The birth of Ireland nationalism

« The Birth of Irish nationalism At the end of the 17th century, the British government limited the possibilities of economic and commercial development of the island.

Within the Protestant colonial elite, gradually distanced from political and religious power, the first Irish nationalism was born.

In 1759, Henry Flood created the Irish Patriotic Party.

At the end of the 18th century, the economic situation of the Irish, especially the Catholics, improved and, in 1783, the Irish Parliament obtained greater autonomy.

The French Revolution inspired some nationalists, such as Wolfe Tone who created the Society of the United Irishmen in 1791.

Created in 1795, the Orange Order brought together Protestants loyal to the English Crown.

While in Ulster, Catholic and Protestant peasants clashed in secret societies - The Defenders and the Peep O'Day Boys - a rebellion broke out in May 1798, led by the Society of the United Irishmen.

It failed because of the lack of a real alliance between Catholic and Protestant nationalists.

Rejected a year earlier, the Act of Union, putting an end to Ireland's relative autonomy, was adopted on 7 June 1800. When Ireland became part of the United Kingdom, more than 90% of the land was owned by settlers.

In April 1829, the Catholic lawyer Daniel O'Connell obtained the end of many discriminations against Catholics.

A pacifist, he nevertheless hardened his position by founding the Loyal National Repeal Association eleven years later.

The support of the Catholic masses for his action transformed the landscape of Irish nationalism, which had previously been predominantly Protestant.

Anglicans and Presbyterians, on the other hand, moved closer to the Crown.

Republican organisations such as Young Ireland nevertheless tried to bring the two communities together around independence ideas.

Some of them were tempted, without success, by armed struggle. The agrarian problem that followed the Great Famine of 1845-1849 and the spread of separatist and republican ideas agitated Ireland in the second part of the 19th century, while secret organisations, such as the Irish Republican Brotherhood, founded in 1858, launched campaigns of attacks and assassinations.

From 1870 onwards, advocates of a political solution, such as the Protestant Charles Parnell, campaigned for the implementation of Home Rule, i.e.

allowing Ireland complete autonomy.

The 1885 elections for the UK Parliament in Ireland were won by the Irish Parliamentary Party (also known as the Home Rule Party), while the Unionists organised against any form of Home Rule.

The various Home Rule proposals were rejected in June 1886 and again in September 1893 and became a major campaign issue in the UK. Land reforms at the end of the 19th century restored land ownership to the Irish (they owned two thirds of it in 1914), but the nationalist movement changed its form.

Organisations such as the Gaelic League, founded in 1893, now spread a nationalism that was more cultural than economic, while James Connolly created the Irish Republican Socialist Party in 1896, combining socialism and nationalism.

Less revolutionary, Arthur Griffith formed Sinn Féin in 1905.. »