All-for-Ireland League
Encyclopedia
The All-for-Ireland League (AFIL), was an Irish
, Munster
-based political party (1909–1918). Founded by William O'Brien
MP
, it generated a new national movement to achieve agreement between the different parties concerned on the historically difficult aim of Home Rule for the whole of Ireland. The AFIL established itself as a separate non-sectarian party in the House of Commons
of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
, binding a group of independent nationalists MPs to pursue a broader concept of Irish nationalism
, a consensus of political brotherhood and reconciliation among all Irishmen, primarily to win Unionist consent to an All-Ireland parliamentary settlement.
Land Purchase Act of 1903, which resolved Ireland’s century old land question. This was followed by the housing of agricultural labourers, settled under the 1906 Labourers (Ireland) Act. With local government
already well established, O’Brien was convinced that in order to achieve the final hurdle of All-Ireland self-government, the success of the approach he used to win the Land Act, the "doctrine of conciliation" combined with "conference plus business", must also be applied to alleviate the fears and integrate the interests of the Protestant and Unionist community in their resistance to Home Rule since 1886.
The Irish Parliamentary Party
(IPP) was long disrupted by internal dissensions after it had alienated William O’Brien from the party in November 1903 following his success with the Land Purchase Act. He was condemned by party leader John Dillon
for allegedly making former tenant farmers less dependent on the party and for the manner in which he secured a new political base in Munster through his alliance with D. D. Sheehan
and the Irish Land and Labour Association
, as well as forging further alliances with T. M. Healy
and unionist devolutionists during 1904-5 in his engagement with the Irish Reform Association
. By 1907 the country called for reunion of the split party ranks and in November O'Brien's proposals for his and other Independent’s return to the Party were accepted. His return to the Nationalist fold was however to be short lived, as conflict ensued from the government’s intention to amend the Land Act of 1903.
(AOH) also known as the Molly Maguires
, or the Mollies, -- what he called "the most damnable fact in the history of this country", and was bitterly resentful and unsparing in his attacks upon it. AOH members represented Catholic-nationalism of a Ribbon
tradition, their Ulster
Protestant counter-part the Orange Order
. The AOH Grandmaster
was a young Belfast
man of remarkable political ability, Joseph Devlin
MP, who attached himself to the Dillonite
section of the Irish Party, as well as being General Secretary of its adopted United Irish League
(UIL). Devlin was already known as "the real Chief Secretary of Ireland", his AOH spreading successfully and eventually saturating the entire island. Even in Dublin the AOH could draw large crowds and stage impressive demonstrations. In 1907, Devlin was able to assure John Redmond
, the Irish Party leader, that a planned meeting of the UIL would be well attended because he would be able to get more than 400 AOH delegates to fill the hall.
bill curtailing funding of tenant land purchase under the Birrell Land Act (1909). Over 3000 UIL delegates attended. Redmond, who chaired the meeting, claimed it would burden the British Treasury and local ratepayers excessively. O’Brien argued that the curtailing Bill would kill land purchase by provoking refusal by landlords to sell and worsen relations between tenants and landlords. The convention was obviously loaded against O'Brien when delegates suspected of supporting him were excluded at the entrance and assaulted in "probably the stormiest meeting ever held by constitutional nationalists".
When he attempted to speak O’Brien was howled down by various contingents of Belfast Hibernians and midland cattle-drivers, their presence pre-organised by Devlin's AOH organisation. Its stewards, armed with batons, attacked O’Brien’s follower who had gained entrance, their general order to "Let no one with a "Cork
accent" get near the platform". From which the event earned the name Baton Convention. Eugene Crean
MP for Cork SE was attacked on the platform, it developed into a fight involving Devlin and James Gilhooly
MP for north Cork, this in Redmond’s presence. Others targeted were members of the Young Ireland
Branch, Frank Cruise-O’Brien and Francis Sheehy-Skeffington
, who called Devlin a brainless bludgeoner.
of 1902, which he initiated in Kanturk in March 1909. It was immediately publicly denounced by Redmond, and at an Irish party meeting held 23 March the party voted fifty to one that membership in the League was incompatible with party membership. O'Brien suffered a health breakdown in April, and retired to Italy to recuperate.
From there O’Brien looked to an alliance with Arthur Griffith
's moderate Sinn Féin movement through emissaries James Brady (a Dublin solicitor), John Shawe-Taylor and Tim Healy. O’Brien offered funds for Sinn Féin candidates to run in Dublin and funds to run its paper Sinn Féin, in return for Sinn Féin support of his candidates in the south. A special Sinn Feín executive council meeting called 20 December 1909 seriously considered these overtures, many present in favour of cooperation. Sinn Féin's William Sears
reported the end result: "Regret cannot cooperate because the Constitution will not allow us. Mr. Griffith was in favour of cooperation if possible". Nevertheless in the following years O’Brien and his party continued to associate itself with Griffith's movement both in and out of Parliament. In June 1918, Griffith asked O’Brien to have the writ moved for his candidacy in the East Cavan
by-election (moved by AFIL MP Eugene Crean
) when Griffith was elected with a sizable majority.
O’Brien returned from Italy for the January 1910 elections in which his electoral success must have exceeded his expectations. Eleven Nationalists independent of the official party returned, seven of them his followers. It revived his project of the All-for-Ireland League. He framed the League’s programme containing several unique points:
The League held its inaugural public meeting 31 March 1910 in Cork city
. Its rules and constitution were formulated and endorsed at a public meeting on 12 April, where it announced its Home Rule manifesto and political policies to be:
League Chairman was James Gilhooly
(MP), Honorary Secretary D. D. Sheehan
(MP). A Central London branch was founded by Dr J. G. Fitzgerald (MP) as Chairman, suggesting some disenchantment with his former Parnellite colleagues including John Redmond. Canon Sheehan of Doneraile, a founder member, spoke and wrote enthusiastically in favour of the Leagues doctrines. The Cork Free Press
, published by O'Brien, appeared for the first time on 11 June 1910 as the League’s official organ and organiser. It was a newspaper in the fullest sense, superseding the Cork Accent and was one of the three great radical newspapers published in Ireland – the other two being The Nation
, published in Dublin in the 1840s, and The Northern Star, published in Belfast in the 1790s.
