Abstract
The conclusion examines the Free State after Eamon de Valera’s election as president and his almost immediate move to abolish imperial vestiges from the Treaty, like the oath of allegiance, within the Irish government. He took an even more ambivalent and disinterested stance on Great War remembrance than his predecessor. This shift in political power to Fianna Fáil encouraged republicans in their hope that the remaining imperial events and symbols would be eradicated. When this did not happen republicans took matters into their own hands wreaking havoc on would-be commemorators. By the mid-1930s any room for negotiating a place for the Great War and its veterans in the Free State had dissipated in the face of republican anger, official disinterest, and stonewalling.
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- 1.
NAI, JUS/8/684 Armistice celebrations and “Poppy Day” Department of Justice and Equality 1928–1936, Letter to An Runaidhe Nov. 11, 1932.
- 2.
Ibid.
- 3.
Deirdre McMahon, Republicans and Imperialists: Anglo-Irish Relations in the 1930s (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 4.
- 4.
Richard Dunphy, The Making of Fianna Fáil Power in Ireland, 1923–1948 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 184.
- 5.
McMahon, 4.
- 6.
Ibid., 7.
- 7.
Ibid., 5.
- 8.
Dunphy, 204–205.
- 9.
J.J. Lee, Ireland 1912–1985: Politics and Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 202. Cosgrave had chiseled away at the Treaty incrementally while in office.
- 10.
Constitution of Ireland, http://www.constitution.org/cons/ireland/constitution_ireland-en.pdf, retrieved January 17, 2015. See also Diarmaid Ferriter, The Transformation of Ireland (New York: The Overlook Press, 2004), 370.
- 11.
Lee, Ireland 1912–1985, 202.
- 12.
De Valera considered a separate parliament for Northern Ireland.
- 13.
Ibid.
- 14.
As quoted in Tim Pat Coogan, The IRA: A History (Niwot, Colo.: Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1994), 49.
- 15.
Ibid., 47.
- 16.
Ibid., 49.
- 17.
Ibid., 88.
- 18.
Ibid., 67.
- 19.
Though de Valera banned the IRA the group continued to be active in the Free State and later Éire, although illegally.
- 20.
NAI, JUS/8/684, Draft of Circular concerning the application for Armistice Day, 1936.
- 21.
Ibid.
- 22.
“Armistice Eve ‘Scenes’”, Irish Times, November 11, 1932, no page number.
- 23.
NAI, JUS/8/684 Armistice celebrations and “Poppy Day”, Department of Justice and Equality 1928–1936, S. Mac Raghnáill, National Association of Old I.R.A., to President de Valera, November 6, 1936.
- 24.
Ibid.
- 25.
“Songs and Cries,” Irish Independent, November 12, 1932, p. 9.
- 26.
“Youth Snatch Poppies,” Irish Independent, November 11, 1932, p. 10.
- 27.
“Songs and Cries,” Irish Independent, November 12, 1932, p. 9.
- 28.
Paul Clark, “Two Traditions and the Places Between,” Toward Commemoration: Ireland in War and Revolution 1912–1923, (eds) John Horne and Edward Madigan (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2013), 72. Duffy received the VC for saving several lives while sustaining substantial fire in Palestine in 1917. He reportedly kept the VC in a brown envelope, tucked away in a drawer.
- 29.
Ibid. Down with Thomas most likely referred to the nickname for British Soldiers, Tommies.
- 30.
“Exciting Scenes,” Irish Press, November 11, 1932, p. 1.
- 31.
“Poppy Incident at Meeting,” Irish Press, November 14, 1933, p. 2.
- 32.
Coogan, The IRA, 45.
- 33.
“Poppy Incident at Meeting,” Irish Press, November 14, 1933, p. 2. This was a common tactic among IRA men in particular who refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the State and therefore disregarded the laws and courts of the State. Coogan, The IRA, 45.
- 34.
“Poppy Incident at Meeting,” Irish Press, November 14, 1933, p. 2.
- 35.
Ibid.
- 36.
“O’Connell Street Scene, Alleged Poppy Snatching,” Irish Independent, November 12, 1937, p. 14.
