Dan Snow's History Hit - Irish Independence

Episode Date: April 16, 2021

On 18th April 1949, the Republic of Ireland Act came into effect which saw Ireland become a republic and leave the Commonwealth. 2021 also marks the 100th anniversary of the end of the Irish War of independence. To help mark these important dates Diarmaid Ferriter, one of Ireland’s best-known historians and Professor of Modern Irish History at University College Dublin, joins Dan on the podcast. They examine the importance of these big anniversaries for Ireland not just in the past, but also in the present with Brexit and the possibility of Scottish independence on the horizon.

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Havens are priced and sold only direct to consumer. Without the store markups at havenmattress.ca. Hello everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Oh, these islands we live on, eh? These islands. It's a little archipelago in the North Atlantic. The UK and Ireland. It's complicated stuff. The rest of the world must look at us and think, I mean, it's a little smudge on the map, but they make enough noise. Crikey. We're an archipelago in which there are many different identities, languages, religions. We're very pluralistic and our politics reflects that. This podcast is being broadcast on

the anniversary week, the Republic of Ireland Act, which saw Ireland become a republic. A republic, of course, without the six counties in the north of Ireland, which remained part of the UK. That was signed into law by the President of Ireland, came into force on the 18th of April 1949, which was the 33rd anniversary of the Easter Rising, in which independence fighters rose up seizing key buildings in Dublin during the First World War. This year is also the 100th anniversary of the end of the Irish War of Independence. So it's all happening. And so because of that, we've got Dermot Ferreter, one of Ireland's best known historians. He's the Professor of Modern Irish History at University College Dublin. He's been on this podcast before. He's an absolute legend.

And we wanted to catch up with him on all these anniversaries straight now. What is what? What's going on? Because Irish history, Anglo-Irish history is now particularly important, not just because of these big anniversaries, not just because of Brexit and the resumption of some rioting and disturbances in Northern Ireland, but also because if Scotland chooses to go independent, and disturbances in Northern Ireland, but also because if Scotland chooses to go independent, we have to rework how we're going to organise things again on this fun archipelago of ours.

If you want to listen to previous podcasts with Devon Ferreter, you can do so at History Hit TV. It's got TV in the title, but actually it's audio as well. That's how cool it is. That's how capacious it is. You go over to historyhit.tv for a very small subscription. You can sign up to hundreds of history documentaries, thousands, I think, of podcasts, including ones by Dermot Ferreter. And then you basically get all the history content you require for the rest of your entire life. We're producing two or three new documentaries every week. Lots of praise for Dr. Elna Janneger on her medieval lives at the moment. It's been great to get that up there and get so many people watching it. And we've got lots more coming up as spring turns to summer here in the UK. In the meantime, everyone, please enjoy this podcast

on Irish independence. Dermot, thank you very much for coming on the podcast again. Delighted to be here. We love anniversaries on this podcast, and we've got plenty of them at the moment, because we've got 1921, of course. We've got the end of the Anglo-Irish War, the War of Irish Independence. Ireland becoming sort of de facto independent, but talk me through the remarkable smoke and mirrors of the decades that followed until, again, this week in 1949, we have the anniversary of the Republic of Ireland Act, in which the President of Ireland actually formally takes Ireland completely independent

of Britain, of the UK, of the Commonwealth? Well, I'll give you a line from the Taoiseach, the Prime Minister in 1949. At the time, Ireland was declared a republic. He was John A. Costolo. He was a barrister by training who went into politics and he referred to the perilous pirouetting on constitutional pinpoints when it came to the ambiguity around Ireland's status vis-a-vis its relationship with Britain. So that's the point they found themselves in in 1949 when they decided to hell with this. We have to finally get clarity and declare a republic so that there's no doubt anymore. Now, why had there been doubts? Well, that's where you have to go back, of course,

