Dividing Ireland: World War I and Partition

48 IRELAND IN 1914
would see the creation of Ireland’s National Army, protecting her
honour and rights’. 26
But, as the Kerryman reflected, the war had produced ‘strange
bedfellows’, and ‘had the extraordinary effect of patching up old
feuds centuries old’, although Irishmen had not, so far, received
any undue provocation to fall in love with England. Nevertheless,
there was ‘not a man in the country—even we feel sure, the most
extreme of patriots—who would not support England…in the
struggle now on. We want no sauer-kraut’ the newspaper
concluded. 27 The Sligo Champion put the attitude of Nationalist
Ireland in context:
This war…is not of Ireland’s making. Ireland had nothing to
do with the outbreak of war; against her will she finds herself
interested in the issues of the struggle. Ireland is a subject
state in an Empire in which, so far, she has not yet been
granted a definite place. To pretend that we are profoundly
interested in the fortunes of that Empire would be absurd.
Like any other we are prepared to defend our shore against
invasion. We do not want a multiplicity of enemies in Ireland.
We have the English here already. 28
The aspirational nature of the Nationalist imperial identity was
summed up by the Ulster Guardian, which believed that, after the
granting of home rule, Nationalists would become, and ever would
remain, loyal to the British connection, ready to ‘spend and be
spent on behalf of British citizenship, once that citizenship had
been acknowledged to be, as today it is…compatible with loyalty
to Irish citizenship and Irish nationality’. 29 As one Catholic priest,
the Reverend Dr Foley, explained at a public gathering, he
looked forward to the day when he would see school children
saluting not only the Irish national flag, but the Empire’s flag, the
Union Jack, also. The Irish people had no grievance against the
Australian, Canadian, South African or Indian peoples, said Foley,
and he believed that all Irish grievances against the British
parliament and king had been rectified, except one—home rule.
Therefore:
as soon as that last grievance was removed…he believed
there would be no hesitation on the part of the Irish people
acknowledging and saluting that flag, and in becoming as
loyal citizens of the great British Empire as are to be found in
any part of her world-wide dominions. In that event he would
have no hesitation in saluting that flag himself, and he hoped