Arthur Griffith

Irish nationalist leader

• Born: March 31, 1872
• Birthplace: Dublin, Ireland
• Died: August 12, 1922
• Place of death: Dublin, Ireland

As an early advocate for the separation of Ireland from British governance, Griffith participated in and influenced every phase of the Irish independence struggle from the 1890’s to 1922. A comparative moderate, he found himself outstripped by more extreme elements within the movement and, upon his death, left an ambiguous legacy.

Early Life

Arthur Griffith was born to Arthur Griffith, Sr., and Mary Phelan, who were from the lower middle class and were staunchly Irish Catholic. Griffith’s father, a printer who lived on Dublin’s north side, was an ardent Irish nationalist who espoused the views of the Young Ireland movement. The young Griffith was educated at the Christian Brothers School on Strand Street, Dublin, and in 1887 also became a printer, working at The Nation and The Irish Independent.

Griffith immersed himself in radical nationalist circles by joining the Irish Republican Brotherhood (later, the Irish Republican Army) and Conradh na Gaelige (the Gaelic League). He also helped found the Celtic Literary Society. An enthusiastic supporter of nineteenth century Irish political leader Charles Stewart Parnell, he turned against the Irish Parliamentary Party after Parnell’s death in 1891, castigating the new leadership under John Redmond as being too moderate toward Great Britain. Unemployed in 1896, Griffith went to South Africa, where he supported the Boers against the British colonial authority and worked as a diamond miner and a newspaper editor. However, he secured no permanent, substantial employment and after recovering from a bout of tuberculosis he came back to Dublin, joining his old friend, William Rooney, in establishing the radical newspaper United Irishman in 1899.

Life’s Work

Griffith’s work at the United Irishman intensified after Rooney passed away in 1901. The paper attacked home rule as a sham and advocated the political separation of Ireland from Britain on the premise that the Union of 1801 between the two had been illegal in the first place. Believing that cultural separatism was a necessary prerequisite to political independence, Griffith founded the Irish cultural society Cumann na nGaedheal (Society of the Gaels) in 1900. That same year he published the incendiary tract “How Ireland Has ’Prospered’ Under English Rule, and the Slave Mind.”

Griffith did not gain national prominence until he published The Resurrection of Hungary: A Parallel for Ireland in 1904. Using the example of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he proposed a dual monarchy in which, though Ireland would retain a figurehead monarch (who would be king of the United Kingdom and, separately, king of Ireland), the Irish would have a sovereign state, enjoying their own parliament and legal system. He believed this could be accomplished through Irish members serving in the British parliament but refusing to convene in London. Instead, he envisioned the Irish members openly proclaiming themselves the sole legal government of Ireland. Though in the end the idea of an Anglo-Irish dual monarchy was embraced by very few, Griffith was able to use it as a vehicle to form the Sinn Féin Party in 1905.

Sinn Féin (“ourselves” or “we ourselves”) became a focal point for all radical nationalistic organizations, including the Irish Republican Brotherhood. United Irishman was superseded by a new publication, Sinn Féin, which was forced by British authorities to cease production after Griffith wrote against Irishmen enlisting in the British army during the early months of World War I.

Griffith joined the Irish Volunteers and, though he did not participate in the Easter Rebellion of 1916, was imprisoned on the orders of British commander general Sir John Maxwell. Upon his release (Griffith was replaced as Sinn Féin Party leader by Eamon de Valera) he was elected to Parliament in 1918 with Sinn Féin capturing the majority of the Irish parliamentary seats. Sinn Féin by that time had become much more militantly radical than Griffith had initially envisioned, and the group was now thoroughly dominated by supporters of a republic that would totally divorce itself from the British crown. On January 21, 1919, the Sinn Féin representatives proclaimed themselves Dáil Éireann (Irish Dail), the parliament of an independent Irish Republic, leading to the start of the Irish War of Independence. On April 1, de Valera was elected president and Griffith vice president of Dáil Éireann. After Bloody Sunday (November 21, 1920), so-called after the Irish Republican Army, led by General Michael Collins, virtually wiped out the network of British police agents in Dublin, Griffith was apprehended by British forces and jailed, but he was released when the cease-fire was declared on July 9, 1921.