30 years to the War of Independence. The declared aim of those fighting the War of Independence in Ireland against Britain was a republic, a 32-county republic. Of course, they didn't get that. What they got instead was a negotiated settlement between 1921 and 1922 that led to the creation of a southern Irish free state of the Dominion. And Ireland had already been partitioned the previous year, so you have two Irelands effectively on the island it wasn't a republic and the story of the early 1930s is the spectacular comeback of those who had been against the treaty against the creation of the free state because they were holding out for a republic they were defeated in the civil war but they came back to power in 1932 with eamon de valera at the helm and he made it his mission to rip up the Anglo-Irish treaty

that had created the Free State by taking the crown out of Irish affairs, by getting rid of the oath of allegiance to the British crown that was a part of the treaty settlement. But he didn't take the final step, which was to declare a republic because he wanted to hold out

for when Ireland would be united. He felt that to declare a republic might drive a further wedge between North and South because obviously unionists in the North identified with the union, with Great Britain, would be united. He felt that to declare a republic might drive a further wedge between North and South, because obviously unionists in the North identified with the Union, with Great Britain. So it was left in abeyance, but there's a lot of ambiguity around it, because what he did at the time of the abdication crisis, when King Edward VIII abdicated in 1936, De Valera rushed through legislation that got rid of all references to the crown in the Irish constitution, to take

the crown out of Irish internal affairs. And instead he introduced an External Relations Act. And that was a recognition that Ireland was still associated with the Commonwealth, but not immersed in it. In other words, that to meet the sentiments of unionists, and in order to continue cooperating with other Commonwealth countries, that they would allow the British crown to sign the credentials of Irish ambassadors when it came to their relationship with the Commonwealth countries. So the whole point of declaring the Republic was to repeal

that External Relations Act because it was the last remaining link with the British Crown. And it was a logical culmination of what had been going on in the 1930s. We had our own new constitution in 1937. We had won back ports that were kept for defence purposes by Britain under the terms of the treaty. We won them back in 1938. And then Ireland had remained neutral during the Second World War, which was an obvious declaration of independence from British foreign policy. So it was really about trying to clean up the last remaining issue or complication around Ireland's links to the Commonwealth. Well, that's good and clear. So 100 years ago, Ireland left the UK and formed the Free State.

Was the idea there that it would be a kind of Canada, a dominion within the British Commonwealth? That's precisely what it was. I mean, there was a lot of confusion in the early 1920s about what dominion status meant. The choice of the term a free state was a deliberate renunciation of the idea that Ireland was actually sacrificing much of its hard-fought independence. But it was a dominion. Those members of the free state parliament in Southern Ireland were required to swear an oath of allegiance to the British crown. And the one thing that David Lloyd George was adamant about in the early 1920s, when he was the British Prime Minister negotiating

with the Irish, was that this was a red line. They were not going to be permitted to leave the British Empire, to leave the Commonwealth. It was a very difficult compromise for the Irish who had fought for independence to swallow. But they did think that it would be a stepping stone to greater freedom. And ultimately, they were proved correct. The irony is that the person who ultimately vindicated the idea of it being a stepping stone to greater freedom was the person who most opposed the free state in 1922. And that was one Eamon de Valera. So it's full of ironies. But that's exactly what Ireland's status was. It had the status of a dominion. And for people who've been bought up on a diet of Irish republicanism, that really was a festering sore.

Were there any other practical effects of still being a dominion? Was it foreign policy? Other than this oath that must have stuck in the craw of so many people? What else practically in the 1920s and very early 30s did it mean in Ireland? Well, it meant a lot. It meant that Irish people in Britain had favoured status, you know, that they had particular rights around immigration and around travel, a common travel area. It meant that they had favoured status. And there was a lot of worry when the Republic was declared in 1949 that they might lose that. Now, in the event, Britain agreed to allow them to retain that favoured status. But it also meant that Ireland could cooperate closely as a dominion in the 20s and the 30s with other Commonwealth countries, with New Zealand, with Canada, with Australia ties with those countries. And the other Commonwealth countries were concerned that Ireland would be discriminated against in the late 1940s if the Republic was declared. And they had to put pressure on the British government, you know, not to act in a hostile way after Ireland had declared the Republic. So some did see that there were advantages to remaining in the Commonwealth.

