Fenians, Ribbonmen and popular ideology’s role in nationalist politics: east Tyrone, 1906–9

Abstract

Irish nationalist politics between 1906 and 1909 revolved around the twin demands of self-government and a resolution of the land issue; as such, the period was demarcated by two pieces of Liberal government legislation: the May 1907 Irish Council Bill and Birrell’s December 1909 land act. The latter was partially a response to western Irish Republican Brotherhood (I.R.B.)-inspired ‘agrarian militancy’ on the part of the United Irish League (U.I.L.) and the emerging Sinn Féin movement’s ability to ‘outfank’ the Irish Parliamentary Party (I.P.P.) on the issue, which effectively forced Irish Party leader John Redmond ‘to adopt a radical agrarian policy in June 1907’. However, outside Connacht, the U.I.L. could not be regarded as ‘the Land League reborn’. In east Tyrone, the demand for self-government dominated the nationalist agenda, a situation reinforced by the fact that local politics had been ‘cast in the denominational mould which has characterised them ever since’. As a result, the Board of Erin section of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (A.O.H.) was the motor of popular nationalist mobilisation, leaving the U.I.L.