6 Ireland

IRELAND

JOHN BULL’S OTHER ISLAND The Road to ---- and the

Pavement of Good Intentions

THE PROBLEMS GO BACK A LONG WAY (Norman Lords became more Irish than the Irish – FITZ Gerald)

In 1169, Henry II was requested to send troops to aid Dermot MacMurrough who claimed the crown of Ireland.  Ireland was split up into small dukedoms and kingdoms.  The throne was secured in 1169, but MacMurrough requested more and more troops to keep the peace.  When he died in 1171, the Anglo-Norman troops were already loyal to Henry II, he sent additional troops and claimed Ireland for himself.  Historically, it may have cost more than it was worth, but at the time it seemed like a good idea.

Heavily armed Norman-English barons, on the orders of Henry II and with the blessing of the then English Pope Adrian, landed in Wexford in 1169 and began the attempt to conquer Ireland and appropriate it to the English realm. Thus began the "Irish Problem".

BUT not separated by religion.

HENRY II and ADRIAN IV (The English Pope) and Thomas Becket Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine: Henry ruled

Normandy and Anjou; Eleanor brought Touraine, Aquitaine, and Gascony.  Add in Maine and Poitou and Henry II had power over much of France.  Henry was king for over thirty years and worked to modernize his kingdom. 

As he increased the power of the state, he came into conflict with the Church. The power of law was taken from the Church. Up to this point, the Church had handled all such matters.  It was as if they were a separate country operating by the laws of Rome.  A modern analogy might be that every priest and nun had diplomatic immunity.

PAPAL POLITICS: a black shadow has long hovered over the matter of the Papal Bull Laudabiliter (1155) by which Adrian responded to a request from Henry II to extend English domination of Ireland. This document has been the source of controversy for nearly nine centuries. The Pope acceded to the king’s request but set strict boundaries of evangelisation which were quickly and blatantly ignored.

Elizabethan and Stuart Drives to Civilize Primitive Countries Since 1541 (Henry VIII)

English power restricted to the area around Dublin.

Elizabethan England an aggressive and now a Protestant country. English settlers now of the new religion. Now did not inter-marry.

Tudor politics saw Catholic Ireland as a backdoor to England for Spain – set up ‘haven’ towns.

Settlement was used as a blueprint for the ‘New World’

ELIZABETHIAN PLANTATIONS EVERYWHERE. Half a million acres of the

depopulated lands of Munster were given to English undertakers. The settlers saw themselves as an English garrison surrounded by a hostile inferior people.

They were encouraged to look on the native Catholic Irish as an inferior people and they despised their Catholic religion. As a result, they were alien to the Irish population. they looked to London as their capital.However they did not clear the Irish off their lands.

NOTE: THE PALE

THE SPANISH DID COME: BATTLE OF KINSALE 1601 The "cockpit of Europe", pivotal in the

futures of the Gaelic, Irish and Spanish traditions.

Over 3000 Spanish troops arrive in Kinsale welcomed by the locals.

 England's Lord Deputy in Ireland, Lord Mountjoy, lands with 3000 and surrounds the town of Kinsale.

Irish forces under O'Neill and O'Donnell battle between 5000 Irish and 3000 English. 4000 other English maintain the siege on Kinsale. O'Neills troops were dispersed and fled.

Nine days later, Spanish forces surrender and are allowed safe passage back to Spain. O'Neill and O'Donnell in 1603 forced to submit to Mountjoy. This marked the end of the old Gaeilic order and the flight of the Earls. Their departure allows the "plantations" of Ulster with settlers loyal to the King

IRELAND THEN AS DIVIDED AS IT IS TODAY The post-Elizabethan policy

adopted in the northern counties of the province of Ulster after the Battle of Kinsale and the flight of the Earls, brought about the systematic clearing of the fertile lands of Ulster, attracting as settlers very large numbers of Lowland Scottish farmer families and the establishment of towns, capable of being defended throughout the planted region.

Such Irish inhabitants as were allowed to remain retained only small areas of the poorer land and others remained in the area as labourers. Thus was set the scene for the Ulster Problem which has continued to the present day.

