The Road to Irish Statehood: World War I, the War of Independence, and the Irish Civil War, 1916–1923

The outbreak of World War I created deep divisions in Ireland over whether to support the British war efforts or stand opposed. Ultimately, over a hundred thousand Irish joined the British Army to fight in the war, and over fifty thousand died. One of them was Lady Gregory’s son, Robert, a pilot who crashed in Italy, sparking four poems of elegy by W. B. Yeats. Rebels sought to take advantage of the war when they staged the Easter Rising, and the militants who survived it rebuffed a last offer of Home Rule by the British in 1918, which insisted on conscription of Irish soldiers in the war. A new revolutionary parliament, the Dail Eireann, led by Éamon de Valera, held its first meeting in January 1919 and issued the Irish Declaration of Independence, voting to affirm the 1916 Proclamation, which resulted in three years of guerilla warfare. Led principally by Michael Collins, the Irish in the War of Independence employed ambushes and assassinations and in turn suffered violent reprisals at the hands of British auxiliary units known as the Black and Tans. Ultimately, Collins and other representatives of the Dail Eireann negotiated the Anglo-Irish Treaty in late 1921, which led to the establishment of the Irish Free State a few months later. Peace, however, was not at hand. Under the treaty terms, the six northern counties of Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom, and there were members of the Irish rebel forces who vehemently opposed what they viewed as a traitorous treaty. Former compatriots turned against one another in violence, resulting in the Irish Civil War. Eventually, fighting concluded in mid-1923 with victory by the pro-treaty Free State government.

Robert Gregory. Vintage photograph of Gregory in his pilot’s gear, c. 1917.

From a photo album belonging to his mother, Lady Gregory.

Among other pursuits, Robert Gregory designed sets and costumes for the Abbey Theatre and contributed illustrations for some of his mother’s books. Yet after joining the Royal Flying Corp, he found perhaps his greatest success as the first Irish pilot to be designated a “fighter ace” by Britain, awarded the Military Cross and Legion d’Honneur.  He died after being shot down over the Italian front.

W. B. Yeats. “An Irish Airman Foresees his Death.” 1918.

Autograph manuscript drafts.

On February 2, 1918, Gregory wrote to Yeats, “The long dreaded telegram has come—Robert has been killed in action.” Her note concludes by asking Yeats to “write something down that we may keep.” The four elegies he subsequently composed had to be written, if not to order, at least so as to satisfy both Gregory and Robert’s widow. Yeats’s first, “Shepherd and Goatherd,” was clearly inadequate. “In Memory of Major Robert Gregory” celebrates Robert as a latter-day Renaissance man and leads to a cathartic closure. Gregory termed it Robert’s “monument.” Finally, Yeats wrote, “An Irish Airman Foresees his Death,” told from the pilot’s dispassionate viewpoint. “Those that I fight I do not hate, / Those that I guard I do not love; / My country is Kiltartan Cross, /  My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor..”

Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

Pictorial postcard written from a prisoner of war camp, Karlsruhe, Germany, about performing Lady Gregory’s play The Rising of the Moon, 1917.

Lieutenant John Martin, a former Abbey Theatre actor, taught Lady Gregory’s most acclaimed and political play to his fellow prisoners of war during their internment. War artist and poet Joseph Lee, who was also interned, chronicled life in the trenches and made several sketches of the production. This example was sent to Lady Gregory by Lee himself. Lady Gregory’s son, Robert, would die in the war a year later.

L. G. Redmond-Howard. Preface by William M. Murphy. Fifty Points Against Partition. Dublin: Independent Newspaper Ltd., July 24, 1917.

This pamphlet advocated for an autonomous, but united, Ireland. The author was the nephew of John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, which pressed for acceptance of the terms of the Irish Home Rule bill passed by the British Parliament just prior to the outbreak of World War I. The bill preserved the unity of all the Irish counties but without full independence from Britain. The IPP had also supported Irishmen joining the British Army during the war. William M. Murphy, author of the preface and the owner of the Independent Newspaper chain in Ireland, immediately after the Easter Rising advocated for the execution of several of its leaders. This little pamphlet demonstrates the evolving and nuanced cross-currents within Irish politics during this period.

