Transcript Celtic Ireland today - University of Ottawa

The Belfast Gaeltacht
Orangeism
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The Easter Rising and
afterwards
 In the aftermath, promises were made on partition.
 Eamon De Valera formed Sinn Fein as a political party
to stand againt the Irish Party in elections. It declared
itself constitutional and non-violent. ‘Dev ‘ favoured a
republic.
 There were those in the Irish party who favoured dual
monarchy.
After the Easter Rising
 Michael Collins becomes a prominent figure in pro-
republican politics.
 In the 1918 general election, Sinn Fein wins 73 seats
(but refuses to sit in Westminster).
 The Irish Party was left with 6 seats (from 68).
Anglo-Irish War 1919-1921
 With such a result, Sinn Fein created a parliament in
Dublin and called it Dail Eireann.
 In 1919 they declared independence.
 Michael Collins’ Squad.
 Black and Tans. 1200 deaths
Anglo-Irish War 1919-1921
 Truce in 1921 and an election which led to the
Government of Ireland Act.
 The creation of Northern Ireland (capital Belfast, six
counties) as a separate political entity.
 The Anglo-Irish Treaty 1921
The Anglo-Irish Treaty 1921
 De Valera rejected lloyd George’s offer of dominion
status on the Canadian model.
 In the negociations before the signing of the treaty, De
Valera stayed at home and sent Collins and Arthur
Griffith.
 Adoption of the Irish Free State (Saorstat).
 There was anger that a Republic had not been
achieved.
The Anglo-Irish Treaty 1921
 The Free State gave more autonomy than Home Rule
but was somewhat short of Independence.
 In the Dail (Eireann) in 1922 64 members voted in
favour of the treaty and 57 against.
 This led to a Civil War.
Civil War (1922-1923)
 The Free State Army found themselves in skirmishes
and ambushes with former comrades who called
themselves the IRA (Irish Republical Army) or
‘irregulars’.
 A Genewral Election endorsed the Treaty.
 Guerrilla-like war. 10,000 internments.
 Michael Collins was assassinated August 1922.
The constitution after the Civil
War
 De Valera formed a new party called the Fianna Fail.
This party helped enhance Ireland’s selfdetermination.
 It led to an important constitutional change in 1933:
The Constitutional Amendment (removal of loyal
oath)- and the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act
and the Aliens Act.
The constitution after the Civil
War
 Bunreacht na hEireann 1937
 Republic in all but name.
 Irish became the first language of the state.
 A President was to be elected in place of the Governor
General.
 The prime minister was now called the Taoiseach.
 The country’s official name became EIRE.
First meeting of
Dáil Eireann 1919
President De Valera
In the 1960s
Northern Ireland: James Craig
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Northern Ireland
 There were also sizeable Protestant communities in
the counties of Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal.
 Craig went out to create a state which would contain
and reflect the cultural and religious prejudices
common to his part of Ireland.
 He sought above all to preserve Protestant authority in
the new state.
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Northern Ireland
 The population of the province in 1926 was 1256561 of
whom 33.5% were Catholicm and the rest almost all
Protestant (31.3% Presbyterian and 27% Anglican).
 The Ulster Unionist Party formed every government
there until 1972.
 The parliament was opened in 1921 by George V.
 The parliament was known as Stormont from 1932
when it moved to Stormont Castle outside Belfast.
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Northern Ireland
 The North suffered from high unemployment and the
Belfast governments lacked the skills and resources to
tackle economic problems.
 Ulster could not pay its own way and became heavily
reliant on British governments.
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Northern Ireland
 Political and sectarian violence destabalized the new
state from the outset.
 Sectarian violence was already a fact of life in the
region, which escalated in 1920 raising fears of a
pogrom against Catholics.
 Over 5000 Catholic workers were expelled from Belfast
shipyards that same year.
 82 people were killed in clashes over the next two
years.
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Northern Ireland
 This figure rose to 428 over the following two years.
 The Belfast boycott by the Dail.
 IRA raids on northern targets. Fears of invasion by the
south.
 1922 Civil Authorities Act. Used almost exclusively
against the Catholic minority.
 A protestant electoral majority was inevitable given
the demographic profile. Nationalist resistance.
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Northern Ireland
 Nationalist participation was hindered by the abolition
in 1922 of proportional representation.
