Fortnight Publications Ltd.

How Kitty O'Shea Almost Changed the Course of Ulster's pastAuthor(s): Brian WalkerSource: Fortnight, No. 296 (Jun., 1991), pp. 19-20Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25552939 .

Accessed: 28/06/2014 08:49

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Fortnight Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Fortnight.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 141.101.201.103 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 08:49:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Since the early 50s Switzerland has had a

left-centre-right power-sharing government, with four parties dividing federal departments on a 2-2-2-1 basis. The presidency rotates

annually among the seven ministers. A similar

system operates on cantonal and local levels.

When the minister of justice resigned in

1988, her successor had to be a German-speak

ing Protestant FDP (Liberal party) member from Zurich or Lucerne to fulfil the conditions

ofthe 'magic formula\ Institutionalised power

sharing of this complexity, taking into consid

eration relative sizes of cantons, party support,

language groups and religion, is probably

beyond the imagination of Northern Ireland

politicians. In Northern Ireland's British-influ

enced terms the country would be * ungovern

able'. Yet Switzerland functions rather better

than the UK, with a sound economy and less

than 1 per cent unemployment. Another important feature is that policing is

a cantonal matter. In Northern Ireland this

might help, since any state in which a large

proportion of the population?a majority in

many localities?rejects the police force is one

which must fight its own population for legiti

macy; and it must inevitably lose.

I wouldn't propose wholesale adoption of

the Swiss system?it would need adaptation to

the ethnic and religious mix of Northern Ire

land. But such mechanisms for accepting and

neutralising differences in 'divided' societies deserve examination. If doing so entails break

ing with traditional allegiances to British forms of law enforcement and government, then so be

it. The benefits of accepting the reality of

existing divisions, and the real need to find

ways of dealing with them, ought to be compel

ling enough. #

How Kitty O'Shea

almost changed .

the course of mk

Ulster's past ,iSjl

In an article stressing the Jlf^ffl^^l contingent aspects of ^vI^IHHI Irish history, BRIAN --% j?lsiill WALKER concludes ~:r

" i il^^^l his series doubting ^SJ^KJ^Km received wisdom i^^3IH^Hi

T1 I HE APPARENT intractability of con- 9^^H^n^^l temporary politics in Northern Ireland III^^HbB^^^H .?-lean lead us wearily to assume that Ih^IHHI^^^^I unionism and nationalism represent immutable ^^^^HH^^^^I forces over which we can exercise no control. ^^^^Hfljj^^^^^fl Yet this is to ignore the changes and opportuni- IH^HH^^^^^I

ties of recent history?the roles of individuals, nl^R^^^^^^I and the consequences of their decisions and ac-

vHhB^^^^^HI tions, particularly over the last century. ^ BH^^^^BI

The general elections of 1885 and 1886 saw ^IBhP^^^^BI the emergence of modern unionist and nation- vHKi'^^^^^I alist politics, with religious and party affili- ^BllR ^^^B ations intertwined in the way we know today. iBil* '^^^1 In Ulster politics: the formative years, 1868- ^iBiM9^l 86, I explored how these were shaped by the ^9B^kV leaders and events of this period. ^BBBllk

The importance of Katherine O'Shea in ^BBii

modern Irish history is well known. That she ^*!S had a brief role in Ulster politics is less so. ^H Viewers ofthe recent series on Charles Stewart

Parnell may remember that in early 1886 he

was obliged to secure a parliamentary seat in

Galway for Willie O'Shea, Katherine's hus

band, to keep him quiet about their affair. But,

only a few months earlier, an attempt had been

made to find him a seat in mid-Armagh. Had

this succeeded, the course of Ulster history could well have been different.

In the 1885 general election, the Home Rule

party under Parnell emerged as the principal

political force in Ireland. In the nine-county

province of Ulster, however, the nationalists

only ran candidates in constituencies with a

tiMamL*'**

aL^L^L^L^L^L^L^L^L^L^L^LjLWKBL^L^LwL^L^L^L^L^L^L^^

aiSIIBHlEfc ^ t^HHHnHHHK ^ ill

Catholic majority?a measure of their success

among Catholic electors and failure among Protestants. The Liberals and the Conserva

tives were in hot competition for the Protestant

vote, and the votes of uncommitted Catholics

in constituencies without a nationalist candi

date became very important in the Liberal/

Conservative struggle. In October Ms O'Shea wrote to the Liberal

chief whip, Lord Richard Grosvenor, saying that she was anxious to find Capt O'Shea a seat

in Ulster as a Liberal. With Parnell's backing, she wrote:

Under the circumstances Mr Parnell promises that if Mr O'Shea is adopted as the liberal candi

date for Mid-Armagh, where the catholic votes

are within 600 ofthe episcopalians and presbyte rians combined, Mr Parnell will get him the

whole of the former vote and will moreover give his votes for East Down, North Armagh, and

North Derry to the liberal candidates. He will also secure the Irish vote in Wolverhampton to Mr

Fowler.

