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‘The first of the small nations’: the significance of central European small states in Irish nationalist political rhetoric, 1918–22

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2020

Lili Zách
Lili Zách*
Affiliation:
Maynooth University
*
*Department of History, Maynooth University, Lili.Zach@mu.ie
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Abstract

Offering new insights into Irish links with the wider world, this article explores and contextualises Irish nationalist perceptions of and links with central European small states in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. The belief that any small nation like Ireland, oppressed by a dominant neighbour, had the right to self-determination was of key importance in nationalist political rhetoric during the revolutionary years. Given the similarity of circumstances among newly independent small states, Irish commentators were aware of the struggles Ireland shared with the successors of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Personal encounters on the continent, as well as news regarding small nations in central Europe, shaped Irish opinions of the region. Certainly, the images presented by Irish commentators reflected their own political agendas and were therefore often deliberately idealistic. Nonetheless, they served a specific purpose as they were meant to further Ireland's interest on the international stage. Looking beyond Ireland for lessons and examples to follow became a frequent part of Irish nationalist political rhetoric. By directing scholarly attention to a hitherto less explored aspect of Irish historiography, this article aims to highlight the complexity of Ireland's connection with the continent within the framework of small nations, from a transnational perspective.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 165 , May 2020 , pp. 25 - 40
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Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2020

The significance of small nations remained central to Irish political discourse throughout the first half of the twentieth century, as illustrated by John Redmond's call to fight for the small Catholic nation of Belgium in August 1914 or Éamon de Valera's famous speech at Geneva in July 1936. The stance of advanced Irish nationalists could be best summarised by the final sentence in de Valera's speech as he urged them not to ‘become the tools of any great Power and [to] resist with whatever strength they may possess every attempt to force them into a war against their will’.Footnote 1

In the early-twentieth century many Irish nationalists, moderate or advanced, were convinced that national identity was meaningful only in terms of contrasts. In the case of Ireland, this meant contrasting Ireland and Britain (a small nation versus a great power); defining ‘Irishness’ involved ‘repudiating every possible connection or similarity with England or Englishness’.Footnote 2 Within the context of the British Empire, Irish nationalists often discussed the fate of the Boer small nation while in terms of European parallels, given the perceived similarity of circumstances, Irish commentators frequently argued that Ireland shared the same struggle for national independence as the peoples of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.Footnote 3 Therefore, the multi-ethnic Austria-Hungary attracted considerable attention in Irish political and intellectual circles.Footnote 4 Pre-war discussions were generally concerned with the ‘nationality question’ in Habsburg central Europe and characterised by a strong anti-Hungarian sentiment due the influence of pro-Slav British writers such as the historian Robert William Seton-Watson or Henry Wickham Steed, correspondent of The Times in Vienna.Footnote 5 Seton-Watson had an international reputation, ‘widely recognised as a champion of the rights of Central and Eastern Europe's small nations’.Footnote 6

After the German invasion of Belgium in August 1914, John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, called for support of the British war effort ‘in defence of right, of freedom, of religion in this war’ in order to secure the implementation of home rule for Ireland after the war.Footnote 7 While Redmond's recruitment campaign bitterly divided Irish nationalists leading to a split in the Irish Volunteers, formerly pro-Boer Irish nationalists (Willie Redmond, M.P., Tom Kettle, and Erskine Childers) were ‘hoping that Ireland would benefit from this war on behalf of small nations’.Footnote 8 On the whole, the German attack on Catholic Belgium visibly revived the Irish enthusiasm for defending the universal right of small nations to self-determination.

Late 1918 saw the transformation of the political order across Europe, with a shift from from empires to the emergence of self-declared ‘nation-states’. In Ireland, political attitudes towards other small nations developed. Moreover, while the question of self-determination had remained at the centre of political attention throughout the war, Irish nationalist political rhetoric became more radical after the Easter Rising of 1916.Footnote 9 In late 1918 it was not only Belgium or Serbia that claimed their right to self-determination, so did the small nation of Ireland.

The aim of this article is to move beyond sympathy and explore the changing role of small nations in Irish political rhetoric before the foundation of the Irish Free State. After considering the radicalisation of Irish nationalist politics (with special attention to Sinn Féin) before 1918, the article demonstrates how viewing Ireland within the community of small nations became inseparable from the self-image of independent Ireland. This is followed by an examination of ‘Central European Ulsters’ as perceived by Irish nationalists. The article then illustrates the significance of Irish awareness of the transformation of political order in post-war Europe. This involves exploring Irish references to the rights of small nations in relation to the Paris peace conference as well as during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations. It concludes by highlighting that in order to establish how the Irish Free State became ‘one of the main upholders of the complete independence of the smaller states’ after joining the League of Nations in 1923, the changing role of other small nations in the nationalist Irish imagination needs to be acknowledged.Footnote 10

I

Arthur Griffith's The resurrection of Hungary (Dublin, 1904) was of key importance for Irish nationalists looking at other small nations for inspiration in achieving independence. Having grown disillusioned with the home rule movement and mainstream Irish nationalism represented by the Irish Parliamentary Party, Griffith proposed an alternative way of achieving constitutional independence in Ireland based on the model of a dual monarchy by non-violent, political methods.Footnote 11 Originally published in the United Irishman as a series of articles in 1904 and reprinted twice in Griffith's lifetime (including in 1918), it promoted the idea of political independence and economic self-sufficiency for Ireland.Footnote 12 The policy was finalised in November 1905 with the foundation of the Sinn Féin party at the first annual convention of the National Council. Griffith called for the adoption of a policy of passive resistance (abstention from Westminster) and economic protectionism based on the models he borrowed from recent Hungarian and German history, propagated by the Hungarian politician Ferenc Deák and the German-American economist Friedrich List, respectively.Footnote 13 The aim of passive resistance in Ireland was to reach a similar constitutional settlement to the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy, following the 1867 Compromise (Ausgleich/Kiegyezés). Abstention from Westminster was directed first and foremost towards the Irish Parliamentary Party who took their seats in parliament. However, by the time Griffith's proposal was eventually adopted, the Sinn Féin he had founded had moved to a more radical position. At the 1917 Ard Fheis, under the presidency of Éamon de Valera, Sinn Féin had officially committed itself to the establishment of an independent Irish republic, moving beyond Griffith's original idea of a Hungarian-style dual monarchy. Most of its members sought to set up an alternative assembly, Dáil Éireann, which went hand in hand with an armed struggle for complete independence. Several elements of Griffith's original thesis, including the policy of abstention and economic independence for Ireland, remained central issues even after the radicalisation of the party. The most significant difference between the original 1904 version of The resurrection of Hungary and the third edition in 1918 was that the latter was part of Sinn Féin's propaganda for the general election in December 1918, and as such, it contained a powerful preface written by Griffith. As Patrick Murray has noted, the impact of The resurrection of Hungary is demonstrated by the fact that withdrawing Irish representatives from Westminster eventually became ‘the cornerstone’ of the reformed and more radical Sinn Féin policy.Footnote 14

Nonetheless, the historical accuracy of Griffith's analysis may be considered questionable. David G. Haglund and Umut Korkut claimed that Griffith was largely mistaken to assume that Hungary could serve as a model for Ireland.Footnote 15 Moreover, Donal McCartney emphasised that Griffith ‘read history for its political lessons’, while Brian Maye and Michael Laffan stressed that the The resurrection of Hungary was primarily a propagandist, rather than a historical, text and in that regard it was most certainly successful.Footnote 16 Interestingly, Laffan claimed that, with a few exceptions, Griffith's Sinn Féiners did not look beyond Ireland ‘to see how other societies conducted their affairs’.Footnote 17 Laffan's literal interpretation of ‘Sinn Féin amháin’ is isolationist and seems to overlook the fact that, as Maye argued, Griffith ‘was a Europhile long before the idea of close European co-operation gained currency’.Footnote 18 Maye emphasised that Griffith's newspapers, including the United Irishman and Sinn Féin, included a considerable number of articles on European countries similar to Ireland. Awareness of and contact with these small nations were not considered to threaten a separate Irish identity. Griffith claimed that ‘it was from the little countries Ireland must learn the way to steer her course’, which indicated the new direction he imagined for Irish nationalism; an outward-looking, self-sufficient, independent Ireland.Footnote 19 Furthermore, Sinn Féin's campaign for the general election of December 1918 also demonstrated an increased awareness of the history and current status of small nations in Europe – again, with a very specific purpose. As early as 1917, in a pamphlet entitled Small nations, Sinn Féin had already ‘pointed towards the peaceful way of a wider European application which, via the example of smaller Nations, should also be appropriate for Ireland’.Footnote 20 The significance of references to other small nations rests in the perceived parallel between the Irish struggle for independence and that of other nationalities in Habsburg central Europe, dwelling on a number of questions such as language movements, religious and ethnic minorities and economic independence. Because of his belief in cultural nationalism, Griffith actually explained why ‘the Magyars’ treatment of Hungary's minorities … did not deflect him in the slightest from the conviction that Hungary resided on the side of the angels in international politics’.Footnote 21 Griffith also laid great emphasis on the fact that the Irish were ‘an ancient, cultured European people’, when providing parallels with Hungary.Footnote 22 As Stephen Howe noted, even though Griffith had been a supporter of the Boer republics, he was against comparisons between the Irish experience and that of ‘other, non-European subject peoples in the British Empire and beyond’, mostly on racial grounds, similarly to Douglas Hyde and Erskine Childers.Footnote 23

II

Before the end of the Great War in 1918, several articles and studies had been published in Ireland, weighing up the possibilities regarding the future of the multi-ethnic dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary. The many-faceted ‘minority problem’, noticed by Irish thinkers, included a wide range of issues: the conflicting interests of Czechs and Germans in Bohemia; the quest for reviving Polish statehood in the shadow of the Prussian, Austrian and Russian empires; the challenges that the Uniate Ruthenian peasantry had to fight off from their Catholic Polish landowners; the lack of political rights among the considerable Romanian population of Hungarian Transylvania; and the relationship between large numbers of the Southern Slav population and their Austro-Hungarian rulers.Footnote 24

Bohemia was at the centre of Irish attention in many regards, mostly due to the perceived similarity in terms of the ‘minority problem’ in the region, resulting in references to a ‘Bohemian Ulster’. In other words, historically speaking, some Irish writers regarded the rule of German-speaking minority in Bohemia over the ethnic Czechs as comparable to the position of the Protestant Anglo-Irish ascendancy, rather than the majority of the Catholic Irish population:

Bohemia is extremely interesting for Ireland, because you would imagine you were reading Irish history when you were reading the history of Bohemia. … In Bohemia there is also an ‘Ulster’, consisting of Germans, who claim to be the superior race, and who for generations have dominated and tyrannised over the Bohemians.Footnote 25

The words of the moderate nationalist Freeman's Journal indicate that in Ireland, not only advanced or radical nationalists but also the mainstream nationalist press drew parallels between Ireland and Bohemia, arguing that the majority of both of their populations had to live under ‘the tyranny of minority’.Footnote 26 Moreover, on occasion, Bohemia's Ulster question was considered to be ‘in even more aggravated form than Ireland’.Footnote 27 Writing in the Jesuit quarterly Studies, the nationalist politician and lawyer John Horgan also noted that having trouble in Ulster was nothing when compared to ‘Bohemia with its German “Ulster” population’.Footnote 28

The Freeman's Journal frequently labelled the German-speaking part of Bohemia as ‘A German Ulster’ where its leaders, Bohemia's ‘Carsonites’, were stated to have kept the majority of the population in subjection.Footnote 29 The Bohemian nobility was compared to the followers of (Dublin-born) unionist leader Edward Carson, who, according to his biographers, may be ‘seen as an architect of … the partition settlement of 1920’.Footnote 30 Curiously, it was not always German-speaking Bohemians who were compared to Carsonites. In an article in the Freeman's Journal from October 1918, the Hungarians were cast in the role of the ‘alien minority’ that ruled over the majority of the population: ‘Austria, like England’, claimed the paper, ‘has its Carsonites in the Magyars’.Footnote 31 Therefore, Hungary was often perceived in a less favourable light than Austria. It was even labelled ‘the savage oppressor of Bohemia’, although Bohemia was part of the empire's Cisleithanian region which was under Austrian and not Hungarian rule.Footnote 32 At times, this aversion to Hungary mirrored moderate nationalists’ criticism of Sinn Féin, especially in the second half of 1918. Then, Bohemia seemed to have become, on occasion, an alternative parallel that the Irish Parliamentary Party could use coming up to the general election in December 1918. As the Freeman's Journal stressed, Bohemians, ‘an oppressed small nation like our own’, were ‘certainly entitled to more serious attention than the famous “Hungarian policy”’.Footnote 33