 The maintenance of separate sectarian communities .
 Co-education, social interaction, and ‘mixed
marriages’ were as uncommon as ecumenical
initiatives.
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Northern Ireland
 This situation was only first seriously challenged by
the civil rights movement that began in the late 1960s.
 This was to address Catholic disadvantage (housing,
employment, policing).
 non-violent protest. Eamonn McCann.
 Terence O’ Neill pm of Northern Ireland in the 1960s.
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Northern Ireland
 The turning point was the civil rightds march in Derry
in October 1968. Police turned brutally upon
protesters.
 Further violence seeped into Northern Ireland politics.
 The denouement came on ‘Bloody Sunday’, 30
January 1972, when paratroopers fired 108 rounds
on anti-internment marchers in Derry killing 13
unarmed civilians. None were members of the
IRA. Violence escalated.
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Northern Ireland
 On 24 March, the British PM announced that
Stormont would be prorogued and replaced by Direct
Rule from London.
 The IRA became a central player in the province from
1969 until the end of the 1990s.
 Loyalist paramilitaries.
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Northern Ireland
 The IRA’s strategy was simple: bomb, murder and
cause enough damage to force the British (troops) to
withdraw from Northern Ireland.
 The Peace Process:
 The Good Friday agreement April 1998..
 The agreement required both republicans and
unionists to give way much more than they ever had
before.
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Northern Ireland
 A referendum on the agreement revealed
overwhelming Catholic support. Unionists were split
down the middle.
 Unionists thought it would safeguard the Union and
Catholics may have seen it as a step towards Irish unity.
 The establishment of a 108-member assembly elected
by proportional representation. Power-sharing with a
twist.
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In Northern Ireland
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 Bóthar Seoighe (also Gaeltacht Seoighe; English:
Shaw's Road or Shaw's Gaeltacht) is a small Gaeltacht
(Irish-speaking area) in Belfast, County Antrim,
Northern Ireland.
 The Shaw's Road Gaeltacht was founded in the mid
1960s when a few families from Belfast built their
houses in the area.
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The Belfast Gaeltacht
 More families joined the original settlers in the 1960s.
In all, over 300 people live in the Shaw's Road
Gaeltacht. In 1972 the Shaw's Road received official
recognition as a Gaeltacht following a campaign. A
committee was started in 1973.
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 As a result, the Shaw's Road has grown into a community
with a primary school (and have from the work of it's
people opened a secondary school in 1991 on the Falls
Road), the first primary Irish Language primary school in
the north of Ireland, a community hall and other historical
facilities.
 Shaw's Gaeltacht is popular for children and adults from
Antrim learning Irish. Irish language courses are run for all
in the GAA Club. Shaw's Gaeltacht has a strong culture of
traditional music, dance and drama which continues to
thrive today.
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 As a result, the Shaw's Road has grown into a community
with a primary school (and have from the work of it's
people opened a secondary school in 1991 on the Falls
Road), the first primary Irish Language primary school in
the north of Ireland, a community hall and other historical
facilities.
 Shaw's Gaeltacht is popular for children and adults from
Antrim learning Irish. Irish language courses are run for all
in the GAA Club. Shaw's Gaeltahct has a strong culture of
traditional music, dance and drama which continues to
thrive today.
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 From the 1970s until the calming period of the Good
Friday Agreement (1998), the growth of republicanism
in Northern Ireland became an essential element in
the life of most of the inhabitants of the Province.
 This form of Republicanism, distinct from the
republicanism of the south in an earlier time,drew
heavily on the Irish language for inspiration.
 Lasnguage became an important political marker in
the North.
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 Part of the politicization of nationalists in Northern
Ireland was a desire to use Irish.
 Night classes proliferated.
 Language is a great identity badge, and the learning of Irish
in an overwhelmingly Anglophone city (Belfast) and
Province (Ulster) was a political act.
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 This was the beginning of a Gaelic (Irish) revival in
Ulster.
 Approximately 30% of the city of Belfast is Catholic,
and this compared to 10% at the beginning of the 19th
century.
 The idea of creating a Gaeltacht in west Belfast has
grown especially since the mid-1990s (and a certain
cessation of violence).
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 West Belfast has always been the heartland of Belfast’s
Catholic population, and already befor the mid 1990s,
there were (are) several streets to which people moved
to help create an Irish-speaking environment.