Canon Sheehan wrote the manifesto of the movement for the first number of the Cork Free Press, and asked in a very long editorial:
O'Brien's hostility to the AOH was counter-productive in mobilising the Catholic clergy, with one or two exceptions, behind the official IPP candidates. O'Brien felt as if he were under siege from clerical forces
and wrote despondently "We have to deal with a confederacy of the priests of this country to strangle the AFIL and to strike down its standard-bearers". The competition between the rival nationalist parties in Cork was, at times, extremely violent. In the election contests of 1910 and 1914 in the city, a total of 11 people were shot and two killed in clashes between IPP and AFIL supporters. Many more injured in street brawls between the rival parties
Attempts to carry the contest into Irish Party territory failed; a meeting at Crossmolina
, County Mayo
ended almost fatally when revolver shots were fired and O’Brien’s audience routed by toughs and priests.
The League, dependent almost entirely upon O’Brien’s personal following amongst the rural community in Munster (the bulwark of Sheehan’s Land and Labour Association) and though woefully lacking in clerical support, returned eight AFIL MPs (three further Nationalist Independents were also returned). In the end it was Cork, the country’s largest county, which vindicated O’Brien’s policies returning the eight seats to form his new political party. It included Timothy Healy
who the previous November created the unusual AFIL coalescence of Healyism and O’Brienism. Healy lost his seat in Louth north
, but was returned in a 1911 by-election after Moreton Frewen
retired his seat in Cork north-east
.
The Cork Free Press gave the total Redmondite vote in the country as 92,709, and the Independent Nationalist's vote, largely supporting the principles of the League, as 39,729 (30,46%) which included the constituencies outside of Cork contested by fourteen AFIL candidates (Armagh south, Dublin Harbour, Kerry south and east, Limerick city, Limerick west and east, Louth north, Mayo west, Tipperary mid, Waterford west and Wexford south).
After the introduction of a new Third Home Rule Bill by Asquith in April 1912, an AFIL conference held in Cork on 25 May declared whole-hearted support of the Bill, subject to three amendments:
During the three readings of the Bill in 1913 and 1914, O’Brien and his AFIL colleagues fought untiringly in the spirit of their electoral mandate for a non-sectarian solution to the “Irish question” and were adamant that through cooperation on specific matters of common interest to build and win Unionist confidence, goodwill and consent, and that there should be no limit to the concessions offered to Ulster to have it participate in an All-Ireland parliament. "Any price for a United Ireland
, but partition
never".
In January 1914 both O’Brien in his Cork Free Press and D. D. Sheehan in the London Daily Express
simultaneously published a list of concessions they ascertained as acceptable to Ulster, enabling its participation in a Dublin parliament. The proposals in brief were:
Instead, the uncompromising IPP/AOH stand taken by the Dillon-Devlin alliance killed All-Ireland Home Rule, by aiming to force Ulster’s acquiescence; "no Orange vetoes, no concessions, Ulster must follow", Ulster's Unionist leader Sir Edward Carson, proclaiming "Ulster can never be coerced, Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right", demanding from Redmond that he "listen to the Cork members" when he said in the Commons:
The Chairman at this point called Carson to order, amid jeers.
in the House of Commons, the Bill accompanied by Asquith's solemn guarantee that it would never be enforced without an Amending Bill, enacting the separation of the Six Counties
, O'Brien's speech on 25 May 1914 was the only word of protest uttered by a representative of Ireland. In the course of his speech O’Brien said (in extract):
The All-for-Irelanders resolutely resisted the violation of Ireland's national unity
, and as a final protest before History, abstaining from voting for a Bill which had become a Partition Bill. As a result they were assailed with yells of "Factionists!" and "Traitors!" by the Hibernian Party members, whose own votes had just pledged Ireland’s fatal consent to the Partition infamy.
The spectre of civil war loomed when, after the Ulster Volunteers landed arms from Imperial Germany in April to resist Home Rule, Redmond's Irish Volunteers
following suit in July, landing arms to enforce it.
in September, but suspended for the duration of the war. O’Brien and his party rallied in support of the Allied cause
of a Europe free from oppression supporting Britain's war effort, as did the IPP and its National Volunteers
in unison with most sections of Irish society. O’Brien perceived it as an opportunity for all Irishmen, Protestant and Catholic alike to unite and serve together in the long term interest of attaining independent Irish self-government. The initial recruiting response to enlisting in Irish regiments of the 10th and 16th (Irish) Division was considerable. Ulstermen enlisted in their 36th (Ulster) Division.
By 1915 with stalemate on the Western Front
and the losses of the 10th (Irish) Division in the Dardanelles
at Cape Helles, enthusiasm began to wane. O’Brien had warned a decade earlier of the resurgence of revolutionary nationalism evolving out of the sectarian basis of national action, subsequently erupting in the 1916 Rebellion
. This was to have serious ramifications for Ireland's subsequent history.
O'Brien suffered closure of his newspaper, the Cork Free Press in 1916 soon after the appointment of Lord Decies
as Chief Press Censor for Ireland. Decies warned the press to be careful about what they published. Such warnings had little effect when dealing with such papers as the Cork Free Press. It was suppressed after its republican editor, Frank Gallagher
, accused the British authorities of lying about the conditions and situation of republican prisoners in Frongoch internment camp
.
the Government’s attempt in July 1916 to have Redmond and Carson agree on immediately introducing Home Rule, failed. The new Prime Minister Lloyd George
proposed in May 1917, in what was a fifth attempt to implement Home Rule, that an Irish Convention
, composed of representative Irishmen from all parties, should assemble to deliberate upon the best means of governing their country.
The AFIL Party was asked to nominate representatives to the Convention. In reply O’Brien stated four essential conditions which first needed to be fulfilled if the Convention was to succeed. He submitted a panel to the Cabinet limited to twelve leading representatives of the main bodies and parties involved. It was subsequently clear that such a prominent representation would not have separated without coming to agreement, but O’Brien’s proposals were set aside. None of those he proposed were invited. Instead the ninety-five who agreed to attend in July were composed of nine-tenths representatives drawn from already elected representatives who had previously voted for the Home Rule partition settlement.
Lloyd George appealed to O’Brien to attend, but under the circumstances both he and Healy declined, despite the fact that for thirteen years he had been calling for a conference of all parties to settle the Irish question. O’Brien believed that the conclave would make "a hateful bargain for the partition of the country under a plausible disguise". What was needed instead was not a "heterogeneous assembly . . . but a small round-table of representative Irishmen". As early as 18 May Sinn Féin declined to send representatives, the Dublin Trades Council, the Cork Trade and Labour Council, the Gaelic and National Leagues also refused.
