Origins of cultural nationalism

•  All through the 19th century Irish people became anglicised. By 1880’s most of the population spoke English, read English books and played English games

• This undermined nationalist’s claims for Irish independence because it made them seem the same as the British = lack of national identity

• Cultural nationalists tried to develop aspects of Irish life which were uniquely different than the British

The Gaelic Athletics Association GAA

• Up to the 1860’s most people in Ireland lived on farms or in country villages. They played traditional games with informal rules

• The industrial revolution saw cities grow. Unorganised games were no longer possible.

• In Britain where industrialisation began, sporting organisations like the FA; Rugby Union emerged in the 1850 and 1860’s

• They organised team games, drew up rules and organised competitions

• In the 1870’s these games spread to Ireland and began to displace traditional games like wrestling, hurling etc

Establishment of GAA

• Michael Cusack a famous sports man with links to the IRB and Archbishop Croke who was a home rule supporter thought that the adoption of British games undermined Irish claims to separate Irish identity.

• Archbishop Croke wrote in a newspaper that it was a pity that the old Gaelic Athletic games that he knew as a boy were dieing out.

• Cusack felt that the British games did not suit Ireland because they were not played on a Sunday and only gentlemen were allowed to play them.

• In November 1884, Cusack called a meeting at the Hayes Hotel in Thurles. Seven men attended

• They set up the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). Cusack was elected Secretary Michael Davin a famous sportsman was elected President. They asked Croke, Parnell and Davitt to be patrons.

• The GAA aimed to organise athletic meetings along Irish lines and to encourage and make rules for Gaelic football and hurling

Early years

• Many existing sports clubs joined the GAA and it spread rapidly. By 1887 it had over 600 Clubs

• It drew up the first rules for Gaelic football and hurling

• It was organised on a parish basis. That encouraged catholic priests to become involved. This, and having games on Sundays excluded many Protestants and Unionists.

• Furthermore members of the British Army & RIC were not allowed join

• It organised competitions. The first all-Ireland between clubs not counties was held in 1887

• Cusack was an inefficient secretary and was replaced after 18 Months

IRB & the GAA

•  IRB (Fenians – Irish republican Brotherhood) were involved in the GAA from the start. They saw it as a good recruiting ground to get young healthy men to fight England.

• The British Special Branch had informers in both bodies and knew what was going on. Their reports are our main source for the early years of the GAA

• At the second annual conference in 1886 the IRB elected its men to all the key positions except that of president

• Annoyed at this Davin resigned early in 1887 and was replaced by another IRB man

• This worried the priests who opposed violence and secrecy of the IRB. At the 1887 conference many of them walked out and the GAA split

• But Davin and Croke organised reconciliation. Davin became president again and the GAA just survived

Support of Parnell almost destroys the GAA

• Financial problems led to a trip to America to raise funds. Badly organised the ‘American invasion’ lost money. Davin resigned and the IRB quietly regained control

• In 1890-92 the home rule party split over Parnell’s relationship with Katherine O’Shea. The IRB brought the GAA in behind Parnell. Most priests and anti-Parnellites left the GAA due to this

• Through the 1890’s the GAA almost disappeared

Recovery of the GAA after 1900

• The GAA recovered in the 1890’s and early 1900’s because• They were better organised• New rules made games faster and more exciting• A growing interest in sport and new means of transport like Bikes &

Buses made it possible for more people to attend games and training• The IRB adopted a low profile even though it was still powerful in the

leadership• From 1900 the GAA provincial and national championship matches

became very popular• The organisation got more sports grounds and especially Croke Park• It linked in with the growing cultural nationalism, which encouraged

the Irish language and the ‘buy Irish’ campaigns

The achievements of the GAA

• Created and fostered two unique Irish games

• Encouraged local and national patriotism

• It encouraged administrative skills and an understanding of democracy, which was valuable when the country gained independence.

