Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:23:17.216Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Nationalist responses to two royal visits to Ireland, 1900 and 1903

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Senia Pašeta
Senia Pašeta*
Affiliation:
St Hugh’s College, Oxford
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In July 1903 Maud Gonne hung a black petticoat from the window of her Dublin home, insulting her unionist neighbours and provoking what became known as ‘the battle of Coulson Avenue’. Aided by nationalist friends, athletes from Cumann na nGaedheal and her sturdy housekeeper, she defended her ‘flag’ against police and irate neighbours. Gonne’s lingerie — allegedly a mark of respect for the recently deceased pope — flew in stark and defiant contrast to the numerous Union Jacks which lined her street in honour of King Edward VII’s visit to Ireland. This episode heralded a month of spectacular protest which polarised nationalist opinion. Like the visit to Dublin of Queen Victoria in 1900, King Edward’s tour provoked both enormous public interest and rivalry between various Irish institutions which vied to express their loyalty to the crown. But the royal tours also instigated fierce debate within the nationalist community and highlighted the ever deepening rifts between constitutional nationalism and ‘advanced’ nationalism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 124 , November 1999 , pp. 488 - 504
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Ward, Margaret, Maud Gonne: Ireland’s Joan of Arc (London, 1990), pp 82–3Google Scholar.

2 Banks, M.A., Edward Blake, Irish nationalist: a Canadian statesman in Irish politics (Toronto, 1957), p. 249Google Scholar.

3 Redmond-Howard, L. G., John Redmond, the man and the demand: a biographical study in Irish politics (London, 1910), pp 155-6Google Scholar.

4 Hansard 4, lxxx, 402 (8 Mar. 1900).

5 Irish People, 24 Mar. 1900.

6 John Dillon to William O’Brien, 14 Mar. 1900 (Banks, Blake, p. 250).

7 Minute book of the Irish Transvaal Committee, handbills, n.d. (N.L.I., MS 19933).

8 Irish Transvaal Committee handbill (U.C.D.A., Curran collection, John O’Leary press cuttings).

9 The issue of the Boer War actually played a major role in the reunification of the party. Many prominent party members had condemned British policy in South Africa and had been supported by those members of the British Liberal Party who shared their views.

10 Freeman’s Journal, 6 Jan. 1900.

11 Ibid., 10 Feb. 1900.

12 Minute book of the Irish Transvaal Committee, 21 Oct. 1899 (N.L.I., MS 19993).

13 P. J. Bull, ‘Ireland’s lost opportunity: William O’Brien and reconstruction in nationalist politics, 1895–1903’ (unpublished manuscript), pp 226–30. I am indebted to Dr Bull for drawing my attention to this event and for allowing me to consult his manuscript.

14 Minute book of the Leinster Debating Society, 28 Nov. 1890 (N.L.I., MS 19935).

15 The Times, 8 Mar. 1900.

16 Ibid.,28 Mar. 1900.

17 Irish People, 7 Apr. 1900.

18 Freeman’s Journal, 3 Apr. 1900.

19 Irish People, 10 Mar. 1900.

20 Freeman’s Journal, 4 Apr. 1900.

21 ———— to MacBride, 10 Apr. 1900 (N.L.I., E J. Allan papers, MS 26755).

22 77ге Times, 5 Apr. 1900.

23 Freeman’s Journal, 5 Apr. 1900.

24 The Times, 5 Apr. 1900.

25 Foster, R. F., W. B. Yeats: a life, i (Oxford, 1997), pp 227-9Google Scholar.

26 Irish People, 17 Mar. 1900.

27 Ibid., 24 Mar. 1900.

28 MacBride, Maud Gonne, A servant of the queen: her own story (Dublin, 1950 ed.), p. 280Google Scholar.

29 Irish People, 24 Mar. 1900.

30 United Irishman, 24 Mar. 1900.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid.,7Apr. 1900.

33 The Times, 3 Apr. 1900.

34 United Irishman, 7 Apr. 1900.

35 The Times, 9 Apr. 1900.

36 Colles, Ramsay, In castle and court house: being reminiscences of thirty years in Ireland (London, n.d.), p. 51Google Scholar.

37 Ibid., p.53.

38 Ward, Gonne, p. 65.

39 MacBride, Servant of the queen, p. 280.

40 Ward, Gonne, p. 65.

41 United Irishman, 28 Apr. 1900.

42 The Times, 9 Apr. 1900.

43 Ward, Gonne, p. 63.

44 MacBride, Servant of the queen, p. 282.

45 See, for example, Coxhead, Elizabeth, Daughters of Erin: five women of the Irish renaissance (London, 1968), pp 30–31Google Scholar; Ward, Gonne, pp 62–3.

46 Gonne to Yeats, 4 July 1900 (The Gonne-Yeats letters, 1893–1938: always your friend, ed. White, Anna MacBride and Jeffares, A.N. (London, 1993), p. 129Google Scholar).

47 Ward, Gonne, p. 63.

48 Ibid., p.62.

49 United Irishman, 5, 25 May 1900.

50 I am very grateful to Roy Foster for drawing my attention to this calculation and to the controversy surrounding John Howard Parnell. According to the 1901 census returns, over 38, 000 children were receiving primary education in the city of Dublin; over 31, 000 of them were Catholics, and only 6, 000 were registered as Anglicans, Methodists or Presbyterians (Census of Ireland, 1901, pt 1, p. 60 [Cd 847-Ia], H.C. 1902, cxxii, 296).

