Irish Home Rule succeeds

[napoleon IV]

I'm enjoying the way you seem to have spent the last year dutifully studying South African politics of the 19th century. Fully approve of Martin Meredith as a gateway drug.

I wouldn't describe it as "dutiful", and there's still a lot I have no idea about, but I've made a point of learning more about African history (and subaltern history more generally) over the past year. At some point it becomes embarrassing to know so much about random-ass Soviet politicians but be unable to give more than a general outline of the African independence movements.

 

[Gary Oswald]

I wouldn't describe it as "dutiful", and there's still a lot I have no idea about, but I've made a point of learning more about African history (and subaltern history more generally) over the past year. At some point it becomes embarrassing to know so much about random-ass Soviet politicians but be unable to give more than a general outline of the African independence movements.

It's always been quietly depressing to me when I spout out about my usual hobby horses 'cetshawayo was a bae, the dahomey amazons were actually problematic etc' that I've never had anyone violently disagree with me on this forum.

It's difficult to avoid the impression that if it was European or Asian history I talked that much about, someone with a different interpretation would have stepped in to argue a point but nobody else does that here even on points that I myself now disagree with, simply because it's a less studied area. It isn't really healthy for only one viewpoint to hold sway on areas of history without challenge. I dream of the day that one of my articles gets a long angry rebuttal by someone convinced that I'm disparaging the noble name of Samori Ture and am using biased sources to do so.

 

[Roger II]

It's always been quietly depressing to me when I spout out about my usual hobby horses 'cetshawayo was a bae, the dahomey amazons were actually problematic etc' that I've never had anyone violently disagree with me on this forum.

It's difficult to avoid the impression that if it was European or Asian history I talked that much about, someone with a different interpretation would have stepped in to argue a point but nobody else does that here even on points that I myself now disagree with, simply because it's a less studied area. It isn't really healthy for only one viewpoint to hold sway on areas of history without challenge. I dream of the day that one of my articles gets a long angry rebuttal by someone convinced that I'm disparaging the noble name of Samori Ture and am using biased sources to do so.

I expect a 5,000 word essay on whether or not the Adal Sultanate could have conquered and consolidated its rule in Ethiopia absent Portugese intervention and/or the Bahri Negus defecting back to the Ethiopians, as well as the consequences of a more successful Adal sultanate under Ahmad Gragn.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

It's always been quietly depressing to me when I spout out about my usual hobby horses 'cetshawayo was a bae, the dahomey amazons were actually problematic etc' that I've never had anyone violently disagree with me on this forum.

I feel that if we pitch it properly, you, me and Sule could find room for a proper argument about turn-of-the-century South Africa and Rhodesia.

 

[Simon]

I'm far from a expert but wasn't Pitt all in for emancipation as part of the union but King George thought it would be a betrayal of his role as head of the Church of England so refused to pass it.

That can possibly be dealt with by a couple of handily timed bouts of madness which see the future George IV minding the shop as Prince Regent when it comes up. He was apparently a supporter of Catholic emancipation when younger but turned against by the time he became king. Does anyone know when this change of opinion took place?

 

[Indicus]

£10 in 1845 was the equivalent of half of the national average salary for a year. And for reference, the Cape Qualified Franchise that operated in the latter half of the 19th century had a £25 requirement, which was widely considered to be fair and reasonable.

First of all, the Cape Qualified Franchise was not even remotely the same thing as the ten pound freeholder franchise, as napoleon IV notes.

Second, you are ignoring almost all of my argument to make this point. The electoral qualification was quite deliberately raised by five times in 1829 (as part of Catholic emancipation) to keep Catholics from having a substantial voice in Irish affairs - in other words, it was intended to make the Irish electorate less representative of the Irish people. This is the greatest evidence of the Irish electorate being little more than an unrepresentative elite - that was the intention.

