Abstract
AbstractDrawing on secret witness reports from Intelligence Officers of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and diplomatic correspondence from France’s representatives to Dublin and London, this article seeks to complement recent historiography and qualify our understanding of the period 1914–18 by engaging fully with the issue of compulsory military service from the outbreak of the conflict. It contemplates how fears of conscription contributed to the radicalisation of rural communities and demonstrates that opposition to conscription formed a solid political foundation for Sinn Féin. Britain’s determination to implement conscription to Ireland frightened civilian populations, gave rise to nationwide discontent, and attracted towards Sinn Féin populations likely to be drafted into the British Army. That study seeks to be a re-examination of the dynamics between the Irish revolution and the conscription scares and maintains that fears of compulsory service in Ireland significantly contributed to the victory of Sinn Féin candidates during the four electoral contests in 1917.
Highlights
On Easter Monday 1916, with barely no weapons, a handful of badly organised rebels with little real hope of success, undertook to defeat the British Army and proclaim an Irish Republic.[1]
That study seeks to be a re-examination of the dynamics between the Irish revolution and the conscription scares and maintains that fears of compulsory service in Ireland significantly contributed to the victory of Sinn Féin candidates during the four electoral contests in 1917
Anti-government sentiment was channelled by defiance, resentment and a series of political blunders in the aftermath of Easter Week 1916.7 Sinn Féin’s ability to reorganise and federate the various dissident factions while developing a new rhetoric for self-determination paved the way for its political success during the 1917 by-elections,[8] and gradually triggered the fall of the Irish Parliamentary Party.[9]
Summary
On Easter Monday 1916, with barely no weapons, a handful of badly organised rebels with little real hope of success, undertook to defeat the British Army and proclaim an Irish Republic.[1].
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