The only constructive contribution which the Ulster delegates made to the Irish Convention was to propose in March 1918, the partition of Ireland with the exclusion of all of the province of Ulster.
in October 1916. The West-Cork by-election
has a place in history as the first after the Rising and the last in which the Irish Party narrowly captured a seat and as the self-induced demise of the AFIL. At stake in the bitterly fought by-election was not just one of the 105 seats in the House of Commons, the great issue was William O’Brien’s AFIL versus John Redmond’s Irish Party. In November three candidates were nominated, the third also a local AFIL supporter who stood in protest after O’Brien passed him over in favour of Frank Healy, a Sinn Féin
close candidate who had been imprisoned in Frongoch
, thereby splitting the AFIL vote to the detriment of O’Brien’s party. (At that time seats were won by "candidates first past the post", or uncontested as in 1918 by Séan Hayes of Sinn Féin
).
When Britain moved to introduce Home Rule in April 1918 as proposed by the Irish Convention, it unwisely did so when it linked its implementation with a conscription bill for Ireland after the collapse of the Allied, and Irish, divisions during the German Spring Offensive
on the Western Front
. This resulted in the ”Irish conscription crisis". At its height the AFIL withdrew from Westminster while making a final damning anti-conscription speech, joining forces with the Irish Party, Sinn Féin and Labour in mass protest demonstrations in Dublin. Although the act was never put into force its crisis caused an unprecedented rise in popularity for Sinn Féin, destroying all interest in Home Rule and constitutional nationalism.
Towards the end of 1918, as a consequence that both the Irish Party and Britain failed to introduce Home Rule and maintain an undivided Ireland, and as it became evident that constitutional political concepts for attaining independent All-Ireland self-government were being displaced by a path of militant physical-force, the AFIL MPs recognised the futility of contesting the December general election
-- O'Brien in an address to the election:
The party members issued a manifesto supporting the Sinn Féin movement, and unanimously decided to retire from the election putting its seats at the disposal of its candidates, all of whom were returned unopposed as Sinn Féin representatives.
It failed in these aims because most Nationalists under-estimated the intensity of Unionist resistance to Home Rule and particularly due to the strong distrust influential Catholic clergy had towards the League. In all but two cases, the clergy acted substantially united behind Irish Party candidates, so that in the twenty-three constituencies AFIL candidates contested in the December 1910 election, the Church’s forces were thoroughly mobilised against O’Brien’s League, contributing to the subsequent polarisation of the political landscape.
From 1915 members of the League were deflecting to Sinn Féin, the editorial of O’Brien’s Cork Free Press stating in the issue of 30 September "It is to Sinn Féin that Ireland must now look to mould the future of her people". O’Brien was convinced that the only dignified course was to stand aside and let Sinn Féin exert pressure on England to come to terms. The party did not contest the December 1918 election.
All for Ireland ! One and all !
Here we meet at Erin's call --
Meet, to pledge with heart and hand,
True fealty to our native land.
Many-minded though we be,
In this pact we all agree --
We must end the reign of wrong
That's wrecked our country's life so long.
Hostile sections in the past,
We shall now be friends at last:
All our classes, clans and creeds
Rivals but in patriot deeds.
Here we come at Erin's call,
From cottage home, and stately hall,
For her rights to stand or fall --
ALL FOR IRELAND ! ONE AND ALL !
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, Munster
Munster
Munster is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the south of Ireland. In Ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial purposes...
-based political party (1909–1918). Founded by William O'Brien
William O'Brien
William O'Brien was an Irish nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
, it generated a new national movement to achieve agreement between the different parties concerned on the historically difficult aim of Home Rule for the whole of Ireland. The AFIL established itself as a separate non-sectarian party in the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
, binding a group of independent nationalists MPs to pursue a broader concept of Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...
, a consensus of political brotherhood and reconciliation among all Irishmen, primarily to win Unionist consent to an All-Ireland parliamentary settlement.
Conciliation plus business
O’Briens’s conciliatory initiation of the 1902 Land Conference led to agreement on the WyndhamGeorge Wyndham
George Wyndham PC was a British Conservative politician, man of letters, noted for his elegance, and one of The Souls.-Background and education:...
Land Purchase Act of 1903, which resolved Ireland’s century old land question. This was followed by the housing of agricultural labourers, settled under the 1906 Labourers (Ireland) Act. With local government
Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898
The Local Government Act 1898 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that established a system of local government in Ireland similar to that already created for England, Wales and Scotland by legislation in 1888 and 1889...
already well established, O’Brien was convinced that in order to achieve the final hurdle of All-Ireland self-government, the success of the approach he used to win the Land Act, the "doctrine of conciliation" combined with "conference plus business", must also be applied to alleviate the fears and integrate the interests of the Protestant and Unionist community in their resistance to Home Rule since 1886.
The Irish Parliamentary Party
Irish Parliamentary Party
The Irish Parliamentary Party was formed in 1882 by Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nationalist Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons at...
(IPP) was long disrupted by internal dissensions after it had alienated William O’Brien from the party in November 1903 following his success with the Land Purchase Act. He was condemned by party leader John Dillon
John Dillon
John Dillon was an Irish land reform agitator from Dublin, an Irish Home Rule activist, a nationalist politician, a Member of Parliament for over 35 years, and the last leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party....
for allegedly making former tenant farmers less dependent on the party and for the manner in which he secured a new political base in Munster through his alliance with D. D. Sheehan
D. D. Sheehan
Daniel Desmond Sheehan, usually known as D. D. Sheehan was an Irish nationalist, politician, labour leader, journalist, barrister and author...
and the Irish Land and Labour Association
Irish Land and Labour Association
The Irish Land and Labour Association was a progressive movement founded in the early 1890s in Munster, Ireland, to organise and pursue political agitation for small tenant farmers' and rural labourers' rights. Its branches also spread into Connacht. The ILLA was known under different names—Land...
, as well as forging further alliances with T. M. Healy
Timothy Michael Healy
Timothy Michael Healy, KC , also known as Tim Healy, was an Irish nationalist politician, journalist, author, barrister and one of the most controversial Irish Members of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
and unionist devolutionists during 1904-5 in his engagement with the Irish Reform Association
Irish Reform Association
The Irish Reform Association was an attempt to introduce limited devolved self-government to Ireland by a group of reform oriented Irish unionist land owners who proposed to initially adopt something less than full Home Rule...
. By 1907 the country called for reunion of the split party ranks and in November O'Brien's proposals for his and other Independent’s return to the Party were accepted. His return to the Nationalist fold was however to be short lived, as conflict ensued from the government’s intention to amend the Land Act of 1903.
Hibernian clash
O'Brien had always been gravely disturbed by the Irish Parliamentary Party's involvement with "that sinister sectarian secret society", the Ancient Order of HiberniansAncient Order of Hibernians
The Ancient Order of Hibernians is an Irish Catholic fraternal organization. Members must be Catholic and either Irish born or of Irish descent. Its largest membership is now in the United States, where it was founded in New York City in 1836...