ULSTER: A PROTESTANT PROVINCE FOR A PROTESTANT PEOPLE

RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION NORTHERN IRELAND

Protestant community2001 - 53.1%1991 - 58%1961 - 63%

Catholic community 2001 - 43.8%1991 - 42%1961 - 35%

OLIVER CROMWELL SETTLES THE QUESTION "The curse of Cromwell on you" still

a potent malediction in Ireland.

In the late part of the century the Irish supported the Catholic King James II of England against the Protestant William of Orange but the defeat of James brought further confiscation and trials. Penal Laws were enacted designed to eradicate the practice of the Catholic religion. Priests were hunted, Catholics could not own a horse worth more than five pounds and lived in abject poverty. These laws remained in force up to the 1780's.

Catholics looked upon as dangerous traitors in their won country.

NOTE: Drogheda etc

WOLFE TONEAnd the ‘Wolfe Tones’

Eldest son of a Dublin coach-builder, Tone was well educated, studying law at Trinity College, Dublin, although he would have preferred a career in the army.

A member of the privileged Protestant Ascendancy, Tone was strongly attracted by the radicalism of the American and French revolutionaries.

The Washington of Ireland - with one big difference. Washington's revolution was successful. Wolfe Tone's was crushed. When the American colonists declared they were no longer subjects of George III Tone was 13 years old. When Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, Wolfe Tone had a model to follow.

THE UNITED IRISHMEN, GRATTON & WOLFE TONE The revolt of the American colonists,

the speeches of Henry Grattan in the subordinate and exclusively Protestant Irish Parliament, the writings of Dean Swift and the republican creed of the French Revolution brought to life again the glimmering hopes of Irish freedom.

In October 1791, the Protestant Theobold Wolfe Tone founded the Society of United Irishmen in Belfast with the object of uniting Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter in a free Ireland. He asserted:-

"that it was necessary to break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils and assert the independence of my country".

Henry Gratton Born in 1746, (a Protestant ) Gratton grew up in Dublin to become M.P. for Charlemount in the Irish Parliament of 1772. By 1775 he was leader of the opposition party. The American Revolution (1776-82) sparked a resurgence of Irish national feeling.

Lead by Gratton Irish politicians demanded reform and formed a ‘Patriot Party’ for an Irish parliament independent of Westminster. Countrywide over one hundred thousand Irishmen pledged their support.

The English government responded by removing restrictions on Irish trade and allowing Catholics to buy land freely for the first time in nearly a century. Finally, in 1782 Westminster renounced its claim to legislate for Ireland directly and Gratton claimed his greatest political victory. "Ireland is now a nation. In that new character I hail her!" he proclaimed.

UNITED AND NOT SO UNITED IRISHMEN The original purpose of this society was

no more than the formation of a political union between Roman Catholics and Protestants, with a view to obtaining a liberal measure of parliamentary reform

It is important to note the use of the word 'united'. This was what particularly alarmed the British aristocracy in Westminster as they saw the Catholic population as the greatest threat to their power in Ireland.

Such sectarian animosity undermined the United Irishmen movement: two secret societies from Ulster fought against each other, the Peep O'Day Boys, who were made up mostly of Protestants, (Their name derived from the practice of attacking Catholic homes at dawn (the "peep of day") and wrecking their linen weaving machinery.) and the Defenders, who were made up of Catholics.

20th Century ‘Troubles’ Foretold (And Sir David Wilkie Messed Up)

In response, Catholics formed a group known as the Defenders and regularly clashed with the Peep O'Day Boys until violence reached a pitch in 1795, when the two groups fought the “Battle of the Diamond" in County Armagh. Between thirty and eighty Defenders were killed by the better armed Peep O'Day Boys and in celebration of this victory, the Peep O'Day Boys were re-organized as the Orange Order

Popular loyalism in Britain proudly proclaimed its Protestant character; unlike Orangeism the British reflected the religious affiliation of the majority of their countrymen. In Ireland inter-denominational strife and the size of the Catholic ?threat? drove thousands of lower-class Protestants into the Orange ranks. Exclusively Protestant, the Orange Order was not, in its view, sectarian. It brand of Protestantism and anti-Catholicism (or, strictly speaking, anti-popery) was ostensibly political. Protestantism stood for liberty.? Popery? stood for tyranny and a ?disloyal? allegiance to a foreign prince.

