Superficially, the appearance of constructive unionism, the reforms associated with it, the failure of Home Rule efforts, and the settling of the Irish Parliamentary Party into a more conventional political role made some observers anticipate eventual acquiescence by the Irish to union. The fact that Ireland retained the same number of members in parliament, despite the stagnation in its population numbers, gave its delegation a disproportionate strength that in time might allow Irishmen to assume a greater role in British politics. However, certain cultural movements and a lingering nationalist zeal provided alternative and separatist directions for many ardent younger people turned off by the practical politics of the Irish Parliamentary Party in the post-Parnell era.
One of the earliest was a sporting movement, the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), founded in 1884 by Michael Cusack, who formerly ran classes for candidates for police positions, to promote local Irish sports, such as hurling and football, as an alternative to "foreign" and particularly English sports, such as rugby and soccer. Class antagonism served as a partial impetus to the association, as many socially ambitious young white-collar Irish had tended to forsake the games of their peasant ancestors for English sports. Participation in Gaelic sports quickly drew an enthusiastic response from the rural population. Another important promoter was the Catholic Church, particularly Archbishop Thomas Croke of Cashel, who urged avoidance of English games together with English literature and music. Priestly encouragement of youthful involvement in Gaelic athletic activities, which were often conducted on a parish level, was a pastoral device to enhance religious commitment as well as physical development. The fact that Irish was the language employed in playing the games solidified a nationalist mind-set.
As time went on, the GAA specifically forbade its members from attendance at or participation in certain specific "banned" sports like soccer and rugby. A theme was uttered that the Irish games were more "manly," while the others were "effeminate." (Rugby? Soccer?) However, rugby remained the primary game of the better-educated, whether Catholic or Protestant, and most of the private Catholic secondary schools or colleges, particularly those run by the Society of Jesus, had rugby teams. Soccer, on the other hand, remained the popular sport of the urban working class, particularly in Dublin. Gaelic games were predominant in the countryside among the peasantry and the rising middle class. Most important, when the war of independence started, GAA membership served as an almost automatic path to Sinn Fein and IRA involvement.
Another movement, originally apolitical, but which became inseparable from cultural and political separatism, was the Gaelic League, i5 founded by a Protestant, Douglas Hyde, in 1893 to promote the revival of the Irish language. The language had become a minority tongue by the beginning of the 19th century because the natural social leadership of the Irish-speaking population had gone into exile or been confined to second-class status in the penal era. The predominant socioeconomic position of the New English, as well as the need to use the English language in the commercial world to which Catholics turned when land was denied them, weakened the hold of the language on the rising Catholics. When national schooling was started instruction was entirely in English. The Irish-only speaking parents favored this as a way to advance prospects for their children, but, in so doing, the hold of Irish language was weakened for future generations. Possibly the most devastating impact on the language was the high amount of death in and emigration from Irish-speaking areas during the famine of 1845 to 1849. By the beginning of the 20th century probably less than 10 percent of the population spoke Irish regularly, and not many more had even a passing acquaintance with it.
As is often the case, the promoters of a language are people quite distinct culturally and physically from those who regularly use it. In this case the earliest enthusiasts of the language were antiquarians, most likely Protestant and of New English roots. Others of the same background, drawn by the romanticism of Thomas Davis's Young Ireland movement, saw the language as a unifying factor in creating an Irish identity that could overcome the religious divide. At the same time they were not necessarily political separatists. Later, Irish language supporters were romantic conservatives who saw the Irishspeaking peasant world of Ireland as an alternative to the commercial industrial world of 19th-century England. However, very quickly the movement became predominantly identified with and supported by Catholics, particularly younger teachers and priests. It operated culturally in the way the GAA did athletically. Inevitably Gaelic League activists would be drawn into supporting political separatism and even violence. Naturally, the independent Irish government that would emerge from the revolution would remain even to this day, at least nominally, committed to the language cause. 10
A more elitist phenomenon, often linked with these movements, if for no other reason than that it occurred simultaneously with them, was the Irish literary renaissance, whose central event was the opening of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1904. No doubt some wanted a distinct Irish literature that would conform to a separatist ideology that would uncritically idealize things Irish. But the central figures in this movement, including William Butler Yeats, John Millington Synge, and Lady Gregory, were of such literary genius and independence of thought that such an objective would have been inconceivable. The emphasis placed on the Irish people provided the theme for their works. Admittedly, they shared a romantic idealization of the Irish-speaking peasant world as an alternative to the materialist world of urbanism and industry. But they did not make their characters out to be angels and their work had, as does all great literature, a universal message and appeal. Indeed, the fact that some of their work made Irish characters appear less than saintly provoked riots by more militant cultural separatists who saw plays such as Synge's The Playboy of the Western World as depreciatory of the Irish.
Distinctly political movements also appeared as alternatives to the Irish Parliamentary Party, even though they would retain a minority position for sometime. One was Sinn Fein, which was started as a political party in 1905, based on the ideas formulated by the journalist Arthur Griffith in his newspaper, The United Irishman, beginning in 1898. Griffith called for the members of parliament elected from Ireland to refuse to take their seats in Westminster and form a separate parliament in Ireland—in other words, to proclaim Home Rule without formal parliamentary sanction. He advocated a "Dual Monarchy" arrangement in place of the union, with the same king for the separate nations, Britain and Ireland, much like the Austro-Hungarian emperor was of Austria and Hungary. Griffith also advocated economic protectionism for Ireland as a stimulus to its industrial development. Culturally he believed in Irish distinctness and was critical of some of the plays performed at the Abbey Theatre. His political party ran several candidates unsuccessfully for parliament in the 1906 and 1910 elections, but they achieved some success in local government polls. The movement remained a constitutional one and did not advocate violence.
A message somewhat similar to that of Sinn Fein was the Irish-Ireland of Waterford-born journalist, D. P. Moran. His paper, the Leader, championed economic protection, including a buy Irish campaign, cultural distinctiveness, and Irish language revival. He cast slurs on Irish Catholics who were unsympathetic to separatism, whether political or cultural, such as "shoneen," which were comparable in an Afro-American context to "Uncle Tom." Very much an individualist, he was severely critical of many historical and contemporary Irish figures, including those, such as members of Sinn Fein, who ought to be seen as his allies.
Lastly, there remained the Irish Republican Brotherhood, in a semi-somnolent position since the late 1890s with an aged membership dwelling more on past glories or heroics than on future action. However, one former prisoner, Tom Clarke, who had returned from America, began to breath new life into the organization by recruiting a number of younger men. It remained very much underground until 1916 when it was ready to seek Ireland's
Opportunity while England was at a disadvantage, this time in waging the First World War.
World History
