Chapter four examines the political effects of Irish republican publicity campaigns in Britain on the British-Irish propaganda war between January 1919 and July 1921. It profiles the political languages and cultures of Irish republican-inspired organisations; assesses the publicity campaigns of the I.S.D.L. in British cities; and evaluates the import of Sinn Féin propaganda on British political opinion. In the absence of Sinn Féin representation at Westminster, this chapter submits, the responsibility of cultivating British public opinion rested heavily on Irish nationalist organisations in British centres. The I.S.D.L. and Sinn Féin, however, were fundamentally apolitical movements who failed to acknowledge their responsibility as de facto Irish political parties in Britain. The coordination of mass demonstrations, and cultivation of post-war political discourses, re-cast the I.S.D.L. and Sinn Féin as political associations with which the Irish ethnic group increasingly identified, as the War of Independence intensified. While they failed to establish the same level of ‘social esteem’ as the Irish Party in British political culture, Irish nationalist associations became the target of British state censorship and repression. In the war of words for British public opinion, consequently, the I.S.D.L. and Sinn Féin were recognised by British policy makers at Whitehall as prolific propagandists.

The introduction sets out the theoretical, methodological, and empirical basis for this study. This research explores the evolution of Irish nationalism in Britain through four thematic lenses: the Irish Revolution, British politics, the Irish diaspora, the British Empire. Read collectively, these analytical frameworks can sharpen historical perspectives on the ideological development, communal function, and individual expression of Irish nationalism. To explore the history of the Irish in Britain between 1912 and 1922 is to interrogate a ‘crisis of (national) identity’ in terms of both ‘self’ and ‘other’. Original conceptual frameworks are supported by ‘new’ methodological approaches. Following the linguistic turn of the ‘new’ political history, this study explores representations of Irish nationalism in Britain in the ‘cultural’ spaces between ‘high politics’ and ‘history from below’: political platforms, texts, and languages. This study investigates the Irish Home Rule and republican movements using underutilised archival sources. The T.P. O’Connor papers, Art Ó Briain papers, and Catholic Herald newspaper series collectively establish a robust archival foundation by which to evaluate the significance of Irish nationalism in Britain during the Irish Revolution. The book is divided into five chapters which chronologically, and thematically, examine Irish nationalism in Britain between 1912 and 1922.