Discuss the Ways in Which Historians Have Attempted to Explain the Relationship Between Britain and Ireland

Ben Egan 15371166                                                              Word Count: 1889

Q: The Relationship between Britain and Ireland.

For centuries, the relationship between Britain and Ireland has always been quite a complicated one. When people think of the two countries what springs to mind is their similarity due to their geological scale however it is well known down throughout the years both countries have had their fair share of differences. Historians take different viewpoints on the topic, some arguing for or against colonial power in Ireland and others giving their opinions on what good and bad came from that relationship. Although the two countries relationship dates back centuries it is not until 1800 onwards that their relationship becomes widely debated and indeed questioned. In the Act of Union 1801 it is stated that Ireland will be ruled directly from Westminster, understandably this caused outraged among the Irish. Yet, politics is only one part of the puzzle in this relationship, there are numerous other factors that effected Ireland and Britain such as social, cultural and indeed economic aspects which will all be covered throughout this essay.

Without question, one of the biggest talking points in the relationship between Britain and Ireland is of course the Famine. There are many views taken on the famine and one that I concentrated on was Christine Kinealy who said “there is more written to commemorate the famine than was written in the whole period since 1850”^[1]. The Famine is perhaps one of the most tragic events in Irish history and you can sense this as you read extracts as historians seem to hold back on what they say out of respect for the affair. Extraordinarily, Kinealy suggests that the Famine cannot be blamed on Irish landlords and in fact the blame should be put on the British government and this is backed up by John Mitchell who said “God sent the blight but the British Government sent the Famine”^[2]. The Famine along with the 1916 Rising, is in my opinion one of the main causes of the strain on the relationship between both countries. It is staggering to think a country like Ireland who was famous for exporting food could starve to death and a lot of historians including Kinealy put this down to one man, John Charles Trevelyan, the British representative in Ireland at the time. After researching Trevelyan’s great-great granddaughter who studied all her ancestors’ files, diaries and notes, I learned that she does not consider him to be innocent yet she believes he was made out to be far crueller than he really was and to an extent I agree with this. I believe it is hard to place all the blame on one man for such a horrific event as the Famine was much more complicated than this. However, as a result of this atrocity, people in Ireland now felt there was a need for change and this was a major stumbling block in the relationship between Britain and Ireland.

Britain encountered quite a lot of trouble during the early 1800’s in Ireland and these issues are well documented by historian James Loughlin who points out that the main problems were “economic inequality, incoherence of the public realm and a degree of sectarian animosity”^[3]. The Act of Union 1801 aimed to bring Britain and Ireland closer economically and politically. As you can imagine Ireland was far behind on the social scale back then and this is eluded to by travelling writer Thomas Carlyle who said that “Ireland demonstrated a failed contemporary society”^[4]. Many historians relate this to the fact that the Irish people had no real leader to look up to and this was purely down to the loss of influential figures in risings and rebellions. Leaders back then such as Wolfe Tone were fantastic for Ireland, yet they personified how underdeveloped the country was as their only means of success was through violence, and as we all know the British weren’t hesitant on fighting back. However this would all change when a man called Daniel O’Connell who would later be labelled as the “Irish virus”^[5] by the British government. O’Connell used diplomacy to achieve Catholic emancipation and in doing so he improved the relationship between Britain and Ireland more than anyone had in previous years. It was under O’Connell that Ireland began making itself heard by the British, unfortunately violence still happened throughout the country which was of no benefit to the Irish so O’Connell knew that a change was needed. Numerous historians suggest that there was a change in the attitude among the Irish people regarding daily customs back then such as public drinking and even going to mass. The Catholic Church had arguably the biggest effect on the two countries relationship as now more and more Irish people were going to mass and this in turn gave the British something else to worry about. Not only would they have to deal with the Irish rebelling against them, they now had to deal with the Catholic Church. In my eyes, it cannot be questioned that the introduction to the Catholic Church changed the relationship between Britain and Ireland on a huge scale.

Due to the large amount of conflict between Britain and Ireland it is sometimes easy to overlook the social and cultural aspect of the relationship. F.C McGrath in his book claims that “W.B Yeats owes all of his literary skill to the English language, he would not have been the writer he was if he purely concentrated on Irish literary works”^[6]. British sport also had a huge impact on Irish society and still does today. Sports such as rugby and soccer were all played and enjoyed in Ireland, however this outraged the nationalists. Both men and women were either told to play GAA or rugby, but they could not play both as this was seen to be supporting the British cause. The GAA wanted to rebel against this yet they knew they would achieve nothing as it couldn’t be questioned that Britain was far more socially and culturally advanced than Ireland so they would never have been able to stop the influence of British sport organisations. However, this view was completely changed after the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed, Ireland began looking to create its own identity and separate itself from British reign. A famous example of Ireland refusing to be associated with Britain any longer was of course Eamon De Valera’s snubbing of the Governor General in Dublin. The people of Ireland now realised that they no longer had to answer to the British, they were their own Free State and they could act independently of Britain and that in my opinion is one of the biggest turning points in the relationship between Britain and Ireland.