FORTNIGHT JUNE 19

This content downloaded from 141.101.201.103 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 08:49:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

The reason stated for this request to the Liberals

was the value of Capt O'Shea as an intermedi

ary between Parnell and the Liberal party at

Westminster.

Capt O'Shea visited Belfast and Armagh

but, in spite of efforts by Liberal leaders, was

unable to win either Presbyterian or Catholic

support in Mid-Armagh, and the scheme fell

through. In the event, the Catholic vote in

constituencies without a nationalist candidate

was given to the Conservatives. This was partly because Protestant Liberals failed to support the nationalist candidate in Derry and West

Belfast and partly because nationalist leaders

wanted to damage the Liberals regionally (to

destroy the middle ground) and UK-wide.

Catholic support for Ulster conservatives in

1885, fully backed by nationalists such as T M

Healy, was of great consequence. The Conser

vatives won from the Liberals a number of

seats they could not otherwise have gained,

leaving the latter bereft of parliamentary repre

sentation in Ulster. Thus when, the following

year, the new unionist movement was created

out of the former Liberals and Conservatives,

the Liberals, with their radical traditions and

willingness to co-operate with Catholics, were

much weaker than their Conservative, Orange and landlord-led partners.

The Catholic vote of 1885 was thus ironi

cally an important factor, among several, in

shaping the character of the new unionism. If

Ms O'Shea's intervention had succeeded the

outcome could have been quite different.

Another important element in the crucial

Conservative victory of 1885 in Ulster was the

Orange Order. Before 1885 only a minority of

Protestants belonged to the order, which

exercised little influence at elections. But the

orange movement contained many of the la

bourers and small farmers who now received

the vote for the first time. The Conservative as

sociations were, however, still dominated by

landlords, large farmers and (some) profes sional people. In the run-up to the general election these associations were reorganised in

many areas to include representatives of the

Orange Order and so broaden Tory appeal. With Conservatism dominant in the new

unionist movement established in 1886, the

orange element was to continue to play an

important political role, at local and central

party level, well into the 20th century, and the

order came to represent a majority of Ulster

Protestants. The individual responsible for

giving orangeism this crucial place in northern

politics was not, as it happens, Lord Randolph

Churchill with his "orange card"?but Edward

Shirley Finnegan, a very able Conservative

organiser originally from Co Kilkenny. The major part of Finnegan's work was

done in 1885?well before Churchill made his famous remark in early 1886. Regardless of his

well-publicised visit to Belfast that year, Chur

chill was of no real significance on the political scene in Ulster. And his espousal ofthe union

ist cause was only a minor factor in the intra

party conflict at Westminster.

While attention can be focused fruitfully on

the effect of individuals, such as Finnegan, on

their political movements, it is also valuable to

look at the consequences of their actions for

their opponents. For example, the decision by

the Ulster unionist leadership under Sir Ed

ward Carson and Sir James Craig to move in

1912-14 from constitutional opposition to home

rule to extra-parliamentary activity?includ

ing the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force

and the import of guns?had important results

not only for the unionist movement.

It also had vital consequences for national

ists and republicans, as we can read in F S L

Lyons' account in Ireland since the Famine.

In response to the formation of the Ulster

Volunteers, Eoin MacNeill, in an article entitled

The North Began, published in November 1913 in the Gaelic League paper, An Claidheamh

Soluis, expressed admiration for the northern

volunteers' independent action. The Irish Vol

unteers, led by MacNeill, were formed within

weeks, maintaining their right to arm, drill and

train "as they are doing in Ulster".

While the majority of the Irish Volunteers were moderate nationalists, and ended up fight

ing in the British forces in France, a small

number sought to plan an armed rising against Britain. The example of the Ulster Volunteers

had impressed republicans like Pearse, who

famously remarked: "personally I think the

orangeman with a rifle a much less ridiculous

figure than the nationalist without one". The

outbreak of war created the opportunity and,

under the cover of the Irish Volunteers who

remained in Ireland, the Irish Republican Broth

erhood organised the Easter Rising of 1916.

