The Legacy of the Irish Party in Free State Politics, 1922–5

Chapter One provides the first statistical illustration of individuals from home rule backgrounds who entered representative politics in the early years of the Free State with the number of TDs with home rule heritage in each political grouping detailed in a number of tables. Given the historiographical attention drawn to the character of Cumann na nGaedheal, there is detailed attention devoted to comparisons between the government party and the Irish Party in personnel, policy and organisation. While the Farmers’ Party and Labour are also considered for continuities between membership of both parties and the earlier agrarian and labour associations of the home rule era, there is special assessment of former MPs who were elected as independent TDs such as Capt. William Redmond, Alfie Byrne and James Cosgrave and the persistence of the IPP’s methods. This chapter thus highlights the continuities between pre- and post-independence Ireland, helping to explain the party fragmentation experienced in the early 1920s.

The Blueshirts and the Shadow of the Land League, 1932–4

This chapter examines the Land Annuities dispute and its political consequences through the lens of former home rulers and the legacy of the Land League. It analyses how Dillon and MacDermot tried to remain distinct from Cumann na nGaedheal, but also sought to broaden the appeal of the ostensibly agrarian National Centre Party to include emphases on Irish unity and the state’s constitutional status. Examining the formation of the United Ireland Party/Fine Gael, this chapter argues that individuals from home rule backgrounds played a significant role in the origins of this new party. However, the tensions between defenders of a constitutional tradition, unrest in the countryside and Blueshirt leader Eoin O’Duffy meant that Dillon and MacDermot ultimately failed to straddle the dual Irish Party/Land League legacies of constitutionalism and direct action. It is argued that while MacDermot and Dillon sought to move Irish politics beyond the Civil War divide, the events of 1932-4 actually helped to solidify and mould the ‘Civil War’ cleavage, making it one with clear undertones of the 1930s as well as the original confrontation over the Treaty.

From the National League to Cumann na nGaedheal?

This chapter analyses the period from the National League’s defeat in the September 1927 election to the next great pressure point which forced many old Irish Party followers into new parties: the 1932 general election. It assesses the growing rapprochement between Cumann nan Gaedheal and former Irish Party followers, particularly Capt. Redmond’s decision to join the party in 1931.However, in examining the afterlives of National League politicians, this chapter also scrutinizes the few who joined Fianna Fáil and compares elements of the party’s modus operandi with that of the IPP including de Valera’s leadership style and Fianna Fáil’s remarkable facility for party organisation. Finally, this chapter illustrates why some supporters of the old Irish Party and Ancient Order of Hibernians remained independent, citing economic, organisational and geographic factors and examining the elections of James Dillon and Frank MacDermot.

Protection Versus Free Trade in the Free State Era: The Finance Attitude

Belief in the benefits of industrial protection had long been a cornerstone of nationalist ideology. Cumann na nGaedheal followed a policy of selective protection while Fianna Fáil was ideologically committed not just to import-substituting industrialisation but to as high a degree of self-sufficiency as possible. The Departments of Finance and Industry and Commerce differed sharply on the costs and benefits of trade restrictions. This article explores the perspective of the Department of Finance and in particular that of J. J. McElligott, Assistant Secretary from 1923 and Secretary of the Department from 1927 to 1953. It demonstrates the strong continuity between his position and that of T. K. Whitaker, who became Secretary in 1956 and whose 1958 report on Economic Development is widely credited with providing the intellectual foundation for the trade liberalisation process of the following decades.

Digesting Decolonization

This chapter examines how and when the Irish Free State went from partial to full political decolonization. It argues that Collins’s stepping-stone theory of the Treaty of 1921 would be proved correct, but that de Valéra and Childers and their allies also correctly observed the deficiencies of that treaty. The fate of southern Protestants is examined. The wilder allegations of genocide and ethnic expulsion are demonstrated to be without merit; their twentieth-century story is mostly one of integration and assimilation. Fianna Fáil’s program of constitutional transformation is traced and its significance for Northern Ireland evaluated. The Irish Free State’s state-building and consolidation of its sovereignty were diplomatic accomplishments of both Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil governments. The program of Irish state-building clashed with the aspirations behind all-Ireland nation-building. The “economic war” of the 1930s and the Anglo-Irish Agreements of 1938 are surveyed, before the decisions of de Valéra’s cabinet regarding neutrality in the Second World War and the supposed British offer of reunification are interpreted for their long-run significance for Northern Ireland.

The Irish National Movement

This chapter analyzes the Irish national movement. It discusses the most striking feature: the clockwork-like actions of republican groups that, while challengers, escalated violence, shunned elections, and denounced negotiated compromise; but after they became the leader or hegemon of the movement (or movement wing), shunned violence, participated in elections, and negotiated compromises. Despite their intense criticism of each other, this is the story of Cumann na nGaedheal (later Fine Gael), Fianna Fáil, the , Official Irish Republican Army/Official Sinn Féin, and the Provisional IRA/Sinn Féin over the course of the twentieth century. In every case in which abstentionism (the refusal to take seats in the government) was ended, what changed was not what the group ideologically said had to change but, rather, the movement structure and that the group would be guaranteed a leading role in the new order.