The Origins of The Troubles (Part 1)

Summary

Dan Snow's History Hit

Episode: The Origins of The Troubles (Part 1)

Date: September 7, 2025
Guest: Dr. Thomas Leahy, Senior Lecturer in Politics, Cardiff University

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Episode Overview

In this first of a two-part series, Dan Snow and historian Dr. Thomas Leahy take listeners on an ambitious journey spanning centuries of Irish history, unpacking the deep-rooted origins of the conflict known as The Troubles. The episode aims to demystify the complex web of religious, social, and political tensions that led to the Troubles, stretching from the Anglo-Norman invasion in the 12th century to the aftermath of World War I and the seismic 1918 general election.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Recent Past and Introduction to The Troubles

• Battle of the Bogside & Bloody Sunday (02:07–07:45)
  • Dan Snow opens with a vivid account of tension in Derry/Londonderry in 1969, culminating in the "Battle of the Bogside"—a decisive riot viewed as the start of The Troubles.
  • The narrative fast-forwards to 1972's Bloody Sunday, where British paratroopers killed 13 unarmed civilians at a civil rights march, an event escalating global outrage and deepening rifts.
  • Notable Quote:
    • Dan Snow: "It was one of those moments that deepened or really escalated, I suppose, the conflict that we euphemistically call the Troubles." (07:34)

2. Centuries in the Making—Why The Troubles Did Not "Start" in the 1960s

• Unraveling Centuries of Conflict (08:04–08:58)
  • The podcast commits to a detailed look at the English-Irish relationship from the Anglo-Norman invasion onward, covering major events up to the 20th century.
  • Dr. Leahy is introduced as a guide to the episode's nuanced history.

3. Medieval Ireland: Gaelic Chieftains and Early English Encroachment

• Decentralized Gaelic Society (10:02–11:29)
  • Ireland, prior to Norman arrival, was a patchwork of competing chieftaincies with unique laws (Brehon law) and inheritance customs.
  • Notable Quote:
    • Dr. Leahy: "Ireland would have been decentralized ... with different chieftains for different areas, rulers, regional kings." (10:26)
• Christianization as Justification for Invasion (13:03–15:12)
  • Ireland’s slow Christianization allowed Henry II to gain papal blessing for invading, framing the Anglo-Norman invasion as a crusade to "civilize" a pagan, peripheral land.
  • Quote:
    • Dan Snow: "I did not think about the Anglo Norman conquest of Ireland as part of this, dare I say, crusading movement..." (14:48)

4. Norman "Conquest"—Myth vs. Reality

• Limited Control & Intermarriage (16:57–20:51)
  • Henry II’s influence was mostly limited to the Pale (Dublin area), with real expansion hampered by lack of resources and decentralized Irish power.
  • Over time, "Old English" Norman settlers intermarried and assimilated with Gaelic elites, blending customs and Catholic faith.

5. The Reformation: Shifting Religious and Political Tensions

• English Influence vs. Irish Autonomy (21:55–24:13)
  • By the Tudors, divide deepens: the English crown held nominal authority, but true power lay with local elites.
• Henry VIII and Failed Protestantization (26:26–29:35)
  • Protestant Reformation and efforts to centralize power failed due to lack of resources, entrenched local elites, and customs resistant to change.
  • Quote:
    • Dr. Leahy: "Trying to establish the Reformation in England, Scotland, and Wales ... is the major focus ... To do this in Ireland too would take vast resources." (26:58)
• Elizabeth I Intensifies Efforts (31:40–33:34)
  • The late 16th century brings the Nine Years War (Tyrone’s Rebellion), as the English attempt to stamp out local autonomy and Catholic culture—sparking devastating conflict and destruction.

6. The Plantation of Ulster and Colonialism

• Settler Colonization and Lasting Division (36:18–41:28)
  • Post-rebellion, English (now British) policy shifted to settle Scottish and English Protestants in Ulster, creating a powerful Protestant minority.
  • This "plantation" laid foundations for the later split between (predominantly Catholic) Nationalists and (Protestant) Unionists.
• Notable Quote:
  • Dr. Leahy: "Never underestimate the ability of ambitious younger sons to make their feelings known." (41:02)

7. Cataclysms of the 17th Century

• Rebellion, Cromwell, & the Williamite Wars (46:00–55:23)
  • 1641 Rebellion: Catholic uprising against Protestant settlers in Ulster, exacerbated by English distractions due to civil war at home.
  • Cromwell’s brutal conquest (1649–1653) solidified English power and dispossessed Catholic elites.
    • Quote:
      • Dr. Leahy: "For Cromwell, ... this army they're up against is the opposite and opposing religion ... It's a genuine threat in their head." (52:20)
  • Glorious Revolution (1688–90): Protestant William of Orange’s victory confirmed Protestant dominance in Ireland, especially in Ulster, embedding sectarian antagonism.

8. The 19th Century: The Act of Union and the Great Famine

• Act of Union (1801) (57:40–60:15)
  • Ireland incorporated into the United Kingdom; Irish Catholics largely excluded from the new political order.
  • The United Irishmen uprising (1798) fails, but plants seeds for both republicanism and repression.
• Catholic Emancipation & The Great Famine (60:20–65:44)
  • Late 1820s-30s: Catholics gain limited rights, but the 1840s Famine devastates Irish society—over a million dead, mass emigration, and enduring trauma.
  • Quote:
    • Dan Snow: "The horrors of this period ... were seared into the minds of the Irish at the time." (65:44)
  • Ongoing controversy: Was British policy neglect, incompetence, or genocide?

9. Home Rule, Unionist Resistance, and Political Deadlock

• Rise of Home Rule Movement (67:06–70:29)
  • Late 19th century: Campaign to devolve power back to Ireland (akin to modern "devolution" in the UK).
  • Ulster Unionists, predominantly Protestant, fear "Rome Rule" and block Home Rule via the House of Lords.
    • Quote:
      • Dan Snow: "Their argument was Home rule would mean Rome rule and that means that the Catholic Church will call a shot and will be discriminated against." (69:25)
• Near Civil War and WWI’s Pause (70:29–73:13)
  • The brink of civil war between Ulster volunteers and Nationalists—only the outbreak of WWI prevents immediate violence.

10. The 1916 Easter Rising and the Path to Independence

• Rising, Repression, and Rising Radicalism (76:34–81:10)
  • Despite initial lack of popular support, Britain's harsh response to the Easter Rising sparks sympathy and radicalizes public opinion.
  • 1918: Sinn Féin wins a landslide, shifts goal from Home Rule to full independence—setting up a rival Irish parliament and policy of abstentionism.
  • Quote:
    • Dr. Leahy: "The majority of people across the island voted for that... there is kind of the seeds of partition, you can see, at that point." (82:03–84:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Historical Perspective:
  • Dan Snow: "It just shows that so much history is about where you are standing at that point in time." (08:14)
• On English-Irish Relations:
  • Dr. Leahy: "The relationship would have been ... very similar to the relationship with say like Scotland and Wales ... skirmishes ... but none of these would be particularly successful in terms of like a takeover." (10:26)
• On Prospects for Peace:
  • Dr. Leahy: "Once you start to allow Catholics ... to play a full role ... potentially the tensions in the relationship could have declined ... but the famine interrupts that." (60:56)
• On the Recurring Pattern of Conflict:
  • Dan Snow: "Distraction, distraction, distraction ... you get a sort of English ... constitutional crisis ... and then you get William going to Ireland ... in a slightly similar way." (53:32)
• On Partition’s Roots:
  • Dr. Leahy: "...there is kind of the seeds of partition, you can see, are partly there at that point in 1918's election." (83:49)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• Battle of the Bogside & Bloody Sunday summary: 02:07–07:45
• Discussion of medieval Ireland & Norman invasion: 10:02–16:57
• Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Reformation, and Catholic-Protestant rifts: 26:26–36:18
• The Plantation of Ulster: 36:18–41:28
• 17th-century cataclysm (Cromwell, Williamite war): 46:00–55:23
• Act of Union, Catholic Emancipation, and Great Famine: 57:40–67:06
• Emergence and crisis of Home Rule: 67:06–73:13
• 1916 Rising, Sinn Féin, and the 1918 election: 76:34–84:00

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Summary Table: Key Themes by Era

| Era | Key Events/Themes | Takeaway for The Troubles | |----------------------------|--------------------------------------------|----------------------------------| | Medieval (pre-12th C.) | Gaelic chieftains, Brehon law, decentralization | Roots of local autonomy, contest over sovereignty | | Norman & Plantagenet (12th–15th C.) | Anglo-Norman invasion, ‘beyond the Pale’, assimilation | Catholic-Protestant division slow to form, but lines being drawn | | Tudor-Stuart (16th–17th C.)| Reformation, Nine Years War, Plantation of Ulster, Cromwell | Foundations for sectarian, colonial, and land-based divisions | | Williamite-18th Century | Glorious Revolution, Protestant Ascendancy | Protestant domination and Catholic suppression institutionalized | | 19th Century | Act of Union, Famine, Home Rule debates | Modern political grievances, emigration, republican sentiment | | Early 20th Century | Home Rule crisis, WWI, 1916 Rising, 1918 Election | Republicanism ascendant, partition seeds sown |

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Episode Tone and Style

Dan Snow and Dr. Leahy maintain a clear, accessible, and often conversational tone. They blend narrative storytelling with scholarly insights and candid personal observations, never shying from the contentious or tragic aspects. The overall aim is to help listeners make sense of a long, complex, and emotionally charged history, and to underscore how much the past informs present-day divisions and identities.