And, as is well known, the execution of the

The reason stated ... was the value of

Capt O'Shea as an

intermediary between Parnell and the Liberal

party at Westminster

leaders of the rising brought a wave of sympa

thy for the rebels which eventually washed

over the constitutional nationalist party and

brought success to the republican movement

under the IRA and Sinn Fein. So the actions of

the unionists in 1912-14 had direct conse

quences?and not quite as they had intended.

But Sinn Fein' s success in the 1918 election

was also more contradictory than nationalists

have suggested. As the last general election

embracing all 32 counties of Ireland, and with

73 out of 105 MPs elected being Sinn Fein

candidates, republicans have viewed the 1918

contest as providing full justification for a

united Irish republic. In reality, however, it

confirmed the partition of Ireland.

From its foundation in 1904, Sinn Fein showed no real knowledge or appreciation of

the Ulster situation, and certainly it made no

serious attempt to break the link between poli tics and religion by then so strong on both sides

of the political divide. Even Sinn Fein's eco

nomic policies were completely out of touch

with northern realities, as David Johnson has

pointed out in his article Partition and Cross

Border Trade in Plantation to Partition

(edited by P Roebuck). In The Sinn Fein Policy, which was printed

as an appendix to The Resurrection of Hun

gary and reprinted in 1918, Arthur Griffith, founder of the movement, mentioned Dublin

15 times and Cork five?but Belfast not at all.

The Irish Year Book, published in 1909 by a committee which Griffith chaired, contains

chapters on the major southern-based indus

tries, such as brewing and distilling, yet none

on linen or shipbuilding. This lack of contact with reality reached a

peak in 1921, when another Sinn Fein theorist,

Aodh de Blacam, suggested that after inde

pendence the Catholic Church would act as an

"intermediary between wage earners and

owners". This was a prospect, Johnson points

out, unlikely to "arouse much enthusiasm in the

mills and shipyards of Belfast".

Nor did Sinn Fein's political ideas on the

north offer any advance on confrontation and

implied domination?as George Boyce has

clearly shown in his recent Nineteeth Century

Ireland: the search for stability. In July 1917 Eamon de Valera declared that he "did not

believe in mincing matters, and if Ulster stood

in the way of the attainment of Irish freedom,

Ulster should be coerced. Their natural politi cal enemies were unionists". He also lauded at

this time the close link between nationalism

and religion, describing how it had been through

"listening to the sermons that were given by their patriotic priests

... that he first learned

what an Irishman's duty was. Religion and

patriotism were combined."

As John Bowman has argued in De Valera

and the Ulster Question 1917-1973, de Val era* s policy, from the rising to 1918, can be

summarised as "one of coercion against an

'alien garrison' unless and until they accepted Ireland's 'glorious tradition' as defined by Sinn

Fein". Of course, Sinn Fein did have some

Protestant supporters, such as Ernest Blythe, MP for North Monaghan from 1918, (just as the Unionists had some Catholic members, like D

S Henry, MP for South Londonderry from

1916). B ut the movement did nothing to weaken

the strong link between religion and politics so

evident in Ireland at this time.

"The most significant point about the Ulster

question in the 1918 general election over most

of nationalist Ireland," Boyce writes, "was

Sinn Fein's failure to articulate any new or

more imaginative approach to the most serious

obstacle to Irish unity." The party may have

won 73 seats in Ireland as a whole, although

only 48 per cent ofthe votes in contested seats.

In Ulster, however, after a truce between Sinn

Fein and the nationalist party organised by the

archbishop of Armagh, Cardinal Michael

Logue, Sinn Fein won only 10 seats (the nation

alists took five) and no Protestant votes.

On the one hand, the 1918 general election

proved of course that Sinn Fein had the support

ofthe majority of nationalists in Ireland. On the

other hand, however, Sinn Fein's total inability

to deal with Ulster confirmed the prospective

partition of the country. These historical examples indicate that the

divisions in Northern Ireland today and the

close link between religion and politics are not

set in stone. In our recent past significant changes have occurred, opportunities have been taken?

and lost?and people have shaped events. The

same is true today.

20 JUNE FORTNIGHT

This content downloaded from 141.101.201.103 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 08:49:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions