Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Forging the Union
- 2 Dawn of a New Century
- 3 Catholic Mobilisations
- 4 The Achievement of Emancipation
- 5 Ireland under Whig Government
- 6 The Campaign for Repealing Union
- 7 The Age of Peel
- 8 Explaining the Famine
- 9 Response to Famine
- 10 Post-Famine Ireland
- 11 Mid-Victorian Ireland
- 12 Gladstone's First Mission
- 13 Parnell and the Land League
- 14 The Irish Liberals: A Union of Hearts?
- 15 Constructive Unionism, 1886–1906
- 16 Celtic Renaissance
- 17 The Story of Irish Socialism
- 18 The Home Rule Crisis
- 19 World War and Insurrection
- 20 The Rise of Sinn Féin
- 21 The Anglo–Irish War
- 22 North and South Settlements
- 23 Conclusion
- Chronology
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Glossary
- Questions
- Index
22 - North and South Settlements
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2014
- Frontmatter
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Forging the Union
- 2 Dawn of a New Century
- 3 Catholic Mobilisations
- 4 The Achievement of Emancipation
- 5 Ireland under Whig Government
- 6 The Campaign for Repealing Union
- 7 The Age of Peel
- 8 Explaining the Famine
- 9 Response to Famine
- 10 Post-Famine Ireland
- 11 Mid-Victorian Ireland
- 12 Gladstone's First Mission
- 13 Parnell and the Land League
- 14 The Irish Liberals: A Union of Hearts?
- 15 Constructive Unionism, 1886–1906
- 16 Celtic Renaissance
- 17 The Story of Irish Socialism
- 18 The Home Rule Crisis
- 19 World War and Insurrection
- 20 The Rise of Sinn Féin
- 21 The Anglo–Irish War
- 22 North and South Settlements
- 23 Conclusion
- Chronology
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Glossary
- Questions
- Index
Summary
Interpretations
These were the settlements that did not truly settle the Irish Question. Two pieces of legislation were effected in this period, the Government of Ireland Act and the Anglo–Irish Treaty. As a result of the terms of the latter, a civil war broke out. The divisions mark the origin of the party system in southern Ireland; not the least of ironies was that Britain's political legacy in 1920–22 was to create the lines of political division thereafter. The chief questions surround the nature of these divisive acts and the attribution of responsibility. The Government of Ireland Act has its admirers and critics – whilst some see it as a democratic solution, other historians are keen to point up the flaws, especially in the light of contemporaneous European developments towards self-determination. Austen Chamberlain himself regarded it as an ‘illogical and indefensible’ compromise. The merits of the Anglo–Irish Treaty are also highly contested, a contest heightened by the legacy of political division in Ireland between pro- and anti-Treaty forces. Arthur Mitchell sees the Treaty as a ‘giant step forward in the struggle’ for freedom. It is also possible to see it as the fount of unacceptable division and the start of an invidious ‘process by which two individuals, de Valera and Collins […] became the prism through which much of the history of this period was assessed’. Many historians have sought to apportion blame.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A History of Ireland, 1800–1922Theatres of Disorder?, pp. 247 - 258Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2014