And I mean, even within the Fine Gael party, which eventually declared the Republic, John A. Costolo was the Prime Minister of that Fine Gael-led government. There were quite a lot of people in Fine Gael who were comfortable with the idea of continued membership of the Commonwealth. And even at a later stage, picture this scene, Dan. There's a lovely moment in 1953 when Eamon de Valera and Winston Churchill finally meet each other in person for a meeting in Downing Street. And the two old men now on the last lap of power, both of whom had come to represent the respective destinies of their country, Churchill as the great war leader, de Valera as the leader of the small country, going it alone in foreign policy, they finally sit down. And Churchill said to him, would you have taken Ireland out of the Commonwealth in 1949?

And he said no, because de Valera believed there were advantages to remaining in the Commonwealth, that it might ultimately have made Irish unity more possible. So he wasn't necessarily a diehard Republican. There were those who believed that this would drive that wedge between North and South and make partition permanent, which in many respects it did, because the response of the British government to the declaration of an Irish Republic for the southern 26 counties of Ireland was to pass their own legislation in Britain, which was the UK-Ireland Act, which confirmed that Northern Ireland's status would not change without the express consent of the Northern Ireland Parliament.

So Northern Ireland unionists were looking for reassurances after the Declaration of the Republic that they would not be vulnerable to Irish unity. And the British government firmed up the partition of Ireland. And de Valera, of course, would have regarded that as a retrograde step and doing damage to the long-term ambition around Irish unity. So the Declaration of the Republic was powerfully symbolic and there was an enthusiastic response to it in Ireland. You can see contemporary pictures in April 1949 of bonfires blazing. It was a symbol around which people in southern Ireland could rally, but it also underlined that gulf and chasm between north and south.

Yeah, as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking of those six counties in the north of Ireland, and it seems to me that the free state and that kind of pirouette that you described at least allowed enough ambiguity for all sides to hold out hope that their political objectives might be met, arguably in the similar-ish way that both the UK and Ireland being part of this transnational EU, everyone could see a path to what they wanted to achieve in it. And it's why the rupture of Britain, the UK leaving the EU may prove hugely problematic. Well, you're absolutely right about that. And you put your finger on it. I mean, it is that ambiguity, like there's a certain degree of deliberate ambiguity around the Anglo-Irish settlements of the early 1920s,

or the idea that they're not final, that you might hold out the prospect of North and South coming together. David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill from that era in the early 1920s, when they were negotiating with the Irish Republicans, would have made the point that we don't want to stand in the way of Irish unity, but it has to be by consent. You can't drag unionists into a united Ireland against their will. So certain wording in the agreements is left deliberately ambiguous to try and not put barriers on the ultimate path to Irish unity. Because let's face it, plenty in Britain, including in British politics, would have been quite happy to get rid of their Irish question

altogether because it was an ongoing complication for them. And of course, that's remained the situation. I mean, for all the progress that has been made on the idea of a soft border between North and South, it's still a hugely complicated issue. And I mean, you only have to look at what arose due to the Brexit referendum, when issue that hadn't really been discussed properly during the campaign became the most intractable issue. So there's a remarkable continuity in the complications around the border and what they do both to