 A newspaper was created called Lá which started as a
weekly paper, then a daily paper (but which has since
come to an end).
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 At the end of the 1990s the newspaper had 3,000
regular readers, which gives some indication of the
numbers of those able at least to read the language.
 At the same time several pubs were opened where
mainly Irish would be heard, as well as community
centres, and schools.
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 One of the most vibrant centres of the Irish
language in Belfast is the Culturlann Mc Adam O
Fiaich. It operates as a theatre, café and meeting
place where Irish is the norm.
 Unlike the Gaeltachtai of the Republic, based as
they are on historical roots, and protected
financially by the State, the Belfast ‘Gaeltacht’ is a
creation, an alternative to the big Anglophone
world outside.
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 The urban Gaeltacht of Belfast cannot be seen quite in
the same terms as the Irish-speaking regions of the
Republic, but it should probably be seen as an enclave,
much in the same way as a Chinatown in many North
American cities is seen.
 www.culturlann.ie
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
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A Protestant Movement
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 The Orange Order soon came to represent the
sectarian and economic resentment that arose in the
late 18th century.
 The Order spread rapidly throughout the south and
west of Ulster, and found recruits amongst the landedgentry, the army, and small-farmers.
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 Two political events also fuelled a mood of
sectarianism.
 The insurrection of 1798.
 The Act of Union 1800 which created the ‘United
Kingdom of Britain and Ireland’.
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 The Orange Order were against the Union, but fiercely
loyal to the British crown.
 Orangeism was suppressed by the authorities on more
than one occasion but the organisation survived
mainly on a local level. It lacked broad support from
the middle-classes and the landed gentry.
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 With the advent of the Land League which challenged
the power of landlords over their rural tenants, many
of those landlords turned to the Orange Order (1880s).
 There was a massive growth of Orangeism in the late
19th century mainly against the even stronger ‘home
rule’ movement which was gathering steam in the late
19th century.
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Orangemen parading
July 12th.
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Orangemen parades
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Orange Halls
King ‘Billy’ (King William
of Orange)
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 The order remains an essential element of Ulster
Unionism (although much weakened in the last few
years).
 It has totally infiltrated Northern Irish politics, and
was an important element in Ontarian politics during
the 19th century.
 Theologically, it retains something of its evangelical
puritanism with its roots in the late Victorian era.
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 One of the ironies associated with Ulster protestantism is
that many of its adherents are as ‘Celtic’ as anyone on the
island.
 As Tanner remarks in his book The Last of the Celts, it had
already been revealed that many of the Ulster Protestants
are of Gaelic heritage.
 It was remarked that although influenced by Scottish
protestantism, they ‘have traits of character as Catholic
Gaels, but inverted’.
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 Tanner quotes further (p116), ‘An Orange procession is
utterly unEnglish. It is a parody of a Catholic
procession’.
 The mindset of Ulster protestantism is however geared
towards similar churches in Scotland, and ultimately
in Geneva.
 For such people, Dundalk or Dublin seem far away.
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 The plantations in Ulster from the early 1600s came
predominantly from Scotland. Even from areas that had
provided the original settlers from Ireland into Scotland in
the early middle-ages.
 Some of the earliest planted settlers in Ulster from
Scotland were undoubtedly Gaelic-speakers, and they
would have come across similar Irish Gaelic speakers in the
17th century.
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 Interestingly, although Ulster protestants have largely
rejected their Gaelic past (now frequently seen as the
past belonging to the ‘other’=Catholic nationalists),
some iconic figures from Ireland’s Gaelic past have reemerged.
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 In particular Cu Chulainn, the great hero of the Ulster
Cycle of Tales, and defender of Ulster, is seen in murals
(in the words of Tanner) as a ‘proto-Orangeman’. (!).
 The lack of general interest in the Irish language
amongst protestants in Ulster mainly reflects the idea
that the language is symbolic of Catholic, ie nationalist
ideas.
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The Gaeltacht in Belfast
 Although the tags ‘protestant’ and ‘catholic’ are
endlessly used to describe members of the Ulster tribe,
it is of course important to remember that agnosticm
and atheism is commonly found on both ‘sides’.
 What is all pervading is the culture, political and
otherwise of the two groups which has its roots in two
opposing ideologies.
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The Orange Order
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