SOCIETY OF UNITED IRISHMEN Despite his desire to emancipate his fellow countrymen, Tone had very little

respect for the Catholic faith (a view shared by many subsequent Irish Republicans).

Tone urged the French Directory to send effective assistance to the Irish rebels, all that could be promised was a number of small raids to descend simultaneously on different points of the Irish coast. One of these under General Humbert succeeded in landing a force in County Mayo, and gained some success before it was subdued.. Wolfe Tone's brother Matthew was captured, and hanged

Tone, who was on board the French ship Hoche, refused an offer of escape in a frigate and was taken prisoner when the Hoche was forced to surrender.

Death When the prisoners were landed a fortnight later, Sir George Hill recognized

Tone in the French adjutant-general's uniform. At his trial by court-martial in Dublin, Tone made a speech avowing his determined hostility to England and his intention "by fair and open war to procure the separation of the Two countries," and pleading in virtue of his status as a French officer to die by the musket instead of the rope. He was, however, sentenced to be hanged , but he cut his throat with a penknife to cheat the noose, and died of the wound several days later at the age of 35 in Provost's Prison, Dublin, not far from where he was born

THE YEAR OF THE FRENCH General Humbert was

parolled by the British and returned to France

Coming under increasing scrutiny and fearful of arrest, Humbert escaped to the USA in 1808. He settled in New Orleans, once again fighting the British at the battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812, and briefly participated in the Mexican War of Independence (on the revolutionaries' side) in 1814. He then lived peacefully as a schoolteacher until his death in New Orleans.

ANOTHER TRY AND MAD KING GEORGE PORPHYRIA (Purple Urine) No attacks during crisis

of American Revolution. But: 1798 Pitt proposed

integration of Ireland with Britain and Catholic Emancipation to solve Irish Question and stop French Republicanism. George in the middle of an ‘attack’ said he would defend the Protestant faith. Pitt dropped the plan

Daniel O'Connell 1775-1847 And The 1801 Act Of UnionUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Born near Cahirciveen in Kerry. O'Connell was a fierce critic of the binding together of Ireland and England under the one parliament. Although opposed to violence and violent methods, O'Connell killed a political opponent in 1815 after he was challenged to a duel.

In 1823, he formed the Catholic Association introduced the ‘’catholic rent’ which allowed the poorer peasantry to become members of the Association for the mere sum of a penny a month. O’Connell wanted to achieve Catholic emancipation for the Irish Catholics. The Association quickly became the first mass political movement in Ireland and was helped out by the lower clergy of the Catholic Church. HOWEVER Although his use of the Church and his sometime sectarian rhetoric attracted the support of the Catholic masses O'Connell alienated the Protestants in Ireland and this paved the way for Irish nationalism to become an exclusively Catholic tradition, even though the first Irish Nationalists were in fact Protestants.

WELLINGTON AND CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 1829 NOTE MONARCH GOVERNOR

OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

Catholics could vote since 1793 but only Protestants could be elected. (1828 Daniel O’Connell had won a seat against Vesty (P of B.O.T & Irish Landlord)

Since 1801 Ireland had seats Parliament

Emancipation Act passed to allow Catholics into Parliament

Split the Tory party (1832!!)

BY THE 1840s No particular likelihood of huge

popular revolt Gradual change and creeping

cultural imperialism All dissident factions well under

control ALSO Support from upper echelons

of the Catholic Church which feared Republicanism.

THE POTATO FAMINEC. O’GRADA “The Great Irish Famine” 1989

LAST ‘THIRD WORLD’ STARVATION IN EUROPE

COMMENT ON THE PRE-FAMINE IRISH PEASANTRY "I have seen the Indian in his forests, and the

Negro in his chains, and thought, as I contemplated their pitiable condition, that I saw the very extreme of human wretchedness; but I did not then know the condition of unfortunate Ireland...In all countries, more or less, paupers may be discovered; but an entire nation of paupers is what was never seen until it was shown in Ireland.“

French sociologist, Gustave de Beaumont, visiting Ireland in 1835

IRISH IMMIGRATION TO ENGLAND AFTER THE POTATO FAMINE

BUT SEEN AS HARDLY CIVILISED (O’Houligans)

THE PREVAILING BRITISH AND ULSTER VIEW OF THEIR IRISH PEASANT CITIZENS

Rural Irish seen to be alien, rebellious, backward people, stuck in an ancient agrarian past.