Anglo-Irish relations and North-South relations. In a way, the declaration of the Republic by the South must have come as a relief to some unionists in Northern Ireland who saw the kind of hardening of what many saw as a kind of temporary border, the hardening into a kind of proper international border must have been perhaps quite good news. Well, that's the really interesting point, because they were trepidatious initially, and they felt vulnerable and exposed. But then what transpired behind the scenes were a series of meetings between the Unionists of Northern Ireland and the British Prime Minister Clement Attlee. And he had the Northern Ireland Prime Minister to checkers, and Clement Attlee gave him reassurances that he thought

that they would shore up the position of Northern Unionists, of the constitutional integrity of Northern Ireland, of the constitutional future of Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Prime Minister went away very satisfied. So what was initially an anxiety suddenly became an opportunity to be very positive about their continued future and their secure future within the United Kingdom. And then they began to boast about that, of course, that this was a success ultimately for unionists because it had shored up their position. And in that sense, for all of the declarations that were made by Republicans in the South about this being a brand new dawn and that it might facilitate improved relations. The reality was that Unionists were able to sell the Declaration

of the Republic as a significant victory for them. You're listening to Dan Snow's History here. We've got Dermot Ferreter back on. We're talking about the anniversary of the Republic of Ireland Act when the Republic, well, became a republic. More after this. In the darkest corners of the night, true comfort can be elusive. But what if your sleep wasn't a mystery, but a haven? Introducing Haven Mattress. Engineered with advanced cooling technology to dissipate the night's most chilling secrets, ensuring a perfectly comfortable slumber. And the comfort? Simply criminal. You'll feel like you've gotten away

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It's so interesting, isn't it? Because the de facto separation comes 100 years ago in 1921. And this, in some ways, sounds like politicians kind of changing the brass plaques. And I'm mindful of the Trump administration moving their recognition of the capital of Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. These things have real world consequences. It's so interesting, isn't it? They do. And there's also the declaration that was made in 1949 by the prime minister at the time, John A. Koslow, that this would take the gun out of Irish politics. The point he was making was that the continued existence of a link with the British crown was a deliberate provocation to those who saw the Republic, some of those who saw the Republic by violent means. And he was trying to take that provocation away so that they could argue their case through constitutional means. And there was actually quite a concerted effort to take the anti-partition case internationally. There was an all-party anti-partition campaign around the same

time. They were working on the misguided belief that they could interest world opinion in the case against anti-partition at a time when the world didn't give a damn about the partition of Ireland. And Ireland, of course, had remained neutral during the Second World War, so it was quite isolated internationally in any case. So, you know, Irish Republicans did have this belief that perhaps they could launch a very vigorous international propaganda campaign to undo the partition of Ireland and to make right a moral and historic wrong. But I think that was quite naive in many ways. But at the same time, they did have a genuine motivation in the sense that for all of the clamour around the declaration of the Republic of Ireland in 1949, it was an incomplete republic. It wasn't the republic they

had dreamed of. It wasn't the republic they had fought for. It was a 26-county republic. And there's a very revealing minute in the British cabinet minutes for 1949 when the cabinet suggests that the declaration of the Republic for Dublin has shown that they put more store by formal independence than they do by the Union of Ireland. That they're choosing, in other words, to maximise the sovereignty and the independence of the southern 26-county state than to actually

think about the implications for unity and there was certainly a degree of truth in that they were working with what they had and they were seeking to deepen the independence of the unit that they controlled of the 26 county state that they controlled but you, it remained an unresolved issue. And even into the 1950s and the 1960s, as that revolutionary generation died out, they could claim, of course, that they had achieved much in terms of a separate Irish identity and a separate Irish state. But it still remained a divided Ireland. And that was always a source of great regret. And of course, it didn't get rid of the gun from Irish politics. The IRA launched a new campaign in 1956, the so-called Border Campaign, which lasted until 1962, to reaffirm their stated aim of getting rid of the border through force of arms. rather spooky this is going on at exactly the same time as Indian partition, which is different in important ways, but another partition of previously British-held territory in which these kind of issues are also discussed. Do you go for the deal on the table and maximise the sovereignty of a

piece of it, or do you hold out for your perception of what the historic entity should be? It's fascinating. The Indian parallel is really revealing, and that was being discussed at the time, of course, because, you know, the Indian debate is going on at that time. And eventually India becomes a republic within the Commonwealth. So an obvious question for British diplomats was, could Ireland not do the same? The difficulty was that Ireland was already acting as a republic before the republic was declared. And that was the point Costolo was making. We've already more or less left the Commonwealth. There's just a technicality that's keeping us there and it's causing too much confusion and resentment and ambiguity. Whereas for India, it was different. They were embarking