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What Comes Next

The episode concludes with the breakdown of the 1918 election results and the rise of Sinn Féin, setting the stage for Part 2, which will address the Irish War of Independence, partition, and The Troubles themselves.

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For further exploration, listeners are encouraged to tune in to Part 2 for 20th-century developments up through the Good Friday Agreement.

Transcript

[Dan Snow]

Hello folks. Dan Snow here.

[Narrator / Host]

I am throwing a party to celebrate 10 years of Dan Snow's history. I'd love for you to be there.

[Dan Snow]

Join me for a very special live recording of the podcast in London in.

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England on 12th September to celebrate the 10 years.

[Dan Snow]

You can find out more about it.

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Get tickets with the link in the show notes. Look forward to seeing you there.

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[Thomas Leahy]

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[Thomas Leahy]

Hey.

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Russell just launched a fitness app and he needed to get the word out to busy professionals looking to stay fit.

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[Russell]

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[Narrator / Host]

Sectarian tensions had come to a head in a historic city in Northern Ireland, a city whose very name is contested Derry to Irish nationalists, those who believe a united Ireland and Londonderry to Ulster loyalists, those people who wish to see Northern Ireland remain as part of the United Kingdom.

[Dan Snow]

In that year, a violent clash broke.

[Narrator / Host]

Out between the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the North Irish Police Force, and Protestant loyalists on one side and Catholic residents of the Bogside district on the other. The confrontation started as members of the Protestant Apprentice Boys passed the Bogside on their annual parade, seen by Catholic residents as an unacceptable provocation. Over three days, besieged residents built barricades and armed themselves with rocks and petrol Bombs as the police tried to enter the Bogside using tear gas. The situation was so volatile that the British army was deployed to the streets to quell the unrest. It became known as the Battle of the Bogside and it was a pivotal moment for Northern Ireland, symbolizing the start of a period known as the Troubles. Fast forward three years to January 1972 and Derry is still a tinderbox. There's another demonstration, one that's been called to protest internment without trial. This is a controversial policy which has stoked tensions between the Unionist state and its Catholic and nationalist citizens. In anticipation of unrest, the authorities have.

[Dan Snow]

Called in the soldiers of the 1st.

[Narrator / Host]

Battalion, the parachute Regiment, known as Paras. They've already earned themselves a reputation of deploying excessive force among the citizens of Northern Ireland during previous confrontations like that known as the Ballymerphy Massacre in West Belfast. Now the Paras are watching as 10,000 people gather at the Cregan housing estate and begin marching towards Guildhall Square in the city centre. Their plan was to hold a rally.

[Dan Snow]

But as they wind their way through.

[Narrator / Host]

The city streets, they see the Paris have begun setting up barriers to redirect their march. Undeterred, the protesters decide to make for the Free Derry corner instead.

[Dan Snow]

At some point, a group breaks away.

[Narrator / Host]

From the main march and begins throwing stones at the manned barricades. The Paras respond by firing rubber bullets, water cannon and CS gas, a nasty type of non lethal gas commonly used during riots. It makes you tear up, it creates a burning sensation in your nose, your throat and your mouth. For those caught up in this, it was no doubt horrible experience. But clashes like this were pretty common in Derry and observers would later claim that this exchange was no more violent than usual. But something very unusual does happen. Suddenly, around 4pm, the situation escalates near William street where other protesters have begun throwing stones at soldiers. In a nearby building. The Parras open fire, this time with live ammunition. 15 year old Damian Donaghy and John Johnson are shot and wounded. The Paras would later claim that Donaghy had been carrying a suspicious object, but multiple investigations would conclude this was false. On the ground, confusion reigns as protesters scatter. People call out for family and friends. They charge down side streets and alleyways. Many head for the Bogside, the site of violent clashes just three years before. Following orders from higher command that soldiers move beyond the barricades and into the Bogside, chasing protesters on Ferknel armored vehicles to make arrests. They continue firing live rounds, claiming to target IRA members. The protests flee in panic. Soldiers open fire again on demonstrators. In a matter of minutes, 13 unarmed civilians are shot dead and at least 15 others are wounded. There are no reliable reports of weapons among the dead, although the army insists that these men were armed. The march is now completely dispersed. Survivors are retreated to homes, churches and makeshift hospitals. The British army claimed that they were fired upon first, but journalists, photographers and medical staff have disputed this. The news spreads globally. There's outrage, condemnation from international leaders. Bloody Sunday, as it's come to be known. It remains one of the darkest days of the Troubles. Hi, everybody, and welcome to Dan Snow's history. So the event I just described is one of the most infamous in the long and bloody conflict in Northern Ireland that spanned around 30 years, from the late 1960s to 1998. It was one of those moments that deepened or really escalated, I suppose, the conflict that we euphemistically call the Troubles. Over the next two episodes in this podcast, we're going to unravel the long and complicated story of the Troubles. We're going to help you make sense of what can definitely be a confusing, a tricky subject, but it's an important one to understand. It's a story that, as you'll hear, does not begin in the 1960s. It stretches way back before the start of the 20th century. The roots go back centuries, and I make no apology here. We're going to do a deep dive. We're going to go all the way back to the 12th century. We're going to get into it.

[Dan Snow]

We're going to look at the Anglo.

[Narrator / Host]

Norman invasion of Ireland. We'll talk about the Protestant Reformation, the reign of Elizabeth the First, and is.

[Dan Snow]

Worth saying again how differently that rain.

[Narrator / Host]

Is seen in Ireland to the customary view in England. It just shows that so much history is about where you are standing at that point in time. We're gonna be looking at the Ulster Plantation, the Great Famine, and then we're gonna finish up just after the First World War with the 1918 general election. Then in the second episode, we're gonna pick it up again in the 20th century. You've got Irish War of Independence, Civil War, and we're going all the way up to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Very lucky across these two episodes to have a fantastic guest talking us through the tumultuous history. We've got Thomas Leahy. He's a senior lecturer in politics at Cardiff University. He teaches British and Irish politics and contemporary history. And as you'll hear, he's got a fantastic grasp on the complicated history that we're dealing with here.

[Dan Snow]

And all of this obviously remains very.

[Narrator / Host]

Divisive, all of it, much of it really very contested. Many of you listening will have lived through part of the story. I certainly did. Some of you may have experienced the events we're gonna talk about in a small way. The city that I grew up in, London, was from time to time smashed with an IRA bomb. That's just something that we got very used to. But many, many more British and Irish people experienced the Troubles at much, much closer hand than that. This podcast, a little overview. It's a jumping off point, lays the groundwork. And I hope you go on and do some more studying, researching yourself.

[Dan Snow]

With all that said, I hope you.

[Narrator / Host]

Find these episodes helpful. So this is episode one, the Origins of the Troubles.

[Dan Snow]

T minus 10.

[Thomas Leahy]

Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king.

[Narrator / Host]

No black white unity till there is.

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First some black unity.

[Thomas Leahy]

Never to go to war with one another again. And liftoff. And the shuttle has cleared the tower.

[Dan Snow]

Thomas, thank you very much for coming on the podcast.

[Thomas Leahy]

Thank you very much for having me.

