Ireland's OWN: History
Why Sinn Féin supplanted the Irish Parliamentary Party in the 1918 general election
—by Máirtín Pilib de Longbhuel
The general election of 1918 is generally regarded as the most important election in Irish history a watershed in Irish politics. The election effectively marked the end of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) and the entrance onto the political stage of Sinn Féin, a party which, prior to 1917, represented the political opinion of a minority within a minority in Irish politics. For near the entire four decades until 1918, the constitutional nationalist Home Rule movement had been to the forefront of most of the political developments that took place in relation to Ireland. The party was extremely well organised and vastly experienced, and it could justifiably claim that nearly every major reform in Ireland between 1886 and 1914 was traceable to its efforts.
Such a protracted amount of time in a monopoly position over parliamentary issues meant that the party seemed to have an impregnable grip on Irish affairs in relation to Britain (and ultimately the fate of the national question lay with them) due to their complete dominance in the sphere of Irish politics. Through an entire generation, the people of nationalist Ireland accustomed to the way of constitutional nationalism continued to endorse it, albeit apathetically, year after year.
Republican separatism had not featured in any meaningful way in Ireland from 1867 until two years before the fall of the IPP. And what was undoubtedly the most important achievement of the party came in 1912 when, in collaboration with the British Liberals, it succeeded in getting the Home Rule Act onto the statute book an event without precedent in that it was aimed at getting some form of independence for Ireland. So how is it that a party so popular in Ireland, and evidently so influential in London, managed to fall from a position of such high prominence to virtual extinction in such a short period of time?
Arguably the greatest figure to lead the nationalist movement in the latter half of the nineteenth century was Charles Stewart Parnell. A divorce scandal ended his political career and split the party he led in 1889. The Home Rule movement split in 1889, and not long after it, Parnell died. After Parnell’s death [in 1891] Ireland was in a stage of paralysis. Politicians who had seemed large men shrank overnight. The Irish Party split into segments of small men. The party remained divided for a decade; it reunited in 1900. The consolidation of the party strengthened it once more, but the unity witnessed in the party in the 1880s was not to be seen because of remaining internal differences. “The really disastrous effect of the split, however, was that it alienated many of the young men who were reaching maturity during that fatal decade of the 1890s and who, in their revulsion from the party, were attracted towards other organisations which the constitutional leaders took little or no account.
Partly as a result of disunity and stagnation in the nationalist movement, but more so as a result of the Anglicisation of Ireland, came about the Gaelic revival. The Gaelic Athletic Association and the Gaelic League were founded to promote the revival of national games and the Irish language, respectively. This was an important development that had a powerful effect in instilling in the Irish people a heightened sense of national consciousness. The success of the Gaelic Athletic Association was instant. Their sporting occasions became a meeting place for men of different parishes. A patriotic atmosphere was engendered. The flurry of the Gaelic revival attracted a broad range of people, including a number of well-educated intellectuals. This set the foundation for the development of political ideas that were to follow.
Throughout the nineteenth century in Ireland there had been this constant swing between Parliamentary agitation and armed revolution. Then in the first decade of the…[twentieth] century a journalist came to prominence with a political philosophy which proposed to rely neither on parliamentary nor physical force methods in pursuit of self-government but on a policy of passive resistance. Arthur Griffith borrowed the idea of the Hungarian nationalists used in their struggle for freedom from the Austrian Empire and applied it to the situation of Ireland in the British Empire. The idea, which was an alternative to constitutional nationalism and armed separatism (both of which had been tried and had failed previously), advocated the withdrawal of Irish representation from Westminster and the setting up of a parliament in Ireland by those elected representatives who would abstain from taking their seats in the parliament in London. The idea also contained the idea of ‘dual monarchy’, meaning that the King of England would also be the King of Ireland (to facilitate unionist desires).
