Sir, – One of the themes that has characterised our Decade of Centenaries commemorations has been regret that the Irish revolution of 1916-23 was not accompanied by radical social change. Prof Diarmaid Ferriter duly notes this “failure” in his excellent piece on the end of the Civil War (Front Page, May 24th).
However, focusing on the absence of a social revolution in tandem with the political one is to miss an important point. There had already been a social revolution in Ireland – the result of the myriad of ameliorative measures that had been achieved by parliamentary means in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. From this perspective, the revolution of 1916-23 was the end of a process of social change in Ireland – not the beginning.
The changes had begun with the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1871 – and that was followed by the Intermediate Education Act 1878. Then came the various land reform measures, leading eventually, with Wyndham’s Land Act 1903, to the wholesale transfer of ownership of the land of Ireland to the tenants.
In addition, 1898 saw the democratisation of local government in Ireland, and in 1908 the National University was created – and it would provide educational opportunities that had previously been denied to the Catholic elite in Ireland. All these developments, carried by Liberal and Tory administrations under pressure from the Irish party at Westminster, changed the social and economic landscape in Ireland.
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Today, these changes are overshadowed by the 1916 Rising, Sinn Féin’s victory in 1918, the First and Second Dáil, the War of Independence and the Civil War.
Yet, as the historian Ian d’Alton has argued, the incremental progress made through government initiatives in the years 1871 to 1916 was probably more significant in shaping modern Ireland than “all the dreamers, poets, dynamiters, language enthusiasts and [radical] editors put together”.
The Irish revolution of 1916-23 thus conforms to the classic model of “a revolution of rising expectations”. The social and economic advances enjoyed by the vast majority of the Irish people in the period since 1871 created the circumstances that brought about the revolution.
These advances had prompted expectations of further gains.
Home Rule, as envisaged since 1886, would have been the next step in this process of incremental progress. It embodied the hopes of the Irish people.
That aspiration to self-government was, however, frustrated in 1912-14.
Expectations were dashed, and revolution ensued. – Yours, etc,
FELIX M LARKIN,
Cabinteely,
Dublin 18.