When discussing the special case of German minorities in Europe, the other major nationalist Irish daily, the Irish Independent, stressed that there were ‘strong points of resemblance’ between the Irish Ulster and the continental Ulsters, noting that the Ulster question seemed to ‘settle itself in every country except Ireland’.Footnote 34 It also appeared to be aware of the problematic nature of the Ulster question, and the possible complications it could cause Ireland at the post-war peace conference. Together with the nationality question in Bohemia, Finland, and Alsace, Ireland's remained unsolved. The newspaper emphasised one point though; for Ireland, partition was unacceptable.Footnote 35

Consequently, before the end of the war, both advanced and moderate nationalists used the concept of ‘Bohemian Ulster’ in their arguments. The Irish Parliamentary Party's T. P. O'Connor, journalist and politician, likened not only the Bohemian ‘minority problem’ to the Ulster question, but also the case of Bosnia Herzegovina with its ‘Christian-Mohammedan’ division; that of Alsace-Lorraine, on the border of France and Germany; and that of Russian Poland.Footnote 36 As for Bosnia Herzegovina and the Southern Slavs in general, their unification following the Russian Revolution and the collapse of Austria-Hungary was generally welcomed by the Irish nationalist press. However, even with the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (officially only on 1 December 1918), it was considered ‘not unsafe to predict that no Balkan “Ulster” will be allowed to interfere with the unity and liberation of the Southern Slavs’ eventually.Footnote 37

Moreover, Irish nationalists also criticised the British government for their policy regarding Ulster, and pointed out that the British were ‘aware of the very close parallel that [existed] between the Czecho-Slovaks and the Irish’, yet they only spoke up for the right of Czecho-Slovaks to an independent state.Footnote 38 The Freeman's Journal regularly published pieces in the second half of 1918, wondering why Britain would object to ‘applying a solution along similar lines to the real and original Ulster’ when they had ‘apparently found a solution for Bohemia's Ulster’, alluding to the British support Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (first president of the First Czechoslovak Republic) had enjoyed throughout and after the war.Footnote 39 On the other hand, the Irish Independent also mentioned that the Austrian premier had reminded the British government to ‘sweep before their own door’ before they started pointing to the ‘Austrian Ulster’.Footnote 40

Patrick J. Gannon was among the Irish intellectuals who compared Bohemia's German nobility to that of ‘“Ulster” and its alien landlord caste’ in the December 1918 issue of Studies. Footnote 41 Gannon claimed that Czechoslovak independence ‘should have peculiar interest for Irishmen’, referring to the controversial attitude of British statesmen who supported Czech claims but ‘kept Ireland unfree’.Footnote 42 He pointed to the uncertain fate of Bohemian Germans after the peace conference, knowing the problematic nature of their own ‘Ulster question’.Footnote 43 Consequently, Irish journalists, intellectuals and politicians were aware of the fact that the birth of independent small states on the former empire's territory was not without difficulties. ‘These new nations, it would be idle to deny, have not only the tradition of hostility to their old masters,’ claimed the Freeman's Journal, ‘but are fired by fierce mutual rivalries and conflicting ambitions and aspirations.’Footnote 44 The article, entitled ‘The “Ulsters” of Central Europe’, showed that Irish nationalists paid close attention to the region and the potential lessons it could offer for Ireland even after independence was declared. The Boundary Commission's interest in post-war central European boundary settlements also indicated this.Footnote 45

III

The general election of December 1918 turned out to be the perfect opportunity for Sinn Féin to capitalise on the wave of public sympathy that had been building up since the executions and imprisonments of the Easter Rising in 1916. This support became even more widespread following the conscription crisis and the alleged ‘German plot’ in May 1918.Footnote 46 Due to the initial successes of the German spring offensive in March 1918, Britain was pressed to extend conscription in Ireland (as it had already been in effect in Britain since 1916), which was met by large-scale opposition across the spectrum of Irish nationalist politics and was frequently labelled as ‘blood tax’ or ‘blood pact’ by the Freeman's Journal and the Irish Independent. As Sinn Féin were the loudest opponents of conscription, Dublin Castle decided to take steps against them, and had seventy-three prominent leaders arrested in May 1918. This, however, only resulted in even wider public support for Sinn Féin. Since moderate leaders such as Griffith were in prison, the party went through another phase of radicalisation, which explains the changed rhetoric of Sinn Féin in 1918, even in terms of their attitude to the independence of small nations.

Despite the shared opposition of Sinn Féin and the Freeman's Journal to conscription, the growing public support for the party had been consistently triggering loud opposition from the moderate nationalist daily. As supporters of home rule and the Irish Parliamentary Party, the paper criticised Sinn Féin's policy of abstentionism (labelled ‘Mr. Arthur Griffith's Hungarian nonsense’).Footnote 47 According to the paper, ‘fantastic as was the “Hungarian Policy,” [Sinn Féin's] new variant of it revealed a simplicity of mind that would be refreshing, were its authors not juggling with the destinies of a nation’.Footnote 48 Moreover, founder and editor of The Leader, D. P. Moran, one of the best known advocates of the Irish Irelanders’ Catholic Gaelic ethno-cultural nationalism, was also highly doubtful of the validity of Griffith's Hungarian parallel.Footnote 49 He called Griffith and his party the ‘Green Hungarian band’, ridiculing and condemning them for sacrificing the Irish national character.Footnote 50 Therefore, Sinn Féin's idea of Irish independence did not enjoy overwhelming popularity in Irish nationalist circles before 1918 and received much criticism from their political opponents, who often labelled them as ‘rainbow chasers’.Footnote 51

In the months leading up to December 1918, constitutional nationalists voiced their criticism of Sinn Féin and their views on the importance of central European parallels along the following lines. Firstly, the Freeman's Journal condemned Griffith's positive attitude towards the Central Powers, alluding to 1916 and the connection of some radicals with Germany (for instance, Roger Casement). The paper emphasised that being on good terms with the Germans and Austrians, who aimed to ‘belittle, as far as possible, the rights of small nationalities’, might endanger Ireland's future.Footnote 52

Secondly, the members of the Irish Parliamentary Party frequently ridiculed Sinn Féin's insistence on passive resistance. In December 1918, John Dillon urged his followers to note that Poland, Bohemia and the Jugo Slavs won their liberty and continued to sit in their respective imperial parliaments till the final days of the empire. Should these newly liberated nations listen to Sinn Féin, they were to ‘conclude that the Irish people are lunatics, that they don't know what they are talking about, and they don't understand how to govern themselves’.Footnote 53 The policy's impracticability was pointed out on several occasions and the newspaper argued that ‘the policy was tried in Hungary and failed’.Footnote 54 The Freeman's Journal emphasised that it was the military defeat Austria suffered from Prussia at the battle of Sadowa (1866) that drove them towards the Compromise.Footnote 55 In contrast with the Hungarians, it reminded its readers, the Croats and Bohemians continued to send their representatives to the Austrian and Hungarian parliaments and used their presence and agitation there to successfully claim their independence.Footnote 56

