Late nineteenth-century Ireland had experienced profound social, political and cultural change. The great disaster of the Irish Famine (1845-1848) triggered a stream of emigration from the island, mainly from rural Ireland, to America, Great Britain and Australia. Uniquely in the demographic history of western Europe, the population of the island of Ireland fell from nearly nine million in 1844 to about four million in 1900. One ideological theme of Irish separatism at the end of the century was "race death," or the final depopulation of Ireland and the complete replacement of the Gael by the foreigner.

In reality, demographic recovery was about to occur, and has occurred, but did not really happen for fifty years; even at the end of the twentieth century the population of the island is somewhat under six million. It is, however, a very different population; then, it was rather poor, Irish-speaking or just becoming literate in the English language, now it is rather rich, literate, English-speaking and increasingly post-Catholic and, perhaps, post-nationalist.

The great Irish Famine triggered cultural changes, perhaps particularly changes in the political culture of the general population. An apparently begrudging acceptance of British rule was replaced by a sometimes mild but sometimes aggressive, refusal to accord legitimacy to the rule of the London parliament in Ireland. An ancient disaffection from English or British rule gained a force that it had not quite had earlier. Nationalist and Catholic propagandists were able to build on the perceived negligence and alleged irresponsibility of the London government and propose political independence as the ultimate solution for Ireland's ailments.

Linguistically, the Famine hit Irish-language communities particularly hard, and the ancestral language declined even in western and southern regions where it had been strongest in pre-Famine times; Ireland had been effectively bilingual since the sixteenth century, but appeared to be heading toward a monolingual English-speaking condition by the 1880s.

Religiously, the Famine was connected with another cultural revolution. Most Irish people outside eastern Ulster had always been at least nominally Catholic and had looked, again in theory, to the See of Saint Peter in Rome for spiritual guidance. However, it was only in the years after the Famine that they became perhaps the most religiously observant and generally obedient Catholic people in the world. Furthermore, the emergent post-Famine rural Ireland of small- and middle-sized family farms proved to be a very effective source of the vocations to the priesthood, the nunneries and the clergy in general. By the end of the nineteenth century the ratios of clergy to people of the Catholic population of Ireland were the highest in the world. Ireland had evolved into a sort of Catholic Tibet.

Irish landlordism received its final comeuppance at the hands of the Land League (1879-1881), led by two leaders of genius: a peasant Catholic from the western county of Mayo (Michael Davitt) and a Protestant landlord from the eastern county of Wicklow (Charles Stewart Parnell). Thereafter the land of Ireland fell into the hands of what had been a quasi-feudal tenantry but which rapidly transformed itself into a piously Catholic, incipiently democratic free-farmer society. Literacy in the English language became widespread, and popular nationalism of a markedly Catholic flavour was preached by a burgeoning popular and national press.

Protestant northeastern Ireland ("Ulster") watched the progress of the Catholic majority on the island with increasing unease and even alarm. Much of its population was of Scottish Presbyterian descent and dated from seventeenth-century settlements. A sturdy reformed anti-Catholic Christianity informed much of Ulster Protestantism, as it still does a century later.

The growing political strength of Catholic Ireland made it obvious that, sooner or later, pressure would be exerted by Irish leaders on the British government to concede local devolved self-government to Ireland. Such a proposal was anathema to British conservatives, but was looked upon with sympathy by many liberals, often in the form of "Home Rule all round," or devolved parliaments not only for Ireland but for Scotland and Wales as well.

In 1906 a Liberal government came to power, and a Home Rule bill for Ireland was prepared. Elements in the British Conservative Party, the Irish Unionist branch of that party and the armed forces prepared to resist Home Rule, if necessary by force. The German government, fishing in troubled waters, lent its good offices to both sides in the Irish conflict. As the Home Rule Bill threatened to become law, Ulster Unionism turned militant. In 1912 a Provisional Government of Ulster was formed, as was the Ulster Volunteer Force. Guns were smuggled into Ulster, and a Solemn League and Covenant was signed by hundreds of thousands of young men.

Meanwhile, among the nationalists a demonstration effect was occurring. Since the Famine, a minority of nationalists favoured a revolutionary solution to Ireland's problems, and a secret organisation known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB or Fenians) had existed since 1858, financed in particular by embittered Irish emigrants in the United States. The crisis of 1906-1912 gave the IRB its chance, and it used entryist tactics to infiltrate nationalist organisations such as the Gaelic League, the Gaelic Athletic Association and what was to become the separatist Irish Volunteers of 1913, later to evolve into the Irish Republican Army (IRA). In effect, the Ulster mobilisation accelerated mobilisation in the rest of Ireland. The long run outcome was the end of British rule in Ireland outside the northeastern area ten years later, amid much bloodshed.

Joseph Johnston, writing before the European catastrophe of 1914, naturally could not imagine such a violent set of consequences. The Europe he lived in was innocent beyond belief in that the Great War which was to occur was almost unimaginable. Similarly, the idea that a peaceful and bucolic Ireland, enjoying a modest prosperity, could be on the brink of great violence was scouted by all reasonable people.

Tom Garvin is Professor of Politics in University College, Dublin. His most recent book is 1922: The Birth of Irish Democracy (Dublin: 1996).

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Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1998