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Civil society in search of a state: Dublin 1898–1922

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2017

CIARÁN WALLACE
CIARÁN WALLACE*
Affiliation:
School of Humanities and Social Science, Liverpool John Moores University, John Foster Building, 80–98 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, L3 5UZ, UK
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Abstract:

A municipal boundary dispute between Dublin's nationalist city council and its independent unionist suburbs in the early twentieth century was symptomatic of a much deeper disagreement over national identity within the United Kingdom. Considering urban councils as the link between the state and local civil society (or subscriber democracy), and using theories proposed by Graeme Morton, R.J. Morris and Norton E. Long, along with illustrative contrasts from municipal behaviour in Edinburgh, this article examines these relationships in Edwardian Dublin. It argues that the modernization of Irish municipal government in 1898 empowered Dublin in unforeseen ways. By amplifying existing divergent identities, and providing a platform for the nascent Irish state, municipal government reforms contributed significantly to the break-up of the UK in 1922.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , August 2018 , pp. 426 - 452
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

1 ‘Dublin Boundaries Bill’, Irish Times, 19 Jul. 1900, 6.

2 The Local Government Act 1888 (51 & 52 Vict. c. 41); The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 (52 & 53 Vict. c. 50).

3 Some differences between the remit of British and Irish local councils, especially with regard to policing, are dealt with below.

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5 Daly, M.E., Dublin the Deposed Capital: A Social and Economic History, 1860–1914 (Cork, 1984)Google Scholar, opened the field and was reprinted in 2012, alongside useful work by geographers such as Prunty, J., Dublin Slums 1800–1925: A Study in Urban Geography (Dublin, 2000)Google Scholar, and Maitiú, S. Ó, Dublin's Suburban Towns 1834–1930 (Dublin, 2003)Google Scholar; Potter, M., The Municipal Revolution in Ireland: A Handbook of Urban Government in Ireland since 1800 (Dublin, 2011)Google Scholar; Dickson, D., Dublin: The Making of a Capital City (Dublin, 2014)Google Scholar; and Connolly, S.J. (ed.), Belfast 400: People, Place and History (Belfast, 2012)Google Scholar, are significant recent contributions from historians.

6 Recent work such as Hanna, E., Modern Dublin: Urban Change and the Irish Past, 1957–1973 (Oxford, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and the advent of 2ha, a new journal of Irish suburban studies, in 2013 augur well for the future.

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8 Long uses the term ‘articulated’ in the sense of an articulated lorry or a joint in the body; allowing some freedom of movement while still keeping the two parts firmly attached.

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10 Ibid., 366.

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12 For the full definition see Centre for Civil Society Report on Activities July 2005–August 2006 (London, 2006), available at http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/29398/1/CCSReport05_06.pdf.

13 Dalton, ‘Civil society: overlapping frames’, 42.

14 de Tocqueville, Alexis, Democracy in America (trans. Henry Reeve), vol. I (New York, 2003), 48.Google Scholar

15 For a useful analysis of the term ‘civil society’, see Dalton, ‘Civil society: overlapping frames’.

16 I am grateful to Dr Peter van Dam of the University of Amsterdam for his succinct analysis of the current debate on pillarization. For more on this analytical framework see Blom, J.C.H., ‘Pillarisation in perspective’, West European Politics, 3 (2000), 153–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Koller, A., ‘The public sphere and comparative historical research: an introduction’, Social Science History, 34 (2010), 261–90Google Scholar.

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18 Municipal Corporations Act (Ireland) 1840 (3 & 4 Vict. c. 108).

19 Sir James Graham, 8 Mar. 1836, Parliamentary Debates, 3rd series, vol. 32, col. 64, quoted in Murphy, J.H., Abject Loyalty: Nationalism and Monarchy in Ireland during the Reign of Queen Victoria (Cork, 2001)Google Scholar, xxxi.

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21 Ó Maitiú, Dublin's Suburban Towns, 36.

22 Irish Times, 17 Oct. 1913, 3.

23 The Government of Ireland Act 1914 (4 & 5 Geo. 5 c. 90), Suspensory Act 1914 (4 & 5 Geo. 5 c. 88).

24 Prunty, Dublin Slums 1800–1925, 112.

25 Report on Public Health, no. 136 (1894), 27. Reports and Printed Documents of the Corporation of Dublin.

26 Ó Maitiú, Dublin's Suburban Towns, 90–2.

27 Ibid., 87.

28 Report of the Royal Commission Appointed to Inquire into Boundaries and Municipal Areas of Cities and Towns in Ireland, 1 [C 2725], HC 1880, xxx; Report of the Royal Commission Appointed to Inquire into Boundaries and Municipal Areas of Cities and Towns in Ireland, 2 [C 2827], HC 1881, L. 21. Commonly known as the Exham Report, after its chairman William A. Exham QC.

