Aid to the Civil Power: The Military Establishment, the Land War, and the Home Rule Crisis, 1879–1914

Abstract

A plurality of Irish military officers were not only career soldiers, but also belonged to the nobility or landed gentry. Thus, the land question of the late nineteenth century had a significant impact on Irish officers, not only as a contributing factor to civil unrest in Ireland, but as a direct threat to the estates that provided officers’ livelihoods. This chapter charts the reactions of Irish officers to instances of civil unrest in Ireland and identifies a distinct difference in how urban versus rural unrest was dealt with by the army. This chapter also discusses the effect of rising tensions between unionists and nationalists, and the increasingly ‘political’ nature of army operations aiding the civil power. The Home Rule question is shown to be noteworthy for two reasons: first, because of the unexpectedly minor effect it had on the cohesion of the officer corps before 1912; and second, because of the response of the British government, which suspected, despite evidence to the contrary, that Irish soldiers would be compromised by political developments in Ireland.