The Gaelic league

Decline in the Irish language• Had been declining since the 18th century. In 1851 23% of

the population spoke Irish by 1891 this was 14%. Why?• Low status of the language it was only spoken by the poor

uneducated peasants. English was the language of the powerful like landlords, judges and politicians

• English was more useful for emigration, so parents encouraged their children to speak English and they wanted the schools to teach them English and not Irish

• Few Irish speakers could read or write Irish and there was no newspapers or books in modern Irish for them to study

New interest in Irish

• A new interest in Irish appears in the 1880’s and 1890’s because

• Linguistic scholars from Europe came to study Irish, which is one of the oldest European written languages

• Collections of Irish poetry and folktales like Douglas Hyde’s Love Songs of Connaught were published

Setting up the Gaelic league

• 1892 Douglas Hyde gave a lecture called the necessity of de-anglicising the Irish people. He said that if Irish disappeared, the Irish would not be entitled to claim as a nation

• in 1893 he and Eoin McNeill set up the Gaelic league. Its aims were

• to preserve and revive Irish as a spoken language• To encourage and publish literature in modern

Irish

Its spread and activities

• League grew rapidly after 1900 by 1908 there were 600 branches

• Native speakers, known as Timirí (travelling teachers) went around setting up Irish classes. Young people went to them for music and dancing as well as language

• It organised feiseanna and literary competitions and promoted Irish music and Irish dancing. It supported the GAA and backed the buy Irish campaign

• The league campaigned to have Irish taught in secondary schools and made compulsory for entry to the new national University of Ireland

• It had a weekly paper An Claidheamh Soluis, edited for a time by Patrick Pearse, which published many new Irish writers in Irish

Republicans take over the league

• Hyde who was a protestant wanted the Irish language to be a bridge between nationalists and unionists

• At first many Unionists joined and the league was very successful in Belfast

• But after Home Rule became likely in 1912 and passions rose, the Irish language became identified with the nationalists alone

• 1n 1915 at the annual conference in Dundalk, the IRB forced a change in the Constitution, supporting complete separation from Britain. Hyde resigned in Protest

The influence of the Gaelic League

• Produced textbooks to help people learn Irish

• Organised holidays to native Irish areas where people could socialise and meet

• While the league did not make Irish an everyday language it did create and interest and enthusiasm in it and stopped its disappearance altogether

• It encouraged new writers to produce books in modern Irish

• Many in the league felt that only an Irish government could save Irish and this encouraged them to become republicans

• Almost all the leader of 1916 were members of the league Bulmer, Hobson, Pearse, Seán McDiarmada, Thomas MC Donagh, de Valera, Michael Collins

• The use of the Irish name Sinn Féin shows the leagues influence on Griffith

• After independence the leaders of the new state all influenced by the league made Irish compulsory in schools and gave it the status of the first officinal language in the 1937 constitution

Anglo Irish Literary revival

• Interest in Gaelic literature encouraged some people to develop a distinctively Irish Literature in English

• One was the poet WB Yeats. He came into contact with Irish nationalism through his friend John O’Leary the old Fenian and Douglas Hyde as well as his passionate love for Mud Gonne

• After studying art he began to write poetry in the 2880’s using stories from Irish myth. He published The wanderings of Oisin a long poem based on Irish mythology in 1882 and his first poetic play, The Countess Cathleen in 1882

• In 1891 he Hyde and others set up the National Literary Society to encourage interest in Irish mythology. He joined the Gaelic league, but did not succeed in learning Irish

• Through Maud Gonne he became involved in extreme nationalism and briefly belonged to the IRB. Gonne rejected him and married John McBride in 1903

• In 1896 he met lady Gregory widow of a Galway Landlord. She had been collecting folk tales locally and writing plays.

• At her home in Coole Park in 1898 they set up the Irish Literary Theatre. It staged Yeats’ play countess Cathleen in 1899

• In 1902 Maud Gonne played the title role in his Cathleen Ni Houlihan, which had a powerful influence on nationalists

• In 1904 Yeats and Lady Gregory formed the Irish National Theatre in collaboration with a group of actors led by Frank and William Fay

• A wealthy English woman Annie Horniman bought a hall in Abbey Street and fitted it out as a theatre. It opened as the Abbey Theatre in December 1904 with two short plays by Yeats and one by Lady Gregory

• The Abbey’s most distinguished playwright was JM Synge. His play ‘The Playboy of The Western World’ was interrupted by rioting protestors because of its language in 1907. Synge died soon after.

