ICC Historical Lecture Series: Ireland in 1922

IRELAND IN 1922

1922 marks the culmination of the “Decade of Centenaries” in modern Irish history. This ten year period from 1912 to 1922 commemorates the sequence of momentous events from the Third Home Rule Bill to the Irish Civil War out of which emerged an independent but partitioned Ireland. Our lectures this year examine events and developments in Ireland and Britain in the early 1920s which still have a powerful resonance a century later.

BRITAIN AND THE IRISH CIVIL WAR

When Michael Collins ordered an artillery bombardment of the Four Courts in Dublin, occupied by the anti-Treaty IRA, on 28 June 1922, republicans were quick to blame the eruption of civil war on malign British influence. The guns were provided by Britain, and the British government had delivered an ultimatum six days earlier, immediately after Sir Henry Wilson was assassinated in London, threatening military intervention if the Provisional Government failed to take action against the anti-Treaty republicans. How significant was this?

 This lecture assesses the evidence of British interference in the context of the steady widening of the split within Sinn Fein over the Anglo-Irish Treaty early in 1922. Why did the series of attempts to maintain the unity of the IRA and prevent open conflict ultimately prove unsuccessful? What were the political options available to both pro- and anti-Treaty 

Sinn Feiners as well as to the British government, what were the possibilities of averting civil war and what impact did British policy have on them?

Lecturer CHARLES TOWNSHEND

Professor Emeritus of International History at Keele University. Fellow of the British Academy. Author of “Ireland: The Twentieth Century”, “Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion”, “The Republic: The Fight for Irish Independence”, “The Partition: Ireland Divided 1885-1925” 

WEDNESDAY 11 MAY 7-9pm

THE ORANGE ORDER IN IRELAND IN 1922

Founded over two centuries ago, the Orange Order remains a prominent feature of society across the island of Ireland. For its members, the Order is a fraternal brotherhood devoted to the preservation of Protestantism and civil and religious liberty. For many others, though, it is an archaic institution, viscerally sectarian and difficult to ignore. We are familiar with Orange marches and with rumours of dark and secret rituals conducted in the Order’s name. But despite this, and despite the Order’s pivotal role in Irish history, relatively little is known about the history of the Loyal Orange Institution itself.

This lecture examines the Orange Order in 1922. It looks at the appalling communal violence of Belfast and the border counties while also considering the fate of Orange Order members in the south. Using a combination of materials including those found in the once-secret archives of the Orange Order, it tells the story of a complex and conflicted society. It reaches beyond sensationalism and rumour and reflects on the significance of Orangeism to Irish history. One hundred years later, the story of the Orange Order in Ireland in 1922 has much to tell us about the anxieties of today.

Lecturer DEXTER GOVAN. 

Award winning early career historian of Ireland and Britain. Justin Arbuthnott PhD scholar in Modern Irish History at the University of Edinburgh. Dexter’s work focuses on unionism in the early twentieth century and he has published extensively on contemporary unionism and left politics.

WEDNESDAY 18 MAY 7-9pm

HOW AND WHY BRITAIN LOST IRELAND

Events in Ireland during this period inevitably take place against a background of rapid political and social change in Britain particularly after the First World War. The democratisation of Britain, the growth of class politics and the emancipation of women all took place at the same time Britain was immersed in the politics of competing nationalisms in Ireland. Attitudes to the worsening situation in Ireland changed rapidly in all British political parties after the war. The Conservative Party moved from enthusiastic support of the unionist position before the war to a less fervent and more stoical determination to  honour a debt not to let Ulster unionists down after the war. Meanwhile the Liberal commitment to Irish nationalism waned rapidly as events in Ireland became more extreme. The new Labour Party, which replaced the Liberals as the foremost progressive party, distanced itself from too close an association with Irish nationalism which it regarded as increasingly irrational and likely to alienate potential Labour voters in Britain.

This lecture examines the evidence that, with Irish independence in 1922, (with the exception of a right-wing rump in the Conservatives), British politicians wanted to avoid involvement in Ireland. Both the British public and its politicians seemed unperturbed by the loss of over one-fifth of the territory of the United Kingdom and there was no clamour to reclaim Ireland.  The emergence of class politics in Britain from the early 1920s meant that Irish politics appeared archaic and old-fashioned. Both the leaders of the two main British political parties in the inter-war years, Stanley Baldwin and Ramsay MacDonald, wanted to distance British politics from the imbroglio of the Irish question and, consequently, both presided over a consensus which was to last nearly fifty years until the outbreak of the Troubles in 1969.

Lecturer IVAN GIBBONS 

Lecturer in Modern Irish and British history specialising in the relationship between the British Labour Party and Ireland. He was Programme Director in Irish Studies at St Mary’s University, Twickenham and is a board member of Hammersmith Irish Cultural Centre and organiser of this lecture series. He is author of “The British Labour Party and the Establishment of the Irish Free State” and “Partition- How and Why Ireland was Divided”.

WEDNESDAY 25 MAY 7-9pm