English reformers hoped to break the cycle by making the Irish more like them.

Poverty and idleness was caused by bad moral character and the ‘devil’s work’.

IRONY was that the potato and use of turf for fuel had produced a healthier population than in England and Scotland

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE PROHIBIT GRAIN EXPORTS

PARTICULARLY IN 1846/7 BEFORE LARGE GRAIN IMPORTS ARRIVED

TAKE CHARGE OF GRAIN SUPPLY TO ENSURE FAIRNESS

CONTINUE MASS FEEDING AFTER ITS CLOSE IN SEPT. 1847. (SOUP KITCHENS HAD FED 3 MILLION PEOPLE CHEAPLY AND EFFECTIVELY)

AND ARTIFICALLY RAISE WAGES ON PUBLIC WORKS

RELIEF SO IMPORTED FOOD COULD BE AFFORDED.

RELAX RESTRICTIONS ON POOR LAW RELIEF STOP ALL MASS EVICTIONS OF PAUPERIZED

LABOURERS ASSIST EMMIGRATION BY FREE PASSAGE SUPPORT AFTER THE FAMINE INSTEAD OF

THROWING IRELAND BACK ON ITS OWN RESOURCES. (PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT MISSED INTERVENTION)

PREVAILING IDEOLOGIES 1) LAISSEZ FAIRE  There was a very widespread

belief among members of the British upper and middle classes that the famine was a divine judgment against the kind of Irish agrarian regime that was believed to have given rise to the famine. The Irish system of agriculture was perceived to be riddled with inefficiency and abuse, the time, the workings of divine Providence were disclosed in the unfettered operations of the market economy, and therefore it was positively evil to interfere with its proper functioning.

PREVAILING IDEOLOGIES2) Divine Providence A leading exponent of this

providentialist view was Sir Charles Trevelyan, the civil servant responsible for Irish relief policy throughout the famine years. In his book The Irish Crisis, published in 1848, Trevelyan described the famine as 'a direct stroke of an all-wise and all-merciful Providence', one which laid bare 'the deep and inveterate root of social evil'. The famine was 'the sharp but effectual remedy by which the cure is likely to be effected... God grant that the generation to which this great opportunity has been offered may rightly perform its part

He saw the Famine as a mechanism for reducing surplus population’.

PREVAILING IDEOLOGIES3) Moralism 'moralism'-the notion that

the fundamental defects from which the Irish suffered were moral rather than financial. Educated Britons of this era saw serious defects in the Irish 'national character'-disorder or violence, filth, laziness, and worst of all, a lack of self-reliance. This amounted to a kind of racial or cultural stereotyping. The Irish had to be taught to stand on their own feet and to unlearn their dependence on government.

SHANKHILL HAMMER GANG

BUT IRISH IMMIGRANTS WELCOMED INTO USA

OR WERE THEY? - LATE 1840s

OR WERE THEY? (Late 1850s)

WHAT CHANGED THINGS?NY Irish Rifles – Irish Brigade – United States Irish Cavalry

BUT LATE INTO THE 19th CENTURY: AND 20th CENTURY

IRISH TROUBLES SPILL OVER INTO NORTH AMERICA: The FENIAN RAIDS

The Fenian raids were attacks by members of the Fenian Brotherhood based in the USA, on British Army forts, customs posts and other targets in order to bring pressure on Britain to withdraw from Ireland, between 1866 and 1871.

They were also known as the "Irish Invasion of Canada". Most of the raids were successfully repelled by British forces and local militias.

They divided many Irish-Canadians, many of whom were torn between loyalty to their new home and sympathy for the aims.

The Protestant Irish were generally loyal to Britain and fought with the Orange Order against the Fenians.

While the U.S. authorities arrested the men and confiscated their arms afterwards, there is speculation that many in government had turned a blind eye to the preparations for the invasion.r

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCIESANOTHER NATIONAL IDENTITY IS FORMED

Support for the Invasion of Canada leveled out and there was no real threat of any more raids after the 1890s.

The raids, however, did have a large effect on Canada-U.S. relations for years.

There was a great deal of anger in Canada with the U.S. government, who Canadians felt had looked the other way and failed to prevent the raids on their end.