I also noted that O'Connell held peaceful protests larger than the entirety of the electorate put together. Specifically, the Irish electorate was at around 100,000 people after 1829. O'Connell's "monster meetings" for Repeal of the Union exceeded that number. Furthermore, he held such protests across Ireland, drawing different people to them. This is clear evidence of a deep disconnect between the electorate and the people.

Also, you saying that Ireland had an electorate more like a colony than Great Britain weakens your point about it not being a colony.

I did not come to that conclusion. O'Connell was a populist, it is a line of attack that a populist would use, but he did not. I do not believe that he hated Britain.

This muddles the point you were trying to make about O'Connell, but okay.

I just don't believe that this is true. Gladstone was too influential within the party and he'd be on the side of other influential figures like Hartington and Chamberlain. Who would lead the Liberal's Home Rule wing?

Joseph Cowen, Henry Labouchere and probably many other names I haven't thought of. Even Joseph Chamberlain, ironically enough, supported Home Rule in the 1870s (he ran banners saying "Home Rule" in his 1870s campaigns for MP) since supporting Home Rule was associated with the radical wing of the Liberals, though of course he later discarded it.

Which is exactly why the Second Home Rule Bill (drafted in his last ministry when he didn't have a majority and was completely dependent on the IPP) included Irish MPs.

What are you trying to argue here? I have no idea whatsoever.

The second Home Rule bill included (a much reduced number of) Irish MPs mainly because Gladstone was widely criticized for not including some number of Irish MPs in Westminster. He watered down his desire to remove the Irish MPs in order to get the wider bill passed.

But what does that have to do with this?

From this paragraph and the ones that follow, I'm not confident that a reasonable conversation can be maintained. To put it mildly, your view of history is fundamentally opposed to my own symptomised by the fact that I am entirely sure that you are wrong on this point, and I believe you feel the same.

Can you elaborate? I did give reasons to justify what I'm saying, after all - what specifically do you disagree with me on? This is a forum - disagreement is sort of the point.

I've seen it argued that Ireland wasn't as much of a colony as others, and that there was some Irish nationalist participation in colonialism (like with how William Smith O'Brien supported Australian settlement), but that doesn't negate the idea that Ireland was a colony, and I doubt that's your argument. The fundamentally colonial nature of the Dublin Castle administration, the existence of an utterly unrepresentative electorate till 1885, the very distinct parallels to indisputable colonies (like, as SenatorChickpea notes, between Bloody Sunday in 1920 and Jallianwala Bagh) - all of these point to Ireland being a colony, and I do really feel that it's rather difficult to dispute.

Really, I'm just guessing about your reasons here. With you giving such a cryptic answer, well, that's all I can do.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

I've seen it argued that Ireland wasn't as much of a colony as others, and that there was some Irish nationalist participation in colonialism (like with how William Smith O'Brien supported Australian settlement), but that doesn't negate the idea that Ireland was a colony, and I doubt that's your argument. The fundamentally colonial nature of the Dublin Castle administration, the existence of an utterly unrepresentative electorate till 1885, the very distinct parallels to indisputable colonies (like, as SenatorChickpea notes, between Bloody Sunday in 1920 and Jallianwala Bagh) - all of these point to Ireland being a colony, and I do really feel that it's rather difficult to dispute.

There's also other classic aspects of the colonial experience: suppression of the indigenous language and the presence of actual settlements in the north being the most obvious.

 

[frustrated progressive]

I'm enjoying the way you seem to have spent the last year dutifully studying South African politics of the 19th century. Fully approve of Martin Meredith as a gateway drug.

Having also used Meredith as my beginning fix, what's the next level of dope that you would recommend for the period?

 

[Gary Oswald]

Having also used Meredith as my beginning fix, what's the next level of dope that you would recommend for the period?

As with all things it depends exactly what piqued your interest as to where you should look further. The best guys on the Zulu monarchy aren't always going to give you much details about cape town politics.

