In the movie about Michael Collins, they show the treaty negotiators pressured to sign as plenipotentiaries, which of course in turn triggered an Irish civil war.
What though, if the rebellious Irish forces were unanimous in rejecting the treaty? And all wanted to continue fighting for total independence – would the UK have continued to war anyway, escalating and crushing the insurrection? Or would the Irish resistance had won the whole shebang?
The British would have won. Ireland would have remained in the UK and thousands more would have been killed. A generation or so later, people would have tried it again.
Ah but not just a military question, would the political will of Britain be able to use the necessary violence without political recrimations in Westminster? Would the public have allowed the free hand needed in Ireland to crush the revolt?
There wouldn’t have been much more of a freehand needed to crush the revolt in Ireland. The IRA had vastly fewer resources than the British Army. Sure they could have pulled a couple of Amritsars and that probably would have kept us quiet for a while.
Less jokingly though, there weren’t all that many British soldiers in Ireland during the War of Independence. I don’t know the reason why this was, either they didn’t take the IRA all that seriously, or perhaps after the Great War they weren’t all that willing to engage in a heavy fight. By comparison with that war the casualties suffered by the British in Ireland were peanuts.
The British were getting criticism from abroad about their activities in Ireland but this was the Empire, It’s not as if any of Ireland’s well wishers were going to intervene in any meaningful way on our behalf.
ETA: I’m largely ignorant of the political situation in Britain at the time of the Irish War of Independence, was there significant political opposition to British military engagement with the IRA?
Sir Nevil Macready, who was the British Commander in Ireland, had issued a report in May of 1921 saying,
The Times had also turned against the Irish war, saying in an editorial as early as 1919, “We deplore the fact that the authority of the British name in Ireland has come to rest upon military power.”
Of course, it had long been so. But the change in perception is notable.
[hijack]
I’ve never been to Ireland, but my (not very political) late mother went on vacation in the Republic once, and her clear impression was that practically nobody there cares whether they ever get NI back or not. Was this an accurate impression?
It’s just not a major issue for most people in the Republic. Fully half of my family are from Northern Ireland, and it is a pain in the ass coverting currency when I’m so close to home but Northern Ireland is stable and equitable and it benefits from British subsidies. If you could have a United Ireland tomorrow with no trauma, no bloodshed, most people would want it, but I’d say most people are of the opinion that unification isn’t worth a drop of blood.
From the other perspective many if not most of the people in the rest of the U.K. had no real interest in things Irish, north or south and couldn’t careless if N.Ireland became part of a United Ireland or not.
They did care however that it didn’t happen as a result of people being terrorised into it.
As an AngloScot I’m more then happy to see a U.I. but I loathe and despise terrorists supporting any cause, any where.
Both the independence of the Republic itself, and the present devolution of power in the North and cross-border cooperation, are the result of terrorist campaigns combined with political efforts.
The violence of the terrorists pales beside the violence of the British government across centuries.
When terrorists or just genuinlly evil people wish to defend the indefencible they always as a last resort turn to history to explain away their actions.
A notable example of this was Hitler.
Republican terrorists set back the unification of Ireland by an unfathomable amount when they hijacked the Civil Rights movement in the late sixties.
The Unionists, had no great love for joining an economic minor player in the nation stakes in the first place,(Somewhere alongside small eastern european nations) plus being totally aware of the rabid corruption in Eires government at all levels.
They were also not overly happy with the Catholic Churches close alliance with both education and government.
But if that still wasn’t enough the I.R.A. started murdering Protestants in an apparent move to make the majority(Protestant)population more amenable to unification.
Scum Protestant terrorist murderers upped the ante by performing a sickening number of murders of catholics in retaliation.
The British Army in the middle of it was responsible for trying to stop both communities butchering each other.
The Army originally went into N.I. to protect Catholics against Protestant mobs.
As a propoganda weapon used mostly to influence ingenuous Americans, the I.R.A. portrayed it as an army of occupation determined to keep N.I. under the heel of a fascist Britain.
Your average voter over here is pretty much disinterested in Ireland generally, doesnt really know which parts are Eires and which parts are N.I (Many think that they are the same thing, I kid you not) and only get excited when its about Irish Boy Bands.
Most people in the rest of the U.K. who had any interest in matters relating to the island of Ireland (admittedly not really that many as always) were shocked and appalled, as was I by the corrupt and unbalanced allocation of basic human rights in N.I. in the sixties.
Without the I.R.A. putting the Nationalist population of N.I. into an almost untenable position as to democratic input, the Nationalists would have achieved a more equable participation in the democratic process decades ago.
The I.R.A. seem to attract a quite large number of Walter Mitties who want to be “Hard Men”, they think that though they haven’t been able to get G/Fs in the past if they join the “RA” then the girls knickers will just fall down.
And they’re right !
Impressionable (Though usually not too bright )girls WILL sleep with the spotty little nerd if he’s a “freedom fighter”, even if he does murder old ladies running a corner shop for selling newspapers to the “enemy”(R.U.C. policeman)
I personally believe in a united Ireland, free from British rule, the I.R.A. under all aliases have only set this back again and again.
Interestingly enough they seem as individuals to have done very well out of it financially(How ya doing Slab?), and we’re not talking about just a few individuals here.
The I.R.A. are responsible for the loss of so many innocent Irish Nationalist lives both directly(torturing and murdering them for all sorts of so called crimes) and provoking the shit on the other side of the fence to kill them.
May God forgive them.
I don’t know how they sleep at night.
