Dividing Ireland: World War I and Partition

LOYALTY AND THE CROWN 173
England has given us the chance to do this. She should
have given it earlier—but could she, before the war? What
made it possible for Ulster to come to terms with us—what
made it impossible for Ulstermen to maintain their previous
attitude— was the action of those Irish Nationalists who went
to the war…. What Willy [sic] Redmond saw as his goal—what
he gave his life for gladly—was the unity of Ireland. What Mr
de Valera and his friends have done and continue to do is to
make that ideal ten times more difficult of attainment.
Personally, I prefer infinitely for Ireland the position of a
free State in the British Empire to that of a small independent
State, such as Denmark is to-day. Many Nationalist Irishmen
will agree with me in this—especially those who realise the
conditions under which Denmark, for instance exists today….
Many will disagree. But the essential fact is that we can
hope to unite Ireland on the former ideal—on the latter never. 53
Nationalist and southern unionist rapprochement
The rise of Sinn Fein threatened to undermine the Irish Party’s
attempts at a rapprochement with Unionists through the
experience of common sacrifice in the war. The rising and its
aftermath, the partition proposals of July 1916, called into
question the Irish Party’s claim that nationalists who had enlisted
in the British army would help secure home rule. Critics of the Irish
Party pointed out that these men had enlisted to preserve Ireland
whole and unpartitioned; as J.O’Connor Power put it, ‘The brave
young fellows rushed to the recruiting offices in tens of
thousands; most of whom now sleep their last sleep in the
bloodstained fields of Europe. They did not offer up their lives for
a mutilated Ireland…. I ask, is faith not to be kept with the
dead?’ 54 The sense of treachery was intense, as ‘A National
Volunteer’ explained:
From platform, window and housetop, we heard the members
of the [Irish] Party, shouting…‘As sure as the rising of the
summer sun, Home Rule will be the law of the land’. ‘Trust us
the men who have steered the ship so far’. We listened
patiently, and obeyed them—with what result?… On the
declaration of war…we threw ourselves heart and soul on the
side of the Allies, we raised three fighting divisions…. Why?
Because the British Government had placed Home Rule on the
Statute Book, and we looked forward to the managing of our
own affairs…. Alas the words Broken Treaty appear on the