Thirdly, Griffith's imprecision and (lack of) historical knowledge regarding Hungarian issues did not go unnoticed among his contemporaries. As early as September 1917, the Freeman's Journal urged Sinn Féin leaders ‘to study history more extensively and apply it more correctly and intelligently’.Footnote 57 At the meeting of the United Irish League in Armagh, P. C. Gallagher used the same argument. He believed it was a serious responsibility for any group to ‘garble historical facts, and try to get our people to misappreciate the real state of affairs’.Footnote 58 Consequently, the Hungarian parallel was deemed inappropriate and false on several occasions – and not only by moderate nationalists. For instance, Alexander McGill, an Ulster Presbyterian called for consideration of the connections between Ireland and Iceland as they were ‘much closer than that of Hungary, to which Mr. Arthur Griffith drew attention’.Footnote 59 A similar tone may have be detected in The Leader; ‘Oul-Lad’, writing in January 1918, emphasised the ‘absurdity, not to say dishonesty, of the whole campaign carried on by these rainbow-chasers’.Footnote 60 The emergence of independent small states in late 1918, however, validated the feasibility of Sinn Féin's claims, demonstrating that recovering the sovereignty and independence of a small nation like Ireland was indeed a realistic political aim.

In light of other small states’ declarations of independence, Sinn Féin fully embraced the case of self-determination during their campaign for the general election of 1918. The most significant points on the party's agenda demanded a sovereign Irish republic, condemned conscription, and denounced British oppression.Footnote 61 A large number of election pamphlets depicted Ireland as a self-sufficient small nation, claiming independence, making comparisons with other small nations on the continent regarding territory, population, and national income.Footnote 62 Many of them bore titles such as: ‘Can Ireland stand alone?’, detailing the importance of small nations in historical terms.Footnote 63 Ireland was contrasted with the newly independent small nations of Estonia, Finland, Czecho-Slovakia, Jugo-Slavs, Poland, and Lithuania, as well as Hungary, Russia, Germany, and Austria.Footnote 64 The latter, it was stressed, became a republic, with its subject peoples made free.Footnote 65 The pamphlets claimed that Ireland – although ‘larger than many and older than most of these named – [had] not been assured of absolute independence because its people have not yet definitely asked for full freedom’.Footnote 66 According to Sinn Féin, there was a lot more at stake at the elections than victory for the party. Independence (as opposed to home rule – which even the Czecho-Slovaks and Jugo-Slavs were claimed to have refused) was the foremost item on Ireland's political agenda, and Sinn Féin urged their supporters to vote accordingly.Footnote 67 What the Irish Parliamentary Party had to offer was not sufficient. Sinn Féin's pamphlets drew attention to the controversial claims of constitutionalists such as John Dillon, who was criticised for demanding full independence for European small nations, while ‘the only Nation the absolute independence of which [he fought against was] his own Nation – IRELAND’.Footnote 68 However, small nations – including the small nation of Ireland – moved beyond playing only the role of victim; Sinn Féin found it crucial to state openly that ‘The Irish Republic Can Pay Its Way’, emphasising their capabilities and self-sufficiency, motivating Irish voters to demand change.Footnote 69

Half a year before Sinn Féin's general election campaign John Dillon used the very same line of argument regarding the self-determination of small nations, illustrating that the Ulster question was a central point on the Irish political agenda following the inconclusive end of the Irish Convention. Dillon, who had recently become the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, claimed that in order to settle the Irish conflict, Britain's priority had to be Ireland, instead of wondering about the fate of subject nationalities in Austria-Hungary (such as the Poles, Czecho-Slovaks or the Jugo Slavs). He demanded to know, ‘do you not know that there is an Ulster question in Ireland?’:

Do you think that this is not all followed closely in Ireland? Do you suppose that Irish people do not say to themselves: ‘What about the Czecho-Slovaks, about whom many of us never heard before?’ … What about Ireland, who is more ancient than any of them, and whose struggle for nationality has been unquestionably more persistent than that either of the Czecho-Slovaks or even the Poles?Footnote 70

In comparison, the Sinn Féin wording shows remarkable resemblance to Dillon's arguments:

The Czecho-Slovaks are demanding independence.

Nobody is quite sure who the Czecho-Slovaks are. But the whole world knows who the Irish are and would wonder if that ancient race did not demand independence. Cannot you be as true to Ireland as the Czecho-Slovaks to Czecho-Slovakia?Footnote 71

Therefore, Dillon's claims coincided almost word-for-word with many of the Sinn Féin election pamphlets although their plans for Ireland's future (writing in 1918) could not have differed more, with the Irish Party proposing home rule within the empire, in contrast with Sinn Féin's claims for an independent Irish republic.

In the immediate aftermath of the general election, a regular contributor to the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, James MacCaffrey, demanded that self-determination be ‘applied to Ireland in the same way as it was to be applied to other oppressed nationalities; or should Ireland throw herself at the mercy of English statesmen’. ‘The results of the elections’, claimed MacCaffrey, ‘supplied the verdict of the people’, referring to Sinn Féin's victory.Footnote 72 Therefore, by the end of 1918 the importance of self-preservation as a small nation was an argument often raised not only in political debates but also by the Catholic intelligentsia. Overall, gaining international recognition as an independent, sovereign state was the most urgent priority for Irish nationalists. An anonymous author under the pseudonym ‘Dun Cairin’, writing in Studies, echoed Sinn Féin's demands, and emphasised the strong national spirit of Ireland throughout her history and her inalienable right to self-determination.Footnote 73 The tone of the outspoken Catholic Bulletin was harsher than that of Studies and more in accordance with the fierce claims of some of the Sinn Féin election pamphlets, due to the stance of the editor, J. J. O'Kelly (Sceilg), who was a republican and a member of Sinn Féin. Political changes in central Europe often featured in the Catholic Bulletin, even though this outspoken monthly was not primarily concerned with politics but rather devoted its attention to a great variety of topics including literature, history, religion, and social questions.Footnote 74 M. Quinn compared Czecho-Slovak and Yugo-Slav independence with the Irish claims for freedom, rejected by the great powers. The author chose them because, he pointed out sarcastically, they had been ‘selected by the liberators of small nations’ – independence was their national right.Footnote 75 He claimed that ‘one of the nations – our own – is much more ancient than Christianity itself’ and ‘more ancient … in a definitely organised political and national existence’, suggesting the priority of Irish independence over any others, especially in east-central Europe.Footnote 76 Similarly, a sarcastic cartoon entitled ‘Up with the Slovaks: the Balkans, abú!’, published in the Irish-Irelander The Leader, echoed the sentiments of Sinn Féin and the Catholic Bulletin, covering almost the whole spectrum of Irish nationalists.Footnote 77 The contributors to The Leader found the comparison between Bohemia and Ireland hardly worthy of mention. As the paper argued, ‘but surely the parallel is a weak one’, alluding to the differences in ethnicity, language and question of autonomy.Footnote 78

