Nationalist responses to two royal visits to Ireland, 1900 and 1903

Abstract

In July 1903 Maud Gonne hung a black petticoat from the window of her Dublin home, insulting her unionist neighbours and provoking what became known as ‘the battle of Coulson Avenue’. Aided by nationalist friends, athletes from Cumann na nGaedheal and her sturdy housekeeper, she defended her ‘flag’ against police and irate neighbours. Gonne’s lingerie — allegedly a mark of respect for the recently deceased pope — flew in stark and defiant contrast to the numerous Union Jacks which lined her street in honour of King Edward VII’s visit to Ireland. This episode heralded a month of spectacular protest which polarised nationalist opinion. Like the visit to Dublin of Queen Victoria in 1900, King Edward’s tour provoked both enormous public interest and rivalry between various Irish institutions which vied to express their loyalty to the crown. But the royal tours also instigated fierce debate within the nationalist community and highlighted the ever deepening rifts between constitutional nationalism and ‘advanced’ nationalism.

The Queen’s Loyal ‘Others’ –the Metropolitan Jewish and Catholic Hierarchies, the Communal Press and the Diamond Jubilee of 1897

“…The conclusion noted '… Ireland cannot rejoice… while we do not begrudge our fortunate neighbours their triumphal holiday, we must stand apart, waiting and working for the day when wisdom, justice and humanity shall, in God's time, open for our country the gate of freedom and progress…' 44 The more radical Irish nationalists, soon to coalesce under the banner of Sinn Fein, were aware of another anniversary on the horizon, the centenary of the attempted revolution of 1798. 45 In a Catholic Herald editorial published on 25 June the paper attempted to address this disparity between the declarations of loyalty made by the leading figures of 'Old Catholicism' and an attitude by the representatives of Irish Nationalism that veered between indifference and contempt. After asserting that, 'Her Majesty has… no subjects more loyal than those who… are the children of the Catholic Church' the piece turned to the troublesome Irish: 'Does their aloofness negative [sic] all the dicta just laid down?…”

‘Parnell’s Old Brigade’: the Redmondite–Fenian nexus in the 1890s

“…100 The strengthening of Irish separatism after 1900 is often attributed to a series of factors. Chief among them is the mobilisation of romantic nationalist sentiment generated by the cultural nationalism of the 1890s, the activity associated with the 1798 centenary, the campaign of opposition to the Boer War 101 and the royal visits, 102 and the propagation of Arthur Griffith's policy of withdrawal from Westminster, the strategy of early Sinn Fein. To this constellation might be added the effect of the dismantling of the Redmondite-Fenian nexus.…”