I say again, I believe in a united Ireland free from British rule.
Most of the civil rights abuses in the North have stopped, which has taken a large amount of the urgency out of matters.
Also, with free movement across the border, the British occupation has a much smaller effect than before.
And all the money Britain pumps into NI helps keep things quiet up there.
I’m not going to bother responding to a ranter who cites Hitler as a first analogy–except to note that the part about the (latest) British army presence having been initiated to protect Catholics is true.
And many Catholics, at first, were glad to see them; it was the conduct of the British army thereafter which turned many apolitical Catholics into nationalists and IRA men. (See Bloody Sunday for the climax of this process.)
As a point of either fact or interpretation, I disagree with almost everything else in Lust4Life’s post.
Read a history book sometime, seriously. The first murders of the Troubles were committed by Loyalist terrorists. The civil rights marchers were met with violence, and state intransigence. The IRA were reinvigorated by the terror visited on their base community by Unionists who opposed granting full equality to Catholics/Nationalists in the Northern Ireland state. And while pointing out the corruption in the Republic it is worth noting how corrupt the NI government was in relation to such socio-economic matters as the placing of the University of Ulster. Furthermore, it is worth noting that it was Unionist/Loyalist opposition that stopped Sunningdale and the Anglo-Irish Agreements from bringing about peace. I have no huge truck with terrorists but for all their crimes the IRA were only part of a much bigger problem that continues to this day in that particular region of the world. Anyway, all this is a highjack so I’ll say no more on the matter.
Just because someone disagrees with your support of self serving, murderers and torturers, who make money out of their own communities misery under various pretexts, doesn’t make them a ranter.
Just someone who tells the truths you prefer not to hear.
The I.R.A. under all of its names has more in common with the Boston mob(with whom they have very close connections and routinely do business with) then some sort of second world war ressistance group.
As to using Hitler as an analogy he used history to justify his atrocities just as the I.R.A. use history to justify their atrocities.
Ironically the I.R.A. entered into negotiations with Nazi Germany(who they supported) when British and Americans were fighting and dieing in the second world war.
Though this didn’t stop them from accepting millions of dollars from gullible "Irish"Americans after the war to perpetuate their murder spree.
Note to “Irish” Americans, the Irish rather contemptuously describe you as “Plastic Paddys”, but they’ll never turn your money away.
I’m glad that you disagree with everything i say
The IRA for most of their history were freedom fighters in my view, rather than terrorists, ans they were forced back into existence by an increase in Loyalist attacks. They went too far and for too long in NI in the latest round of Troubles, but most of the time they were just trying to secure our freedom from the British.
And most of them would not have become rich from their IRA membership.
Never heard that phrase before. Ever.
It is correct however that is rather jarring to have an American come up to you and claim to be Irish, because their great-great-grandfather was Irish, while wearing a big green Leprechaun hat and calling everyone ‘a cara’.
I would imagine the feeling is similar to what women must get when a drag queen approaches them, dressed in a mini-skirt, 12-inch heels, and make-up that looks like it was put on with a trowel, calling himself ‘one of the girls’. 
I understand that during the Troubles in the 70’s a question was raised about the possibility of the Republic invading Northern Ireland. The then Prime Minister (Jack Lynch) very quickly disposed of that idea. Lynch was an extremely popular Taoiseach of the Republic and is viewed (in some quarters) as the only “real” Taoiseach.
I just remember that from being in Ireland in 1999 when Lynch died- it surprised me that the thought of an invasion existed. It was canned when (apart from other thoughts) that the British military would crush them within 20 miles.
That is my remembering- I will defer to my Irish colleagues if they have opposing views.
There was a documentary made by RTÉ in the last couple of years called “If Lynch Had Invaded” IIRC that dealt with this possibility. Things were deteriorating so much in Northern Ireland in 1969 that it seemed possible that Irish troops might need to be used to protect the Catholic minority. As it happens, the British Army were brought in for much the same task.
That could easily be it. I got my story from a newspaper article 10 years ago so my recollection could be a bit off.
The majority population in N.I. is Protestant who ARE British, not ruled by the British but are British citizens, who vote freely with a secret ballot in British elections and who can freely leave and reenter the country whenever they please and as often as they please.
Don’t confuse British with English, the English are British just as are the Scots, the Welsh and the inhabitants of the northern part of the island of Ireland who are no more Irish(immigrants excepted) then Americans are Mexicans.
The culture, traditions and patriotism of the majority population are British.(Who are considered to be the most avowedly British by the the other inhabitants of the U.K.)
These freedoms are held by the Nationalist minority as well, even if some of them do not consider themselves to be British.
(though funnily enough it doesn’t deter them from making full use of the British welfare state and British Social medecine or for that matter using British passports as they tend to carry more clout internationally for travellers)
Try telling an Ulsterman that he’s Irish and he will be very, very annoyed with you.
As to the I.R.A. being freedom fighters, freedom fighters don’t murder a woman from their own community for comforting a dieing British soldier on her doorstep, FFs don’t randomly murder shoppers, woman and children, newspapers sellers and other such threats to irish “freedom” with bombs.
Freedom Fighters dont run protection rackets in their own community, peddle drugs, steal cars for resale and all of the other grubby little practices that the I.R.A. routinley performed, not to raise money for the cause but to line their own pockets.
And you have never, ever heard the term Plastic Paddys?
I must confess to be amazed to say the least.
Apart from having heard it regulary in normal conversations with ordinary, Irish people in Eire, I have even heard it on Irish radio.
But you never have, ever!
Amazing.