IV

Following Sinn Féin's election victory and the opening of the First Dáil Éireann in January 1919, the Irish republican leadership had an overall outward-looking attitude, also illustrated by the early attempts at making contacts with other states, great and small. In addition to sending delegates to the Paris peace conference, ‘roaming’ Sinn Féin envoys were entrusted with disseminating propaganda on the continent and gaining external recognition for the independent Irish republic.Footnote 79 Undoubtedly, the ‘Message to the Free Nations of the World’ that accompanied the Declaration of Independence clearly highlighted the connection between Irish nationhood and ‘the sweeping redrawing of the map of Europe’.Footnote 80

Campaigning for the recognition of Ireland as an independent, sovereign state, Irish envoys Seán T. Ó Ceallaigh (a future president of Ireland) and George Gavan Duffy (minister for foreign affairs between January and July 1922) had hoped to present a document to the Paris peace conference.Footnote 81 They were in a difficult position since the great powers at Versailles refused to hear out Irish claims. In their memorandum, the Irish delegation quoted the words of American President Woodrow Wilson: ‘peace should rest upon the rights of peoples … – the rights of peoples great or small, weak or powerful – their equal right to freedom and security and self-government’.Footnote 82 Despite their efforts, the Irish delegates did not get the same attention as, for instance, Czechoslovakia, which benefited from the British support that Tomáš Masaryk had enjoyed throughout the war.Footnote 83

Undoubtedly, advanced Irish nationalists found Wilson's fourteen points (outlined as part of his speech to the United States Congress on war aims and peace terms on 8 January 1918) to be of central importance, focusing on the principles of nationality and of national sovereignty. While Wilson advocated the principle of self-determination for the peoples of east-central Europe, he was not in favour of Austria-Hungary's disintegration.Footnote 84 And even though the Central Powers officially rejected his suggestions in January 1918, small nations across Europe (including Ireland) still based their claims on the fourteen points at the peace conference a year later. There was a stark contrast between the Hungarian and Irish demands, though; the Irish pleaded for the recognition of their national sovereignty while the Hungarian claims focused on the territorial integrity of their new state and the fate of Hungarian minorities outside the newly drawn borders of the successor state. The winning powers eventually rejected both the Irish and Hungarian pleas. However, as Leonard V. Smith highlighted, the peace conference legitimised the concepts of self-determination, sovereignty and the ‘identity of the successor state’ in the new international word order.Footnote 85

In January 1919 Arthur Griffith still emphasised the ‘propagandistic and tactical nature of stressing faith in Wilson’ and his ‘programme of freedom for all nations and struggling against all the forces of tyranny, imperialism and lusty world power’.Footnote 86 It was not until June 1919 that the Irish delegation in Paris confirmed that there was no doubt that Wilson considered the Irish question to be a ‘domestic’ issue for the British Empire. In his letter dated 15 June 1919, Seán T. Ó Ceallaigh established that the Irish delegation had ‘little or nothing to hope from Wilson's efforts’ on their behalf.Footnote 87

V

The truce ending the Anglo-Irish War, agreed in July 1921, marked a new phase in terms of the role of small nations in Irish political rhetoric. It was Erskine Childers, well-known supporter of small nations since the Boer War, who placed the question of Irish national sovereignty once again in a wider international context.Footnote 88 In his memorandum of July 1921, he stressed that for all small nations, including Ireland, independence and neutrality were top priorities. Speaking from a republican (Sinn Féin) point of view, he emphasised: ‘weak as we are strategically, our free preference is to stand alone, like the vast majority of small nations, with complete independent control of our own territory, … neutral in all wars, and devoted to peaceful development’.Footnote 89 It is clear that the official correspondence during the Anglo-Irish peace negotiations (June-September 1921) demonstrated the importance of small states for Irish politicians. On several occasions in his letters to Lloyd George, Éamon de Valera compared the Irish right to freedom with the internationally acknowledged sovereignty of other small states in Europe, especially when their independence was under threat from a powerful neighbour.Footnote 90 Similarly, the under-secretary for foreign affairs, Robert Brennan used the example of small states threatened by their powerful, imperial neighbours when arguing in August 1921 that the crisis in north-east Ulster was created purposefully to serve English interests.Footnote 91 As the case of Catholic Belgium showed in 1914, contrasting the rights of small nations with the aggression of great power had been a common argument made in moderate Irish nationalist discourse as well, and not only by republicans during the Irish struggle for independence.

Shortly after signing the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6 December 1921, George Gavan Duffy highlighted an issue of key importance as far as the connection between the new Irish state and other small nations was concerned, referring to the legitimacy that the Irish Free State had recently gained – a point also emphasised more recently by Diarmaid Ferriter.Footnote 92 The subtitle of Gavan Duffy's report (‘The first of the small nations’) depicts the imagined Irish path and the role of small nations associated with it, placing the newly created, internationally recognised and lawful Irish Free State in a transformed international context:

‘The first of the small nations’

No country ever started its international career with better prospects than were ours after the war, for our soldiers had won us warm friends everywhere, and we had no enemies to speak of throughout the Continent of Europe. Ireland had every reason to expect rapidly to become recognised as the First of the Small Nations. It would, however, be idle to gloss over the fact that we have lost our prestige in recent months. … If we are to retrieve the splendid position we held, we must take steps at home without delay to prove that we are a Nation and not a rabble.Footnote 93

It is important to note that although fighting for the rights of small nations has been generally associated with 1914, the issue remained closely linked to the question of sovereignty in Irish nationalist discourse well beyond the war years. While both moderate and advanced nationalists relied on the significance of small nations when constructing arguments about Irish independence, Sinn Féin's victory at the general election of December 1918 marked a clear shift in favour of radical nationalist and republican rhetoric. This article has illustrated how perceptions had shifted from overwhelming sympathy towards presenting contrasting images of independence, focusing on the legitimacy of Irish claims. This was due not only to the radicalisation of Irish public opinion and political thought following the Easter Rising but also due to the transformation of the political status quo on the continent. Therefore, Irish parallels were inseparable from the concept of self-determination as an inalienable right of small nations throughout the period: general references turned into concrete comparisons in 1918, with particular emphasis on the sovereignty of small states in the post-war world order.

