29 July 1999 Edition
Remembering the Past: Rebuilding the Republican Movement
THE ELECTION of Eamonn de Valera and the release of the sentenced republican prisoners of war during June 1917 boosted even further the rapid growth of the Republican Movement from 1916.
The previous year had seen the release of the 1916 internees between August and December 1916 and republican support had been bolstered by the election of Count Plunkett in February and Joe McGuinness on 9 May 1917.
The huge influx of members was obviously welcome and without it republicanism would not have achieved the successes of the following few years, but it also led to problems. Not least of these was the fact that various shades of nationalism, republicanism and socialism mingled together in the national movement. In the election campaign, this led to a confusion amongst not just the public but also the members as to what was the republican message or strategy.
In some places, Sinn Féin was more radical in its statements, and it was obviously drifting away from Arthur Griffith's dual-monarchy policy. Cork Sinn Féin had called for a provisional government of abstentionist MPs and other elected representatives to be set up on 2 June 1917.
The rapid expansion of Sinn Féin began in earnest with many of the professional middle classes and priests again being drawn towards it. One priest, Father Clancy, who was to become the president of the West Clare Sinn Féin Executive, said it was not until the East Clare election that he finally made up his mind to embrace the Sinn Féin policy. Not everyone was happy that the party was allowing elements which had previously opposed it to join and dictate future strategy. The feeling was not uncommon that Sinn Féin was letting in too many `fair weather friends'.
P.S. O'Hegarty remembers:
``We did not realise it at the time, but what had happened was not that Sinn Féin had captured Ireland, but that the politicians in Ireland and those who make them, all the elements which sniffed at Sinn Féin and libelled it, which had upheld corruption and jobbery, had realised that Sinn Féin was going to win, and had come over to them en masse.''
O'Hegarty noted with some irony:
``[Sinn Féin's] bitterest opponent, the Irish Hierarchy, came over to it and practically gave it their blessing.''
The failure to have a coherent policy and the confusion led to a number of contradictions and to many ideological clashes between republicans, nationalists and socialists, all of whom saw the emerging movement as a vehicle for furthering their political programmes.
While thousands of young people, landless farmers, labourers and unemployed joined with the hope that the political programme of the new organisation would better their position in life, others were involved because of the national question alone.
The treasurer of the Sinn Féin Election Fund, Father O'Kennedy, lamented in October 1917 that it was ``a pity to mix up Sinn Féin in that land question... of necessity questions of land, food, industries turn-up - but, they all are of secondary importance, and none must obscure our objective''. This was the same man who believed that ``a Sinn Féin club ought to be more than a meeting place for the manufacture of resolutions - it ought to be a school for national thought''.
At a mass victory rally in Tipperary town following the East Clare election victory, a difference of emphasis emerged openly between the Volunteers (or the Irish Republican Army as it was becoming better known) and the Sinn Féin organisers. One of the Volunteers, Dan Breen, said of the incident afterwards:
``Our military display in Tipperary Town did not cause a bigger shock to the enemy than it did to the local Sinn Féiners, many of whom were not in favour of any stronger weapons than resolutions. They were exasperated by our audacity. We should not have acted in such a manner until the matter had been solemnly discussed in advance.
``A formal long-winded proposition would then be put before the meeting and a decision arrived at on a majority vote. Such timid souls often hampered our line of action, but we were not prone to worry. The political wing of Sinn Féin criticised us severely. We just listened to all the orations and prognostications and made up our own minds.''
(More on the growth of republicanism in 1917 next week)
The previous year had seen the release of the 1916 internees between August and December 1916 and republican support had been bolstered by the election of Count Plunkett in February and Joe McGuinness on 9 May 1917.
The huge influx of members was obviously welcome and without it republicanism would not have achieved the successes of the following few years, but it also led to problems. Not least of these was the fact that various shades of nationalism, republicanism and socialism mingled together in the national movement. In the election campaign, this led to a confusion amongst not just the public but also the members as to what was the republican message or strategy.
In some places, Sinn Féin was more radical in its statements, and it was obviously drifting away from Arthur Griffith's dual-monarchy policy. Cork Sinn Féin had called for a provisional government of abstentionist MPs and other elected representatives to be set up on 2 June 1917.
The rapid expansion of Sinn Féin began in earnest with many of the professional middle classes and priests again being drawn towards it. One priest, Father Clancy, who was to become the president of the West Clare Sinn Féin Executive, said it was not until the East Clare election that he finally made up his mind to embrace the Sinn Féin policy. Not everyone was happy that the party was allowing elements which had previously opposed it to join and dictate future strategy. The feeling was not uncommon that Sinn Féin was letting in too many `fair weather friends'.
P.S. O'Hegarty remembers:
``We did not realise it at the time, but what had happened was not that Sinn Féin had captured Ireland, but that the politicians in Ireland and those who make them, all the elements which sniffed at Sinn Féin and libelled it, which had upheld corruption and jobbery, had realised that Sinn Féin was going to win, and had come over to them en masse.''
O'Hegarty noted with some irony:
``[Sinn Féin's] bitterest opponent, the Irish Hierarchy, came over to it and practically gave it their blessing.''
The failure to have a coherent policy and the confusion led to a number of contradictions and to many ideological clashes between republicans, nationalists and socialists, all of whom saw the emerging movement as a vehicle for furthering their political programmes.
While thousands of young people, landless farmers, labourers and unemployed joined with the hope that the political programme of the new organisation would better their position in life, others were involved because of the national question alone.
The treasurer of the Sinn Féin Election Fund, Father O'Kennedy, lamented in October 1917 that it was ``a pity to mix up Sinn Féin in that land question... of necessity questions of land, food, industries turn-up - but, they all are of secondary importance, and none must obscure our objective''. This was the same man who believed that ``a Sinn Féin club ought to be more than a meeting place for the manufacture of resolutions - it ought to be a school for national thought''.
At a mass victory rally in Tipperary town following the East Clare election victory, a difference of emphasis emerged openly between the Volunteers (or the Irish Republican Army as it was becoming better known) and the Sinn Féin organisers. One of the Volunteers, Dan Breen, said of the incident afterwards:
``Our military display in Tipperary Town did not cause a bigger shock to the enemy than it did to the local Sinn Féiners, many of whom were not in favour of any stronger weapons than resolutions. They were exasperated by our audacity. We should not have acted in such a manner until the matter had been solemnly discussed in advance.
``A formal long-winded proposition would then be put before the meeting and a decision arrived at on a majority vote. Such timid souls often hampered our line of action, but we were not prone to worry. The political wing of Sinn Féin criticised us severely. We just listened to all the orations and prognostications and made up our own minds.''
(More on the growth of republicanism in 1917 next week)