[Dan Snow]

Tell me about islands. Before the Anglo Normans landed there, there was trade. The Romans had sort of investigated it, but never invaded, although it was talked about. And indeed, the Irish military activity had often been the other way. Lots of Irish raids and attacks and even some settlements in Great Britain. What was the relationship between the two islands like, say around the 11th century when William the Conqueror arrives in England.

[Narrator / Host]

How would they have seen each other?

[Thomas Leahy]

I think if we look at Ireland as a society itself, so it would have been decentralized state in terms of you within have like a centralized government or king, or they would have had different chieftains for different areas, rulers, regional kings, which are called Irish Gaelic chieftains. And yes, as you said, there would have been a lot of conflicts between them, but also anyone who tried to come in, like Vikings, etc. Except in longer paths. And then also, yes, there would have been some skirmishes between the rulers of England. Well, well, to an extent as well. And island in the past. So the relationship would have been in a sense, very similar. If we look at it from English government point of view or the monarch's point of view, it would have been very similar to the relationship with say like Scotland and Wales in that period where you have kind of skirmishes, sometimes cross border or cross the sea in this case. But generally none of these would be particularly successful in terms of like a takeover of large regions of each other's countries. So if you look at the UK and Irish Isles, you have Ireland with various different Regional rulers. Wales would have been the same, had quite a few different rulers in local areas. It would have been quite similar to that set up and then Scotland and England. Yeah. Is it really kind of four distinct entities at that point? And that's the situation really, until the Normans come in. Like one quick anecdote which I think is quite useful to know about Ireland when it was under Irish Gaelic chieftains is. And this continued really up to. You could argue about the 14, 15, 1600s, and certainly the 1600s, there needs to be something called Brehon law in terms of like how inheritance would work with ruling families or royals, etc. In England in that period that it was usually this, the eldest son, a male, who would inherit land or wealth, et cetera. In Ireland it was slightly different. And the fact that any children say of an Irish Catholic chieftain, certainly from the Norman period onwards, once the Catholicism enters island more, they would all inherit a land. And I think this was an interesting thing, you know, because it was seen that it caused a lot of difficulties because you might have one son or daughter who's envious of the others. Again, the equal amount, particularly if they're the older one, thinking, right, I'm gonna have an uprising here against my son or my fellow brothers or sisters to take all their land, et cetera. So there's a sense that it could create instability. I don't think that's necessarily true. If you look at history, we've had a lot of problems, say for royal families. It evolved in England and eventually Britain and the uk where you'd have some monarchs maybe knocking off brothers or sisters or allegations of it, et cetera.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah. Primogeniture hasn't run super smooth where it's been tried as well. There's no fail safe way of passing.

[Narrator / Host]

On wealth and kingdoms down through generations.

[Dan Snow]

Let's just say that just quickly, let's take an audit of Ireland's religiosity. We've all heard of St. Patrick at the end of the Roman period in Britain. He's credited with starting to bring Christianity to Ireland. Christian Ireland sent missionaries into Britain in the early medieval period to help re Christianize. Is Ireland regarded as outside Christendom by the kind of Norman period? What does the Pope think when and if he thinks about distant Ireland?

[Thomas Leahy]

Good question. So, yes, you do get the influence of people such as St. Patrick going in. And actually the fact that St. Patrick's having an interaction with Ireland tells us even in that period, that certainly in. If we're looking backward in modern day, Context it seems as you know, Irish Catholic island or that kind of, you know, general label. But actually yes, before the Normans entered and really for a period after that, until really Henry ii, it did have Christian missionaries or persons sent from Rome or the Sir Patrick types to try and get a more of a backing for the Christian church. And it was a mega successful and actually Ireland tended other different chieftains and rulers tended to follow of series of different religions. That was just essentially put under broad label of pagan. And that's interesting because that then explains, you know, why is it that the Pope then gets Henry II to allow invasion into Ireland. And that's essentially why, because of the fact that they're concerned that Ireland isn't coming under Christian faith. And so it's seen as a threat essentially. So does it explain why then when we get under Henry ii, is there an agreement from the Pope to allow English monarch to invade just in the Dublin area? That's why, as a kind of landing base to see if they can get this more embed into society.

[Dan Snow]

So you have blown my mind.

[Narrator / Host]

I was 46 years old and I.

[Dan Snow]

Did not think about the Anglo Norman.

[Narrator / Host]

Conquest of Ireland as part of this.

[Dan Snow]

Dare I say the kind of crusading movement, you see the famous Crusades, but these other crusading moves towards what we now call Eastern Europe from Charlemagne onwards, bringing the peripheral areas of Europe well into the Roman Church. Should we think about the Norman conquest of Ireland in those terms?

[Thomas Leahy]

Yes, I would say that seems to be kind of the primary motive. I mean that's an absolutely pivotal motive behind it. And this sense from Rome in particular in that period. I mean it's interesting, right, if we flip this on its head and I'm sure this is something we'll talk about later, that you know, under say like Elizabeth I, Elizabeth Tudor, that, you know, why is there an attempt to stop, really accelerate like Plantation of Ireland in that period with British Protestants? Because it's seen as a Catholic threat to the Protestant British Reformation. So if you then flip back to whatever we're talking four or five hundred years before Ireland, seen in the other vein, it's seen as that it got too much pagan faith and influence in society. So the Church of Rome, which now would call the Catholic Church, influences the English King, Henry II to get involved because of the fact that it's seen as threat to certainly like Christian values and Christian faith. And exactly what you said in that context of the spread of it across various parts of Europe and eventually tempting the world. But the second thing as well would be this is something that comes in with the Normans is a more kind of expansionist philosophy really. And you can see this in William the Conqueror onwards that with like the north of England and what happened up there, you know, like haring of the north a bit that essentially that you are safer in your rule and in your land if you try and centralize rule a little bit more. So it was a combination of both. But the Christianity aspect was key.

[Dan Snow]

Definitely it is an amazing moment that Henry ii because from the beginning is this Anglo Norman attempt we are going to settle Ireland. Obviously Henry II's got a huge empire in France, empire across much of what we now call Britain. So he's no stranger to trans maritime empires and he just thinks, yeah, no problem, we're just going to add a bit of Ireland because no one had done that before. He's going beyond the Romans. I mean was this a big deal at the time?

[Thomas Leahy]

Yes, it was. In particular, it doesn't work too successful that it just essentially goes into an area which there's a phrase that people know called beyond the Pale. It's used quite a lot in English language. The area they settle on the island of Ireland is just around the Dublin area, essentially where the capital of the Republic of day is called the Pale. But yes, it was seen as, you know, you'd use a kind of major port and trading area such as Dublin and your base and then you would expand beyond that. But it's really interesting you given that wider context there, that's key. As you would know that Henry 2nd is quite distracted and his ancestors thereafter in various other places, including parts of what now is France. So island's kind of a new project and a new idea to show I think again like flexing your muscles to show power. But also I think that key bit is staying in line with, you know, the Church of Rome. And if they in a sense almost commanded you to look, you're powerful, you've got influence, you tame this area, then that's essentially partly why they go into that.

[Narrator / Host]

And the Normans are good at taming areas, aren't they?

[Dan Snow]

They've had generations of practice with very.

[Narrator / Host]

Reluctant Englishmen, Welshmen and others. So what's the model here?

[Dan Snow]

Just build a massive castle and let the locals come at you and just.

[Narrator / Host]

Outlast them, just outstay them.

[Thomas Leahy]

It's a little bit different just in a sense it's not a resource rich project, if you put it in that way. So I think the idea exactly what you said is right. You go in you build your cast, as you hold it, you put down any local agitation or uprisings and then you expand. The issue with Ireland is essentially just finances put to these various other projects that like Henry the Second is involved in and then he successes from like the Norman period. And that limits the scope of it because you then have a base in Dublin that you can't go beyond. The other point with it as well, which is there's so many different local chieftains, some of them quite powerful because they invade other areas and they take over that get the resources. You don't have a centralized target, if you like that you can go in, remove and then say, right, this is my base, I'm going to expand from here. So I think that made it very difficult, but. And it made it very difficult just because of English monarchs. That would have meant spending quite vast sums of wealth and exactly going back to what you said, when you've already got projects in, well, Scotland, parts of Europe, particularly places like Normandy, Gascony, et cetera, you don't have that money available. And that's the problem with them, with the island project. It's not very near the top of the list, which is interesting. They've got other fish to fry, if you want to call it that. And particularly you think about like the Norman stock and where they feel they've come from, the areas of France that they have influence over and rule is really, really important for them. And I think again, if we. And the second point I make about the different context is, so the Pope goes to Henry II and says, look, this area is potentially a bit of a pagan encroachment on Christian Europe. So Henry goes in Ireland, actually from there. This is the interesting thing as well, like what happens when you get Anglo Normans who go to Ireland. And actually we see once you get really up to even the Tudor period, most of them do things such as intermarry and then the Catholic influence is able to spread and it's quite willing that people are opting into this. So if we look at what the Normans are doing elsewhere, it's not necessarily a super aggressive strategy because they don't have the money and resources for it, as we said. So this is just kind of secondary effect which isn't necessarily planned, where some Anglo Norman lords are essentially going across and if they are moving outside of the Pell zone, they're, you know, working with some Irish Gaelic chieftain families and spreading influence by that way, or via marriage. And the tensions aren't really there, which later on we see Just because of being part of the same religion. And there's quite a willingness with that in the population eventually.

