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Irish republicanism
Irish republicanism (Irish: poblachtánachas Éireannach) is the political movement for an Irish republic, void of any British rule. Throughout its centuries of existence, it has encompassed various tactics and identities, simultaneously elective and militant and has been both widely supported and iconoclastic.
The modern emergence of nationalism, democracy, and radicalism provided a basis for the movement, with groups forming across the island in hopes of independence. Parliamentary defeats provoked uprisings and armed campaigns, quashed by British forces. The Easter Rising, an attempted coup that took place in the midst of the First World War, provided popular support for the movement. An Irish republic was declared in 1916 and officialized following the Irish War of Independence. The Irish Civil War, beginning in 1922 and spurred by the partition of the island, then occurred.
Republican action, including armed campaigns, continued in the newly-formed state of Northern Ireland, a region of the United Kingdom. Tensions in the territory culminated in widespread conflict by 1969. This prompted paramilitaries: republicans assembled under the Provisional Irish Republican Army, who waged a campaign against the British state for approximately three decades—the most pronounced and prolonged republican campaign. Represented by Sinn Féin, republicans would gradually invest in political action, including the Northern Ireland peace process and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. The PIRA have since decommissioned and republicans have been elected to various echelons of government: those within the movement opposed to this outcome are often referred to as dissident republicans.
Following the Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century, Ireland, or parts of it, had experienced alternating degrees of rule from England. While some of the native Gaelic population attempted to resist this occupation, a single, unified political goal did not exist amongst the independent lordships that existed throughout the island. The Tudor conquest of Ireland took place in the 16th century. This included the Plantations of Ireland, in which the lands held by Gaelic Irish clans and Hiberno-Norman dynasties were confiscated and given to Protestant settlers ("Planters") from England and Scotland. The Plantation of Ulster began in 1609, and the province was heavily colonised with English and Scottish settlers.
Campaigns against English presence on the island had occurred prior to the emergence of the Irish republican ideology. In the 1590s and early 1600s, resistance was led by Hugh O'Neill (see the Nine Years' War). The Irish chieftains were ultimately defeated, leading to their exile (the 'Flight of the Earls') and the aforementioned Plantation of Ulster in 1609.
In Europe, prior to the 18th and 19th centuries, republics were in a minority and monarchy was the norm, with few long-lasting republics of note at time, such as the fully-fledged Dutch Republic and the Republic of Venice, as well as the Old Swiss Confederacy and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which had republican aspects. However, as noted by Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich, the first ever document proposing a republic of Ireland independent from connections to England dates from 1627. Summaries of these plans are held in the Archives générales du Royaume in Belgium and were made familiar to Irish historians by the work of Fr. Brendan Jennings, a Franciscan historian, with his work Wild Geese in Spanish Flanders, 1582–1700 (1964).
This early republican spirit was not ecumenical and was formed by exiled Irish Catholic Gaels with the support of Habsburg Spain as part of the Irish military diaspora who had fled into Spanish service in the aftermath of the Flight of the Earls during the Thirty Years' War. This was in the context of the break-down of the Spanish match and the onset of the Anglo-Spanish War of 1625–1630. Proposals were made at Madrid, with the involvement of Archbishop Florence Conry and Owen Roe O'Neill, for the Irish Regiment in the Spanish Netherlands then in the service of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, to invade and reconquer the English-controlled Kingdom of Ireland and set up an Irish government loosely aligned with the Habsburg Empire.
One of the main problems was that within the leadership of the Hispano-Irish diaspora, there were rivalries and factionalism between two primary contenders, Shane O'Neill and Hugh O'Donnell, over who should be the overall leader and thus have rights to an Irish throne if the project was a success. A third option was to resolve the conflict between the two factions before an invasion by making them family, with a marriage proposed between Hugh O'Donnell's sister Mary Stuart O'Donnell and Shane O'Neill, but this broke down. Ministers in Madrid, to Philip IV of Spain, instead drew up proposals on 27 December 1627 for a "Kingdom and Republic of Ireland" and that "the earls should be called Captains General of the said Republic and one could exercise his office on land and the other at sea." These proposals were approved by Philip IV and forwarded to Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia in Brussels. As the Anglo-Spanish War became more tepid, the plans were never put into practice.