51 MacBride, Servant of the queen, p. 281.

52 Bourke, Marcus, John O’Leary: a study in Irish separatism (Tralee, 1967), p. 226Google Scholar.

53 Foster, R.F., Charles Stewart Parnell: the man and his family (Hassocks, 1976), pp 296-7Google Scholar.

54 United Irishman, 31 Mar. 1900.

55 ‘Freeman’s Journal, 3 Apr. 1900.

56 Irish People, 24 Mar. 1900.

57 United Irishman, 14 Apr. 1900.

58 Ibid., 4 Apr. 1900.

59 Ibid.,4Mar.l899.

60 MacBride, Servant of the queen, p. 303.

61 O’Hegarty, P. S., Sinn Féin: an illumination (Dublin & London, 1919), p. 16Google Scholar.

62 The Times, 1 Apr. 1903.

63 Quoted in Lee, Sidney, King Edward VII: a biography (2 vols, London, 1925-7), ii, 161Google Scholar.

64 Freeman’s Journal, 2 July 1903.

65 The Times, 27 July 1903.

66 Freeman ‘s Journal, 4 Apr. 1903.

67 Gonne to Yeats, May 1903 (Gonne-Yeats letters, ed. White & Jeffares, pp 172–3).

68 Freeman’s Journal, 23 July 1903, cited in Boyce, D.G., Nationalism in Ireland (London, 1982), pp 272–3Google Scholar.

69 Freeman’s Journal, 2 June 1903.

70 United Irishman, 18 July 1903.

71 For details of the establishment of the P.P.C, see Gonne to Yeats, 8 May 1903 (Gonne-Yeats letters, ed. White & Jeffares, p. 171).

72 Lyons, F.S.L., Ireland since the Famine (London, 1987 ed.), p. 255Google Scholar.

73 Russell to Yeats, May 1903 (Letters from AE, ed. Denson, Alan (London, 1961), p. 47Google Scholar); Davis, Richard, Arthur Griffith and non-violent Sinn Féin (Dublin, 1974), p. 19Google Scholar.

74 Deutsch-Brady, Chantal, ‘The king’s visit and the People’s Protection Committee, 1903’ in Eire-Ireland, x, no. 3 (autumn 1975), p. 5Google Scholar.

75 Irish Times, 19 May 1903.

76 United Irishman, 23 May 1903.

77 Minute book of the Celtic Literary Society, 1904 (N.L.I., MS 19934).

78 Dublin Express, 20 May 1903, cited in Deutsch-Brady, ‘King’s visit’, p. 6.

79 Laurence Ginnell to Redmond, 22 May 1903 (Bodl., Redmond papers, mf 1065).

80 Ibid.; Ginnell to Redmond, 27 May 1903 (ibid.).

81 United Irishman, 6 June 1903.

82 Freeman’s Journal, 4 July 1903.

83 United Irishman, 30 May 1903.

84 Irish Times, 3 June 1903.

85 Lyons, Ireland since the Famine, p. 255.

86 Harrington to Redmond, 23 June 1903 (Bodl., Redmond papers, mf 1065).

87 Ibid.

88 Ibid.

89 United Irishman, 18 July 1903.

90 Ibid., 25 July 1903.

91 Harrington to Redmond, 9 July 1903 (Bodl., Redmond papers, mf 1065).

92 Wyndham to A. J. Balfour, 26 July 1903 (Mackail, J. W. and Wyndham, George (eds), Life and letters of George Wyndham (2 vols, London, [1925?]), ii, 466Google Scholar).

93 The Times, 22 July 1903.

94 United Irishman, 1 Aug. 1903.

95 Earl of Meath, Memories of the twentieth century (London, 1924), p. 67Google Scholar.

96 United Irishman, 1 Aug. 1903.

97 Foster, Yeats, i, 292.

98 Freeman’s Journal, 25 July 1903.

99 United Irishman, 27 June 1903.

100 Ibid., 4 July 1903.

101 Ibid., 18 July 1903.

102 Ibid., 23 May 1903.

103 Ibid., 2 May 1903

104 Ibid., 6 June 1903.

105 Irish Independent, 20 May 1903; Deutsch-Brady, ‘King’s visit’, pp 6–7.

106 United Irishman, 28 July 1903.

107 O’Hegarty, P. S., A history of Ireland under the union, 1801–1922 (London, 1952), p. 634Google Scholar.

108 Davis, Arthur Griffith and non-violent Sinn Féin, p. 20.

109 Irish Times, 6 Apr. 1903.

110 Ibid.,10Apr.l903.

111 Henry, R. M., The evolution of Sinn Féin (Dublin & London, 1920), p. 65Google Scholar.

112 Freeman’s Journal, 23 Apr. 1903; Deutsch-Brady, ‘King’s visit’, p. 4.

113 Minute book of the Leinster Debating Society, 17 Apr. 1891 (N.L.I., MS 19935).

114 In particular Davis, Arthur Griffith and non-violent Sinn Féin, Lyons, Ireland since the Famine, and Boyce, Nationalism in Ireland.

115 Maye, Brian, Arthur Griffith (Dublin, 1997), p. 22Google Scholar.

116 See, for example, Thompson, W. I., The imagination of an insurrection: Dublin, Easter, 1916 (New York, 1967), p. 46Google Scholar; Maire, and O’Brien, Conor Cruise, A concise history of Ireland (London, 1972), p. 130Google Scholar.