Intro Ireland Quiz 2 -- people, dates, and orgs

Oscar Wilde

poet and playwright; crushed by Unionist leader Edward Carson by referring to as homosexual in 1895 libel suit

James Joyce

Wrote Dubliners which depicted dublin as a decrepit place during a time that Belfast was thriving

William Butler Yeats

poet; Critiqued middle class Dublin as ‘a vile hole’, dismissed Unionist Ireland as ‘a shabby and pretentious England’ and diagnosed nationalist Ireland as ‘torn with every kind of political passion and prejudice’

Samuel Beckett

post language novelist, short story writer; 1st person to consider Ireland as ‘post-language’

Michael Cusack

founder of the GAA

Maud Gonne

one of the most prominent activists in various nationalist, socialist, and feminist causes; 6 ft tall; described as goddess/queen; Yeats was like in love with her or something like that but she rejected him; Founded Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland) in 1900

 Inghinidhe na hÉireann

Daughters of Ireland; around a nationalist, socialist, and feminist agenda; organized Irish cultural activities to instill national self-consiousness as a means of fostering self-confidence

Arthur Griffith

wrote The Resurrection of Hungary (1904) — Situated the Irish-British debate within a wider imperial context of the Habsburg empire; realisation that Home Rule parliament on College Green could not deliver anything of value if there were no distinctive Irish nationality to be nurtured

Encouraged the cultural movement to enter the political arena: “The language itself it not an end but a means to an end”

Michael Davitt

Irish Republican Activity; home rule and land reform; the Land League

Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA)

set up in 1884 to revive gaelic sports (resistance to British control of sports – rugby, soccer, etc)

The Gaelic League

founded in 1893 by Douglas Hyde with the aim of restoring the Irish language

The Land League

Irish political org that sought to help poor tenant farmers and to abolish landlordism in Ireland to enable tenant farmers to own the land they worked on; aka the Land War

Sinn Fein

“Ourselves”; Political context in which can deliver culture into educational, political, etc, spheres; type of nationalism (cultural nationalism) → Reason why should be independent nation is because have own culture separate from Britain

1901

Queen Victoria died → commemoration for her life (the Famine Queen); Dublin festooned in union Jacks, so looks as if agrees with British Union → shocked people/wake up call and shameful to Irish nationalism

1897

Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee (60th year since ascended the throne)

Dublin also decorated accordingly

1898

100 year anniversary from dissolution of irish parliament; reclaiming the streets of Dublin from imperialist decorations of previous year

1899

2nd Boer War

2nd Boer War

revived idea that a small group able to fight against British Imperialism; huge boost to anti-imperialism

John Redmond

leader of the Irish Home Rule Movement

Decided to throw weight behind Britain in WWI because he thought Britain would see how loyal Ireland was and would grant them home rule – terrible miscalculation (in an effort to match Edward Carson – leader of the Unionists/ Fenians / the Irish Republican Brotherhood

Thomas Clarke

• Fenian leader

• Great organizer for the republican movement but needed a speaker

• Initiation of infiltration into the IRB and removing its gun-shy leadership, before allowing the IRB to infiltrate other nationalist orgs

• Disagreed with Redmond – WWI as change to ‘hatch another phoenix’; returned from America, which inspired him

• Infiltration of young activists into every club possible to try to take over these things of culture from the inside

• Funeral of Jeremiah Donovan from America (?)

• “Hot as hell” to describe the speech

Patrick Pearse

•  “life springs from death, and from the graves of patriots men and women spring living nations … they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.”

• Picked by Clarke; Became the orator for the republican movement

• Connection to ideal type characters: Cu Chulainn, Colum Cille

Sean Mac Diarmada

“There has been nothing more terrible in Irish history than the failure of the last generation”

James Connolly

Set up the Irish Citizen Army; executed following the 1916 rising while strapped to a chair because he could not stand due to a leg injury sustained in the fighting (people kneeling in the street praying the rosary outside)

Eamon De Valera

senior surviving 1916 leader; instructed Collins to lead the Irish delegation and bring back a draft treaty for him to approval; Beefed with Collins over the treaty with Britain; pro-union; anti-treaty

Michael Collins

had fought in 1916; vowed that he would never again allow men under his command to be cooped up in a static location and subjected to superior firepower as in the General Post Office (critical of the GPO)

Said that the Rising had ‘the air of a Greek Tragedy’

Responsible for the strike at the Cairo Gang on Bloody Sunday

pro-treaty

won the war of friends, but killed on its last day

General Post Office (GPO)

Headquarters of the Irish Volunteers; Pearse and Connolly took over the GPO and proclaimed the Irish Republic

1916 outcomes

“triumph of failure'“

revitalized Ireland

1918 British General election

2 million voters in Ireland, Sinn Fein landslide; then withdrew from Westminster and set up own parliament; issuing declaration of independence based on democratic program of the 1st dail

Dail Eireann

Ireland’s parliament set up after withdrawing from Westminster

outlawed by British

Sir Roger Casement

humanitarian, previously knighted by the British for work exposing human rights abuses in the Congo, but hanged as a traitor after British efforts to smear him following exposure of British failings (In Ireland?); British tried to smear him as homosexual after he was hung

‘Self-government is our right, a thing born in us at birth, a thing no more to be doled out to us, or withheld from us, by another people than the right to life itself – than the right to feel the sun, or smell the flowers, or to love our kind’

1919

2 Royal Irish Constabulary Policemen shot, igniting the ‘War of Independence’ / ‘The troubles’

Nov 21 1920

1st Bloody Sunday

1st Bloody Sunday

Collins killed members of the Cairo Gang; British response at Croake park (14 dead)

British people would not tolerate violence so close to home on ‘white’ people → time to ditch Ireland