(AOH) also known as the Molly Maguires
Molly Maguires
The Molly Maguires were members of an Irish-American secret society, whose members consisted mainly of coal miners. Many historians believe the "Mollies" were present in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania in the United States from approximately the time of the American Civil War until a...
, or the Mollies, -- what he called "the most damnable fact in the history of this country", and was bitterly resentful and unsparing in his attacks upon it. AOH members represented Catholic-nationalism of a Ribbon
Ribbonism
Ribbonism, whose adherents were usually called Ribbonmen, was a 19th century popular movement of Catholics in Ireland. It was active against landlords and their agents, and was ideologically and sometimes violently opposed to the Orange Order.-History:...
tradition, their Ulster
Ulster
Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...
Protestant counter-part the Orange Order
Orange Institution
The Orange Institution is a Protestant fraternal organisation based mainly in Northern Ireland and Scotland, though it has lodges throughout the Commonwealth and United States. The Institution was founded in 1796 near the village of Loughgall in County Armagh, Ireland...
. The AOH Grandmaster
Grand Master (order)
Grand Master is the typical title of the supreme head of various orders of knighthood, including various military orders, religious orders and civil orders such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Orange Order...
was a young Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
man of remarkable political ability, Joseph Devlin
Joseph Devlin
Joseph Devlin, also known as Joe Devlin, was an Irish journalist and influential nationalist politician...
MP, who attached himself to the Dillonite
John Dillon
John Dillon was an Irish land reform agitator from Dublin, an Irish Home Rule activist, a nationalist politician, a Member of Parliament for over 35 years, and the last leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party....
section of the Irish Party, as well as being General Secretary of its adopted United Irish League
United Irish League
The United Irish League was a nationalist political party in Ireland, launched 23 January 1898 with the motto "The Land for the People" . Its objective to be achieved through agrarian agitation and land reform, compelling larger grazier farmers to surrender their lands for redistribution amongst...
(UIL). Devlin was already known as "the real Chief Secretary of Ireland", his AOH spreading successfully and eventually saturating the entire island. Even in Dublin the AOH could draw large crowds and stage impressive demonstrations. In 1907, Devlin was able to assure John Redmond
John Redmond
John Edward Redmond was an Irish nationalist politician, barrister, MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party from 1900 to 1918...
, the Irish Party leader, that a planned meeting of the UIL would be well attended because he would be able to get more than 400 AOH delegates to fill the hall.
Baton Convention
As prelude to O’Brien’s formation of the AFIL, Redmond called a National Convention at the Mansion House, Dublin, 7 February 1909, to win support for a House of CommonsBritish House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
bill curtailing funding of tenant land purchase under the Birrell Land Act (1909). Over 3000 UIL delegates attended. Redmond, who chaired the meeting, claimed it would burden the British Treasury and local ratepayers excessively. O’Brien argued that the curtailing Bill would kill land purchase by provoking refusal by landlords to sell and worsen relations between tenants and landlords. The convention was obviously loaded against O'Brien when delegates suspected of supporting him were excluded at the entrance and assaulted in "probably the stormiest meeting ever held by constitutional nationalists".
When he attempted to speak O’Brien was howled down by various contingents of Belfast Hibernians and midland cattle-drivers, their presence pre-organised by Devlin's AOH organisation. Its stewards, armed with batons, attacked O’Brien’s follower who had gained entrance, their general order to "Let no one with a "Cork
County Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...
accent" get near the platform". From which the event earned the name Baton Convention. Eugene Crean
Eugene Crean
Eugene Crean was an Irish nationalist politician and MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and member of the Irish Parliamentary Party 1892–1910, for the All-for Ireland Party 1910–1918....
MP for Cork SE was attacked on the platform, it developed into a fight involving Devlin and James Gilhooly
James Gilhooly
James Gilhooly was an Irish nationalist politician and MP. in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, from 1910 the All-for Ireland Party, who represented his constituency from 1885 for 30 years until his death, retaining...
MP for north Cork, this in Redmond’s presence. Others targeted were members of the Young Ireland
Young Ireland
Young Ireland was a political, cultural and social movement of the mid-19th century. It led changes in Irish nationalism, including an abortive rebellion known as the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848. Many of the latter's leaders were tried for sedition and sentenced to penal transportation to...
Branch, Frank Cruise-O’Brien and Francis Sheehy-Skeffington
Francis Sheehy-Skeffington
Francis Skeffington from Bailieborough, County Cavan, was an Irish suffragist, pacifist and writer. He was a friend and schoolmate of James Joyce, Oliver St John Gogarty, Tom Kettle, and Conor Cruise O'Brien's father, Frank O'Brien...
, who called Devlin a brainless bludgeoner.
League launched
Regarding himself as having been driven from the party by Hibernian hooligans, O’Brien’s subsequent move was to officially constitute his new movement, the "All-for-Ireland League", its embryonic origins - the successful Land ConferenceLand Conference
The Land Conference was a successful conciliatory negotiation held in the Mansion House in Dublin, Ireland between 20 December 1902 and 4 January 1903. In a short period it produced a unanimously agreed report recommending an amiable solution to the long waged land war between tenant farmers and...
of 1902, which he initiated in Kanturk in March 1909. It was immediately publicly denounced by Redmond, and at an Irish party meeting held 23 March the party voted fifty to one that membership in the League was incompatible with party membership. O'Brien suffered a health breakdown in April, and retired to Italy to recuperate.
From there O’Brien looked to an alliance with Arthur Griffith
Arthur Griffith
Arthur Griffith was the founder and third leader of Sinn Féin. He served as President of Dáil Éireann from January to August 1922, and was head of the Irish delegation at the negotiations in London that produced the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921.-Early life:...
's moderate Sinn Féin movement through emissaries James Brady (a Dublin solicitor), John Shawe-Taylor and Tim Healy. O’Brien offered funds for Sinn Féin candidates to run in Dublin and funds to run its paper Sinn Féin, in return for Sinn Féin support of his candidates in the south. A special Sinn Feín executive council meeting called 20 December 1909 seriously considered these overtures, many present in favour of cooperation. Sinn Féin's William Sears
William Sears (politician)
William Sears was an Irish Sinn Féin and later Cumann na nGaedheal politician.He was elected as a Sinn Féin MP for the Mayo South constituency at the 1918 general election...
reported the end result: "Regret cannot cooperate because the Constitution will not allow us. Mr. Griffith was in favour of cooperation if possible". Nevertheless in the following years O’Brien and his party continued to associate itself with Griffith's movement both in and out of Parliament. In June 1918, Griffith asked O’Brien to have the writ moved for his candidacy in the East Cavan
East Cavan (UK Parliament constituency)
East Cavan was a parliamentary constituency in Ireland, which from 1885 to 1922 returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.Prior to 1885 the area was part of the Cavan constituency...
by-election (moved by AFIL MP Eugene Crean
Eugene Crean
Eugene Crean was an Irish nationalist politician and MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and member of the Irish Parliamentary Party 1892–1910, for the All-for Ireland Party 1910–1918....
