1919 - 1921: The War of Independence and Partition

After the First World War, in 1919, the powers in Europe sat down to redraw the boundaries of Europe. Sinn Fein attended these meetings and attempted to have Ireland included in this redrawing. They argued that Ireland should be granted independence through the treaty. However the leaders in Europe largely ignored Sinn Fein and they returned home again empty- handed.

With the Third Home Rule Bill under discuission now for 7 years, with no implementation, the IVF decided that they had waited long enough and that they would have to take action to increase the pace. They also hoped that by becoming a formidable military force, they could persuade the government to introduce complete Independence rather than the proposed Home Rule solution. In 1919 they renamed themselves the Irish Republican Army (IRA) which really signalled the start of a new phase in their history.

On 21 January 1919, the IRA shot dead 2 Irish policemen in county Tipperary, and this marked the beginning of what is now known as the War of Independence. The Catholic church condemned the IRA, and the locals, who knew exactly who the IRA men involved were, were also appalled. However the British clamped down hard in response and soon a guerrilla war was underway in counties Cork and Tipperary. With the post-war British army in a shambles, they were only willing to send over groups of ex-First World War solders to fight. The combination of black police uniforms and tan army outfits gave rise to the term 'Black and Tans' for these men. The 'Black and Tans' were undisciplined and often shot innocent civilians in reprisal for attacks on them. These attacks helped to create and then strengthen local support for the IRA.

In 1920 the IRA, led by a Corkman named Michael Collins, concluded that the war was not having the desired effect and decided to intensify the war. On 21 November 1920, the IRA shot dead 11 British agents. In reprisal, a group of Black and Tans fired randomly into a crowd of civilians at a Gaelic football match at Croke Park, Dublin. 12 people were killed and the day became known as Bloody Sunday. (Not to be confused with another Bloody Sunday much later.) Ten days later the IRA shot dead 17 British soldiers in county Cork.

Meanwhile, despite the conflict, the government decided to press ahead with Home Rule and passed the Government of Ireland Act in 1920. This gave Ireland 2 Parliaments (each with a Prime Minister), one for the Unionists and one for the Nationalists, but kept both Parliaments answerable to the overall UK parliament in London. Six counties (Londonderry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Antrim, Down and Armagh) were to be under the Unionist Parliament, and the citizens there agreed to the creation of 'Northern Ireland' by way of a referrendum. The first elections for the Northern Ireland parliament were held in May 1921 and the Unionists got 40 of the 52 seats. It first met in Belfast in June 1921. The new Northern Ireland Prime-Minister was the Ulster Unionist leader, Sir James Craig.

The elections were held for the Nationalist Parliament in Dublin in May 1921 also, and Sinn Fein (under Eammon de Valera) took 124 seats with the remaining 4 being taken by Unionist candidates. However Sinn Fein refused to recognise the Parliament and instead continued to meet in Dail Eireann. The 4 Unionists were the only ones who attended the new Parliament. The IRA, under Collins, continued to fight on for more independence, and made regular attacks on Protestants in Northern Ireland too. Finally stalemate was reached and a truce was signed between the IRA and the British on 11 July 1921. After 4 months of negotiations a treaty was hammered out which Michael Collins signed on behalf of the IRA. However he did not fully consult his colleagues, many of whom were horrified that he had accepted partition. This is why he is now regarded by some as a traitor and this probably contributed to his assassination a short time later.

The 'Anglo-Irish Treaty', which was agreed between Collins and the British government, replaced the Dublin Home-Rule Parliament which had been created by the Government of Ireland Act. The new Act created an Ireland which was much more independent than it would have been under pure Home Rule, and certainly much more independent than the bit of Ireland ruled by the Northern Ireland government. The new country was to be called the 'Irish Free State' and would have its own army, although it would remain within the British Commonwealth. This is a similar status to that which Canada has today. Britain would also have a representative in Ireland and would keep some naval bases in Irish waters. The treaty also set up a Boundary Commission which was to fine-tune the border to take account of Unionist/Nationalist communities close to it. The Sinn Fein leader, Eamonn de Valera, became the first Prime Minister of the Irish Free State.

