The Connolly Archive - 'Labour And The Proposed Partition of Ireland'
This month’s addition to The Connolly Archive is ‘Labour and the Proposed Partition of Ireland’, which was first published in The Worker’s Republic on this day in 1914. In it Connolly rallies against the betrayal of Irish parliamentary leaders in consenting to the partition of Ireland.
By stating that “the betrayal of the national democracy of industrial Ulster would mean a carnival of reaction both North and South”, Connolly was clear in his understanding that partition wouldn’t just establish a sectarian northern state but a sectarian southern state as well.
The history of the last one hundred years has vindicated Connolly’s prophecy. In understanding the deeply flawed nature of the two states that exist in Ireland today, we in Éirígí also understand that those flaws can only be resolved through the reunification of the national territory and the establishment of a New Republic. If you’re ready to join the right to build a New Republic of the type that Connolly envisioned, join Éirígí.
Edward Carson becomes the first signatory of the Ulster Covenant on ‘Ulster Day’, 28th September, 1912. This move was the catalyst that was to drive the partition of Ireland.
Labour and the Proposed Partition of Ireland
The Irish Worker
March 14th, 1914
The recent proposals of Messrs. Asquith, Devlin, Redmond and Co. for the settlement of the Home Rule question deserve the earnest attention of the working class democracy of this country. They reveal in a most striking and unmistakable manner the depths of betrayal to which the so-called Nationalist politicians are willing to sink.
For generations the conscience of the civilised world has been shocked by the historical record of the partition of Poland; publicists, poets, humanitarians, patriots, all lovers of their kind and of progress have wept over the unhappy lot of a country torn asunder by the brute force of their alien oppressors, its unity ruthlessly destroyed and its traditions trampled into the dust.
But Poland was disrupted by outside forces, its enemies were the mercenaries of the tyrant kingdoms and empires of Europe; its sons and daughters died in the trenches and on the battlefields by the thousands rather than submit to their beloved country being annihilated as a nation.
But Ireland, what of Ireland? It is the trusted leaders of Ireland that in secret conclave with the enemies of Ireland have agreed to see Ireland as a nation disrupted politically and her children divided under separate political governments with warring interests.
Leader of Irish unionism, Edward Carson (cartoon image) Irish Parliamentary Party leader, John Redmond, British Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister, H.H. Asquith and leader of the United Irish League, the Ancient Order of Hibernians and IPP West Belfast MP, Joseph Devlin.
Now, what is the position of Labour towards it all? Let us remember that the Orange aristocracy now fighting for its supremacy in Ireland has at all times been based upon a denial of the common human rights of the Irish people; that the Orange Order was not founded to safeguard religious freedom, but to deny religious freedom, and that it raised this religious question, not for the sake of any religion, but in order to use religious zeal in the interests of the oppressive property rights of rackrenting landlords and sweating capitalists.
That the Irish people might be kept asunder and robbed whilst so sundered and divided, the Orange aristocracy went down to the lowest depths and out of the lowest pits of hell brought up the abominations of sectarian feuds to stir the passions of the ignorant mob. No crime was too brutal or cowardly; no lie too base; no slander too ghastly, as long as they served to keep the democracy asunder.
And now that the progress of democracy elsewhere has somewhat muzzled the dogs of aristocratic power, now that in England as well as in Ireland the forces of labour are stirring and making for freedom and light, this same gang of well-fed plunderers of the people, secure in Union held upon their own dupes, seek by threats of force to arrest the march of idea and stifle the light of civilisation and liberty.
And, lo and behold, the trusted guardians of the people, the vaunted saviours of the Irish race, agree in front of the enemy and in face of the world to sacrifice to the bigoted enemy the unity of the nation and along with it the lives, liberties and hopes of that portion of the nation which in the midst of the most hostile surroundings have fought to keep the faith in things national and progressive.
Such a scheme as that agreed to by Redmond and Devlin, the betrayal of the national democracy of industrial Ulster would mean a carnival of reaction both North and South, would set back the wheels of progress, would destroy the oncoming unity of the Irish Labour movement and paralyse all advanced movements whilst it endured.
To it Labour should give the bitterest opposition, against it Labour in Ulster should fight even to the death, if necessary, as our fathers fought before us.