Canada-US relations remained strained until Anglo-American rapprochement in the first decade of the 20th century: Canadian-American relations remained considerably distant until co-operation during the Second World War.

Ironically, although they did not do much to advance Irish independence, the 1866 raids helped to galvanize support for the Confederation of Canada in 1867. Some historians have argued that the debacle tipped the final votes of reluctant Maritime provinces in favour of the collective security of nationhood.,.”

STATEMENTS and QUESTIONS Ireland split between cultures Irish peasants seen by almost all

Protestants as feckless and brutal. Poor response to the potato famine by

today’s standards

But, with all this in mind and taking into account an overpopulated one crop economy would anything have worked?

IRISH VOTES Liberals eventually

supported Home Rule to ‘pacify Ireland’ particularly over land reform.

BUT the Whig element of the party tended to join with the Tories to support land-lords.

Ireland now split politically below Ulster

British Parliament split between ‘Home Rulers’ and Unionists.

WILLIAM GLADSTONE Gladstone, who was born

on 29 December 1809 at Rodney Street, Liverpool, was the fourth son and fifth child of a family of six born to Sir John Gladstone and his wife Anne Mackenzie Robertson. Sir John Gladstone made his fortune in trade especially with America and the West Indies: it was there that he owned sugar plantations.

A CHILD OF THE TIMES? FORTUNE FROM SLAVERY Fourth son and fifth child of a

family of six born to Sir John Gladstone and his wife Anne Mackenzie Robertson. Sir John Gladstone made his fortune in trade especially with America and the West Indies: it was there that he owned sugar plantations.

John Gladstone was active in obtaining compensation for slave owners and himself received 93,526 pounds.

After the abolition of slavery, John Gladstone used Indentured Servants from India to work in slavery-like conditions in his sugar plantations

RESCUING ‘FALLEN WOMEN’ In 1840 he embarked on his work of

rescuing and rehabilitating London prostitutes. This was the attempt to rescue prostitutes from the streets and rehabilitate them in employment, or by marriage, or by emigration. Catherine Gladstone was well informed about these activities, and prostitutes were invited to the Gladstone's' house. But it is also clear that for Gladstone rescue work became not merely a duty but a craving; it was an exposure to sexual stimulation which Gladstone felt he must both undergo and overcome.

What is clear is that on occasion these confrontations were followed by self-scourging. Gladstone's use of the scourge or discipline is marked in the diary or on his lists by the sign [Lambda], presumably because of its resemblance to a whip.

IRELAND DECLINE (Charles Stewart Parnell 1846-

1991) 1889 and Katherine O’Shea

Note 1970 Education Act and established church.

1885 election 85 Irish MP’s – Parnell now held the balance of power. Irish MP’s wanted Home Rule and would support the party that would oblige.

But, Unionism and fear for the Empire overcame common sense.

SITUATION IN THE 1880s Ireland increasingly split along cultural,

economic and religious lines. Much of the south an exercise in extreme

poverty. “Bog Irish” despised by “educated and

cultural” Land League gaining strength for rights 1882: Viceroy Lord Cowper & Secretary

Burke murdered in Phoenix Park Dublin with surgical knives.

Fenian bombings in England

“What fools we were not to accpted Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill”George V to Ramsey McDonald 1930

Parnell a Protestant landlord from Co. Wicklow

Political genius. Persuaded Irish Nationalists to gather behind the banner of Home Rule but remaining in the British Empire.

At this date their was a good chance that the Ulster (Scots Descent) Unions could be accommodated.

Converted Gladstone to Home Rule by holding the balance of power.

BALFOUR and the Hotel Cecil (1887)If Britain could not control Ireland how could it control the Empire?

Balfour Irish Secretary (English Vice and the Psychic world)

Nephew of Lord Salisbury Rise of Tory Unionism Brought in harder

criminal laws against rural protests.

‘The Times’ slandered Parnell over the Phoenix Park murders. Legal action won.

DOWNFALL PARNELL Parnell’s affair with Katherine

O’Shea the estranged wife of one of his own MPs. Lived together 10 years, had children, Gladstone used Katherine as a ‘go-between’

The scandal broke in 1889 when Willie O'Shea filed suit for divorce from Katie citing Parnell, as co-respondent. No-one is quite sure why he finally took this step, it is clear that he had known for years about their liaison, and indeed so did many including Mr. Gladstone. He gained his divorce and eventually Katie and Parnell were married at the Registry Office in Steyning on 25th June 1891 - for not one of the local vicars would marry them.