[Dan Snow]

Are you suggesting also that Catholicism spreads quite nicely in Ireland, but not necessarily.

[Narrator / Host]

Acceptance of English rule before the Reformation? Let's keep talking about the medieval period.

[Thomas Leahy]

Yes, yes, definitely. And Catholicism does the reasons why that would be the case. So I think there's a couple of factors that can influence that and one particular standout one, if we think for Irish Gaelic chieftains, there would have been an opt in to Catholicism from there much earlier than, say, the middling sort or the peasantries, the lower classes in society. But that's because of the fact that there's like rewards to them and there's influence with Rome or discussions with Rome or trade routes. So that makes sense for them to do so. The second thing about that for them is it's not a threat linking into the Church of Rome because of the fact that Brecon Law, for example, can stay so, like, their relatives can still inherit all their children, can still inherit their land and titles, et cetera, which is, again, if we do contrast, that's quite different to when the Protestant infant spreads in the 1600s. That is a direct threat for Irish at that point. Gaelic Catholic chieftain. So basically they just see that this, this church comes in, it helps with trade routes, helps with status onto the European continent for legitimacy, really, for some of these Irish Gaelic chieftains. And it's no real threat to local customs.

[Dan Snow]

Let's go forward now to the eve.

[Narrator / Host]

Of the Reformation, the early Tudor states.

[Dan Snow]

So Henry vii, the young Henry viii, technically they're Lords of Ireland, again, technically in charge of Ireland. Is there a real sense in which he rules Ireland? Is that, in meaningful sense, part of his kingdom?

[Thomas Leahy]

You are right to be sceptical of that because. No, in terms of him being able to, I guess we could say, you know, crack the whip and order Irish Gaelic Catholic chieftains into doing things they don't want to do. No. And again, it's because the main concentration of power does essentially still remain in places like Dublin. But also the key thing you said there is about the intermarriage element and what you end up with. Well, we'll try and make this easy enough because it can get complicated with the various titles. But what you've got in Ireland before the Reformation is what we would call Old Irish. So Irish Gaelic Catholic chieftain descendants, or from their families, etc. And the population, then you've got what would be termed as the Old English at this point. So these are people who have come over from the Norman congress period onwards of Henry II that they have integrated and they've integrated into society. And actually most have just adopted the same kind of customs or like Brecken law and things like that with inheritance as what was existing in Ireland. So no, it's not the case that descendants of, you know, forward from Henry II and English foolish. Can they just like crack the whip and tell people what to do? No. And order around Irish Gaelic Catholic chieftains. But they don't really need to do that because of the fact that actually it's quite a fairly cordial relationship because of there has been intermarriage and intermixing and accepting of in many parts of Ireland what Irish Gaelic Catholic chieftains and their ways of conducting themselves as rulers in society. There's been an acceptance of that that's quite different from what comes from reformation onwards.

[Dan Snow]

And I guess if you're in London.

[Narrator / Host]

You'Re also not super bothered by what's.

[Dan Snow]

Happening in Galway or Donegal. So you can live with a degree of autonomy in those regions and it's kind of live and let live.

[Thomas Leahy]

Exactly, yes.

[Dan Snow]

By the time of the Protestant reformations.

[Narrator / Host]

Of the 1500s, Ireland, well, there was a very complex picture in Ireland. You've got the Old English people that we call the Old English.

[Dan Snow]

They're of Norman descent.

[Narrator / Host]

They weren't English in the way that we understand today. They were descended from the French speaking Catholic aristocrats from Normandy and France who had only recently conquered England itself.

[Dan Snow]

Now in Ireland, over the generations, they.

[Narrator / Host]

Became known as the Old English. They'd carved out territories, but they'd also intermarried with local Gaelic elites and they sort of established themselves in their own right.

[Dan Snow]

And you could say that Ireland changed them.

[Narrator / Host]

By the 1500s, many of these families were more Irish. They saw themselves as more Irish than English and certainly than Norman. And this alarmed the English crown. All these apparent servants of the crown going native.

[Dan Snow]

By that point, the crown really only.

[Narrator / Host]

Controlled directly the area around Dublin. It was known as the Pale beyond the Pale, as they say. Those Old English lords ruled semi independently and.

[Dan Snow]

And much of Ireland was broken up.

[Narrator / Host]

Into their fiefdoms and also those run by the traditional Catholic Gallic Irish chiefs.

[Dan Snow]

Now this last group are the native.

[Narrator / Host]

Elite of Ireland who retained a distinct Gallic political and social order, one that had proved reasonably hospitable to the Old English, able to accommodate the Old English into some of their existing structures. So the lines between the Old English and the Gaelic Irish elite, they sort of blurred. They intermarried they socialized together. They came to develop a kind of common point of view. And they definitely found common cause in.

[Dan Snow]

Approaching the English government based in London.

[Narrator / Host]

As it tried to expand its control in Ireland. And definitely when that government tried to impose a new religious settlement on Ireland, when it tried to introduce Protestantism effectively. And that's why this very sort of complex balancing act just completely collapses, completely shatters when Henry VIII broke with Rome and demanded that the Irish follow suit. Okay, so let's come now to the.

[Dan Snow]

Reformation, driven by events in England.

[Narrator / Host]

Well, not just events in England, driven by events in Henry VIII's bedroom.

[Dan Snow]

England begins the process of Reformation and Reformations over decades. But effectively England, Wales, and indeed Scotland.

[Narrator / Host]

As well will end up as Protestant places.

[Dan Snow]

The vast majority of our people in Ireland do not reform. Henry makes himself king of Ireland, in.

[Narrator / Host]

Fact, doesn't he, in 1542.

[Dan Snow]

Why, though, does he fail to turn.

[Narrator / Host]

His Irish subjects Protestants?

[Thomas Leahy]

Okay, so I would say in Henry's project, in terms of why that fails comes back to resources and money and the fact that, you know, trying to establish the Reformation in England, Scotland and Wales is, and particularly England is the major focus of what Henry's up to. And obviously you've got the various other parts of his life that are distracting with divorcing or marrying different people. And then there's quite a lot of intrigue. I'm sure, like some of your listeners probably seen the things like the Wolf hall books on television. There's quite a lot of intrigue in the court as well. So that keeps him quite busy. A big thing in this period, again is just partly goes into relationship between Parliament and the monarchs in England, just because of the fact that if you want to go and invade Ireland and do the thorough job and actually invade it and then force it to unprodestant, which you need a lot of men for a lot of resources and money. That's a lot of money that's going to have to go through Parliament and the earls of the lords back in England to do so. And as we just said, there's a lot going on because of the Reformation that makes that not feasible in this period. The second reason as well, and it comes back to that point we talked about, like the decentralization of power. And for Irish Gaelic Catholic chieftains, this more accelerates when we talk about Elizabeth the First, because it's more of an attempt and things are more settled in England at that point in terms of the Reformation, to try and encroach a little bit more and to enforce that, no, Elizabeth is a queen and there's certain customs of rights they're going to change. For example, heritage law. So Bracken law could be sidelined. And then instead you'd have the inheritance laws exist in England. So you can understand for Irish Gaelic Catholic chieftains, but also their children, they're looking at this thinking, hang on a minute, I'm going to lose my inheritance here. Potentially, this is where you start to get animosity in not just necessarily a religious part. It goes back to that point that Ireland was very used to society at that point for the chieftain rulers, to being a decentralized society. So it's not just a monarch now who's coming across saying, oh, I have some influence here. We could do some trade, there's some agreement. They're trying to change fundamental bits of society if they can, and centralize power. And if, you know, when we go back and thinking about the Tudor, this was something actually, in my view, an argument anyway, would come in under Henry vii. For Henry vii, that was something that Henry VII introduced a much more, I feel like, centralized system of government where you get your local earls and lords to have a lot more kind of filthy and homage to you centrally. And that attempt in Ireland was going to be tricky because of the fact that, as we said, the chieftains were not used to that style of rule.