29 Royal Commission on Boundaries and Municipal Areas in Ireland, 2 [C 2827], HC 1881, L. 21, 15.

30 Rathmines’ lower domestic rates were, arguably, less a reflection of efficient administration than the natural result of newer infrastructure which required less repair and maintenance, a younger and healthier population and the absence of an impoverished working class, all of which reflected the deliberate commercial thinking behind this new township.

31 Irish Times, 14 Jan. 1899, 7.

32 Hansard 4, 1898, HC liii, 21 Feb. 1898, 1230–1.

33 Ibid., 1240–5.

34 Rathmines compared its housing standards with those in Belfast, Rathmines UDC minutes, 4 Jan. 1899; Pembroke council followed Glasgow's lead in drafting its by-laws, Pembroke By-Laws 1904 UDC/2/LIST 10/18, and the township was in correspondence with Belfast municipal council over housing and electoral practices, Pembroke UDC minutes, 8 Feb. 1909, 12 Jun. 1909 and 13 Jun. 1910; Dublin municipal council sent its Public Health Committee to visit Birmingham's model housing for the working classes, municipal council minutes, 1 May 1911, item 380, and the lord provost of Glasgow attended Dublin's municipal council meeting to invite them to exhibit at Glasgow's 1901 International Exhibition, ibid., 7 May 1900, item 315. The municipal council sent thanks to the town clerk of Edinburgh for the gift of a commemorative medal ‘struck by the Corporation of Edinburgh, in commemoration of the rebuilding of the North Bridge in that city’, ibid., 14 Jul. 1898, item 249, and it sought to emulate Edinburgh council's education policy, ibid., 4 Feb. 1907, item 95.

35 Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 (52 & 53 Vict. c. 50) and Local Government (Scotland) Act 1894 (57 & 58 Vict. c. 58). The difficulty in harmonizing legislation across the UK is evident from the fact that the administrative parish, a key component of Scottish local government, had no equivalent in the Irish system.

36 For example, the inclusion of women on Boards of Guardians in England from 1894 was deliberately omitted from the Scottish reforms of 1889 and the Irish 1898 act, J.P.D. Dunbabin, ‘British local government reform: the nineteenth century and after’, English Historical Review, 92 (1977), 777–805, 789n.

37 Kidd, C., ‘Teutonist ethnology and Scottish nationalist inhibition 1780–1880’, Scottish Historical Review, 74 (1995), 45–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Kidd, C., ‘North Britishness and the nature of eighteenth-century British patriotisms’, Historical Journal, 39 (1996), 372CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Potter, Municipal Revolution, 14–20. The Association of Municipal Authorities of Ireland was formed in 1912.

40 ‘Policing’, in a Scottish context, meant enforcing both public order and environmental or sanitation regulations.

41 Maguire, W.A., Belfast (Keele, 1993), 90Google Scholar.

42 Local Government (Scotland) Act 1894 and Local Government Board (Ireland) Act, 1872 (35 & 36 Vict. c. 69).

43 McLean, I. and McMillan, A., State of the Union (Oxford, 2005), 94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 ‘Scholars have generally warned against regarding the Disruption as a nationalist event in political terms, yet it was culturally important for what it meant for the ethos of the Scots.’ Morton, Graeme, Ourselves and Others: Scotland 1832–1914 (Edinburgh, 2012), 205Google Scholar.

45 Ibid., 240. Beyond the Catholic parish, they established Hibernian FC (1875) in Edinburgh, Dundee Harp (1879) and Glasgow Celtic (1888), in response to the establishment by their Protestant neighbours of Glasgow Rangers (1872) and Heart of Midlothian (1874). McLean and McMillan, State of the Union, 119–20.

46 Ibid., 118.

47 Pelling, H., A Social Geography of British Elections 1885–1910 (London, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. 16, cited in McLean and McMillan, State of the Union, 112.

48 Morton, Ourselves and Others, 228. Interestingly, Arthur Balfour MP, who served in the Scottish and Irish administrations and, with his brother Gerald, played such a significant role in the Irish local government reforms of 1898, attended this meeting.

49 Ibid., 85.

50 For a useful analysis of Scottish urban identity see Morton, Ourselves and Others, ch. 4, ‘Urban Scots’.

51 The Ceremony of Laying the Foundation Stone of the New North Bridge, Edinburgh 28th May 1896 (Edinburgh, 1896), 18.

52 Rodger, R., ‘The “Common Good” and civic promotion: Edinburgh 1860–1914’, in Colls, R. and Rodger, R. (eds.), Cities of Ideas: Civil Society and Urban Governance in Britain 1800–2000 (Aldershot, 2004), 144–76Google Scholar.

53 Ibid., 148.

54 Ibid., 161–2.

55 Morris, ‘Civil society, associations and urban places’, 8.

56 Ibid.

57 C. Wallace, ‘Local politics and government in Dublin city and suburbs: 1898–1914’, Trinity College Dublin Ph.D. thesis, 2010, 160. The non-Christian population of Dublin city and suburbs in 1901 was 1.7%.