A TRAGEDY FOR IRELAND The people of England and Ireland had

been shocked and outraged, their prejudice against divorce fanned by the flames of the press who blamed Katie as the adulterous seducer of a gallant leader. But it was the beginning of the end for Parnell. The Irish Catholics would not accept divorce, pressure was put on Parnell to give up his leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party and support began to fall away from him in Ireland. The final blow came when Gladstone abandoned the Irish/Liberal pact and jettisoned the forthcoming Irish Home Rule Bill. Betrayed, defeated, sick, his life's work in ruins, Parnell died with Katie beside him at 10 Walsingham Terrace on 16th October 1891. He was forty five years old.

ONE MORE LAST HOPE: REDMOND (John Edward Redmond)

Born Wexford eldest son of William Redmond, nationalist MP for Wexford. The Redmonds were a Catholic gentry family in the county. Redmond was to devote his entire life to politics. Elected MP for New Ross in 1881, quickly established himself as a devoted follower of Charles Stewart Parnell.

Redmond was deeply opposed to the use of physical force. He was committed to political change by constitutional means. Admirer of the House of Commons. Sought limited self-government, considering it undesirable that Britain and Ireland should be wholly separated. Leader of the minority that supported Parnell during the split of 1890, following the O’Shea divorce case.

A CHANCE THAT SLIPS AWAY The outcome of the two general elections, held in 1910, marked a high point in his

political career. Irish nationalist MPs held the balance of power at Westminster and he used this leverage to persuade the Liberal Government of H. H. Asquith to introduce a Bill to grant Ireland self-government, the third Home Rule Bill, in April 1912.

Opposition from the Ulster Unionist Party,( Carson) became a serious threat. There was growing threat of civil war in Ireland. In January 1913 the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) was set up and pledged to ‘use all means that may be necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule parliament in Ireland’. In response, the Irish Volunteers were established in November 1913 with ideals opposed to those of the UVF. Unionists were prepared to settle for Irish Home Rule only if the six north-eastern counties were excluded. Redmond reluctantly agreed to what he saw as a temporary exclusion.

The Government of Ireland Bill was passed and with it another bill postponing the implementation of Home Rule until the end of the Great War. These bills became law on 18 September 1914.

Over 120,000 Irishmen fought in World War One. His brother was killed at the front in 1917.

The 1916 Rising was a shattering blow to his life-long policy of constitutional action. He described the Easter Rising of 1916 as a ‘German intrigue’. His pleas, and John Dillon’s, that the rebels be treated leniently were ignored. Sinn Féin re-organised in 1917 and became Redmond’s strongest opposition.

Prime Minister, Lloyd George accepted Redmond’s suggestion for an Irish Convention to resolve the problem of Home Rule within the British Empire. The convention met in July 1917 but had made little headway when Redmond died suddenly on 6 March 1918. Later that year, in the general election of December, Redmond’s party’s representation at Westminster collapsed, resulting in a Sinn Féin triumph.

REBELLION 1916 Not popular within Ireland. Many

people had husbands and relatives in the British army.

Captured rebels booed by the crowd as they were marched away.

Republican sympathy at a low ebb. The Rising was a complete failure,

which left large parts of Dublin in ruins.

Punishment was swift, secret and brutal. Leaders tried by court martial and shot. Connolly, who was dying and had to be propped up in bed for the court martial in his hospital room was shot in a chair, since he could not stand. A wave of disgust crossed all Ireland.

WHO IS THIS MAN?

Settlement to Civil War to Assassination to Recrimination Michael John Collins was a revolutionary

leader, Minister for Finance 1919, Director of Intelligence for the IRA, and member of the Irish delegation during the Anglo-Irish treaty negotiations, both and Commander-in-Chief of the National Army.

He was shot and killed in August 1922, during the Irish Civil War. Although most Irish political parties recognize his contribution to the foundation of the modern Irish state, members and supporters of the Fine Gael political party hold his memory in particular esteem, regarding him as their movement's founding father, adopted in 1923 by the pro-Treaty wing of Sinn Fein.

AND COLLINS’ TREAY STANDS