[Dan Snow]

So even without the Reformation, the English crown and Ireland were on a bit.

[Narrator / Host]

Of a collision course.

[Thomas Leahy]

Yeah. So I think the Reformation is definitely the dominant factor that's driving this animosity. But the whole thing about centralizing power more from the monarchs in London was going to be problematic for Irish Gaelic Catholic chieftains. Definitely. And I think when we get to say, like Elizabeth's period, why is there more effort then, as a question, you know, rhetorically, to manage the situation in Ireland? And partly because Irish Gaelic Catholic chieftains, led by the Earl of Tyrone o', Neill, and they start to have an uprising then against encroaching what they feel is like English customs coming in, challenging tradition in Ireland of how society operated, decentralized, essentially. But also, I just think that you can see the clash is going to come because of, if we look then at the macro events, what's happening outside of just the relationship between, say, England and Ireland or the UK and Irish Isles. Yeah. There's a real fear for Elizabeth that France or Spain and the Pope are going to use Ireland as some kind of launch pad, as a Counter Reformation. Land there, invade there, and then they can invade England, Scotland or Wales. And I often say it's the students we teach, we put that in modern parlance to see like how big of a threat the Tudors, eventually, when you get to Elizabeth, see Ireland as a potential Counter Reformation haven. It's a bit like the reaction of the U. S, the United States with the ussr, the Soviet Union over Cuba. It's exactly the same kind of thing that Cuba and the US Parlance could be used as some kind of pro Soviet attempt to spread communism beyond like just Eastern Europe and part of Asia. And if we go back to the Reformation period, that is exactly how English Protestant monarchs started to view Ireland. They thought this, this place is genuinely dangerous to us because of our much more superpower enemies at that point, like Spain and France and the Pope itself with the matter of resources, they had an influence in Europe. Yes. Could use Ireland to try to roll back the Reformation with us. So it goes up to the agenda as the Reformation's more embedded by the time you get to Elizabeth I.

[Dan Snow]

So Elizabeth I, did she make the first real concerted attempt to invade and subdue and bring Ireland into a kind of regular system of royal government really, despite the English having landed there 400 years before. Is Elizabeth the first time this really.

[Narrator / Host]

Ratchets up that attempt?

[Thomas Leahy]

Yes. And because there's more of an attempt to secure her rule and any kind of subjects, and that includes people who have some form of decentralized local power granted by her, but it's to secure her centrally in her rules. So the idea is there has to be a standardization in things like law and procedures and trade, etc, that it can't just be done ad hoc by, you know, earls or lords, in this case, Irish Gaelic Catholic chieftains on the island of Ireland that might just overall say they pay homage to her. So it does ratchet up. And I think that that's when, as we talked about, once you then get to the kind of 1590s, you have this Hugh O' Neill rebellion led from today's what would be parts of Northern Ireland or Ulster. And that's not an accident. And actually it's a pattern we see repeated in the 1600s. Because these people are feeling, no, no, this is going too far. They're actually trying to centralize us and we just become basically like what you see in England to an extent with earls and lords, where we're just operating a local law and customs that are just decided in London and we don't have any ability to really influence these things anymore. And that's why there is, you know, the uprising that happens under the o'. Neill. So Ireland wasn't used to that system and it wasn't going to willingly come under it either.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah, you're trying to do two things at once. You're trying to reform the entire religious settlement. You're trying to tell people how they're going to get into heaven, as well as going through that laborious process of centralization and stripping local elites of their power. That's a huge ask. And that plunges Elizabeth into this catastrophic.

[Narrator / Host]

War known as Tyrone's Rebellion, or the Nine Years War. This conflict pitted Ireland's most powerful lords against the might of the English Crown. There's one figure that really towers over this story, Hugh o'.

[Thomas Leahy]

Neill.

[Narrator / Host]

He was the Earl of Tyrone, and.

[Dan Snow]

At first, o' Neill had played the.

[Narrator / Host]

Part of the loyal subject and he held that earldom granted by the Crown. He'd been shrewd in playing both sides off against each other.

[Dan Snow]

And this just really reflects the fact.

[Narrator / Host]

Even by the 1590s, Ireland was still a very complicated place. The alliances shifted, there was a patchwork of changing loyalties.

[Dan Snow]

But by 1593, that gray area in.

[Narrator / Host]

The middle, that place for compromise, was just disappearing. English forces were pressing into Ulster. They were enforcing royal law, they were curbing traditional Gaelic practices. They were kicking Gaelic speakers off good farmland. These local disputes spiraled. And o', Neill, he chose outright opposition. He chose war, or rather, he accepted the inevitability of war that had been imposed by these English encroachments. Depending on your point of view, he quickly proved himself a master strategist. He reorganised his army among modern lines. He drilled them in Spanish style pike formations. He deployed people with firearms, arquebuses. He gave the Irish an edge they hadn't had before. And meanwhile, the English just underestimated the scale of the threat. Through the 1590s, O' Neill's forces enjoy a series of great victories, victories that you won't have heard of in England, but big victories in pitched battles over English forces. Humiliation upon humiliation for the English, and his reputation soared. But the war dragged on. Elizabeth drove the English government to the point of bankruptcy and beyond, and sent more and more troops and supplies to Ireland. The war became more and more brutal. There was scorched earth tactics. The crops were burnt, slaughtered livestock. The civilian population was starved en masse. By the turn of the century, the tide was shifting. There's a battle at Kinsale in December of 1601, which is hugely important. A Spanish army had landed in southern Ireland. The Irish had attempted to join them and the English had managed to defeat them, defeat them both pretty badly actually. It was a rout. And it had been the great gamble of the rebellion. And it failed narrowly. It just failed. The tide turned and the English won victory after victory. That process, that war really destroyed the old Gaelic order. Ireland was just devastated, its population reduced by famine and violence. The English were now pretty dominant and the ground was laid for a new process of colonial settlement, particularly in the north, became known as the Plantation of Ulster.

[Thomas Leahy]

So what then happens is eventually Elizabeth's forces prevail. She then pardons o' Neill and his accomplices as some of the Irish Gaelic Catholic chieftains involved. But then 1607, there's what's called the Flight of the Earls and no one really still understands exactly why this is what were the Irish Gaelic Catholic chieftains, they were still sentinel, just paying more homage to Elizabeth and accepting more English customs in. And they fled, they just flee across the European continent. So what that leaves in various parts of Ireland is these, what were quite influential Irish Gaelic Catholic chieftains that were able to bring together various, if you like, rebellious chieftains and areas that don't like the new influence from England, they've gone. So at that point, once you get James the First of England or James Dixon of Scotland, once James the First is on the throne in London, they decide Ireland is a risk because it has just had a rebellion in the 1590s. It could be potentially again uses a launch pad for Spain or France etc to invade England and remove Protestantism. So what you're going to do is send across plantation, modern day plants, it might be called like colonization. So you move in settler population. So for earls or lords from England or Scotland and specifically across to the island of Ireland to become the local landlord, the local landowner and the local earl. And it was a couple of things going on there. Number one, the Protestant rulers had started to run out of land in England, Scotland and Wales to grant various aristocracies. So the idea was, well, there's land in Ireland you can grant them and then they've got an expansion there. So there's lots of resources to provide to people. But the second thing was also as we said that an eye to kind of the back door into, well, Scotland or England as a Counter Reformation that we need to keep an eye on this place. And actually do you know what the idea was from the monarchs, Protestant British monarchs at that point, that we can keep an eye better on things if we have a loyalty ruling class in Ireland, some of them rulers actually Remove themselves, as we talked about 607. But for any of the rest of the areas, once we have our forces and people in there, we can keep an eye on things better. But also because of the. There was still the battle with the Reformation. There's kind of a third thing that. Yeah, trying to spread Protestant influence. And because of a deeply held religious belief that Catholicism was wrong as a religion.

[Narrator / Host]

This is settler colonialism. It's the petri dish really for the English and British massive imperial experiment outside Europe as well.