In terms of combining information and readability, I'm a huge fan of John Laband, whose new book 'The Land Wars' on the cape frontiers wars I am reading through now and whose zulu works I found excellent. @SenatorChickpea, who knows far more than me about this period, told me Thomas Pakenham has his uses but I bounced off him hard when I tried to read him. Lawrence James, I think is universally seen as best avoided.

Obviously the best research is to skip the popular historians all together and read the records yourself, keep up with the new papers on jstor etc, but I'm happy to let @Sulemain and @SenatorChickpea earn Drs in front of their names by doing that and then they can explain the long words to me afterwards.

 

[JeffreyArchersnemesis]

I don't look at this forum for a few days and suddenly there are three pages of posts to read. Anyway, there's a lot here I fully agree with and some really interesting points raised. If I could raise a couple of further points:

• I don't agree with the idea that the union was wrecked beyond repair by the end of the Famine. I think that the smart money, really right up until the aftermath of the Easter Rising, was that Ireland would remain in the union. Even, frankly, a more lenient response to the Easter Rising might have salvaged things - it's worth remembering that the initial public response to the uprising in Dublin was overwhelmingly negative towards the rebels. In another post someone asked whether there was anyone who thought it was in their interest to preserve the constitutional link, to which the response is that clearly there was, not least because one of the major parties split irreparably over the issue, three bills were introduced in 30 years and the constitution was re-written.
• One of the things that drove the IPP was not just that they had the best organisation and Home Rule was popular (although both those things are true) but because they were very good at delivering pragmatic reforms for their constituents. A key case in point are the Land Acts: something like 90% of land passed at low prices from (mostly Protestant) landlords to (mostly Catholic) tenants - effectively reversing the creation of the Ascendency in the 1640s and creating a nation of small landowners.
• I think what happens to the IPP kind of depends on which of the two scenarios I sketched out above plays out. If Home Rule comes in 1914, then I can see the IPP continuing basically as an independent subsidiary of the Liberals in a kind of CDU-CSU relationship. If the first bill succeeds, however, then I just think the party splits apart and is irrelevant by the 1890s (if they don't formally wind themselves up anyway). If you take away the constitutional question, it's not clear to me what keeps Parnell, Davitt and Dillon in a political alliance. (Well, maybe the last two but not the first two...) This puts me in mind of a TL where the Phoenix Park murders are butterflied away, the first bill becomes law, Parnell successfully hides his affair and lives thirty more years to succeed Salisbury as Conservative PM in 1902...

 

[Venocara]

I can tell you that the view that Ireland was, in key respects, a colony of Britain's is very much the standard view in the field of British Imperial studies.

Telling me that my view is a minority one isn't going to convince me that it is the wrong one.

Also, you saying that Ireland had an electorate more like a colony than Great Britain weakens your point about it not being a colony.

I did not say that. At all. I said it was unfair, but you could make a strong argument saying that Great Britain's franchise at the time was unfair.

Joseph Cowen

Elected to Parliament in 1874 and left it in 1886. Wasn't even liked by the majority of the party and regularly sided with the Conservatives. He isn't leading anything.

Even Joseph Chamberlain

We weren't talking about the 1870s though; we were talking about the 1880s and at this time he was a staunch Unionist (and no, supporting HRAA for Imperial Federation doesn't change that).

The second Home Rule bill included (a much reduced number of) Irish MPs mainly because Gladstone was widely criticized for not including some number of Irish MPs in Westminster. He watered down his desire to remove the Irish MPs in order to get the wider bill passed.

That's definitely why Gladstone did it and not at all because he now desperately needed the Irish MPs to have a chance at forming a ministry.

Can you elaborate? I did give reasons to justify what I'm saying, after all - what specifically do you disagree with me on? This is a forum - disagreement is sort of the point.