Defining its relationship with the wider world and gaining international recognition was a priority for independent Ireland (first for the Irish republic and after 1922 for the Irish Free State).Footnote 94 Since a significant element of nationalist Irish self-perception was ‘the contribution Ireland could make to the rest of the world’, this had a great impact on Irish identity building throughout the inter-war years as well.Footnote 95 As diplomat Michael MacWhite emphasised, painting the picture of a positive, forward-looking small Irish state: ‘unlike the British Dominions, Ireland [was] a European State, which after a forced absence of several centuries [was] about to take her place again in the comity of nations’.Footnote 96

Discussing central European boundary issues in parallel with the ‘Ulster problem’ remained a recurring theme in Irish accounts well after the final settlement of the Irish border and the decision of the Irish Boundary Commission (or the lack thereof) in 1925. Borderland regions such as the Sudetenland, Silesia, Ruthenia, Transylvania, and the South Tyrol were frequently discussed in inter-war Irish nationalist writings, due to their controversial territorial issues and border questions.Footnote 97 This article has highlighted that during the revolutionary period, Irish intellectuals, politicians and journalists paid close attention to central European small nations, many of whom they perceived to have been living under the rule of ‘alien minorities’, demonstrating their often deliberately idealistic political agendas. References to these ‘central European Ulsters’ may add to our current understanding of the role of propaganda and Irish political rhetoric at a time of change. They may also illustrate the validity of the path that Griffith had originally imagined: an outward-looking, independent Ireland.Footnote 98

References

1 Éamon de Valera's speech at the assembly of the league in Geneva, 2 July 1936 (U.C.D.A., Éamon de Valera papers, P150/2806); Speeches and statements by Eamon de Valera, 1917–73, ed. Maurice Moynihan (Dublin, 1980), pp 282–5.

2 Pašeta, Senia, Before the revolution: nationalism, social change and Ireland's Catholic elite, 1879–1922 (Cork, 1999), p. 153Google Scholar; Hutchinson, John, ‘Cultural nationalism, elite mobility and nation-building: communitarian politics in Modern Ireland’ in Hutchinson, John and Smith, Anthony D. (eds), Nationalism: critical concepts in political science (5 vols, London, 1987), ii, 483Google Scholar; McMahon, Timothy G., Grand opportunity: the Gaelic revival and Irish society, 1893–1910 (Syracuse, 2008), p. 215Google Scholar.

3 While seeking parallels with the ‘oppressed nations’ of the Austro-Hungarian Empire dominated pre-war Irish nationalist accounts, recent historiography has challenged persistent presumptions associated with viewing the empire as ‘the prison of the peoples’. See Pieter Judson, The Habsburg Empire: a new history (Cambridge, MA, 2016), p. 444.

4 For detailed analyses on the link between the empire and the Irish nationalist dailies, compare Patrick Maume, ‘The Irish Independent and empire, 1891–1919' in Simon J. Potter (ed.), Newspapers and empire in Ireland and Britain: reporting the British Empire, c.1857–1921 (Dublin, 2004), pp 182–219; Felix M. Larkin, ‘The dog in the night-time: the Freeman's Journal, the Irish Parliamentary Party and the empire, 1875–1919’ in ibid., pp 109–23.

5 Henry Wickham Steed, rev. R. J. W. Evans, ‘Watson, Robert William Seton- (1879–1951)’ in O.D.N.B.

6 László Péter, ‘R. W. Seton-Watson's changing views on the national question of the Habsburg monarchy and the European balance of power’ in Slavonic and East European Review, lxxxii, no. 3 (July 2004), p. 655.

7 Irish Independent, 21 Sept. 1914.

8 Mary Harris, ‘Aspects of nationalism and anti-imperialism in Ireland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries’ in Mary Harris, Anna Agnarsdóttir and Csaba Lévai (eds), Global encounters, European identities (Pisa, 2010), p. 179; M. A. Hopkinson, ‘Childers, (Robert) Erskine (1870–1922)’ in D.I.B.; Senia Pašeta, ‘Thomas Kettle: “an Irish soldier in the army of Europe”?’ in Adrian Gregory and Senia Pašeta (eds), Ireland and the Great War: ‘a war to unite us all?’ (Manchester, 2002), p. 13.

9 Michael Laffan, The resurrection of Ireland: the Sinn Féin party, 1916–1923 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 260.

10 Gerard Keown, ‘Creating an Irish foreign policy in the 1930s’ in Michael Kennedy and Joseph Morrison Skelly (eds), Irish foreign policy 1919–1966: from independence to internationalism (Dublin, 2000), p. 27.

11 Brian Maye, Arthur Griffith (Dublin, 1997), p. 97; David G. Haglund and Umut Korkut, ‘Going against the flow: Sinn Féin's unusual Hungarian “roots”’ in International History Review, xxxvii, no. 1 (2015), pp 49, 55.

12 Patrick Murray, ‘Introduction’ in Arthur Griffith, The resurrection of Hungary (1904; repr. Dublin, 2003), p. xii.

13 Donal McCartney, ‘The political use of history in the work of Arthur Griffith’ in Journal of Contemporary History, viii, no. 1 (Jan. 1973), p. 16.

14 Murray, ‘Introduction’, p. xvi.

15 Haglund and Korkut, ‘Going against the flow’, pp 41, 43, 50.

16 McCartney, ‘The political use of history’, p. 8; Maye, Arthur Griffith, p. 99; Michael Laffan, ‘Griffith, Arthur Joseph (1871–1922)’ in D.I.B.; idem, Resurrection of Ireland, p. 223.

17 Laffan, Resurrection of Ireland, p. 223.

18 Maye, Arthur Griffith, p. 4.

19 Laffan, ‘Griffith, Arthur Joseph (1871–1922)’.

20 Thomas Kabdebo, Ireland and Hungary: a study in parallels, with an Arthur Griffith bibliography (Dublin, 2001), p. 45.

