Dividing Ireland: World War I and Partition

170 LOYALTY AND THE CROWN
in the July 1917 number of English Review, had advocated the
establishment of an Irish republic within the British Empire,
however contradictory this appeared. MacNeill argued that ‘The
right and wise thing for England to do is consent freely, and
without grudge…to the establishment of an Irish Republic
unconditionally’. 42
The Irish Party totally opposed Sinn Fein’s public claim for a
republic. Commenting on MacNeill’s proposal, the Freeman’s
Journal remarked that the ‘idealist’ always had an advantage in
political controversy until the moment came to apply to him the
test of practical accomplishment. Sinn Fein, it claimed, drew full
advantage by preaching principles that might in the abstract be
incontrovertible, but which possessed the fatal defect of being
unreasonable. 43 After de Valera had variously stated that if the
Orangemen continued as the tools of England ‘we must make up
our minds to fight them’, 44 that ‘they would have to go under’, 45
for it was they who were the seceders, the rebels and ‘we would
find an Abraham Lincoln who would know how to deal with
them’, 46 the Freeman Journal asked what moral right did de Valera
have to ‘kick’ Ulstermen, who objected to the separation of Ireland
from the Empire, out of Ireland? The root cause of Ireland’s
troubles, it decided, were to be found two and a half centuries
before, at the Battle of the Boyne, when Irishmen had fought one
another over the respective merits of two ‘English’ Kings. The
Freeman queried whether, even if Nationalists could beat England
to her knees and erect a republic, it would be worth the cost of their
northern countrymen’s blood and their everlasting spirit of revolt?
The Freeman remained unconvinced that Ulster would fight
against an Irish constitution within the Empire, but ‘our scepticism
on that point is equalled by our conviction that Ulster would and will
fight against separation’ from the Empire. 47 As one Irish Party
supporter explained, it was not only Unionists who wished to
retain an imperial connection; he asked:
Why are there loyal Home Rulers in Ireland? Why are there
Imperial Nationalists in Ireland?… Why are there patriotic Irish
people bitterly opposed to the Sinn Fein policy in Ireland? Why
are there Irish Nationalists who want to take a place ‘within
the Empire’? Here is the psychology of their new friendship
for the Empire…. Our pro-Imperialism and anti-Sinn Feinism
is, at bottom, pro-Irishism…. It is not because we prefer this
policy or attitude to any other, but the necessity of
circumstances forces us into that outlook of policy It is
the maximum we can expect until the navy of the…Empire is