The UK was renamed 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland' to reflect the change. To oversee that the 2 Irish states got along, a Council of Ireland was set up to manage relations. The British believed that the 2 Parliaments would soon settle their differences and agree to unite, and the Council of Ireland was to oversee this reunification as well. However, in the end, the Council of Ireland never met.

1921 - 1925: The Irish Civil War and Stabilisation of Northern Ireland

De Valera, however, was furious that Collins had signed the treaty. To him it still fell much too short of what he had been fighting for, which was an independent Ireland covering all 32 counties. However, another party leader, Arthur Griffith, disagreed with de Valera's idealist stance and strongly supported the treaty. Most members of the IRA who supported the treaty were transformed into the first official Irish Army. The split between the pro-and anti-treaty was so narrow, that Sinn Fein decided to have a vote on it in the Dail. When the Dail voted 64-57 in favour of the treaty, de Valera and a considerable number of Sinn Fein members walked out in protest. Griffith subsequently replaced de Valera as Prime Minister.

However it was not going to be that simple - those who had been outvoted in the Dail were not prepared to simply accept the rule of a Dail which had supported what they regarded as a 'treacherous' treaty. In April 1922, the anti-treaty IRA seized control of the Dublin Four-Courts and other key buildings. The situation grew very tense as the new Irish government tried to mediate with the IRA. However, the government quickly lost its patience and in June Michael Collins ordered the Irish Army to shell the Four-Courts. He succeeded in driving the IRA out of Dublin but had also triggered the Irish Civil War. The fire which the Irish Army started in the Four-Courts destroyed many priceless historic documents, including all of Ireland's accumulated census data. This makes the job of genealogists today much more difficult.

The war went on for almost a year, and was particularly intensive in Connaught and Munster. It was basically a guerilla war, involving sniper attacks, ambushes and raids. Slowly but surely the Army drove the IRA into the mountains and, as the fighting continued to disrupt local life, the IRA lost the support of the locals on which it relied. Therefore the IRA finally called a halt to its campaign in April 1923. Among the casualties of the Civil War was Michael Collins, who was shot dead in an ambush in his native county Cork. Arthur Griffith, the Prime Minister of the Free State, died of natural causes during the war.

Meanwhile in Northern Ireland the situation had scarcely been better. During 1920 and 1921, the IRA made frequent incursions over the border into Northern Ireland. They often attacked the local Protestants and on one occasion managed to occupy 40 square miles of county Fermanagh for a week. Within Northern Ireland many Protestants scapegoated Catholics for the IRA violence and the expulsion of Protestants from their homes in the Free State. This resulted in a dramatic rise in sectarian violence and rioting, particularly in Belfast, although IRA violence was reduced once the Civil War began in 1922. Between July 1920 and July 1922, 257 Catholics and 157 Protestants were murdered in sectarian attacks in Northern Ireland. About 11,000 Catholics were forced to leave their jobs in Belfast's factories due to attacks from Protestant colleagues. The Northern Ireland government responded by setting up a second police force, called the "Special B Constabulary" (popularly known as the B-Specials), to try to maintain order. However this force was not regarded as impartial and this simply intensified the violence. The Special Powers Act (1922) and the Offences Against the State Act (1924) gave the police unprecedented powers to intern people without a trial.

The main problem for the Northern Ireland government was the large (30%) Nationalist minority in the state. 25 local councils were Nationalist controlled when the state was formed and, in fact, Tyrone and Fermanagh councils were dissolved when they declared that they would be answerable to the Dublin Parliament and not the Northern Ireland Parliament. The government decided to stabilise the province by increasing Unionist control of councils. So they abolished Proportional Representation and replaced it with a 'First past the post' electoral system. They also strategically redrew constituency boundaries to ensure that Nationalists were at a disadvantage ('gerrymandering'). Also, richer people were given more votes, depending on how much land they owned. All these measures ensured that the number of Unionist MPs dramatically increased in the first few years of Northern Ireland's history, and the level of political upheaval was dramatically reduced.