21 Haglund and Korkut, ‘Going against the flow’, pp 52–3.

22 Stephen Howe, Ireland and empire: colonial legacies in Irish history and culture (Oxford, 2000), pp 44–5.

23 Ibid., pp 44–5, 56; McCartney, ‘The political use of history’, p. 8; Terence Denman, ‘“The red livery of shame”: the campaign against army recruitment in Ireland, 1899–1914’ in I.H.S., xxix, no. 114 (Nov. 1994), pp 212, 217; Keith Jeffery, ‘The Irish military tradition and the British Empire’ in idem (ed.), ‘An Irish empire’? Aspects of Ireland and the British Empire (Manchester, 1996), p. 96.

24 J. M. O'Sullivan, ‘The problem of Poland’ in Studies, vi, no. 21 (1917), p. 84; M. F. E., rev. of R. W. Seton-Watson, German, Slav, and Magyar: a study in the origins of the Great War in Studies, vi, no. 22 (June 1917), p. 336; Arthur E. Clery, ‘The Gaelic League, 1893–1919’ in Studies, viii, no. 31 (Sept. 1919), p. 399; P. J. C., rev. of Modern Austria: her racial and social problems in Studies, v, no. 18, (June 1916), p. 307; Darley Dale, ‘Roumania’ in Irish Ecclesiastical Record, ser. 5, ix (Jan.– June 1917), p. 46.

25 Freeman's Journal, 16 Aug. 1918.

26 Ibid., 3 July 1918.

27 Ibid., 21 Oct. 1918.

28 John J. Horgan, ‘The world policy of President Wilson’ in Studies, vii, no. 28 (Dec. 1918), p. 562.

29 Freeman's Journal, 25 Jan., 25 July 1918.

30 Alvin Jackson, ‘Carson, Edward Henry (1854–1935), Baron Carson of Duncairn’ in D.I.B.

31 Freeman's Journal, 21 Oct. 1918.

32 Ibid., 12 Nov. 1918.

33 Ibid.

34 Irish Independent, 2 Dec. 1918.

35 Ibid., 8 Sept. 1917.

36 Freeman's Journal, 6 Nov. 1918.

37 Ibid., 12 Nov. 1918.

38 Ibid., 30 July, 16 Aug. 1918.

39 Irish Independent, 20 Oct. 1915, 30 Nov. 1918; Freeman's Journal, 4 Sept. 1918.

40 Irish Independent, 10 Oct. 1918.

41 Patrick J. Gannon, ‘Bohemia and its Ulster question’ in Studies, vii, no. 28 (Dec. 1918), p. 651.

42 Ibid., p. 645.

43 Ibid.

44 Freeman's Journal, 3 June 1919.

45 For a detailed assessment of the importance of central European precedents (with special attention to Silesia, Schleswig-Holstein, Klagenfurt and Burgenland) in the work of the North-Eastern Boundary Bureau and the Boundary Commission, see Lili Zách, ‘Central European border settlements and interwar Ireland: a transnational study of the North-Eastern Boundary Bureau and the Boundary Commission’ in Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino / Contributions to Contemporary History (Nov. 2017), pp 12–25.

46 Ben Novick, Conceiving revolution: Irish nationalist propaganda during the First World War (Dublin, 2001), p. 240; Laffan, Resurrection of Ireland, p. 143; Freeman's Journal, 13 Apr., 7 May, 21 Oct. 1918; Irish Independent, 17 May 1918.

47 Freeman's Journal, 22 Sept. 1917.

48 Ibid., 7 Nov. 1917.

49 Frank Shovlin, The Irish literary periodical (Oxford, 2003), p. 2; Patrick Maume, ‘Moran, David Patrick (‘D. P.’) (1869–1936)’ in D.I.B.; Hugh F. Kearney, Ireland: contested ideas of nationalism and history (New York, 2007), p. 74.

50 The origins of the expression ‘Green Hungarian band’ were discussed in the aftermath of the Easter Rising in May 1916, referring to the musicians known as the ‘Blue Hungarian band’. See ‘Current affairs’ in The Leader, 27 May 1916; McCartney, ‘The political use of history’, p. 12; Murray, ‘Introduction’, p. xiv; McMahon, Grand opportunity, p. 5.

51 Darragh Gannon, ‘The rise of the rainbow chasers: advanced Irish political nationalism in Britain, 1916–22’ in Éire-Ireland, xlix, nos 3 & 4, (fall/winter 2014), p. 116.

52 Freeman's Journal, 18 Sept. 1917.

53 Ibid., 2 Dec. 1918.

54 Ibid., 10 Dec. 1918.

55 Róisín Healy, ‘Inventing eastern Europe in Ireland, 1848–1918’ in Anuarul Institutului de Cercetări Socio-Umane »Gheorghe Şincai« al Academiei Române [The Yearbook of the ‘Gheorghe Sincai’ Institute for Social Sciences and the Humanities of the Romanian Academy], no. 12 (2009), p. 114.

56 Ibid.

57 Freeman's Journal, 22 Sept. 1917.

58 Ibid., 24 Oct. 1917.

59 Irish Independent, 19 Sept. 1921.

60 The Leader, 26 Jan. 1918.

61 Laffan, Resurrection of Ireland, p. 163.

62 ‘The small nations’, 1918 (N.L.I., Sinn Féin pamphlets, ILB 300 P1, no. 16).

63 ‘Can Ireland stand alone?’, 1918 (N.L.I., Sinn Féin pamphlets, ILB 300 P1, no. 1).

64 ‘Irishmen look around you’, 1918 (N.L.I., Sinn Féin pamphlets, ILB 300 P1, no. 104); ‘The Czecho-Slovaks are to-day as free as the English’, 1918 (N.L.I., Sinn Féin pamphlets, ILB 300 P1, no. 87); ‘What will you vote for?’, 1918 (N.L.I., Sinn Féin pamphlets, ILB 300 P1, no. 80).

65 ‘What of Ireland?’, 1918 (N.L.I., Sinn Féin pamphlets, ILB 300 P1, no. 79).

66 Ibid.

67 ‘No home rule’, 1918 (N.L.I., Sinn Féin pamphlets, ILB 300 P1, no. 91).

68 ‘Mr. Dillon wants to see’, 1918 (N.L.I., Sinn Féin pamphlets, ILB 300 P1, no. 134).

69 ‘How Ireland is gagged’, 1918 (N.L.I., Sinn Féin pamphlets, ILB 300 P1, no. 78).