[Dan Snow]

You're sending over what sort of Protestants promising free land? You're sending people over. Are you throwing Irish communities off the land? Are you sort of buying it? Quote, unquote. How does it work in practice?

[Thomas Leahy]

Yeah, sometimes that's happening. So in the areas where we talked about the flight of the earls, they've removed themselves. Do you then just put in your people as the rulers in those local areas? They remove place the Irish gated Catholic chieftains. Just again, as an anecdote with that, an important one is, you know, that answers a question for us later. Why is it there's ends up lots of Ulster British Protestants who live in like today's Northern Ireland, why are they so concentrated in the northeast? The plantations were across the island of Ireland, but because of the ones who came across primarily from Scotland, those are lords British Protestants, they were more successful in the areas of the northeast in terms of like business and commerce to setting up like the trading port places like Derry or people call it Londonderry, Belfast, et cetera. So that's why there is a particular concentration there. And also it's just much closer to Scotland. So it's much easier as an area for them to come across in terms of travel. So that's what happened in those areas. In other areas, yeah, there would be expansionists and attempts at skirmishes and conflicts. Sometimes local level. Sometimes as we see once you get to the 1640s, that explodes more national level across the island. Yes, an attempt to remove people and remove Irish Gaelic Catholic achievements that remained, but also to spread influence as bizarrely a kind of form of defense for the wider UK Irish Isles British Protestantism project, if you want to call it that, that's coming down from the monarchs. So essentially that's what would happen. And also some of it would be by stick in terms of some bits attempted carrot is the changes of things like the inheritance laws. But you can see from Irish Gaelic Catholic chieftains and their families, this is deeply resented because it's gonna be a massive problem for the fabric of that society. Because suddenly an Irish Gaelic Catholic chieftain, you know, their son in particular, sometimes the daughters as well, suddenly they become the single ruler of an area under English customer laws. Whereas, as we talked about under Brehon law before, an Irish Gaelic Catholic society, that wasn't the case. It was land and wealth, etc, would be divvied out, if you like, between the different children. So it's resisted for the various reasons we see.

[Dan Snow]

Never underestimate the ability of ambitious younger.

[Narrator / Host]

Sons to make their feelings known.

[Dan Snow]

You've got this sort of terrible feedback loop.

[Narrator / Host]

You've got displaced Catholics, Irish Catholics furious.

[Dan Snow]

They rebel. The rebellion provokes British government response. Anyone involved in that rebellion is thrown off the land, prescribed, killed, exiles. That land is then given to Protestants. There's a vicious cycle here.

[Thomas Leahy]

Yes. And the culmination of it comes in just 1630s, but also in the six, once we get into the 1640s to an island, someone called the Earl of Stafford, so there's essentially like a English governor that ruled Ireland on behalf of the monarchs at that point. The Earl of Stafford did try and get more standardizations like religious practice and fealty back to the English monarchs. And this is resisted particularly by what were remaining of the Irish Gaelic Catholic rulers. What's interesting at this point, when you look at wider society as well, so this is the next kind of big clash, it goes back to those terms we used earlier. So at this point in Irish society, you have old Irish which are Irish, get it Catholic background, Old English which are Catholic background, despite coming from the Norman period. And we talked about the intermarried, and now you get what's called the New English. So the New English, or they could say new Scottish as well, because it's both. The New English are Protestant, so they're coming into the situation. And the other two groups, because you've now got a coming together of old Irish Catholic background and Old English Catholic background, and they're both coming together and if you like, putting their finger to the wind, saying, hang on a minute, all of us are going to be dispossessed here of our land and wealth, because we all have something in common, which is the Catholic faith. So once you then go into the 1640s, once you had the period with Stafford, and then, if you like, and we see this repeated later in Irish history, England becomes massively distracted because there's a civil war between parliament and the king, and that's the same in Scotland and Wales as well. So the Old Irish remaining chieftains and the Old English, you have to think there. Old English remaining rulers come together and they say let's have an uprising again. It starts from Ulster and it then spreads quite quickly across the whole of Ireland because just quite simply, parliamentarian forces plus the kings at this point, Charles the first are totally distracted because they're just fighting each other. Specifically in England.

[Narrator / Host]

This is Dan Snows history. There's more on this topic coming up.

[Thomas Leahy]

Foreign.

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[Thomas Leahy]

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[Thomas Leahy]

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[Narrator / Host]

The Irish Rebellion of 1641 and I'm very grateful that you got this far in this podcast, folks. This is not easy and we're now at the hardest bit.

[Dan Snow]

Everyone knows the mid 17th century is.

[Narrator / Host]

The hardest bit in British and Irish history. So this is it, guys. We can do this. This is our Everest.

[Dan Snow]

Let's recap on who the main groups.

[Narrator / Host]

In Ireland were at the time. First, you got the Gallic Irish.

[Dan Snow]

These are the native Gaelic population.

[Narrator / Host]

They trace their lineage back to way before the hated English and the Normans ever set foot on the Emerald Isle.

[Dan Snow]

They had a native system of Irish law, the Brehon Law.

[Narrator / Host]

They were overwhelmingly Catholic. They were, roughly speaking, irredeemably opposed to the English Crown.

[Dan Snow]

Then you've got the Old English. They're descendants of that first wave, first.

[Narrator / Host]

Couple of waves of Anglo Norman settlers. By the 17th century, they were mostly Catholic, and they'd largely assimilated with the old Irish. They'd come to share their worldview and opinion of English Protestants.

[Dan Snow]

Then third, we've got the New English.

[Narrator / Host]

They were more recent English and Scottish Protestant settlers planted in Ireland. Colonial settlers from Elizabeth Tudor and then from James I and 6th and onwards.

[Dan Snow]

They were living on confiscated land.

[Narrator / Host]

They were very, very strong, particularly in Ulster in the north of Ireland. They saw Ireland as unclaimed, as wilderness, as there to be colonized, to be brought under the plough by them. They saw Ireland exactly as their contempor would have seen Canada and North America at the time. Just virgin soil with a few annoying people living on it who needed to be cleared out. They were obviously staunchly loyal to the English and Scottish crowns, the British crown in London. So by the 1640s, Ireland was just a very, very tense mosaic. You've got dispossessed Old Irish and Old English Catholics, and you've got land hungry, swaggering, confident New English Protestants who are certain the future belongs to them. The spark for war came in October 1641. A group of Gallic Catholic nobles in Ulster launched an uprising. Their aim was to take advantage of.

[Dan Snow]

The turmoil brewing in England.

[Narrator / Host]

Civil war's about to kick off in England, so great this is a time to force concessions from a much weakened Crown. The rebellion spread like wildfire across Ulster. Catholics attacked Protestant settlers. They seized lands and strongholds. They massacred civilians. Protestant accounts made the most of this. They spoke of thousands killed, though those numbers were lightly exaggerated. But still there was real violence and.

[Dan Snow]

Brutality, and that created deep fear and.

[Narrator / Host]

Anger among Protestants and a burning desire for revenge. You have probably seen this story a few times in history, folks. The war that followed was savage and chaotic. It deepened over the next few years. Both sides won and lost, ebbed and flowed. But the Irish could never maintain the unity that was needed. The Old Irish and the Old English often quarreled over strategy and religion and things. Some wanted to compromise the King, others pushed for more full on independence. Now by 1649, unfortunately for those Irish, everything had changed. King Charles I had been executed in London. The English and Scottish monarchies have been overthrown. Now ultimately this would prove disastrous for the Irish cause because the parliamentarian general who happened unfortunately for the Irish to be something of a military genius, the ultra strict Protestant Oliver Cromwell, was now no longer distracted by affairs in England. He was able to devote his full attention to Ireland and bring with him probably the most well equipped, experienced, disciplined and ambitious army since the legions left these shores more than a thousand years before. Oliver Cromwell arrived in Ireland at the head of the New Model army and.

[Dan Snow]

He would go on to conduct a.

[Narrator / Host]

Very bloody conquest and really a permanent transformation of Irish society.

[Dan Snow]

Cromwell does what the Plantagenets never did, which was he does things very methodically. He locks down England and Wales, then he invades and completely occupies Scotland the way that no English sovereign had ever.

[Narrator / Host]

Really done this effectively before.

[Dan Snow]

And then he goes to Ireland to do the same. So he is a guy who's laser focused on getting the British and Irish Isles firmly under the control of London for the first time in history.