58 The same tendency is evident in the first friendly societies established in Ireland under the National Insurance Act, 1911. A ‘range of political and religious factors [were] at play’ in the formation of societies operated by the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Irish National Foresters, both Catholic and nationalist organizations, and the Orange and Protestant Friendly Society and the Presbyterian Health Insurance Society. Cousins, M., ‘The creation of association: the National Insurance Act, 1911 and approved societies in Ireland’, in Comerford, R.V. and Kelly, J. (eds.), Associational Culture in Ireland and the Wider World (Dublin, 2010), 155–64Google Scholar at 158.

59 Wallace, ‘Local politics and government in Dublin’, 294.

60 Morton, ‘Civil society, municipal government and the state’, 366.

61 Gannon, D., ‘Celticism in exile: the London Gaelic League, 1917–1921’, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, 30 (2010), 89Google Scholar.

62 Wallace, ‘Local politics and government in Dublin’, 320.

63 This research does not cover sporting organizations. A study of soccer clubs in the city, and suburban golf and tennis clubs, could usefully test the theoretical approach taken here.

64 McConnel, J., ‘Jobbing with Tory and Liberal: Irish nationalists and the politics of patronage 1880–1914’, Past and Present, 188 (2005), 105–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 In 1914, a Dublin labourer with steady work earned £54 per annum, a head constable of police earned £104 per annum. Royal Irish Constabulary and Dublin Metropolitan Police, Appendix to the Report of the Committee of Inquiry, 1914, Tables III and XXI [C 7637], HC 1914–16. Using the retail price index as an indicator, this equates to £356,300 (or approximately EUR482,000) today: www.measuringworth.com, accessed 6 Oct. 2015.

66 Municipal council minutes, 21 Mar. 1910, item 205, 12 Jun. 1911, item 459, Dublin City Library and Archives.

67 Morton, ‘Civil society, municipal government and the state’, 366.

68 Wallace, ‘Local politics and government in Dublin’, 109.

69 Ibid., 125.

70 Loyal addresses were adopted by Rathmines and Rathgar township on 4 Mar. 1885, 6 Jul. 1887, 2 Jun. 1897, and by the newly formed UDC on 15 Mar. 1900, 5 Sep. 1900, 7 May 1902, 3 Sep. 1902, 1 Oct. 1902, 22 Jun. 1903, 27 Oct. 1903, 15 Apr. 1904, 3 Jan. 1906 and 24 Mar. 1911; Pembroke UDC council incorporated an earl's coronet (representing the earl of Meath, the predominant local landowner) on council lampposts and the minutes record loyal addresses on 23 Aug. 1897, 27 Jun. 1907 and 10 Apr. 1911. Minutes of the Board of Commissioners of Rathmines and Rathgar Township (1887–98); minutes of the urban district council of Rathmines (1899–1911); Pembroke urban district council records, Dublin City Library and Archives.

71 Municipal council minutes, 6 Feb. 1899, item 51.

72 Irish Times, 4 Jul. 1903, 5; municipal council minutes, 6 Nov. 1911, item 758.

73 Wallace, ‘Local politics and government in Dublin’, 258. Honorary Freemen of Dublin from this period include John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party (1902), P.A. McHugh MP, radical nationalist politician (1902), Douglas Hyde, founder of the Gaelic League (1906), Richard ‘Boss’ Croker, infamous leader of New York's Tammany Hall and major contributor to the IPP (1908) and E. O'Meagher Condon, leading Fenian activist (1909).

74 Municipal council minutes, 12 May 1910, item 375.

75 Wallace, ‘Local politics and government in Dublin’, 279.

76 Irish Times, 14 Jan. 1899, 7.

77 On 20 Mar. 1920, Tomás Mac Curtain, Sinn Féin lord mayor of Cork, was killed in his home by policemen in civilian clothing. His successor as lord mayor, Terence MacSwiney, died on hunger strike in Brixton Prison on 25 Oct. 1920. On 8 Mar. 1921, Sinn Féin lord mayor of Limerick, George Clancy, and the former mayor Michael O'Callaghan, were both shot in their homes; it is generally accepted that the killings were carried out by crown forces. Patrick Maume, 'MacCurtain, Tomás’, in J. McGuire and J. Quinn (eds.), Dictionary of Irish Biography (Cambridge, 2009) (http://dib.cambridge.org/viewReadPage.do?articleId=a5147), and W. Murphy, ‘Clancy, George’, ibid. (http://dib.cambridge.org/viewReadPage.do?articleId=a1672). See also Potter, Municipal Revolution, 249–54.

78 See Morris, ‘Governance’, 9.

79 Dáil Éireann Debates, Debate on Local Government, 29 Jun. 1920, 185.

80 De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 48.