70 Freeman's Journal, 30 July 1918.

71 ‘The Czecho-Slovaks are demanding independence’, 1918 (N.L.I., Sinn Féin pamphlets, ILB 300 P1, no. 75).

72 James MacCaffrey, ‘The Catholic church in 1918’ in Irish Ecclesiastical Record, ser. 5, xiii (Jan.–July 1919), p. 102.

73 Dun Cairin, ‘The argument from Irish history’ in Studies, vii, no. 28 (Dec. 1918), p. 548.

74 Brian Patrick Murphy, The Catholic Bulletin and republican Ireland with special reference to J. J. O'Kelly (‘Sceilg’) (Belfast, 2005), p. 167.

75 M. Quinn, ‘Yugo-Slavs and Czecho-Slovaks (a comparison with Ireland)’ in Catholic Bulletin, ix (Jan. 1919), p. 28. The author's forename was not given.

76 Ibid., p. 32.

77 ‘Czechoslovaks and Ireland’ in The Leader, 2 Nov. 1918.

78 ‘The chaos after the war’ in The Leader, 9 Nov. 1918.

79 Maurice Walsh, The news from Ireland: foreign correspondents and the Irish Revolution (London, 2008), pp 107–8.

80 Ibid., p. 60.

81 Gerard Hogan, ‘Duffy, George Gavan (1882–1951)’ in D.I.B.; Patrick Maume, ‘O'Kelly, Seán Thomas (Ó Ceallaigh, Seán Tomás) (1882–1966)’ in ibid.

82 ‘Papal propositions of peace (August 27, 1917): reply to the pope through Secretary Lansing’ in Selected addresses and public papers of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Albert Bushnell Hart (Honolulu, 2002), p. 221; ‘A statement of Ireland's case before the powers to be assembled in a peace conference: demanding the recognition of her place among the free nations of the world’, 1919 (U.C.D.A., Éamon de Valera papers, P150/1325); ‘Official memorandum in support of Ireland's demand for recognition as a sovereign independent state. Presented to Georges Clemenceau and the members of the Paris peace conference by Sean T. O'Ceallaigh and George Gavan Duffy’ (N.A.I., D.F.A. ES Paris 1919) in Catriona Crowe, Ronan Fanning, Michael Kennedy, Dermot Keogh and Eunan O'Halpin (eds), Documents on Irish foreign policy (henceforth cited as D.I.F.P.) i, no. 13 (http://www.difp.ie/docs/1919/Paris-Peace-Conference/13.htm) (23 Sept. 2015).

83 R. W. Seton-Watson, Masaryk in England (Cambridge, 1943); Harry Hanak, ‘The new Europe’ in Slavonic and East European Review, xxxix, no. 93 (June 1961), pp 369–99.

84 Guido Kisch, ‘Woodrow Wilson and the independence of small nations in central Europe’ in Journal of Modern History, xix, no. 3 (1947), p. 236.

85 Leonard V Smith, Sovereignty at the Paris peace conference (Oxford, 2018), pp 7, 59.

86 Extract from a memo on Dáil Éireann policy attached to a letter by Arthur Griffith, Gloucester Prison, 23 Jan. 1919 (N.A.I., Gavan Duffy papers 1125/15) in D.I.F.P., i, no. 3 (https://www.difp.ie/docs/Volume1/1919/3.htm) (20 June 2019).

87 Sean T. Ó Ceallaigh to Dublin (no. 4) (copy), Paris (N.A.I., D.F.A. ES Paris 1919, 15 June 1919) in D.I.F.P., i, no. 15 (https://www.difp.ie/docs/Volume1/1919/15.htm) (20 June 2019).

88 Childers's political career was marked by a shift from support of home rule through favouring dominion rule for Ireland to eventually being a committed Irish republican. His significance is also illustrated by the fact that he had been sent to Paris in July 1919 in order to publicise the Irish cause internationally. Moreover, in February 1921, he became director of propaganda. See Hopkinson, ‘Childers, (Robert) Erskine’.

89 ‘Memorandum by Erskine Childers on Irish defence as affected by the British proposals of 20 July 1921’, July 1921 (U.C.D.A., Éamon de Valera papers, P150/1913) in D.I.F.P., i. no. 142 (http://www.difp.ie/docs/1921/Anglo-Irish-Treaty/142.htm) (23 Sept. 2015).

90 Éamon de Valera to David Lloyd George, Mansion House, Dublin, 10 Aug. 1921, reprinted from official correspondence relating to the peace negotiations June–Sept. 1921 in D.I.F.P., i, no. 147 (http://www.difp.ie/docs/1921/Anglo-Irish-Treaty/147.htm) (23 Sept. 2015); Éamon de Valera to David Lloyd George, Mansion House, Dublin, 24 Aug. 1921, reprinted from official correspondence relating to the peace negotiations June–Sept. 1921 in D.I.F.P., i, no. 149 (http://www.difp.ie/docs/1921/Anglo-Irish-Treaty/149.htm) (23 Sept. 2015).

91 Robert Brennan to John Chartres (Edward Seaton) (Berlin), Dublin, 25 Aug. 1921 (N.A.I., D.F.A. ES box 33, file 232) in D.I.F.P., i, no. 150 (http://www.difp.ie/docs/1921/Anglo-Irish-Treaty/150.htm) (23 Sept. 2015).

92 Ferriter, Diarmaid, A nation and not a rabble: the Irish Revolution, 1913–1923 (London, 2015), p. 1Google Scholar.

93 Dáil Éireann report on foreign affairs, George Gavan Duffy to the Dáil, Dublin, 26 Apr. 1922 (N.A.I., D.F.A. ES box 1, file 13) in D.I.F.P., i, no. 277 (http://www.difp.ie/docs/1922/Foreign-Policy-General/277.htm) (23 Sept. 2015).

94 Dáil Éireann report on foreign affairs (copy), Dublin, June 1920 (N.A.I., DE 4/1/3) in D.I.F.P., i, no. 37 (http://www.difp.ie/docs/1920/Report-on-Foreign-Affairs/37.htm) (23 Sept. 2015).

95 Keown, ‘Creating an Irish foreign policy in the 1930s’, pp 29, 41.

96 Irish Independent, 19 Sept. 1922.

97 For a comparative study on the violence in post-war Ulster and Upper Silesia, see Wilson, T. K., Frontiers of violence: conflict and identity in Ulster and Upper Silesia, 1918–1922 (Oxford, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

98 Laffan, ‘Griffith, Arthur Joseph’.