) when Griffith was elected with a sizable majority.
O’Brien returned from Italy for the January 1910 elections in which his electoral success must have exceeded his expectations. Eleven Nationalists independent of the official party returned, seven of them his followers. It revived his project of the All-for-Ireland League. He framed the League’s programme containing several unique points:
-
- 1) extension of the conciliatory spirit of the Land Conference to the larger problem of Irish self-government;
- 2) distrust of the Irish Party’s alliance with the LiberalsLiberal Party (UK)The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
and specific opposition to Lloyd George’s budget and Birrel’s revision of the land settlement; and - 3) hostility to the Ancient Order of Hibernians.
The League held its inaugural public meeting 31 March 1910 in Cork city
Cork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
. Its rules and constitution were formulated and endorsed at a public meeting on 12 April, where it announced its Home Rule manifesto and political policies to be:
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- "the union and active co-operation in every department of our national life of all Irish men and women of all classes and creeds who believe in the principles of domestic self-government for Ireland.
- For the accomplishment of this object the surest means were to be a combination of all the elements of the Irish population in a spirit of mutual tolerance and patriotic goodwill, such as shall guarantee to the Protestant minority of our fellow-countrymen inviolable security for their rights and liberties, and win the friendship of the people of Great BritainGreat BritainGreat Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
without distinction of party."
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"Three C s" Banner
The application of the AFIL’s principles of "Conference, Conciliation and Consent" , were to win All-Ireland Home Rule – or constitutional nationalism rather than an ultimately doomed path of militant physical force.Many of the leading Protestant gentry of Munster, and representatives of the wealthy Protestant business and professional community joined the League. Lord Dunraven, Lord Barrymore, Lord Mayo
Earl of MayoEarl of the County of Mayo, usually known simply as Earl of Mayo, is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1785 for John Bourke, 1st Viscount Mayo, for many years First Commissioner of Revenue in Ireland...
and Lord CastletownBaron CastletownBaron Castletown, of Upper Ossory in the Queen's County, was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 10 December 1869 for John FitzPatrick, the former Liberal Member of Parliament for Queen's County. He was the illegitimate son of John FitzPatrick, 2nd Earl of Upper Ossory...
, Sir John KeaneSir John Keane, 5th BaronetSir John Keane, 5th Baronet , was an Irish barrister and politician. He was educated at Clifton College and Royal Military Academy Woolwich. He succeeded his father as 5th Baronet in 1892. He was a senator in the upper house of the Irish parliament. He was also a director of the Bank of Ireland...
of Cappoquin, Villiers StuartBaron Stuart de DeciesBaron Stuart de Decies, of Dromana within the Decies in the County of Waterford, was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1839 for Henry Villiers-Stuart, Member of Parliament for County Waterford and Banbury and Lord-Lieutenant of County Waterford...
of Dromana , Moreton FrewenMoreton FrewenMoreton Frewen was an Anglo-Irish writer on monetary reform who served briefly as a Member of Parliament .-Life:...
, were a few of the most notable adherents. Even amongst the Orangemen the spirit of patriotism was stirring – hands were stretched out from UlsterUlsterUlster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...
to the Catholics of the South. Lord RossmoreBaron RossmoreBaron Rossmore, of Monaghan in the County of Monaghan, is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1796 for the soldier Robert Cuninghame, with remainder to his wife Elizabeth's nephews Henry Alexander Jones and Warner William Westenra...
, once Grandmaster of the Orange InstitutionOrange InstitutionThe Orange Institution is a Protestant fraternal organisation based mainly in Northern Ireland and Scotland, though it has lodges throughout the Commonwealth and United States. The Institution was founded in 1796 near the village of Loughgall in County Armagh, Ireland...
, joined the League, Sharman Crawford and others. Unionism was declared by them to be a "discredited creed". Nationalist and Unionists were called upon to recognise the unwisdom of perpetuating a suicidal strife which sacrificed them to religious bigotry and the political exigencies of English parties.
League Chairman was James Gilhooly
James Gilhooly
James Gilhooly was an Irish nationalist politician and MP. in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, from 1910 the All-for Ireland Party, who represented his constituency from 1885 for 30 years until his death, retaining...
(MP), Honorary Secretary D. D. Sheehan
D. D. Sheehan
Daniel Desmond Sheehan, usually known as D. D. Sheehan was an Irish nationalist, politician, labour leader, journalist, barrister and author...
(MP). A Central London branch was founded by Dr J. G. Fitzgerald (MP) as Chairman, suggesting some disenchantment with his former Parnellite colleagues including John Redmond. Canon Sheehan of Doneraile, a founder member, spoke and wrote enthusiastically in favour of the Leagues doctrines. The Cork Free Press
Cork Free Press
The Cork Free Press was a nationalist newspaper in Ireland, which circulated primarily in the Munster region surrounding its base in Cork, and was the newspaper of the dissident All-for-Ireland League party...
, published by O'Brien, appeared for the first time on 11 June 1910 as the League’s official organ and organiser. It was a newspaper in the fullest sense, superseding the Cork Accent and was one of the three great radical newspapers published in Ireland – the other two being The Nation
The Nation (Irish newspaper)
The Nation was an Irish nationalist weekly newspaper, published in the 19th century. The Nation was printed first at 12 Trinity Street, Dublin, on 15 October 1842, until 6 January 1844...
, published in Dublin in the 1840s, and The Northern Star, published in Belfast in the 1790s.
Canon Sheehan wrote the manifesto of the movement for the first number of the Cork Free Press, and asked in a very long editorial:
We are a generous people; and yet we are told we must keep up a sectarian bitterness to the end; and the Protestant AscendancyProtestant AscendancyThe Protestant Ascendancy, usually known in Ireland simply as the Ascendancy, is a phrase used when referring to the political, economic, and social domination of Ireland by a minority of great landowners, Protestant clergy, and professionals, all members of the Established Church during the 17th...
has been broken down, only to build Catholic Ascendancy on its ruins. Are we in earnest about our country at all or are we seeking to perpetuate our wretchedness by refusing the honest aid of Irishmen? Why should we throw unto the arms of England those children of Ireland who would be our most faithful allies, if we did not seek to disinherit them? A weaker brother disinherited by a stranger will naturally be his enemy . . .