Sean O’Casey. “The Grand Oul’ Dame Brittania.” Dublin: Fergus O’Connor, 1917.

Broadside. Lady Gregory’s copy, with inscription in her hand: “By Sean O’Casey.”

This World War I antirecruitment song by O’Casey, his first publication, originally appeared in print in “The Workers Republic” on January 15, 1916. Fergus O’Connor would later publish an expanded version. Once set to music, “The Grand Oul’ Dame Brittania” became a staple ballad of the Irish rebellion.

“Map of the Irish Republic,” 1918.

Broadside.

In 1918 when this map was published, there was no Irish Republic. This broadside was aspirational. In December 1918, after the World War I Armistice was declared, the first British national election was held since the outbreak of the world war. Of the 105 Irish seats in the British Parliament, 73 were won by the Sinn Fein party. Sinn Fein representatives refused to take their seats in London and instead formed the First Dáil Éireann, or Irish Assembly; in 1919 they declared the formation of the Irish Republic, making this map a reality and leading to the outbreak of the Irish War of Independence.

Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

Belfast Telegraph. Special Bulletin, November 11, 1918.

Side by side with articles on the Armistice, the abdication of the Kaiser, anarchy in German cities, and the revolt of German seamen, who spontaneously refused to take their battleships out to sea, is an article describing that the “Irish Nationalist Party” had sent a manifesto to President Wilson asking for his help in achieving Irish independence. Since Wilson had time and again stated that he wished to help small nations, such as Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Poland, exercise self-determination in gaining their freedom, this should apply to Ireland as well.

“Report of the Irish National Aid and Volunteer Dependents Fund.” The Catholic Bulletin. Vol. IX, August, 1919.

Even as the Easter Rising was taking place, funds were already being raised by multiple organizations to support participants and their dependents. The British roundup of thousands following the Rising created destitute families and unemployed ex-prisoners upon their release.  Tens of thousands of pounds were raised in Ireland and from the Irish diaspora. Two of the organizations, the Irish National Society and the Volunteer Dependents’ Fund, merged, and Michael Collins became general secretary of the Fund for about fifteen months from February 1917 until April 1918. The detailed audit provided in this report shows 138,000 pounds was spent on aid in the prior three years, the equivalent of well over $7.5 million in today’s money.

Erskine Childers. Military Rule in Ireland. Dublin: The Talbot Press, 1920.

This pamphlet details the British army’s violent actions in Ireland during the War of Independence. Childers, an ardent Irish nationalist,  was the best-selling author of the seminal spy thriller The Riddle of the Sands, a British military officer who had fought in the Boer War and World War I, secretary of the Irish delegation that agreed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty in late 1921, and ultimately a leader of the anti-Treaty forces during the Irish Civil War that started in June 1922. Hauling a printing press around the Irish countryside to put out an insurgent newspaper, he was captured by the Irish Free State forces and executed in November 1922. His son became the fourth President of Ireland in 1973 after a long political career.

AE [George Russell]. The Inner and the Outer Ireland. Dublin: The Talbot Press, 1921.

Inscribed by Russell to antiques dealer Harry Sinclair.

This was one of several pamphlets written by Russell on the practical and psychological adjustments needed to make independence work. Sinclair, who was Jewish, later sued Oliver St. John Gogarty for libel based on antisemitic passages in Gogarty’s memoir, As I was Going Down Sackville Street. One observer wrote, “Only The Pickwick Papers, rewritten by James Joyce, could really capture the mood of this trial.”  Samuel Beckett returned from France to give testimony on behalf of Sinclair, who won the case.

“Mick’s Conversion.” Air. Music and lyrics of a satirical popular song regarding Michael Collins’s support of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. 1921.

Michael Collins led the Irish guerrilla warfare against the British during the War of Independence, became part of the delegation negotiating with the British, and agreed to the treaty terms that acceded to the division of the island and retained an oath of allegiance to the British crown. He was viewed as an apostate by former supporters. There has been a long Irish tradition of popular songs either extolling or mocking public figures.

Irish Delegation to Anglo-Irish Treaty Negotiations. Photograph, 1921.

