Athlone 1900-1923

Politics, Revolution & Civil War

John Burke, Dr John Burke

• Publisher: THP Ireland
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781845888596
• eBook ISBN: 9780750963862
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Irish History
• Index: History

Athlone 1900–1923 is perhaps the most detailed analysis ever completed of an Irish provincial town during this defining period in the country's history. Using a wide variety of local, national and international sources, this meticulously researched study provides the reader with a comprehensive history of the evolution of Irish nationalism in Athlone, drawing together all of the events, personalities and political philosophies that influenced not only the course of local politics, but also the fate of the Irish nation itself.

1

Athlone, the United Irish League and Parliamentary Politics

After the reunification of the Irish Parliamentary Party under John Redmond, Ireland’s constitutional nationalists focused their efforts on concerns outside the party. Though Home Rule was its overriding goal, the issue of land distribution and property ownership, the ‘surrogate for nationalism’,1 preoccupied the IPP for the first decade of the twentieth-century. In the case of Athlone, and other provincial Irish towns, there were both urban and rural aspects to the issue. The substantial number of lease-holding urbanites wanted fairer tenancy arrangements, while land purchase preoccupied most rural tenant farmers whose acres bordered the town, and whose produce supplied its markets. Both groups relied primarily on the IPP’s grass-roots organisation, the United Irish League (UIL), to progress their claims, yet, in Athlone, tensions were to arise as both the league and IPP concentrated on rural issues. Such tensions could not but impact on the support for constitutional nationalism in the town, with factors such as the efforts of individual activists, local MPs and the effect of new legislative changes all influencing the relationship between Athlone’s populace and constitutional nationalist organisations.

As already noted, the issue of property ownership in Ireland had both urban and rural resonances. In towns such as Athlone, urban tenants’ rights were greatly attenuated by existing legislation, which provided landlords with much freedom in rental agreements. Tenants had no guarantee of tenure, no say in rent increases or power of compulsion over landlords with regard to maintenance or upgrading of properties and, given their fiscal situation, no real hope of purchasing their dwellings. The issue of providing suitable housing for local labourers was a contentious topic in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and while there had been an improvement in the quality of some dwellings, it was still recognised that the deficiencies were such that they handicapped the economic development of the town and its people.2 The nineteenth-century Land League’s aversion to dealing with disaffected urban dwellers had really set the tone; politicians concentrated on the pursuit of rural land redistribution as it offered greater political benefits.3

Outside Athlone’s urban boundary, rural dwellers were dealing with a different basic problem: a minority of people, landlords and graziers, controlled the majority of the land. Tenant farmers in south Westmeath and south Roscommon were expected to eke out a living on plots whose economic viability was at best uncertain. The region around the town had not seen an appreciable fall in the proportion of large farms since the end of the Famine, when depopulation allowed landowners and large farmers to retain or consolidate their land holdings.4 Small farmers were also frustrated in their efforts to enlarge their holdings by the existence of numerous part-time farmers. Census returns show that among the latter were auctioneers, grocers, magistrates, merchants, publicans, shopkeepers, blacksmiths and carpenters.5 These men often leased lands from men such as Lord Castlemaine and Charles O’Donoghue, neither of whom appeared interested in selling any portion of their estates.6 There was also a minority of small established landholders around Athlone who had, over a protracted period, purchased small tracts of land, thus becoming more extensive landowners. These men were considered even less likely to sell.7 Existing land legislation brought in after the Land War of 1879-82 was deficient, Home Rule and internal conflict had preoccupied the IPP since then, and it was not until the establishment of the UIL in 1898 that an influential political body again made the land issue its main focus.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction Athlone, 1900-23: Politics, Revolution and Civil War
• 1 Athlone, the United Irish League and Parliamentary Politics
• 2 Supplementing the Nationalist Debate
• 3 The Search for Home Rule and the Development of Militancy
• 4 The Opportunities of War
• 5 Confirmation of Change: The Move to Sinn Féin
• 6 Recourse to War: Politics and Conflict 1919-21
• 7 Former Allies, Future Foes: Civil War
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Copyright