England owes her world-wide power . . . to her supreme talent of attracting and assimilating the most hostile elements of her subject races . . . Ireland, alas, has had the talent of estranging and expelling her own children, and turning them . . . into her deadliest enemies. It is time that all this should cease, if we still retain the ambition of creating a nation.
Supreme in Cork
In the December 1910 general elections O'Brien's task was truly formidable. His candidates were earmarked for rejection not alone by the Irish Party’s Hibernians. There was considerable hostility to O’Brien amongst many Catholic churchmen, who long regarded him as at heart an unreconstructed Parnellite, and latently anti-clerical. The Church’s forces were mobilised even more thoroughly against him when Cardinal Michael Logue expressed himself against O’Brien’s and his League, and disapproved of 'conciliationism'. All three County Cork bishops opposed O’Brien.O'Brien's hostility to the AOH was counter-productive in mobilising the Catholic clergy, with one or two exceptions, behind the official IPP candidates. O'Brien felt as if he were under siege from clerical forces
Rome Rule
"Rome Rule" was a term used by Irish unionists and socialists to describe the belief that the Roman Catholic Church would gain political control over their interests with the passage of a Home Rule Bill...
and wrote despondently "We have to deal with a confederacy of the priests of this country to strangle the AFIL and to strike down its standard-bearers". The competition between the rival nationalist parties in Cork was, at times, extremely violent. In the election contests of 1910 and 1914 in the city, a total of 11 people were shot and two killed in clashes between IPP and AFIL supporters. Many more injured in street brawls between the rival parties
Attempts to carry the contest into Irish Party territory failed; a meeting at Crossmolina
Crossmolina
Crossmolina or Crosmolina is a town in the Barony of Tyrawley in County Mayo, Ireland, as well as the name of the parish in which Crossmolina is situated. The town sits on the River Deel near the northern shore of Lough Conn...
, County Mayo
County Mayo
County Mayo is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the village of Mayo, which is now generally known as Mayo Abbey. Mayo County Council is the local authority for the county. The population of the county is 130,552...
ended almost fatally when revolver shots were fired and O’Brien’s audience routed by toughs and priests.
The League, dependent almost entirely upon O’Brien’s personal following amongst the rural community in Munster (the bulwark of Sheehan’s Land and Labour Association) and though woefully lacking in clerical support, returned eight AFIL MPs (three further Nationalist Independents were also returned). In the end it was Cork, the country’s largest county, which vindicated O’Brien’s policies returning the eight seats to form his new political party. It included Timothy Healy
Timothy Michael Healy
Timothy Michael Healy, KC , also known as Tim Healy, was an Irish nationalist politician, journalist, author, barrister and one of the most controversial Irish Members of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
who the previous November created the unusual AFIL coalescence of Healyism and O’Brienism. Healy lost his seat in Louth north
North Louth (UK Parliament constituency)
North Louth was a parliamentary constituency in Ireland, which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1885 to 1918...
, but was returned in a 1911 by-election after Moreton Frewen
Moreton Frewen
Moreton Frewen was an Anglo-Irish writer on monetary reform who served briefly as a Member of Parliament .-Life:...
retired his seat in Cork north-east
North-East Cork (UK Parliament constituency)
North East Cork, a division of County Cork, was a parliamentary constituency in Ireland, represented in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. From 1885 to 1922 it returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.Until the 1885 general...
.
The Cork Free Press gave the total Redmondite vote in the country as 92,709, and the Independent Nationalist's vote, largely supporting the principles of the League, as 39,729 (30,46%) which included the constituencies outside of Cork contested by fourteen AFIL candidates (Armagh south, Dublin Harbour, Kerry south and east, Limerick city, Limerick west and east, Louth north, Mayo west, Tipperary mid, Waterford west and Wexford south).
Striking proposals
The AFIL party was convinced that the success of an Irish Parliament must depend upon it being won with the consent rather than by the compulsion of the Protestant minority. In a 1911 letter to the Prime Minister H.H. Asquith, the party specifically proposed Dominion Home Rule as the wisest of all solutions to the Irish question.After the introduction of a new Third Home Rule Bill by Asquith in April 1912, an AFIL conference held in Cork on 25 May declared whole-hearted support of the Bill, subject to three amendments:
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- firstly: safeguards providing against the apprehensions (however imaginary) of Ulster;
- secondly: the completion of the abolition of landlordism by the use of Imperial credit;
- thirdly: the empowering of the Irish Parliament to raise, as well as to spend, its revenue.
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During the three readings of the Bill in 1913 and 1914, O’Brien and his AFIL colleagues fought untiringly in the spirit of their electoral mandate for a non-sectarian solution to the “Irish question” and were adamant that through cooperation on specific matters of common interest to build and win Unionist confidence, goodwill and consent, and that there should be no limit to the concessions offered to Ulster to have it participate in an All-Ireland parliament. "Any price for a United Ireland
United Ireland
A united Ireland is the term used to refer to the idea of a sovereign state which covers all of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland. The island of Ireland includes the territory of two independent sovereign states: the Republic of Ireland, which covers 26 counties of the island, and the...
, but partition
Partition of Ireland
The partition of Ireland was the division of the island of Ireland into two distinct territories, now Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland . Partition occurred when the British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1920...
never".
In January 1914 both O’Brien in his Cork Free Press and D. D. Sheehan in the London Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
simultaneously published a list of concessions they ascertained as acceptable to Ulster, enabling its participation in a Dublin parliament. The proposals in brief were:
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- 1. That the representatives of Ulster should have an exercisable veto right over Irish legislation;
- 2. Ulster should have sixty representatives in the Irish House of Commons, out of a total of 164;
- 3. All representatives of the Irish Civil Service should be by competitive examination;
- 4. North-East Ulster should have its own appointment of court judges, district magistrates, inspectors of education.