Among those in the photograph are Arthur Griffiths, a founder of the Sinn Fein Party who, from January 1922 until his sudden death in August 1922, was President of the Dail Eireann; and Michael Collins and Erskine Childers, both killed on opposing sides in the Irish Civil War, which followed the signing of the treaty.

Constitution of the Free State of Ireland. Dublin: Stationery Office, 1922.

Approved by the Dail Eireann in October 1922, the Constitution came into force in December upon British consent, closely following the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and remained in force until the current Constitution was adopted in 1937.  This publication held symbolic significance, with the internationally recognized government printing the Constitution through the official Stationery Office, while still engaged in vicious guerilla warfare with anti-Treaty forces during the Irish Civil War.

The Banner and Reformer. “Insurgents Hold Off Free State Troops in Dublin.” Bennington, VT, July 5, 1922.

Broadsheet.

The Civil War exploded into violence in late June 1922. Initially, the anti-Treaty forces seized control of Dublin and many other areas of Ireland, but by late July the troops of the Free State, supplied with vehicles and weapons by the British, had regained control of Dublin. The fighting was international news, as shown by the front page of a Bennington, Vermont, newspaper, along with the news of July 4th festivities in town.

Photograph of damaged Dublin General Post Office, 1922.

Photograph of withdrawal of British troops from Irish Free State, 1922.

Memorial Card. Arthur Griffith. 1922.

Arthur Griffith, founder of Sinn Fein, indefatigable writer and newspaper editor, and head of the delegation that negotiated the Anglo-Irish Treaty  and President of the Dail Eireann,  collapsed and died on August 12, 1922, from a cerebral hemorrhage. He was fifty-one years old.

Memorial Number. Michael Collins. Dublin: The Free State, No. 28, Vol I, 1922.

Michael Collins, leader of the Free State armed forces and hero of the War of Independence, was killed in an ambush in County Cork by anti-Treaty rebels ten days after the death of Arthur Griffith. He was thirty-two years old. When, as part of the Irish delegation, he agreed to the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, conceding the partition of the Ulster counties and to Irish officials giving an oath to the British king, he said, “I have signed my death warrant.”

Autograph letter from W.B. Yeats to Lady Gregory, January 31, 1923.

Yeats wrote this letter while in London, trying to obtain British government support for the Irish Free State in its fight against the rebels in the Irish Civil War. Yeats explains to Gregory that British government attention is distracted by a crisis in Turkey.

Standish O’Grady. The Coming of Cuchulain. Dublin & London: The Talbot Press Limited, [c. 1918].

This copy of O’Grady’s retelling of the Irish legend of Cuchulain was signed on the front and rear endpapers by thirty-nine female Republican prisoners incarcerated in Kilmainham Jail, many noting their cell locations and date under the heading “The Dangerous Ladies.”  Kilmainham Jail in Dublin was for many years the main British internment center for Irish dissidents and revolutionaries, including the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising. In 1923, over three hundred women and girls were incarcerated there, many without trial.

“Shadow or Substance? Vote for treaty.”

Flyer. Inscribed by Lady Gregory, “Thrown from Motors, May 1922”.

The great division in Ireland over whether to support or oppose the Anglo-Irish Treaty with Britain to end the war of independence forced every citizen to take sides. Even the army, unified against the British in the War of Independence, soon turned brother against brother. This flyer, one among countless others that flooded the country,  was picked up by Lady Gregory before the first true shots were fired in June 1922. She would vehemently decry the violence.

“VOTE MacGuinness. Man in jail. Put him in, get him out.” 1922.

Broadside.

Joseph MacGuinness was a member of the Irish Volunteers during the Easter Rising, helping lead forces in Dublin around the courthouses. Imprisoned after the suppression of the Rising, he was nominated as the Sinn Fein candidate in a 1917 by-election while in prison, using the campaign slogan on this broadside. An upset winner, he held the seat in the 1918 general election and helped form the Dail Eireann. This campaign poster for the upcoming June 1922 Irish general election uses the slogan that first made him popular. Sadly, after trying to lead efforts to stave off the coming Civil War, MacGuinness died in late May 1922. His brother Frank went on to win his seat.

Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

Constance Markievicz. What Irish Republicans Stand For. [1923].

Pamphlet resisting Irish Free State conformity to British social norms and institutions.