Based on this policy, Griffith founded a new party in 1905 called Sinn Féin as a radical alternative to the existing IPP. Initially the party attracted significant interest and some support, but by 1910 it had become an irrelevance due to developments in constitutional nationalism, Home Rule had again surfaced as an issue with the British government. It seemed that Griffith’s belief that the British would never grant Ireland self-government through lobbying by the IPP was a misconception. In April 1912 Asquith introduced his Home Rule Bill in the Commons. It seemed now that short of armed rebellion nothing could stop it becoming law. A huge wave of enthusiasm swept over Ireland. Redmond was hailed a great hero who would finish the work begun by his hero Parnell. And, in March 1912, it seemed as if Redmond was on the brink of settling the dispute of centuries. He would be the man responsible for bringing the first Irish parliament into being. In the general enthusiasm the politics of Sinn Féin seemed an anachronism. The physical force movement appeared finished.
The Home Rule Bill was not without its problems however, as the Unionists of Ulster, who made up a considerable minority, were opposed to any such move. The debates on the Bill continued, but it had to be shelved at the outbreak of World War One (WWI) as the British government had to deal with more pressing matters. The Irish Volunteers, which had been founded in 1913 as a response to the founding of the Ulster Volunteers (who themselves were founded to oppose Home Rule), split following the outbreak of WWI. Redmond sought Irish Volunteer help to fight alongside the British, which he hoped would strengthen his position on Home Rule; 170,000 Volunteers went with Redmond. The remaining 10,000 volunteers were regarded by the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) to be the machinery through which a rising, for which by 1914 they had developed, would be carried out.
The rising planned by the IRB took place in Dublin throughout Easter week 1916. The insurrection came upon the people of Ireland like a thunderbolt. They had not been expecting it and they did not want it. Predictably, the IPP condemned the rising. Similarly, most of the people of Dublin and elsewhere were angered by the actions of the republicans, but the execution of the leaders responsible for the rising increased the feeling of anger among the people dramatically and turned it on its head. The executions of the leaders had the desired effect from the IRB’s point of view. It shocked the people in that it showed the extent to which the British authorities were prepared to go. Slowly, the tide set in against England, against the Irish Parliamentary Party and the whole policy it stood for, and in favour of the thing for which the insurrection had been made. This new political wave had as yet no leader, and no policy; but it had a battle cry “Up the Rebels!” and that sufficed. With that cry in its ears, Ireland turned and gave heed to the dead.
An important feature of the Easter Rising was the label it was given: the media and the British authorities had declared that it had been a ‘Sinn Féin Rebellion’. The reality was Sinn Féin played no part in the rising. Griffith was a pacifist. Nonetheless, the rising in which Sinn Féin played no part was to have a profound effect on the party as the national spotlight fell on Sinn Féin looking for answers. Until this point, Sinn Féin had been insignificant in the wider picture. So much so in fact that when the IPP wished to discredit the anti-Redmond Volunteers they would brand them Sinn Féiners or Sinn Féin Volunteers in an attempt to portray them (the Volunteers) as an insignificance. Derived from this came the general assumption of Sinn Féin involvement. Ireland then knew nothing of the I.R.B. It knew it was the Volunteers who had insurrected, and as it began to turn towards that insurrection, it began to examine those who made it. It was told that they were Sinn Féiners, and it was told that it was a Sinn Féin insurrection. So it began to ask questions about Sinn Féin, about what it was and who it was, and what its policy was.
At the same time, as a consequence of the misconception of Sinn Féin involvement, large numbers of Sinn Féin activists were arrested and interned until August 1916. Those arrested following the rising found themselves interned together in groups in prisons and camps in Britain. These prisons and camps acted as educational institutions for the Irishmen held there. The result was that by Christmas 1916, when all the untried prisoners were released, the rejuvenated separatist movement found itself with an ample supply of competent political thinks. By the end of 1916, support for the IPP had faltered as many people switched allegiance to Sinn Féin. The return of the younger and more aggressive men from Frongoch prisoner-of-war camp and Reading jail was the first in a chain reaction of events which, within ten months, was to bring Sinn Féin to national prominence.
The welcome home for these prisoners in early 1917 was far more favourable towards them than the farewell party upon their departure to Britain around a year previously. From the early part of 1917 a rapid change in opinion took place in Ireland, one which eradicated all ill-will towards the participants of the Easter Rising. Redmond and his Irish Parliamentary Party were left stranded. The Irish middle class shifted to open hostility against British rule, a process accelerated by the emergence of Sinn Féin as a electoral force through the success at the polls of Count Plunkett in Roscommon. A significant symbolic link between Sinn Féin in 1917 and the Easter Rising in this particular case is the fact that Count Plunkett’s sons were participants and one of them, Joseph, was executed because of the role he played. Although the by-election in Roscommon resulted in the first defeat of the IPP by Sinn Féin, the victory was largely attributed to the obvious emotional factor that existed because of the candidate’s connection to a martyr.
The emotional element, along with unity among the republicans (Sinn Féin, the Volunteers, National League, and others), resulted in an overwhelming victory for Sinn Féin. The election caught the IPP with their guard down, and the result was a surprise to them. It acted as a wake-up call to the nationalists who were determined, when the opportunity arose, to curb the growth of Sinn Féin. This opportunity presented itself in the form of another by-election, this time in South Longford (perceived to be a safe seat for the IPP). The various separatist elements that fought for, and won, the seat in Roscommon became aware of the strength in their unity. The cohesion and ability to operate as a collective unit under the banner of Sinn Féin in Longford, in spite of an all-out effort by the vastly more experienced IPP, resulted in the most decisive republican electoral victory up to that point. Two more by-elections occurred in the summer of 1917, again resulting in significant victories for Sinn Féin.
As well as causing panic among the IPP, the upsurge in support for revolutionary republicanism began to cause unrest with the British authorities in Ireland. Consequently, they sought to restrict the influence and retard the growth of Sinn Féin. In August 1917, Thomas Ashe was imprisoned for a seditious speech he made. In September, he began a hunger strike in protest at his incarceration. As he had taken part in the Easter Rising and was condemned to death with the other leaders but his sentence had been commuted. Four days into his hunger strike, having been forcibly fed, he died. Ashe’s death and funeral were a vital point in the resurgence of Sinn Féin. Coming on foot of the successes at the Polls, this grim event helped to underline the necessity for some sort of alliance between the political programme of Sinn Féin and the physical force movement. Emotional reaction to the death of Ashe resembled the emotional reaction to the executions of the 1916 leaders the previous year. Similarly, this event, like the deaths of the leaders of the Rising, played directly into the hands of Sinn Féin.
In spite of its electoral gains and increasing support among the general public, the underlying problem within Sinn Féin itself early in 1917 was a problem that posed a great threat to the future success of the party. There was at this point a loose, informal unity among the Sinn Féiners. Following Plunkett’s success, a convention was arranged (to take place on 19th April). The purpose of the convention was to draw up a new national policy, and this highlighted the differences of opinion between those present. It seemed that a split, in the classic Irish tradition, was imminent. Such a disaster was averted through the setting up of what became known as the Mansion House Committee, which was a fairly successful attempt to achieve unity in diversity, even if it was only a temporary measure.
In an attempt to prevent the incurring of further political injury to himself and his party, Redmond suggested the establishment of an ‘Irish Convention’, which would represent all shades of opinion in Ireland, including unionist opinion, to come to an agreement on a solution to the future of the country. Although it met a number of times for almost a year following July 1917, it was completely ignored by Sinn Féin, and it was, in the grand scheme of things, a non-event as a result. It is probably true also that with the failure of the Irish Convention to achieve anything concrete, the Irish party had already been largely written off by the government, the more so since the by-elections seemed to show that it no longer possessed the country’s confidence.
The differences that existed within Sinn Féin, particularly between Griffith and Plunkett, had been quelled somewhat because of the Sinn Féin meeting in April 1917. However, the return of the last remaining 1916 prisoners from Britain occurred the month before the beginning of the ill-fated Irish Convention. This marked a new departure for Sinn Féin, which was now faced with the task of encouraging the large number of Volunteers to join with them to bring about a single, united republican movement. Eamon de Valera was the only 1916 commandant to escape execution in the weeks that followed Easter. After the Rising, Griffith recognised that a means would have to be found of fusing the Sinn Féin political policy with the popular feeling that had swung over to the Volunteers as a result of the executions. He was continually on the look out for an Avatar who would bring both parties together. In de Valera Griffith believed he had found this person…he had begun to show a remarkable flair for politics which, combined with his revolutionary background, drew Griffith towards him. The consolidation of a new, reconstituted, republican Sinn Féin took place at the party’s convention in October 1917, where the rivals, Griffith and Plunkett, withdrew from the race for presidency resulting in de Valera’s unanimous election to lead the organisation.