[Thomas Leahy]

Yes, and I think if we're asking the question there, like what's the main difference, you know, how come he's partly able to do that? Definitely partly resources, partly is not distracted by elsewhere. But there's a really key third element here and I think this then has a big influence in terms of what we'd call a non conformist Protestant thinking in Ireland and how they think about society and its relationship with Britain, et cetera, non conformist essentially, like what we'd say to Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc. So not Anglican Church. And what I'm talking about there is that if we go back to the Civil War, like what is the Civil War about in England, Scotland, World, essentially you've got a form of Protestantism today we might terms like High Church Anglicanism. So the Church of England, for example, Church of Wales being led by Charles the First and it's for non conformist Protestant, they say this is just Catholicism about the Pope. It's still got all the kind of high Church element to it. It's still not following what they feel this should be in a sense the true faith. And that's the mindset of like the parliamentary forces and the non conformist Protestants in particular who fight with them. I mean that's their fault of the Anglican Church. If you then Think, well, what's their fault of the Catholic Church? You know, for Cromwell that their idea and the parliamentary forces that essentially this is like an Antichrist army led by Rome. So it's seen as particularly dangerous for what they want in terms of religion and then society and government. That's why Cromwell's so willing to plug in with huge resources into what needs to happen in Ireland and actually go in and think this time we're not going to mess about with devolving any local power. We're just going to go in and crush it and we'll rule it and we'll dispossess the people who have been ruling it, who from like the Catholic background because it's seen as an existential threat to not just British Protestantism at this point, but the particular brand of Protestantism that Cromwell believes. And then one last thing I'll say about that, where you got like the printing press became a big thing in the English Civil Wars. You have like counter propaganda on each side. An event at the start of the uprising by the Irish Catholic community from the 1641 rebellion in Ireland on Port of Down Bridge in Port of down, which still exists in era today in Northern Ireland. And there was allegations of like a massacre of Protestants there that they were piked or shot and then thrown into the, the river running in talks about. So again if we fast forward to when Cromwell's coming across the late 1640s. So Adam, once he sorted out the business in England that plays in the mindset of that particular like non conformist Protestant army, that they believe that, you know, this is again like the Antichrist force and they say look at the massacre these people did, they have to be punished for what they did. And that might explain also for your listeners, you know, why some of Cromwell's measures, if we call it that, like the siege of Drokhada and also there's a lot of the local civilian population was slaughtered and that's not excusing it because I don't excuse it, but it's trying to make sense of why do they do that kind of thing. Because in their head this army they're up against is the opposite and opposing religion to them. And it's a genuine threat in their head. So that's why it ends up in that way.

[Dan Snow]

Let's go on beyond Cromwell now. In a way there's a sense of.

[Narrator / Host]

Deja vu, sense of a bit of.

[Dan Snow]

Pattern here we get a sort of English, not quite a civil war, but a constitutional crisis in 1688, 1689 then.

[Narrator / Host]

There'S the Glorious Revolution.

[Dan Snow]

Distraction, distraction, distraction. In London, William III kicks his father in law and uncle James II off the throne. And sure enough then you get William going to Ireland after that in a slightly similar way to sort of then having secured England, Scotland, Wales, then go to Ireland to secure Ireland and people will have heard of the Battle of the Boyne and the Williamite War in Ireland. There's a slightly similar pattern there, isn't there?

[Thomas Leahy]

Definitely, yes, the pattern is similar. And again the reasoning is similar in the sense that that conflict comes about because once James II is kicked off the throne in London and England because of seen by particularly the Protestant lords who have, you know, obviously a large amount of power and is seen as again a threat to Protestantism. So again, even, you know, at that point we're talking 100 years on from the Reformation, the Judas, but it's still by the Protestant British rule is seen as a threat that if you have any kind of English Catholic influence coming back in. So James II then essentially, if you want to call it that, plans his comeback tour via Ireland. And again they laid siege the Derry city. And that's why also you have this phrase from Ulster Unionists, British Protestants today about like no surrender. So this is apparently what happened in Derry City, that James II comes with his Catholic army, various local Irish people opting into that and says basically give up the city because we're going to take it. And then they shut the city walls, Derry's a walled city and they say no surrender. And then they James the second forces, trying to sense, just starve them out. But what happens? Exactly what you said, the term William of Orange comes across. And yes, the William of Orange's army then defeats remaining Irish Catholic forces. So they accomplished and sealed the power in Ireland at that point.

[Narrator / Host]

Cromwell's brutal conquest of Ireland cemented a couple of things. One was that Ireland's fate for the foreseeable future was inseparably tied to what was going on in English politics, to England itself. The other was that the rift between Catholics and Protestants was now an unbridgeable chasm. And as the monarchy returned in Britain, well, successive kings just made decisions that only worsened that situation. There was another war in the late 17th century, so called Williamite war between King James II and his son in law, William of Orange, that also pitted Protestants against Catholics in Ireland once again for a massive showdown. Tom's already mentioned one of the defining moments of Irish history, the siege of Derry in 1689. That's when James and his Catholic army marched on the Protestant stronghold. The the city's gates were shut by the 13 apprentice boys. They're still celebrated in Protestant memory and pageantry to this day. That siege lasted 105 days and inside the city conditions were horrific. There was famine and disease and bombardment.

[Dan Snow]

But then in July, relief ships broke.

[Narrator / Host]

Through a boom across the River Foyle and brought supplies. So the siege was lifted. And for the Ulster Protestants, Derry became a symbol of heroic resistance against Catholic power, against the Catholics that surrounded them. Shortly afterwards, William of Orange landed in Ireland. Protestants flocked to his banner and he won a victory in that war. He chased his father in law, he chased James II out back to his exile in France. And again the Catholics who had rallied James cause they were abandoned, they were left out to dry. And in the aftermath, William's Protestant followers in Ireland went on the rampage. More and more land was taken. The Protestants were even more dominant politically. Religious identity has allided with political loyalty. So Protestantism was now tied with the Protestant succession in London. Catholicism became a symbol of resistance to that monarchy in London, to that royal line. So by the end of the 17th century you see society utterly divided and that would endure for centuries. That would fuel the troubles.

[Dan Snow]

Let's dash through to 1801, the act of Union between Britain and Ireland, now incorporated into the United Kingdom.

[Narrator / Host]

Irish MPs go and sit in Westminster. But these are all Protestant Irish.

[Dan Snow]

I mean the Irish Catholics are sort of excluded from as you say, the army, certainly the officer corps of the army and political life across the archipelago.

[Thomas Leahy]

Yes, exactly. And partly when, you know, when we get to the actor Union, I mean that appears after the 1798, there was an attempted all Ireland rebellion led by a group called the United Irishman, led by a Protestant. Actually Wolf Tone and Wolf Tome is interesting because he's from again what we call like Protestant central non conformist background. And interestingly because of they were also discriminated against once you got into the period with Charles II back on the throne. Because the kind of hierarchy even within Protestantism, as those who were part of the like official state church, Anglicanism and those who were non conformist again were seen as some kind of threat in society to the extent, not as much as Cabotism, but still to the extent were. So anyway, partly that explains, you know, why is Wolf Tone as a Protestant leading a United Ireland movement to kick out British Protestant rule and British rule full stop. But the difference is, well, they picked up ideas to the American War of Independence and then French Revolution. So this in a Sense is a new idea that's coming in, but still a dangerous idea for British Protestant rule on the island of Ireland, because it's suggesting like equality, fraternity. And also no religious group should rule. There should be religious tolerance and want a secular republic basically to be created. It's quite heavily infiltrated. That's one of the main reasons it's defeated quite quickly, the United Irishman. So the active union comes after that, then to say, do you know what, for the rulers, Westminster, but also the monarchs, this is going to be much easier if we just rule this place directly from London. So there's no kind of like local devolved power because it's a threat. So that's the situation you get to by the active union at that point. And as you said, it's stringent against the majority population of the island at that point. The Irish Catholic population, really, as a hangover. It goes back to the things we've been talking about, really, you know, from the Tudor period and the Stuart period and obviously Cromwell's, that there's a suspicion again, if you give Irish Catholics power in any part of the island, they're going to kind of untangle British rule in Ireland slowly but surely by it. So they're potentially a rebellious seditious population would be the fort. So you don't give them the opportunity to exert any power under British rule, whether that's in the army or the courts, et cetera.

[Dan Snow]

George III was a particular believer in.

[Narrator / Host]

That he resisted Catholic emancipation, as it's called several times.