Instead, the uncompromising IPP/AOH stand taken by the Dillon-Devlin alliance killed All-Ireland Home Rule, by aiming to force Ulster’s acquiescence; "no Orange vetoes, no concessions, Ulster must follow", Ulster's Unionist leader Sir Edward Carson, proclaiming "Ulster can never be coerced, Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right", demanding from Redmond that he "listen to the Cork members" when he said in the Commons:
There has been an attempt, and I admit it fully and frankly, by some few Irish members, led, I believe by the hon. Member for Cork (ironic Nationalist laughter). See how it is laughed at ! (Unionist cheers). The hon. Member for Cork is a Home Ruler. I differ from him just as much as I differ from any other Home Ruler. But let me say, that movement was a movement of conciliation. It commenced to a large extent in the Land Purchase Act that was passed by my right hon. friend, the Member for Dover (Mr Wyndham). The hon. Member for Cork, seeing the benefits of the Acts as they resulted in Ireland, has rightly adhered to it, and to every promise he made at the time, and largely because of that he is now driven outside the Irish Party. When the hon. Gentleman and some others proceeded to what they call trying to reconcile Ulster and the Protestants of Ireland, they made speeches which, if they had been made by the majority of the Nationalists for the last twenty years might, I admit, possibly have made some effect on some of the Unionists of Ireland. Their idea was certainly a worthy idea, nobody can deny that, of bringing about reconciliation and better feeling, and the moment they do that they are denounced and they are boycotted and they are persecuted. The hon. Member for Cork ----
The Chairman at this point called Carson to order, amid jeers.
Historic protest
During the final stage of the debate on the Third Home Rule BillHome Rule Act 1914
The Government of Ireland Act 1914 , also known as the Third Home Rule Bill, was an Act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom intended to provide self-government for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.The Act was the first law ever passed by the Parliament of...
in the House of Commons, the Bill accompanied by Asquith's solemn guarantee that it would never be enforced without an Amending Bill, enacting the separation of the Six Counties
History of Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is today one of the four countries of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, having been created as a separate legal entity on 3 May 1921, under the Government of Ireland Act 1920...
, O'Brien's speech on 25 May 1914 was the only word of protest uttered by a representative of Ireland. In the course of his speech O’Brien said (in extract):
"The game was lost for Ireland the day the honourable member for Waterford (Mr. Redmond) and his friends consented to the Partition of Ireland. Bitterly opposing any genuine concession to Ulster at the right time, now consenting to the concession of all which will not only fail to conciliate Ulster, but will rouse millions of the Irish race in revolt against your Bill. . . . . . Any Bill that proposes to cut off Ulster permanently or temporarily from the body of Ireland is to me worse than nothingness, . . . . . . We are ready for almost any conceivable concession to Ulster that will have the effect of uniting Ireland, but we will struggle to our last breath against a proposal which will divide her, and divide her eternally, if Ireland’s own representatives are once consenting parties. . . . . . . we regard this Bill as no longer a Home Rule Bill, but as a Bill for the murder of Home Rule as we have understood it all our lives, and we can have no hand, act or part in the operation. (Loud All-for-Ireland cheers).
The All-for-Irelanders resolutely resisted the violation of Ireland's national unity
United Ireland
A united Ireland is the term used to refer to the idea of a sovereign state which covers all of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland. The island of Ireland includes the territory of two independent sovereign states: the Republic of Ireland, which covers 26 counties of the island, and the...
, and as a final protest before History, abstaining from voting for a Bill which had become a Partition Bill. As a result they were assailed with yells of "Factionists!" and "Traitors!" by the Hibernian Party members, whose own votes had just pledged Ireland’s fatal consent to the Partition infamy.
The spectre of civil war loomed when, after the Ulster Volunteers landed arms from Imperial Germany in April to resist Home Rule, Redmond's Irish Volunteers
Irish Volunteers
The Irish Volunteers was a military organisation established in 1913 by Irish nationalists. It was ostensibly formed in response to the formation of the Ulster Volunteers in 1912, and its declared primary aim was "to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to the whole people of Ireland"...
following suit in July, landing arms to enforce it.
Calamities unfold
August saw the unexpected involvement of Ireland in World War I . The Third Home Rule Act was placed on the statute books with Royal AssentRoyal Assent
The granting of royal assent refers to the method by which any constitutional monarch formally approves and promulgates an act of his or her nation's parliament, thus making it a law...
in September, but suspended for the duration of the war. O’Brien and his party rallied in support of the Allied cause
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
of a Europe free from oppression supporting Britain's war effort, as did the IPP and its National Volunteers
National Volunteers
The National Volunteers was the name taken by the majority of the Irish Volunteers that sided with Irish Parliamentary Party leader John Redmond after the movement split over the question of the Volunteers' role in World War I.-Origins:...
in unison with most sections of Irish society. O’Brien perceived it as an opportunity for all Irishmen, Protestant and Catholic alike to unite and serve together in the long term interest of attaining independent Irish self-government. The initial recruiting response to enlisting in Irish regiments of the 10th and 16th (Irish) Division was considerable. Ulstermen enlisted in their 36th (Ulster) Division.
By 1915 with stalemate on the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
and the losses of the 10th (Irish) Division in the Dardanelles
Battle of Gallipoli
The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli, took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War...
at Cape Helles, enthusiasm began to wane. O’Brien had warned a decade earlier of the resurgence of revolutionary nationalism evolving out of the sectarian basis of national action, subsequently erupting in the 1916 Rebellion
Easter Rising
The Easter Rising was an insurrection staged in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic at a time when the British Empire was heavily engaged in the First World War...
. This was to have serious ramifications for Ireland's subsequent history.
O'Brien suffered closure of his newspaper, the Cork Free Press in 1916 soon after the appointment of Lord Decies
John Beresford, 5th Baron Decies
John Graham Hope de la Poer Beresford, 5th Baron Decies PC , styled The Honourable John Beresford until 1910, was an Anglo-Irish army officer and civil servant.-Background and education:...
as Chief Press Censor for Ireland. Decies warned the press to be careful about what they published. Such warnings had little effect when dealing with such papers as the Cork Free Press. It was suppressed after its republican editor, Frank Gallagher
Frank Gallagher (author)
Frank B. Gallagher was an Irish author and Volunteer.-Biography:A Cork native, initially London correspondent of William O'Brien's Cork Free Press, subsequently its final editor, though himself a separatist, personally admired O'Brien.The paper suffered closure in 1916 soon after the appointment...
, accused the British authorities of lying about the conditions and situation of republican prisoners in Frongoch internment camp
Frongoch internment camp
Frongoch internment camp at Frongoch in Merionethshire, Wales was a makeshift place of imprisonment during the First World War. Until 1916 it housed German prisoners of war in an abandoned distillery and crude huts, but in the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, Ireland, the German prisoners...
.
Convention boycott
Following the Easter RisingEaster Rising
The Easter Rising was an insurrection staged in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic at a time when the British Empire was heavily engaged in the First World War...
the Government’s attempt in July 1916 to have Redmond and Carson agree on immediately introducing Home Rule, failed. The new Prime Minister Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
proposed in May 1917, in what was a fifth attempt to implement Home Rule, that an Irish Convention
Irish Convention
The Irish Convention was an assembly which sat in Dublin, Ireland from July 1917 until March 1918 to address the Irish Question and other constitutional problems relating to an early enactment of self-government for Ireland, to debate its wider future, discuss and come to an understanding on...