At the same time WWI was at its height. Because of the economic conditions brought on by the war, inflation rose and the cost of living increased to twice the level it had been in 1914 while wages remained relatively unchanged. Consequently, the standard of living of normal working-class people dropped. This, coupled with the British reaction to the Easter Rising, increased anti-British sentiment in Ireland. Then, in April 1918, the British government embarked upon a policy which couldn’t have helped Sinn Féin more: Lloyd George agreed to a Conscription Bill for Ireland. This meant that all able-bodied men were liable for the Draft. Such was the opposition to conscription in Ireland that it has led historians to point to this development as the moment when Ireland effectively opted out of the Union.
The IPP, along with Sinn Féin and the Catholic Church, got behind the anti-conscription campaign. However, it was the party that in 1914 supported Britain’s war effort and whose leader encouraged Irishmen to fight, which resulted in the loss of thousands of Irish lives in Belgium. The IPP’s apparently inconsistent stance on the war dealt it a final, heavy blow. At the general election of December 1918 it won six seats (four of which Sinn Féin decided not to contest to avoid splitting the nationalist vote) whereas Sinn Féin won seventy-three of the 105 Irish seats. The result ended the IPP and brought about the establishment of the Irish Republic the following month.
The Easter Rising is traditionally seen as the event that swung popular support towards Sinn Féin and away from the IPP, resulting in the dramatic outcome in the 1918 general election. In reality, it was but one factor of a number of factors that influenced the future development of Irish politics, though admittedly its significance cannot be overlooked in any way. In fact, the Easter Rising, and the immediate consequences of it, are probably the single most important occurrence to influence the way in which mass public support changed from a party of long standing in Ireland to a party in its infancy.
The IPP, like the Irish people generally, condemned the Easter Rising. When the Irish people were overcome with selective amnesia following the executions of the leaders, they remembered the IPP’s attacks on what were now national martyrs. Furthermore, the IPP’s role in Westminster with those who were responsible for the executions left the IPP themselves, by association, guilty of what happened.
Sinn Féin benefited from the Rising, and the fate of its leaders especially, due to the misconception that they had a hand in the events of Easter week. As we know, they did not, but they did adapt and exploited the heightened sense of emotion sweeping Ireland and used it to their advantage.
However, the shift in support to Sinn Féin from the IPP arguably did not begin in the immediate aftermath of the Easter Rising. For decades before 1916, the IPP had been a stagnant, monotonous force in Irish politics. The split and subsequent reunification of the party did little to instill confidence in the Irish people when it came to constitutional nationalism. People sought alternatives, and in the early years Sinn Féin did draw significant attention.
The initial excitement followed by the reality of the third Home Rule Bill resulted in a haemorrhaging of support for the IPP. The failure of the Irish Convention to deliver anything significant enhanced this effect and a united and increasingly strong Sinn Féin, now representative of a broad spectrum of separatist opinion, benefited from the development (or more accurately, lack of development) on the two issues.
The final nail in the coffin of the IPP came with the Conscription Bill in 1918. Complete independence from Britain would ensure that conscription for Ireland would never become a reality, and complete independence certainly would not become a reality through the IPP.
Sources:
Kostick, C. Revolution in Ireland: Popular Militancy 1917 to 1923, Pluto Press, London (1996).
Laffan, M. "The Unification of Sinn Féin in 1917" in Irish Historical Studies, XVII, 67 (1971).
Lyons, F.S.L. "The Passing of the Irish Parliamentary Party (1916-1918)" in Williams, D. (ed.) The Irish Struggle, 1916-1926, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London (1966).
O’Connor, U. A Terrible Beauty is Born: The Irish Troubles 1912-1922, Hamish Hamilton, London (1975).
O’Hegarty, P.S. The Victory of Sinn Féin: How It Won It and How It Used It, University College Dublin Press, Dublin (1998).
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