on a particular phase and they were able to come to that resolution or that definition at that time. So the Irish case was different in that we had fought that conflict, that war of independence at an earlier stage. But it's interesting that there were many Indian nationalists, including Nehru, who had a deep interest in Ireland and who admired Eamon de Valera in particular, because they saw him as quite a significant international figure when it came to the whole process of decolonization. But of course, the other consequence of the Indian situation was another partition. So that conflict generated huge complications around the division of a country as part of the process of decolonization. So the Irish case is stitched in to those wider

international currents. And I mean, there were many Irish politicians and diplomats at the time who were able to work very effectively with the other Commonwealth countries when it came to trade issues, because this is not just always about politics and constitutional issues. This was also about trade. And even in 1948, before the Declaration of the Republic, Ireland and Britain had concluded a trade agreement that gave Irish agricultural produce increased access to Britain. So there were trade consequences as well. But I think the importance of Britain recognising that it needed to continue to give Irish residents in Britain favoured status, that was a recognition of the interconnectedness between the two countries. I mean, this wasn't just about history and politics, it was about geography as well. Very close ties, intertwined

lives. And even in the 1950s, half a million people emigrated from Ireland to the United Kingdom. And if they had not had the freedom to do that, that really would have complicated the situation both in Ireland and in Anglo-Irish affairs. It's such an interesting thing to be talking about at the moment, not just because of the flare-up of violence recently in the North, but leaving, secession, we're all talking about it. The UK has seceded from the EU. Scotland looks to be on the verge of seceding from the UK. A percentage point either way will probably decide it. And you've mentioned the kind of vital links that Ireland continued to enjoy with the UK after Ireland completely left in 1949. What do you think

are some of the lessons that we learn? Despite the flag ceremonies and the hard political breaks, the really important business is what follows. It's the negotiation of whether we can move between these neighbouring, joined countries, whether we can trade freely, bring our farm produce across borders. One of the interesting characters during this period is Lord Rugby, formerly Sir John Maffey. He was the British representative in Ireland during the difficult years of the Second World War and into the late 1940s. And he was there at the time the Republic was declared. And he got on very well with Eamon de Valera. And he would have made the point that there needs to

be realism in relation to Irish national aspirations, but also in relation to recognising that we're going to still need to cooperate very closely, regardless of these changes, regardless of these constitutional questions. There needs to be always channels of communication open. And even at the moment, given the fallout from Brexit, given the difficulties in Northern Ireland at the moment, and the frostiness that has entered North-South relations and Anglo-Irish relations, there's constant talk in Irish politics at the moment about the need for a recalibration of Anglo-Irish affairs. Ten years ago this year, Queen Elizabeth II came to Southern Ireland as the first reigning monarch to visit Southern Ireland in 100 years. It was the icing on the peace process cake. And the mantra around that

time is Anglo-Irish relations have never been better. And here we are 10 years on and things are very fractured and they're very difficult. But it is also related, of course, to a wider fracturing of the United Kingdom. What choices Scotland might make in the coming years are going to have huge

ramifications, I think, for the Irish situation as well. But the lesson in all that, of course, is that you do always need to have a level of dialogue. You have to have those channels of communication open. There's an awful lot of work that's done behind the scenes sometimes to take the heat out of situations or to stop them from spiralling. And that's exactly what was going on in relation to the anniversary we're commemorating now. A lot of the heat was taken out of the situation with these late night meetings in Chequers or through these diplomatic representations or just trying to establish a clarity around what was desired and recognising that you can't isolate one particular