, composed of representative Irishmen from all parties, should assemble to deliberate upon the best means of governing their country.
The AFIL Party was asked to nominate representatives to the Convention. In reply O’Brien stated four essential conditions which first needed to be fulfilled if the Convention was to succeed. He submitted a panel to the Cabinet limited to twelve leading representatives of the main bodies and parties involved. It was subsequently clear that such a prominent representation would not have separated without coming to agreement, but O’Brien’s proposals were set aside. None of those he proposed were invited. Instead the ninety-five who agreed to attend in July were composed of nine-tenths representatives drawn from already elected representatives who had previously voted for the Home Rule partition settlement.
Lloyd George appealed to O’Brien to attend, but under the circumstances both he and Healy declined, despite the fact that for thirteen years he had been calling for a conference of all parties to settle the Irish question. O’Brien believed that the conclave would make "a hateful bargain for the partition of the country under a plausible disguise". What was needed instead was not a "heterogeneous assembly . . . but a small round-table of representative Irishmen". As early as 18 May Sinn Féin declined to send representatives, the Dublin Trades Council, the Cork Trade and Labour Council, the Gaelic and National Leagues also refused.
The only constructive contribution which the Ulster delegates made to the Irish Convention was to propose in March 1918, the partition of Ireland with the exclusion of all of the province of Ulster.
Handing over
A final contest between the old parliamentary rivals ensued on the death of AFIL party chairman James GilhoolyJames Gilhooly
James Gilhooly was an Irish nationalist politician and MP. in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, from 1910 the All-for Ireland Party, who represented his constituency from 1885 for 30 years until his death, retaining...
in October 1916. The West-Cork by-election
West Cork (UK Parliament constituency)
East Cork, a division of County Cork, was a parliamentary constituency in Ireland, represented in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. From 1885 to 1922 it returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.Until the 1885 general election...
has a place in history as the first after the Rising and the last in which the Irish Party narrowly captured a seat and as the self-induced demise of the AFIL. At stake in the bitterly fought by-election was not just one of the 105 seats in the House of Commons, the great issue was William O’Brien’s AFIL versus John Redmond’s Irish Party. In November three candidates were nominated, the third also a local AFIL supporter who stood in protest after O’Brien passed him over in favour of Frank Healy, a Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...
close candidate who had been imprisoned in Frongoch
Frongoch internment camp
Frongoch internment camp at Frongoch in Merionethshire, Wales was a makeshift place of imprisonment during the First World War. Until 1916 it housed German prisoners of war in an abandoned distillery and crude huts, but in the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, Ireland, the German prisoners...
, thereby splitting the AFIL vote to the detriment of O’Brien’s party. (At that time seats were won by "candidates first past the post", or uncontested as in 1918 by Séan Hayes of Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...
).
When Britain moved to introduce Home Rule in April 1918 as proposed by the Irish Convention, it unwisely did so when it linked its implementation with a conscription bill for Ireland after the collapse of the Allied, and Irish, divisions during the German Spring Offensive
Spring Offensive
The 1918 Spring Offensive or Kaiserschlacht , also known as the Ludendorff Offensive, was a series of German attacks along the Western Front during World War I, beginning on 21 March 1918, which marked the deepest advances by either side since 1914...
on the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
. This resulted in the ”Irish conscription crisis". At its height the AFIL withdrew from Westminster while making a final damning anti-conscription speech, joining forces with the Irish Party, Sinn Féin and Labour in mass protest demonstrations in Dublin. Although the act was never put into force its crisis caused an unprecedented rise in popularity for Sinn Féin, destroying all interest in Home Rule and constitutional nationalism.
Towards the end of 1918, as a consequence that both the Irish Party and Britain failed to introduce Home Rule and maintain an undivided Ireland, and as it became evident that constitutional political concepts for attaining independent All-Ireland self-government were being displaced by a path of militant physical-force, the AFIL MPs recognised the futility of contesting the December general election
Irish (UK) general election, 1918
The Irish general election of 1918 was that part of the 1918 United Kingdom general election that took place in Ireland. It is seen as a key moment in modern Irish history...
-- O'Brien in an address to the election:
We cannot subscribe to a programme of armed resistance in the field, or even of permanent withdrawal from Westminster; but to the spirit of Sinn Féin, as distinct from its abstract programme, the great mass of independent single-minded Irishmen have been won over, and accordingly they ought now to have a full and sympathetic trial for enforcing the Irish nation's right of self-determination.
The party members issued a manifesto supporting the Sinn Féin movement, and unanimously decided to retire from the election putting its seats at the disposal of its candidates, all of whom were returned unopposed as Sinn Féin representatives.
Conclusion
The dual policy of the League aimed at attaining All-Ireland self-government, initially as Home Rule within the United Kingdom, then as a Dominion. It maintained that there could neither be any form of coercion of Unionist Ulster nor any question of partitioning Ireland. Instead it proposed achieving this by cultivating rapprochement between moderate Catholic and Protestant Irishmen through conference and conciliation as opposed to conflict. It also demanded guarantees for unlimited safeguards to protect the minority Protestant community. Its primal aspiration was to have the people on this island come to realise that it is possible for Irish of different persuasions to live together in mutual toleration.It failed in these aims because most Nationalists under-estimated the intensity of Unionist resistance to Home Rule and particularly due to the strong distrust influential Catholic clergy had towards the League. In all but two cases, the clergy acted substantially united behind Irish Party candidates, so that in the twenty-three constituencies AFIL candidates contested in the December 1910 election, the Church’s forces were thoroughly mobilised against O’Brien’s League, contributing to the subsequent polarisation of the political landscape.
From 1915 members of the League were deflecting to Sinn Féin, the editorial of O’Brien’s Cork Free Press stating in the issue of 30 September "It is to Sinn Féin that Ireland must now look to mould the future of her people". O’Brien was convinced that the only dignified course was to stand aside and let Sinn Féin exert pressure on England to come to terms. The party did not contest the December 1918 election.
League's Anthem
A L L - F O R - I R E L A N DAll for Ireland ! One and all !
Here we meet at Erin's call --
Meet, to pledge with heart and hand,
True fealty to our native land.
Many-minded though we be,
In this pact we all agree --
We must end the reign of wrong
That's wrecked our country's life so long.
Hostile sections in the past,
We shall now be friends at last:
All our classes, clans and creeds
Rivals but in patriot deeds.
Here we come at Erin's call,
From cottage home, and stately hall,
For her rights to stand or fall --
ALL FOR IRELAND ! ONE AND ALL !
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