Partition of Ireland, 1900-1925

Historiography and the partition of Ireland, 1900-1925

1. Historiographical trends

2. Home Rule Crisis, 1900-1914

3. Politics and war, 1914-18

4. Revolution and state-building, 1919-25

5. New directions

1. Historiographical trends

• Political history remains dominant- But shift away from study of high politics (with exceptions: survey histories, biographies, parties, movements and institutions)- Greater focus on popular politics (particularly the local study for experience of war and revolution)

• Growth of social history (migration, gender, medical history, poverty, welfare, family, sexuality)

• Growth of cultural history (popular culture, sport emerging as new areas)

• Decline in economic history

2. Home Rule crisis: key issues and debates

• Why did Home Rule fail? Why was it replaced by republicanism? Why was there a revolution? What did the revolution change? How predictable – or avoidable (violence, partition) – were these events?

- ‘Revisionist’ historiography of 1970s and 1980s successfully challenges traditional nationalist narrative of the ‘long gestation’ inevitably leading to revolution

- Revisionists emphasise impact of Home Rule crisis, Great War, and Rising in destabilising otherwise viable political movement

- But trend in more recent (post-revisionist?) research to explore weaknesses within IPP and resilience of Fenianism: e.g. M.J. Kelly’s Fenian Ideal argues that home rule was never as popular as idea of independent IrelandMichael Wheatley’s Nationalism and the Irish Party argues that rhetoric of ‘Redmondism’ had less grassroots appeal among Irish Party MPs and supporters than popular nationalist rhetoric

Politics and war, 1914-18: the Great War

• Irish experience of Great War relatively neglected subject for a long period

• Revisionist work of recent decades sought to challenge simplistic narratives of Protestant loyalty and Catholic disloyalty- e.g. by studying how recruitment was shaped more by socio-economic than political factors (David Fitzpatrick)- detailed studies of military experience (Tim Bowman)- studies of political and cultural impact (Keith Jeffery)

• Recent trend (related to political context?) emphasises shared Catholic and Protestant experiences (e.g. John Horne, Our War), particularly notable in focus on issues relating to commemoration and social memory.

Politics and war, 1914-18: the Easter Rising

• Curiously neglected subject - First professionally researched history Foy and Barton’s Easter Rising (1999)

- First account by university-based academic Charles Townshend’s Easter 1916 (2005) – 90th anniversary!

• Recent focus on popular experience of Rising: McGarry’s The Rising (2010) drawing on Bureau of Military History

Revolution and state-building, 1919-25 (i)

• Popular nationalist narrative of revolutionary era unchallenged until 1970s

• David Fitzpatrick’s landmark Politics and Irish Life, 1913-21 which uses local focus to raise new questions:- How much support was their for republican ideology and violence?- Did Sinn Fein mimic the Irish Party that it replaced in terms of ideology and politics?- Why did the revolution not transform society?

Revolution and state-building, 1919-25 (ii: recent trends)

• Proliferation of the local study (Longford, Cork, Sligo, Limerick . . .

• New questions raised by Peter Hart’s radical work (sectarianism; class; patterns of violence . . .)

• Focus on class and agrarian dimensions (Fergus Campbell’s Land and Revolution and The Irish Establishment

• The neglected north and partitionist history:- David Fitzpatrick’s The Two Irelands- Robert Lynch’s The Northern IRA

5. New directions• Success of ‘myth-busting’ revisionist agenda:

- collapse of IPP, rise of SF, Irish republic no longer seen as inevitable but contingent- partition and revolution viewed as related to, rather than parallel with, experience of Great War- Irish events viewed within broader European context of decline of empire, rise of nationalism, impact of war

• Post-revisionism? Limits of revisionism, less sceptical approach to appeal of republicanism, popular over elite experiences

• Comparative (T.K. Wilson’s Ulster and Silesia) and transnational approaches (Fenianism, Orangeism) over Anglocentric pespectives

• Cultural approaches: gender, masculinity, role of women • Impact of decade of centenaries (commemoration and memory)• New sources: BMH WS, Pension Applications, digitisation of press