- 37.
Ibid.
- 38.
“Wearing of Poppies,” Irish Press, October 28, 1933, p. 2.
- 39.
Ibid.
- 40.
“Hatred of England,” Cork Examiner, November 13, 1933, p. 9.
- 41.
“Armistice Eve ‘Scenes’, Shots fired in Pearse Street,” Irish Times, November 11, 1932, no page number.
- 42.
Ibid.
- 43.
“Reader’s views, Armistice Day,” Irish Press, November 7, 1932, p. 6.
- 44.
Ibid.
- 45.
Ibid.
- 46.
“Armistice Day,” Irish Press, November 10, 1934, p. 6.
- 47.
Ibid.
- 48.
Ibid.
- 49.
“Ex-Servicemen’s Manifesto,” Irish Press, November 9, 1936, p. 7.
- 50.
Ibid.
- 51.
Ibid.
- 52.
Ibid.
- 53.
Ibid.
- 54.
The British Legion built a temporary cross in Phoenix Park every year for the event yet attendance dwindled. The Irish Independent reported that 2000 veterans participated in the 1936 activities which paled in comparison to the reported 20,000 in 1924. “Remembrance Day, Impressive Scenes, 2000 ex-servicemen march,” Irish Independent, November 12, 1936.
- 55.
NAI, JUS/8/684 Letter from Department of the President to De Valera 14 adh Deire Fomhair 1936.
- 56.
Ewan Morris, Our Own Devices: National Symbols and Political Conflict in 20th Century Ireland (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2005), 164.
- 57.
NAI, JUS/8/684 Letter from Department of the President to De Valera 14 adh Deire Fomhair 1936.
- 58.
Handwritten note dated November 7, 1934, in 1/115, DFA, NAI, as quoted in Ewan Morris, Our Own Devices, 165.
- 59.
“Armistice Day Pictures, ‘Nothing Illegal’ in Old I.R.A. Request,” Irish Press, November 14, 1935, p. 9.
- 60.
Ibid.
- 61.
Ibid.
- 62.
Ibid.
- 63.
“Clashes in Dublin, Armistice Day Scenes,” Fermanagh Herald, November 17, 1934, p. 6.
- 64.
“Dublin Protest Against Armistice Day,” Belfast Newsletter, November 11, 1935, p. 7.
- 65.
National Archives, JUS/8/684 Newspaper clipping from Irish Times, October 27, 1933.
- 66.
Ibid.
- 67.
Ibid.
- 68.
NLI, LO 8942, British Legion Irish Free State Souvenir of Ten Years of Progress 1925–1935 with foreword by Major General Hickie (Dublin: J.E. Mulligan and Co., 1935), 15.
- 69.
Ibid, 35–37.
- 70.
“Armistice Day, Old I.R.A. Leader and Official’s Statement,” Irish Press, November 4, 1935, 3.
- 71.
“Tralee Branch,” Kerry News, March 12, 1937, p. 1.
- 72.
NAI, s/3370B Department of Taoiseach, Armistice Day Commemorations, Letter from Department of Finance, September 2, 1937.
- 73.
The Sabotage Campaign was enacted by the IRA in 1939 and targeted infrastructure in England (post offices, train stations, power mains, etc.). The Campaign detonated 300 bombs which killed 7 and injured 96. In 1939 and 1940 de Valera’s government passed the Offences Against the State act and the Emergency Powers Act which allowed for the arrest, detainment, and execution of IRA members. This was de Valera’s attempt to effectively end IRA power. Vicky Conway, Policing Twentieth Century Ireland: A History of An Garda Siochána, (London: Routledge, 2013), 57.
- 74.
Keith Jeffrey, “Irish Varieties of Great War Commemoration,” in Towards Commemoration: Ireland in War and Revolution, 1912–1923 (eds) John Horne and Edward Madigan (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2013), 119.
- 75.
Coogan, The IRA, 65.
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Link, M. (2019). Conclusion: Peace in the Free State? 1932–1937. In: Remembrance of the Great War in the Irish Free State, 1914–1937. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19511-3_6
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