1921

4th Home Rule Bill aka the Government of Ireland Act 1920

the Government of Ireland Act 1920 (4th home rule bill)

British PM David Lloyd George proposed home rule for the south and partition for the north

Collins forced to sign by Lloyd George; De Valera didn’t agree

Dali ratified the treaty by 64-57 vote → lead to ‘war of friends’ / civil war

T.K. Whittaker

wrote The First Programme of Economic Recovery (1958)

advocated for the opening up of the Irish economy to multi-national industry and the join the world bank and the EU

1st program for economic expansion

1973

Ireland joined the EU

Industrial Development Agency (IDA)

1. identified sectors (electronics, computer software, pharmaceuticals, healthcare)

2. identified leading companies in sectors

3. attracted them to Ireland

Peter Maguire

Guy who showed up; catholic;

Discussed his stories of how he was beat up walking along the streets with his girlfriend, and how he had to go to the hospital

Mentioned in gory detail the story of a friend of his who went to the bar, and met a girl that he had intentions of leaving with. The girl said she would call a car, and when they went to leave, he was surrounded by protestant men and beaten until he was unconscious.

Emphasized the importance of names; some names were more obviously Catholic vs Protestant

Also discussed his (paternal grandfather (??)) who was killed at the shipdocks and thrown into the water once it was discovered that he was catholic

Emphasized how families would often come in to look after eachother; struggle of the catholics

Noel Large

Guy who didn’t show up; Protestant; went to prison

Killed many Catholics

Falls Road

associated with the catholic community; mostly residential housing, due to expansion of factories in Belfast; Carnegie Library right next to mural

Bobby sands memorial on nearby street (Stevastopol)

Upper falls – important politically; connection to unionist Shankill road area

Following burning out of catholics of bombay and other streets (?) – the British Government deployed the British Army on the Falls Road to protect the Catholics from further attacks. The troops were initially welcomed by all the Falls residents to protect them, but heavy-handed tactics by the mostly British-born members of the Army who did not know, care or understand the situation would estrange most Catholics and nationalists.

Sinn Fein office

Curfew – ?? IDK if its this road or a diff one

Has a bunch of the other murals too! – the whole wall of them, etc

Shankill Road

protestant street

Center of loyalist activity during the troubles

The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) had its start on this road, and its first attack against catholics

The Shankill butchers – UVF paramilitary force

Also Ulster Defense Association (UDA) – headquarters on this road

The road and its residents subjected to a number of bombings and shootings by the Irish republican paramilitaries

Theoretically links to the falls road, although most of these are blocked by peace lines

Some entrances with lockable gates

Sevastopol

Bobby Sands Memorial

Painted on side of the Sinn Fein office at the corner of Sevastopol and falls roads

“Everyone republican or otherwise has their own particular role to play … our revenge will be the laughter of our children.”

Phoenix and lark – breaking the chains

Lark reference to one of Bobby Sands’ poems about a caged lark written while he was on his hunger strike

3 other IRA volunteers featured as well:

• Sean McCoughey – wrote song with lyric on the wall: “I’ll wear no convits uniform, nor meekly serve my time, that Britain might make Irelands fight 800 years of crime…”

• Joe McDonnell

• Kieran Doherty

Bombay street

1969 burning of street – police were no help

Burning by loyalists of Catholics homes

British soldiers called in, but little help and only able to stop the burnings after a period of time by using tear gas

Modern peace line we saw on trip: memorial on the Catholic/nationalist side, with the houses nearby having cages to protect from petrol bombs being thrown over the walls

Lower Falls Road

Street in Belfast that the protestant mob burned down, pretty sure it was the street we saw in field trip

I think the Catholic church we went into (St. Peter’s Cathedral??) is nearby but not directly on this street

Carnegie library

Near Bobby Sands mural

Counties of the North

FAT DAD: Fermanagh, Armagh, Tyrone, Derry, Antrim, Down

May 3 1921

Government of Ireland Act of 1920 (when partition was established)

1998

Good Friday Agreement

Good Friday Agreement

power sharing, with southern state being granted leverage in the north; compromise between unionists and nationalists in northern ireland

1950s

horrendous in Ireland; emigration resumed — sense of failure of the independence project

1958

start of Ireland’s incline

1960s

consumer society; Ireland benefited from renewed exposure to British and American economies

1963

JFK visited

1967

free education

1960s

Successful economically, shuddered to halt in 1973 due to oil crisis

Charles J haughey

inoculated the Irish body politic against the virus of a prototype populist

??? anything else

1980s

Sense of soul searching racked country once again in 1980s

Sense of doom and gloom

Irish seens as the poorest of the rich

3 good things came out tho:

• Failures convinced the Irish public of the need for fiscal rectitude and prudent public finances

• Need for continuity of economic policy

• Galvanized clear sense of national purpose

October 5 1968

Civil Rights March in Derry, stopped by the Royal Ulster Constabulary

start of the modern ‘Troubles’

January 1, 1969

50 members of the People’s Democracy(PD) began a 4-day march from Belfast across Northern Ireland to Derry to emulate Martin Luther King’s 1965 ‘freedom march’

March was attacked by loyalist mobs

Attacked most heavily on the 4th by ‘Burntollet Ambush’

August 15 1969

protestant mob burned out catholics in the street

Lower falls -> we saw this on field trip

The British army cam to Belfast initially to save the catholics — slow to respond/stop the mob

January 30 1972

second Bloody Sunday — British troops were dispatched to police an anti internment protest on 30 January

14 innocent civilians were murdered by British paratroopers as part of a politically orchestrated crack down

1972

most violent year of the troubles

Bobby Sands

leader of the hunger strike; elected to Westminster parliament, although never served because was imprisoned and then died

1994

IRA ceasefire (broken in 1996 but reinstated in 1997)