Unfortunately, no I cannot. It's all well and good saying that the point of a forum is disagreement but in my experience the forum hasn't been too willing to accept divergent views when I've tried to express them, even if I have expressed some of those views in a contentious manner. Again, the entire way we view history is completely different. This is a fundamental difference that is unlikely to be reconciled. That is why you believe that Ireland was a colony and I do not. You believe your viewpoint is factual, as do I. Neither one of us is going to convince the other on that, and as a result of all of this I simply don't feel comfortable discussing that. It won't be productive and I can't see it ending well.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

You can surely see the difference between:

'I believe the Union was still salvageable by 1916, and here's why:'

and

'No, Ireland wasn't an oppressed colony. I don't care that the Irish say so. I don't care that professional historians in Britain, Ireland and beyond say so. I don't care about the arguments being made in this very thread that say so. No, I'm not going to defend my assertion- and I'm going to claim the moral high ground while doing so.'

This isn't a minor point of difference- you are cavalierly disregarding eight centuries of oppression, bloodshed and incredibly complicated politics here, and you haven't given any reason why!

 

[Charles EP M.]

Even, frankly, a more lenient response to the Easter Rising might have salvaged things - it's worth remembering that the initial public response to the uprising in Dublin was overwhelmingly negative towards the rebels.

This is likely, as long as you can get Home Rule to finally come in after - then the Parliamentarians have won, just as they promised, while armed struggle worked with Germany and set Dublin on fire (so it'd be presented). Though how likely it is that response is lenient, I dunno.

 

[Death's Companion]

It's always been quietly depressing to me when I spout out about my usual hobby horses 'cetshawayo was a bae, the dahomey amazons were actually problematic etc' that I've never had anyone violently disagree with me on this forum.

It's difficult to avoid the impression that if it was European or Asian history I talked that much about, someone with a different interpretation would have stepped in to argue a point but nobody else does that here even on points that I myself now disagree with, simply because it's a less studied area. It isn't really healthy for only one viewpoint to hold sway on areas of history without challenge. I dream of the day that one of my articles gets a long angry rebuttal by someone convinced that I'm disparaging the noble name of Samori Ture and am using biased sources to do so.

Create a sock puppet purely to argue with yourself and constantly have both report each other to mods as an infamous forum rivalry that inevitably escalates.

 

[Indicus]

I did not say that. At all. I said it was unfair, but you could make a strong argument saying that Great Britain's franchise at the time was unfair.

Again, you are ignoring almost all of my argument; instead you are replying to one sentence stripped of all context. I have repeatedly explained that the Irish franchise was considerably worse than that of Britain as it had a qualification five times higher than it, and each time you have totally ignored that part and quoted around it. Please do not quote around this fact - that Ireland had an electoral qualification five times higher than Britain.

We weren't talking about the 1870s though; we were talking about the 1880s and at this time he was a staunch Unionist (and no, supporting HRAA for Imperial Federation doesn't change that).

As late as 1884, Joseph Chamberlain supported the creation of a Central Board specific to Ireland with devolved matters. And even during the First Home Rule Bill controversy, he pushed half a dozen different home rule schemes including everything from provincial parliaments to a pseudo-colonial parliament, though they really weren't that well thought out. I suppose that's Joseph Chamberlain in one phrase - half a dozen ill-thought schemes.

Also, I explained that Home Rule was an opinion commonly held by many within the radical wing of the Liberal Party. You, again, are cutting up my arguments and barely responding to them.

That's definitely why Gladstone did it and not at all because he now desperately needed the Irish MPs to have a chance at forming a ministry.

Do you have any sort of justification for any of this? You've been constantly making these wild assertions without justification, and at the same time you have ignored large portions of my arguments for...reasons?

Unfortunately, no I cannot. It's all well and good saying that the point of a forum is disagreement but in my experience the forum hasn't been too willing to accept divergent views when I've tried to express them, even if I have expressed some of those views in a contentious manner. Again, the entire way we view history is completely different. This is a fundamental difference that is unlikely to be reconciled. That is why you believe that Ireland was a colony and I do not. You believe your viewpoint is factual, as do I. Neither one of us is going to convince the other on that, and as a result of all of this I simply don't feel comfortable discussing that. It won't be productive and I can't see it ending well.