• From 1910 the literary revival ran out of steam. Yeats grew disillusioned after Dublin Corporation refused to build an art gallery to house the paintings collected by Gregory’s nephew Hugh Lane. 1n 1913 he wrote that Romantic Ireland is dead and gone

Consolidation of catholic identity

The growth of catholic power

• 1870 75% of Irish people were catholic and 25% Protestant

• Protestantism was the established religion In Britain so Protestants held a privileged position and Catholics resented this and this is the main reason they supported home rule whilst most Protestants were unionists

• 1870 to 1914 Catholics increase in wealth and influence

• They build many churches, schools, and hospitals

• Number of priest’s nuns and brothers trebles

• The controlled Catholic education at all levels

• The number of Catholics with secondary and University education grew rapidly

• 1908 Pope issues Ne Timere forbidding marriages between Catholics and Protestants unless the Protestant partner agreed to bring up the children Catholics

• In the early days of Home rule the nationalist leaders were Protestant (Butt Parnell) but after 1900 most nationalist leaders were mainly catholic Redmond & Dillon

• Catholics dominated nationalist organisations Like the GAA and the Gaelic League

DP Moran & the leader and the debate about Irishness

• Redmond & Griffith wanted Irish identity to include both Catholic and Protestant referring to Wolf Tone, Parnell and Robert Emet who led Irish nationalists

• However some Nationalists argued that the Catholics were the real Irish people, the most important of these was DP Moran

• In his paper the Leader he stated that Protestant and catholic Ireland were involved in a battle of civilizations. And the reason for independence was to preserve Catholicism in Ireland

• Moran’s ideas were welcomed by some young Irish men who believed that protestant-controlled businesses and the British government kept them out of the best jobs

• Moran’s ideas were widely accepted

Key personalities: Douglas Hyde

• Son of a Church of Ireland clergyman, born in Roscommon, he learnt Irish from local people and loved their stories and songs

• While a student he joined the Society for the preservation of the Irish language and began to write Irish poetry using the pen name An Craoibín Aoibhinn

• In 1880 Hyde published Beside the fire; a collection of Irish Gaelic folk stories and in 1893 Abhráin Grádh Chúige Connacht (or love songs of Connacht). The stories and poems in these books inspired Yeats, Lady Gregory, J. M. Synge and other writers in the literary renaissance.

• His 1892 speech arguing for the deAnglicisatrion of Ireland led to the foundation of the Gaelic League in 1893

• In 1899 Hyde convinced the Commission on intermediate Education to include Irish in the secondary school curriculum

• In 1906 he served on the Royal Commission on University Education and succeeded in making Irish compulsory for admission to the National University of Ireland

• In 1909 when UCD was set up he was appointed the first professor of Modern Irish

• He wanted the League to be independent of all political parties and a bridge between Unionists and Nationalists. When the majority voted in 1915 to support republicanism he resigned as President and from then on devoted himself to scholarship

• 1n 1937 when the new Constitution created the office of President of Ireland, Hyde was unanimously selected. He served one term, retiring in 1945. He died in 1949

William Butler Yeats

•  Played a key role in the Anglo Irish Literary revival. For the exam you will need a detailed account of his role in the revival

• Born in Dublin the son of a Protestant painter he spent his childhoods holidays with his grandparents in Sligo and was heavily influenced by folklore and scenery from an early age

• He studied at art college became a Nationalist through the friendship of John O’Leary and Douglas Hyde

• Began writing poetry in the 1880’s using stories and images from Gaelic myth. Helped set up the National Literary Society in 1891 to encourage interest in Irish Mythology. He joined the Gaelic League but did not succeed in learning Irish

• Loved Maud Gonne a passionate nationalist drew him into extreme nationalism

• 1898 set up the Irish Literary Theatre with Lady Gregory

• 1904 formed the Irish national Theatre. Name changed to the Abbey Theatre when they got a theatre in Abbey street

• 1907 defended Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World during riots in Dublin

• Grew disillusioned with nationalism after 1912. concentrated on poetry and wrote his greatest poems

• Became Senator when the Irish free State was set up. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. Died in 1939 in France body was brought back to Ireland and he is buried in Sligo