Irish Republic - Establishment

Establishment

In 1916, nationalist rebels participating in the Easter Rising issued the Proclamation of the Republic. By this declaration they claimed to establish an independent state called the "Irish Republic" and proclaimed that the leaders of the rebellion would serve as the "Provisional Government of the Irish Republic" until it became possible to elect a national parliament. The Easter Rising was short-lived, largely limited to Dublin and, at the time it occurred, enjoyed little support from the Irish general public.

The leaders of the Easter Rising had proclaimed a republic. Arthur Griffith's Sinn Féin organisation, which had favoured the establishment of a form of dual monarchy between Ireland and Britain, had not taken part in the Rising. In 1917, Griffith's Sinn Féin and republicans under Éamon de Valera, came together to form the new Sinn Féin Party. A compromise was reached at the 1917 Ard Fheis (party conference), where it was agreed that the party would pursue the establishment of an independent republic in the short-term, until the Irish people could be given the opportunity to decide on the form of government they preferred. This agreement was subject to the condition that if the people chose monarchy, no member of the British royal family would be invited to serve as monarch.

In the 1918 general election, candidates of the radical Sinn Féin party – including many who had participated in the 1916 rebellion – issued a Manifesto which included: "Sinn Féin aims at securing the establishment of that Republic". It also said it would boycott the British Parliament and instead unilaterally establish a new Irish assembly in Dublin. Sinn Féin candidates won a large majority of seats, 73 out of 105, many uncontested. On 21 January 1919, 27 of them gathered in the Mansion House in Dublin to establish Dáil Éireann. Thirty-five other members were recorded as being fé ghlas ag Gallaibh (imprisoned by the foreign enemy) and another four as ar díbirt ag Gallaibh (deported by the foreign enemy). Thirty-seven other MPs were recorded as not being present (as láthair), these were mainly from the northern six counties that would later form Northern Ireland. At this meeting the Dáil adopted the Irish Declaration of Independence. Because of the Easter Proclamation of 1916, the Dáil retrospectively established the Irish Republic from Easter 1916.

On the same day as the Declaration of Independence was issued, two members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) escorting a cartload of gelignite were killed at Soloheadbeg, Tipperary, by Dan Breen and Seán Treacy, members of the Irish Volunteers. This incident had not been ordered by the Dáil but the course of events soon drove the Dáil to recognise the Volunteers as the army of the Irish Republic, and so the Soloheadbeg incident became the opening incident of the undeclared Anglo-Irish War between the Volunteers and Great Britain. Breen later recalled: "Treacy had stated to me that the only way of starting a war was to kill someone, so we intended to kill some of the police.."

The decision to establish a republic in 1919, rather than any other form of government, was significant because it amounted to a complete repudiation of all constitutional ties with Great Britain, and set the party against any compromise that might involve initial self-government under the Home Rule Act 1914 or continued membership of the British Empire. The volatile question of the Unionists of the north-east having long indicated that they would never participate in any form of a republic was left unresolved, the six north-eastern counties remaining part of the United Kingdom under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, and later the Anglo-Irish Treaty.