Okay. This stuff continues to be incredibly cryptic - frankly you continuously repeating "I think Ireland wasn't a colony, no I won't explain why" is much less productive than you explaining your reasons would ever be.

 

[JeffreyArchersnemesis]

This is likely, as long as you can get Home Rule to finally come in after - then the Parliamentarians have won, just as they promised, while armed struggle worked with Germany and set Dublin on fire (so it'd be presented). Though how likely it is that response is lenient, I dunno.

maybe the news comes across Lloyd George’s desk and, seeing the possibility of getting some more Irish MPs on side before his coup, demands clemency and therefore no executions take place? I’m just spit balling. One of the (many) sad things about the Easter Rising is that, however harsh the British response was, it was considerably less harsh than, say, the German response would’ve been had an equivalent rising taken place in Munich...

 

[SenatorChickpea]

I think it's worth noting that there's nothing wrong with a strong unionist position: that is to say, believing that the islands would and could be more prosperous and happier if they were under a single government. That is, after all, analogous to Eurofederalism: thinking that toxic nationalism is best overcome through a layer of government above that of regional and cultural identities.

But just as there's nothing wrong with German nationalism per se, but there is something wrong with believing a greater deutschland trumps the rights of Czechs or Poles to their own homeland, or believing that Germans in Alsace have no right to choose to be part of France; just as there is nothing wrong with believing in the unity of China but quite a fucking lot wrong with thinking that validates genocidal colonialism in Xinjiang or Tibet; just as there is nothing wrong with believing in a unified Russia, a Gran Colombia, a greater Arab state et cetera, et cetera...

It is not defensible for a strong belief in British Unionism to be based in the dismissal of other people's identities or of the many, many atrocities and acts of oppression that happened in Ireland over the past centuries. Ireland is a paradox: a nation deeply complicit in the expansion and enforcement of imperial horrors overseas, a nation that suffered from them at home. It is reasonable to look at the Troubles and note there was blood on both sides; if it sounds a little fatuous, well, sometimes the truth does.

It is not reasonable, not defensible and quite offensive to look at the history of the Black and Tans, the Famine, Drogheda, internment, the systematic attempt to deny the Irish people a voice in their own future and say: 'that didn't happen, or it isn't worth being upset about, and I'm not going to say why.'

 

[RyanF]

This is likely, as long as you can get Home Rule to finally come in after - then the Parliamentarians have won, just as they promised, while armed struggle worked with Germany and set Dublin on fire (so it'd be presented). Though how likely it is that response is lenient, I dunno.

Not executing them all on the spot, including strapping the wounded James Connolly to a chair as he could not stand, might be all the leniency that's needed.

Create a sock puppet purely to argue with yourself and constantly have both report each other to mods as an infamous forum rivalry that inevitably escalates.

There's an active misinformation campaign out there.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

Create a sock puppet purely to argue with yourself and constantly have both report each other to mods as an infamous forum rivalry that inevitably escalates.

At this point, we reveal that several years ago SenatorChickpea wanted to run a fortnightly Heads of State list thread, but didn't want to do it under his own name....

 

[Doctor Sulemain]

Cape Qualified Franchise and the Irish franchise are apples and oranges. The Cape Qualified Franchise included a huge range of different types of property ownership, including the communal land tenure traditionally practiced in traditional African societies, and as a result it was a very low standard (so low that raising it became a big talking point amongst certain sections of the political class). By contrast the Irish franchise only covered land owned or rented by a person, and it actually raised the threshold by 400% (previously all an Irish voter needed was property worth 40 shillings). This led to an 80% decline in the registered county electorate.

The gradual exclusion of people of colour from the CQF is a sad and sorry tale in of itself.