the Catholics were the ones who refused to join this time. In 1984, Eire suggested combining the Northern and Southern parts of Ireland without waiting for a majority agreement. However, the idea was rejected because Margaret Thatcher withheld from going that far. The Anglo-Irish Agreement (otherwise known as the Hillsborough Agreement) was signed by Britain and Ireland (Eire) in 1985. The two governments would discuss all the serious and important issues together in Northern Ireland like the security force, policing, the law and the judicial system etc.
Talks with the Nationalists were held also, Senior British civil servants started secret talks with Sinn Fein in 1991. In 1993 Bill Clinton tried to negotiate with Sinn Fein, and invited their leader Gerry Adams to visit the USA. The SDLP (another republican political party) and the IRA had their own talks. The IRA agreed they would consider a ceasefire if the British Government came up with a way of beginning talks. In 1993 the Downing Street Declaration was made. It was a joint statement by the British and Irish Prime Ministers, saying they wanted to encourage talks between all people in Ireland. The IRA and the main Unionist terrorist groups called a ceasefire in 1994. The British then began to demand that the Provisional IRA give up their weapons. The IRA felt they were being pushed too far, too fast. They broke the ceasefire in 1996, bombing Canary Wharf, and then Manchester City centre. Sinn Fein was now excluded from the peace talks.
In 1997, the Labour won the May British General Election and Tony Blair wanted peace talks. The IRA declared a new ceasefire and talks began again between Britain, Eire, and political parties from Northern Ireland. The talks were chaired by US Senator George Mitchell. However the talks ended on 9th April 1998. On that day, it was announced that a new power-sharing assembly would be set up in Northern Ireland, and Eire would give up the idea of a united Ireland. This was called the Good Friday Agreement. All the people of Ireland, North and South, voted on the Agreement in a referendum. 71% of people in the North were for it, and 94% in the South. There were elections in June 1998 for the new assembly, and Stormont reopened for business in July. Part of the Good Friday Agreement said all sides should give up their weapons. This was called ‘decommissioning’. The Canadian General, John de Chastelain, held talks with the different terrorist groups to work out how to do this in practice. He reported on 30th June 1999. Unionists didn’t believe that the IRA would give up their weapons. At first they refused to join talks on setting up an actual Government for Northern Ireland, but after long negotiations Direct Rule was handed over to Northern Ireland on 1st December 1999. The First Minister was the Unionist David Trimble. Since then all sides have worked at finding a permanent peaceful settlement- but decommissioning has continued to be a major issue. The answer to the Irish problem has not yet been found but attempts are still being made even today.
BY FATIMA MIR
10CE