Griffith and Collins headed a negotiations team that met in London to fashion a peace agreement, the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed on December 6, 1921. However, there was controversy from the start. De Valera and a large portion of the Sinn Féin membership denounced the treaty as a sellout to British interests, especially in its clauses that authorized the partition of Ireland into a predominately Catholic Irish Free State and the northern six counties, which had a two-thirds Protestant majority. The treaty also favored maintaining ties with Britain. Griffith and Collins were accused of having succumbed to threats by the British negotiators, led by Prime MinisterDavid Lloyd George, to renew military operations if all provisions were not accepted. After Dáil Éireann narrowly endorsed the treaty by a vote of 64-57 on January 7, 1922, de Valera resigned the presidency, and Griffith succeeded to the office on January 10.

Griffith was to have a brief and unhappy tenure as he desperately attempted to prevent conflict between two warring camps emerging within the Sinn Féin movement: the protreaty and antitreaty forces. However, the situation spun rapidly beyond Griffith’s control. He soon found himself overshadowed by, and at odds with, his military commander, Collins, who was steadily amassing nearly dictatorial powers. The Irish Civil War broke out on June 28 between de Valera’s antitreaty troops (who were referred to as Republicans) and the protreaty Free Staters directed by Collins. Griffith and Collins remained estranged at the time of Griffith’s sudden death in August as the result of a stroke. He was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery and was survived by his wife of twelve years, Maud, son Naomhan, and daughter Ita.

Significance

Griffith has been an overlooked figure in the Irish independence struggle, a comparatively modest individual caught between the flamboyant and domineering personalities of Collins and de Valera. His most enduring legacy is the Sinn Féin Party, which, though it was for some time relegated to being the political wing of the Irish Republican Army during the height of the troubles in Northern Ireland, has reemerged since the Belfast Agreement in 1998 as the recognized vehicle for Irish-Catholic nationalism. Though Griffith is at least tacitly revered as a founder of the party, the twenty-first century Sinn Féin of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness certainly appears to have evolved well beyond his dual monarchist vision.

Bibliography

Coogan, Tim Pat. The Man Who Made Ireland: The Life and Death of Michael Collins. Niwot, Colo.: Roberts Rinehart, 1992. Griffith is considered in this work to have been overshadowed by and disillusioned with Collins and de Valera.

Feeney, Brian. Sinn Féin: A Hundred Turbulent Years. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003. The recommended starting point for readers seeking a thorough depiction of the Sinn Féin movement’s foundations in the context of the early twentieth century and the actual mind-set and original vision as set forward by Griffith and his contemporaries.

Garvin, Tom. 1922: The Birth of Irish Democracy. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996. On the plus side, a very scholarly account of the year’s events. However, its scholarly style often makes it difficult to ascertain Griffith’s true contributions.

Hopkinson, Michael. The Irish War of Independence. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002. The author depicts Griffith as consistent in his views throughout the conflict and as a conciliating influence within the Irish rebel camp.

Knirck, Jason K. Imagining Ireland’s Independence: The Debates of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. A most detailed account of the event and its participants. Griffith is portrayed as hesitant and ambiguous.

Laffan, Michael. The Partition of Ireland, 1911-1925. Dundalk, Ireland: Dundalgan Press, 1983. The author repudiates the idea that the partition was inevitable and is critical of what he considers Griffith’s naïve reliance on stated British intentions.

MacManus, Seumas. The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland. Rev. ed. New York: Wings Books, 1990. A highly nationalistic work, reflective of the mind-set of the time span during which it was originally published. It is therefore less critical of Griffith than later works tend to be.

Mansergh, Nicholas. The Irish Question, 1840-1921. 3d ed. Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press, 1975. A basic overview that places the different strands of Irish nationalism into the context of their times.

Moody, T. W., and F. X. Martin, eds. The Course of Irish History. Cork, Ireland: Mercier Press, 1984. Offers a brief, though incisive, analysis of the factors that might have influenced Griffith’s seemingly paradoxical acceptance of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.