Irish republicanism
Irish republicanism (Irish: poblachtánachas Éireannach) is the political movement for an Irish republic, void of any British rule. Throughout its centuries of existence, it has encompassed various tactics and identities, simultaneously elective and militant and has been both widely supported and iconoclastic.
The modern emergence of nationalism, democracy, and radicalism provided a basis for the movement, with groups forming across the island in hopes of independence. Parliamentary defeats provoked uprisings and armed campaigns, quashed by British forces. The Easter Rising, an attempted coup that took place in the midst of the First World War, provided popular support for the movement. An Irish republic was declared in 1916 and officialized following the Irish War of Independence. The Irish Civil War, beginning in 1922 and spurred by the partition of the island, then occurred.
Republican action, including armed campaigns, continued in the newly-formed state of Northern Ireland, a region of the United Kingdom. Tensions in the territory culminated in widespread conflict by 1969. This prompted paramilitaries: republicans assembled under the Provisional Irish Republican Army, who waged a campaign against the British state for approximately three decades—the most pronounced and prolonged republican campaign. Represented by Sinn Féin, republicans would gradually invest in political action, including the Northern Ireland peace process and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. The PIRA have since decommissioned and republicans have been elected to various echelons of government: those within the movement opposed to this outcome are often referred to as dissident republicans.
Following the Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century, Ireland, or parts of it, had experienced alternating degrees of rule from England. While some of the native Gaelic population attempted to resist this occupation, a single, unified political goal did not exist amongst the independent lordships that existed throughout the island. The Tudor conquest of Ireland took place in the 16th century. This included the Plantations of Ireland, in which the lands held by Gaelic Irish clans and Hiberno-Norman dynasties were confiscated and given to Protestant settlers ("Planters") from England and Scotland. The Plantation of Ulster began in 1609, and the province was heavily colonised with English and Scottish settlers.
Campaigns against English presence on the island had occurred prior to the emergence of the Irish republican ideology. In the 1590s and early 1600s, resistance was led by Hugh O'Neill (see the Nine Years' War). The Irish chieftains were ultimately defeated, leading to their exile (the 'Flight of the Earls') and the aforementioned Plantation of Ulster in 1609.
In Europe, prior to the 18th and 19th centuries, republics were in a minority and monarchy was the norm, with few long-lasting republics of note at time, such as the fully-fledged Dutch Republic and the Republic of Venice, as well as the Old Swiss Confederacy and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which had republican aspects. However, as noted by Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich, the first ever document proposing a republic of Ireland independent from connections to England dates from 1627. Summaries of these plans are held in the Archives générales du Royaume in Belgium and were made familiar to Irish historians by the work of Fr. Brendan Jennings, a Franciscan historian, with his work Wild Geese in Spanish Flanders, 1582–1700 (1964).
This early republican spirit was not ecumenical and was formed by exiled Irish Catholic Gaels with the support of Habsburg Spain as part of the Irish military diaspora who had fled into Spanish service in the aftermath of the Flight of the Earls during the Thirty Years' War. This was in the context of the break-down of the Spanish match and the onset of the Anglo-Spanish War of 1625–1630. Proposals were made at Madrid, with the involvement of Archbishop Florence Conry and Owen Roe O'Neill, for the Irish Regiment in the Spanish Netherlands then in the service of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, to invade and reconquer the English-controlled Kingdom of Ireland and set up an Irish government loosely aligned with the Habsburg Empire.
One of the main problems was that within the leadership of the Hispano-Irish diaspora, there were rivalries and factionalism between two primary contenders, Shane O'Neill and Hugh O'Donnell, over who should be the overall leader and thus have rights to an Irish throne if the project was a success. A third option was to resolve the conflict between the two factions before an invasion by making them family, with a marriage proposed between Hugh O'Donnell's sister Mary Stuart O'Donnell and Shane O'Neill, but this broke down. Ministers in Madrid, to Philip IV of Spain, instead drew up proposals on 27 December 1627 for a "Kingdom and Republic of Ireland" and that "the earls should be called Captains General of the said Republic and one could exercise his office on land and the other at sea." These proposals were approved by Philip IV and forwarded to Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia in Brussels. As the Anglo-Spanish War became more tepid, the plans were never put into practice.