In December 1925 the Boundary commission results were complete. It proposed giving chunks of south and west Fermanagh, west Tyrone and south Armagh to the Free State and a piece of the Free State west of Derry City to Northern Ireland. However, fearing violence, the report was kept away from the public and the changes were never implemented.

In the mid 1920s, a new building in Dundonald, east of Belfast, was built for the Northern Ireland government. Constructed near Stormont Castle it was known as 'Parliament Buildings' and, from then on, the Northern Ireland Parliament was referred to by the nickname 'Stormont'.

1925 - 1932: Building the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland Economies

After the civil war, large parts of the Irish Free State's infrastructure was in turmoil. One of the first tasks of the new Prime Minister, W Cosgrave, (of the moderate Cumann na nGaedheal party) was to reconstruct the bridges and railways which had been damaged or destroyed during the war. Other tasks which were dealt with were (a) to abolish both the British and the Sinn Fein legal systems and replace them with a new judicial system. (b) to create a civil service (c) set up local government and services and to abolish the old workhouses (d) to reduce the numbers of the swollen army and set up a police force (e) to make education compulsory and introduce Irish language lessons to all schools (f) to help the poor farmers who made up 70% of the country's population and (g) to set up an industrial base. The government announced freedom of religion for all citizens and a new flag was adopted for the country to reflect this. The three vertical bands of colour were orange (Protestants) green (Catholics) and white (peace between them). In 1926 Radio Eireann was set up and in 1929 the Shannon Scheme was completed, which harnessed the hydro-electric potential of the river Shannon to supply the new country with much-needed electricity. At the time the Shannon scheme was capable of supplying almost all the country's electricity needs, although demand increased steadily so that more power plants were needed later.

All during this period, the leader of the anti-treaty Republicans, Eammon de Valera was in the sidelines. He was against the way that Irish MPs still swore allegiance to the King of England and that the Free State was part of the British commonwealth. Realising that no party stood for this view-point de Valera led away a delegation of Sinn Feiners who formed a new party, Fianna Fail, who stood in the 1927 election. It won 42 seats in the Dail as opposed to Cumann na nGaedheal's 47. (Fianna Fail was barred from the Dail for a time until it finally agreed to take its oath of allegiance to the King.) However Cosgrave just managed to hold the balance of power with a coalition government. In 1930 the Free State joined with Canada and South Africa, (two other Commonwealth nations), and managed to force Britain into passing a law that permitted them to repeal any law that the UK had passed for them before granting independence. This meant that, in theory, the Free State government could repeal the Anglo-Irish Treaty and become fully independent, although Cosgrave was not ready to do this. Cumann na nGaedheal's final loss of power occurred in 1932. The IRA had regrouped and begun campaigning again for a fully independent Irish republic. Violence within the Free State increased and, by passing special laws to combat the IRA, Cumann na nGaedheal only succeeded in making itself less popular. The path was now clear for Fianna Fail to take over the Free State government.

Meanwhile Northern Ireland had been building up its own economy over this period. It had the advantage that, being part of the UK, there were no tariffs on trade with Britain and the province also got economic aid from Britain. There was a fair amount of trade with the Free State, although this often took the form of smuggling, particularly in agricultural produce. The problems began in the late 1920s when the worldwide recession began after the Wall Street Crash. The Belfast shipbuilder Harland & Wolff, which had once been the largest in the world and had built the "Titanic", was being superseded by yards in other countries and the linen industry was facing competition from new synthetic fabrics. The number of unemployed in Northern Ireland rose steadily and in 1932 there were 72,000 unemployed people in Northern Ireland out of 1,300,000 people. The Stormont government soon found it hard to make ends meet.

At this point the cash-strapped Stormont government decided to cut all public-sector pay by 10%, along with all benefits. To working class people who were already poor, this was scandalous. It brought together both sides of the political divide in the province and mass rallies were held attended by Unionists and Nationalists alike. However, Stormont banned the marches and sent in police to break them up. This resulted in mass rioting, which was worst in west Belfast where the Protestants of Sandy Row and the Catholics of the Lower Falls rioted together against the police. When some people fired live rounds at the police, the police returned fire killing 2 protestors. In the end the government relented and the rioting stopped.