issue, that they are interconnected, that trade is connected to politics, to constitutional questions, and that, yes, countries have a right to embrace the symbolism that they want and to pursue what they feel they need in terms of a domestic audience. But you've got to get the balance right in relation to sustaining a need for cooperation across all sorts of different areas. Sometimes it's under the radar, and sometimes it's better that it's under the radar. There's a lovely line that John Peck used as the British ambassador in Dublin at the time of the outbreak of the Troubles. He said, we have to stop brawling in public. And instead of brawling in public, you negotiate quietly. Now, there are times, of course, when brawling in public is inevitable because of the weight of what's at stake and because of the coarseness or the distrust that has entered the equation. But the message he

was communicating is that you also have to pull back from that. And I mean, that's true, of course, of not just Anglo-Irish relations, but also the whole question of relations between the UK and the EU. It feels to me like if Scotland becomes independent, a future in which we learn a huge amount from that history of Anglo-Irish relations is going to be critical, because we're living on a very heterodox archipelago. There's sort of slightly too many Englishmen on it. And we're going to have to all work out as political boundaries firm up or change or morph within this archipelago. We you have to work out how we continue to live and trade and normal people can just get about and do their business down and we can go for a beer

wherever we want when we want well that's the interesting thing i suppose about what constitutes the identity you'll know that unionists at the moment in northern ireland are feeling very vulnerable and isolated even though they were given all these firm commitments, I think they came to realise that they were really pawns in what was a distinctly English game and an assertion of English nationalist muscle. And for all the talk of the integrity of the United Kingdom and the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom, like a lot of that was hot air because the DUP and Unionists in Northern Ireland were dropped very quickly when it was realised that they were preventing the realisation of this arch-English nationalist project. And it is interesting that for all of the progress that has been made, there can quite quickly be a reversion to type. And for all of our talk, we used an awful lot of language during the years

of the peace process around recognising the diversity and the pluralism of different identities and accommodating them. And even within the Belfast Agreement, the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which is often, of course, referenced as an example of how to use a creative ambiguity to solve problems of identity and citizenship. Again, that can be very quickly discarded when there is deemed to be political advantage in stridently asserting the dominance of one identity over another. So, you know, we really need to think again about that concept of accommodation. And I mean, even people in Northern Ireland at the moment, they're entitled to see themselves as British or Irish or both or neither. And I think that is very relevant to the point that you're making about the Scottish

question as well. I mean, Scottish nationalism is a very strong impulse, obviously. Some Scottish nationalists would hold up Ireland as an example of what can be achieved in the long term with independence. But they're also talking about it a century on. And there does need to be more sophisticated thinking about what might constitute a British identity within the wider framework of those Irish relationships. And I mean, even some people talking in the aftermath of Brexit around the idea of a Celtic identity, in some senses resurfacing very old ideas, but seeking to put a kind of a modern gloss on them. And that's part of the evolution of this question of identity, I suppose.

I'm speaking of reasserting older ideas. I'm mindful of my good friend Tom Holland talking about rebalancing the Isles by returning to the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy. So we take the English state apart,

balance it all a bit more nicely by bringing Wessex and Mercia back into the frame. Dermot Ferreta, thank you so much for coming back on this podcast. It is such a treat having you on. Delighted to be here. Dermot Ferreter, thank you so much for coming back on this podcast. It is such a treat having you on. Delighted to be here.

Thanks a lot. I feel we have the history on our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history

of our country, all were gone and finished. I've got just a quick message at the end of this podcast. I'm currently sheltering in a small, windswept

building on a piece of rock in the Bristol Channel called Lundy. I'm here to make a podcast. I'm here enduring weather that frankly is apocalyptic because I want to get some great podcast material for you guys. In return, I've got a little tiny favour to ask. If you could go to wherever you get your podcasts, if you could give it a five-star rating, if you could go to wherever you get your podcasts if you could give it a five-star rating if you could share it if you could give it a review i really appreciate that then from the comfort of your own homes you'll be doing me a massive favor then more people listen to the podcast we can do more and more ambitious things and i can spend more of my time getting pummeled thank you in the darkest corners of the night, true comfort can be elusive. But what if your sleep wasn't a mystery, but a haven?

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