Adaptive Coexistence? Lord Farnham (1879–1957) and Southern Loyalism in Pre- and Post-Independence Ireland

2020 ◽  
pp. 293-314
Author(s):  
Jonathan Cherry
Keyword(s):  
Personal Experience ◽  
Free State ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Agricultural Improvement ◽  
Personal Connections ◽  
Irish Free State ◽  
The Government

This chapter traces the career and experiences of Arthur Kenlis Maxwell, 11th Baron Farnham (1879-1957) of county Cavan as a southern loyalist in pre and post-independent Ireland. Up to 1920 he was a prominent representative of southern unionism and his impassioned speeches during the debate on the Government of Ireland bill convey the sense of abandonment and betrayal felt by many southern loyalists. In April 1922 he and his family left Farnham House for England. Unlike many of his peers who made similar journeys, Farnham returned to his ancestral home in 1926 and enjoyed a relatively peaceful and easy transition back into life there. The latter part of the chapter illustrates Farnham’s personal experience of adaptive coexistence and the complexity of southern unionist identities and loyalties in this ‘new’ Ireland. Personal connections made prior to his departure, his interest in agricultural improvement and promotion of various sports in Cavan had meant that he had cultivated a wide and diverse range of friends and networks which he could tap into on return. Although he never formally entered politics in the Irish Free State, Farnham remained an important leadership figure within the Protestant community in Cavan and further afield and symbolically maintained displays of his loyalism attending both the 1937 and 1953 coronations in London.

Venereal disease in the Irish Free State: the politics of public health

2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (139) ◽  
pp. 345-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susannah Riordan
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
State Formation ◽  
Venereal Disease ◽  
Free State ◽  
Moral Regulation ◽  
Irish Government ◽  
Irish Free State ◽  
The Government

In his article ‘Venereal disease and the politics of prostitution in the Irish Free State’ Philip Howell argues that in 1926, following the submission of the Report of the interdepartmental committee of inquiry regarding venereal disease, the Irish government was confronted with ‘a series of proposals to regulate prostitution in the Free State’ These proposals are associated with the influence brought to bear by the army on the committee’s deliberations, and it is suggested that this preferred military solution to venereal disease falls into a European pattern in which state formation was frequently accompanied by such regulation. The example of Italy is offered as the most pertinent. However, Howell suggests, the government rejected the regulation of prostitution in favour of ‘a moral regulation of sexuality marked by elements of Catholic social purity’.

The Irish Constitution

1924 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 340-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan F. Saunders
Keyword(s):  
Free State ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
Traditional Methods ◽  
Sinn Fein ◽  
Political Drama ◽  
Irish Free State ◽  
The Government ◽  
Almost Continuous

The Constitution of the Irish Free State is the result of a political drama extending over a period of eight years. From the Ulster Rebellion and the Home Rule Act of 1914, the action has been tense and almost continuous. The threats and concessions of that time played into the hands of the radical Sinn Fein, and with the Easter Rebellion of 1916 it became evident that the issue was no longer one of home rule but of independence. The government at London, however, did not realize this until once more the traditional methods of settlement had been tried.

Models of Government and Anglo-Irish Relations

1988 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan J. Ward
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Free State ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
The People ◽  
Lower House ◽  
Irish People ◽  
Irish Free State ◽  
The Government

In 1922 the Irish Free State began life with a constitution which embodied two contradictory principles. The first recognized that all powers of government derive from the people and provided for a system of government in which the Irish Cabinet was clearly responsible to the popularly elected Irish lower house, Dail Eireann. The second recognized a monarch, King George V, as head of the Irish executive, with substantial prerogative powers derived not from the Irish people but from British common law. The constitution was a compromise between Britain and Irish republicans to end the Irish War of Independence. Though not every compromise in politics makes complete sense, for Britain this one represented more than a short-range expedient. Its contradictions represented the dying gasp in a long, often anguished, and ultimately futile attempt by Britain to devise a formula which would simultaneously permit the Irish a measure of self-government and protect vital British interests in Ireland.This essay will review the attempts to construct a satisfactory Anglo-Irish relationship in the years between 1782 and 1949. It will concentrate on four models of government proposed for Ireland: (a) the independent Irish Parliament of the period from 1782 to 1800, (b) O'Connell's proposals to repeal the union with Britain in the 1830s and 1840s, (c) the devolution proposed in the home rule bills of 1886, 1893, 1912, and the Government of Ireland Act of 1920, and (d) the independence provided in the Irish Free State constitution of 1922 and its successor, the Irish constitution of 1937. It will also place these models in the context of the constitutional evolution of the British Empire. In the Canadian, New Zealand, Australian, and South African colonies, colonial self-government and British imperial interests were reconciled, beginning in Nova Scotia in 1848, by using a kind of constitutional double-think involving the Crown and the colonial Governor. But the problem of the troubled Anglo-Irish relationship could not be resolved so easily.

Vatican Involvement in the Irish Civil War: Monsignor Salvatore Luzio's Apostolic Delegation, March–May 1923

2010 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. P. McCABE
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Free State ◽  
Irish Free State ◽  
The Government ◽  
Catholic Bishops

This article examines the delegation of Monsignor Salvatore Luzio to the Irish Free State between March and May 1923, and the reactions of the Irish Catholic bishops, who had proclaimed their support for the government of the Free State, and of militant republicans, who opposed it. The bishops viewed the mission with trepidation, fearing the damage that it could do to their authority, while the republicans deemed it and Luzio potential assets. Newly-released Vatican papers also allow for the inclusion of Luzio's perspective on the mission and his strongly worded criticism of the Irish hierarchy.

Irish Free State newspapers and the Abyssinian crisis, 1935–6

2009 ◽  
Vol 36 (143) ◽  
pp. 368-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cian McMahon
Keyword(s):  
Crop Production ◽  
Free State ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Irish Free State ◽  
High Tariff ◽  
Agricultural Labourers

Twenty-four years ago, Terence Brown raised very few eyebrows when he portrayed the Irish Free State in the 1930s as an insular society obsessed with self-sufficiency. The theme of insularity has dominated most narratives of the period, with emphasis on the Anglo-Irish Economic War, the Censorship Board and the 1937 Constitution. The de Valera government’s intention in the Economic War, after all, was to create native industries behind high-tariff barriers and to favour agricultural labourers by shifting the tillage/pasture ratio in Ireland in favour of crop production. This protectionist programme was insularity writ large. Likewise, the government’s censorship of domestic and imported literature ‘concelebrated’, according to J. J. Lee, ‘the intellectual poverty of the period’.

The Irish Free State: Its Government and Politics

1936 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 399
Author(s):  
E. C. S. Wade ◽  
N. Mansergh
Keyword(s):  
Free State ◽  
Irish Free State
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