[Dan Snow]

But in 1829, after George III, in the great crisis of the late 1820s, early 1830s, which we can't go into in this podcast, but with all sorts of interesting ramifications. The Catholics are allowed a degree of freedom. They can now sit in Parliament and.

[Narrator / Host]

Hold public office, and they've had restrictions.

[Dan Snow]

Removed from them very belatedly, I guess, attempts to engage the Catholic Irish in this pan British and Irish project. Can we though whiz forward to the great famine that people have heard of roughly late 1840s, early 1850s? First of all, tell me about the famine, then, its political importance.

[Thomas Leahy]

Yes. So as we just talked about there, the backdrop beforehand is important because once you start to allow Catholics to play by emancipation the full role in various parts of UK and Irish society, potentially the tensions in the relationship could have been declined maybe going forward potentially permanently, who knows? The famine interrupts that and the famine interrupts that because of, first of all, like, why does it affect island to a great extent? And it does so Just because of what had happened in Ireland in terms of farming. And again, this is a. In Ireland anyway, it's a pre, really industrial area. So farming is a real staple of society in terms of food and wealth. What they had taught, what we could call like middling sort, which later become like middle classes and then the kind of Irish lower classes in terms of peasantry at this point is that everyone had grown potato as a staple crop on small plots of land. And it was seen by doing so that everyone could, yeah, earn a certain amount of living, have enough food to live off, et cetera. So it was seen as an economical way of allowing everyone to have an element of wealth in society. But the problem with that, of course, is if you rely on one specific crop and it fails, then you're in big trouble. Because of this is what you end up with like a famine, et cetera. So when we talk about the Great Famine, it's a series of events really, from 1845 up to about 1848, roughly. Essentially this is what just continually happens. Like it had happened in Europe, if we look across the European continent, paralleled, but it was. The effect of it was just much more catastrophic in Ireland because of the focus of the majority of the population was this small, like tenant farming. And that was a staple produce. And if we look at the figures, about a million people die, about 1.5 million people emigrate. So we're talking primarily to North America, particularly United States and Canada. And it has a seismic effect. And it has a seismic effect because there's two beliefs in society that then emerge from the large part. Let's say the Irish Catholic population and some of it more political figures. There's a belief that either this was deliberate or there's a belief that it wasn't deliberate. But there was not really much assistance and aid that provided to actually remedy this situation by the British government. So it leads to, yeah, significant tension going forward and animosity. And I don't think it's an accident. Even if we fast forward over a hundred years later, where does what was called the Provisional Irish Republican army get some of its weapons? From America. But if you look then at the generations of people and some of the people who are doing that and looking back at their families. So why are they in America in the first place? They come from areas, for example, like Mayo or West coast in Ireland or some of the south coast areas which were quite hard hit by the famine. So, yeah, it's certainly in terms of like the generations of family afterwards, it causes significant grievance, understandably. And it's a real problem going forward. As we said, just that backdrop. I talked about the very beginning there, that relations potentially could have improved because you took the discriminatory acts in society away. But yeah, then the famine kind of seems to reinforce division really.

[Dan Snow]

This is Dan Snow's history here.

[Narrator / Host]

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[Dan Snow]

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[Narrator / Host]

The great Irish Famine or the Great Hunger is one of the darkest chapters in modern European history. It was so severe that Ireland's population plummeted by about a third due to death and emigration. The horrors of this period that the turmoil were seared into the minds of the Irish at the time. Historians and the public still argue about that famine in fascinating ways. Firstly, could more have been done? Critics argue that the British turned a natural disaster into a man made catastrophe.

[Dan Snow]

And the other question is if more.

[Narrator / Host]

Could have been done and wasn't. Was this deliberate? Was it genocide? Some argue that British government's failure to come up with famine relief there was deliberateness there. Were they willing to let that Irish population collapse? Were they happy to see that Irish Catholic population shrink dramatically? Others see cock up instead of conspiracy. The British government might have been negligent, incompetent, it might have been cruel.

[Dan Snow]

But they don't see a plan to.

[Narrator / Host]

Exterminate Irish people now, regardless of where we land. The famine changed Irish society and the way the famine was remembered would prove to be rocket fuel. It fueled resentment against British rule. The memory of it would play a huge part in events to come.

[Dan Snow]

Each one of these talking points that we're bringing up today could be an.

[Narrator / Host]

Entire podcast series in its own right.

[Dan Snow]

So I apologize to listeners for the rattling pace of this. But we get to Home Rule, this.

[Narrator / Host]

Expression that Anyone familiar with 19th century history will just hear over and over again.

[Dan Snow]

But Home Rule, I guess growing from.

[Narrator / Host]

Those critiques of the British government's behaviour.

[Dan Snow]

During the famine, whether it was deeply malicious and or competent, remote, uncaring. Home Rule's this idea that we can reverse the act of Union to an extent and devolve power, make decisions affecting Irish people back in Ireland.

[Thomas Leahy]

Yes, and that's perfect. Like the word you use, devolution. So Home Rule is what we'd call today, like devolution in terms of what we have with the government, the Senate of Cardiff Bay in Wales, Hollywood and Scotland. And obviously Belfast now has its own parliament as well, basically Dortmund, just outside of Belfast actually for Northern Ireland. So this was an early debate about it. And okay, so where does this debate come from? Partly because the tensions in Ireland and what you start getting after the famine as well, the Emancipation Acts are allowing more and more people across UK and Irish Isles to vote because of changes in law in Westminster has allowed more of the Irish Catholic population to vote. When they're able to vote, the majority of the population are voting for Irish Nationalist parties. Now some of the Irish Nationalist parties, once we get into the late 1800s period, think actually the easiest way to try and start untangling the relationship we have with Westminster is we'll try with devolved government first. And we've got to remember at that point, Scotland and Wales didn't have that and they didn't have that until 1999. This was quite with a smaller revolutionary idea of like devolving power out from London. That's not how things really were done up to that point at all. And the majority of the population were voting for candidates who backed that viewpoint. And I think it's just because, as we said, the tensions that had emerged from the famine and the kind of lingerie of history that we talked about would have been in people's mindsets. And the last thing I should have said there as well is not something we've been that used to in Westminster government. But at this period when the Liberal Party were in power late a little bit with the Conservative as well, more people are voting. So it makes politics a little bit more volatile. And what was happening is they weren't winning maybe some of these outright, you know, first past the post majority. In the case of the Liberals, they start to rely and this is really up to World War I on Irish Nationalist MP who sat in Westminster for the. What we Call the Irish Parliamentary Party. And therefore of course, if you can make deals, as we know about in recent years with parties from Northern Ireland, if you're going to make deals as a Westminster government with parties in the island of Ireland, they're going to want something in return. What they want in return for Irish nationalities Home Rule. So the Liberals are willing to back from Gladstone onwards Home Rule bills to give Ireland basically devolution within the UK. The issue is before 1911, the House of Lords could veto things that go for the House of Commons. And what was happening in the House of Lords, the Conservative Party plus the Ulster Unionist Party. So this is essentially British Protestant descendants. And we go right back to what we talked about in the 1600s of plantation of Ireland, particularly concentrated in the northeast. They resisted this and their argument, particular Ulster Protestants from a British Protestant who wanted the whole of Ireland at that point to stay within the uk Their argument was Home rule would mean Rome rule and that means that the Catholic Church will call a shot and will be discriminated against. So they're blocking it each time it tries to go through the House of Lords.

[Narrator / Host]

And people will be astonished to learn.

[Dan Snow]

That for some politicians, the outbreak of.

[Narrator / Host]

The First World War was a relief.

[Dan Snow]

Because it meant an end to this cris in Ireland between the Home Rule and the anti Home Rule lobbies that involved militias training. There was a mini British army mutiny at one point as well. I mean a proper crisis within the British state. It seems to be put into deep freeze, doesn't it, by the First World War. What happens to Ireland 1914-18 during those war years?

[Thomas Leahy]

Yes, and I think that context is absolutely crucial because. And again, this is a useful anecdote for people who want to know their parliamentary history. Why does an Irish Home Rule devolution bill eventually go through by the time before we get to World War I? Because the liberal government under Asquith takes away the House of Lords veto. That's why it ended relation to Irish Home Rule bills. So now on the House of Commons it meant the Irish Parliamentary Party and the Liberals could put for a Home Rule Bill. Trouble was by 1912, when that goes through the Ulster units, British Protestant population, they signed something called the Solemn League and Covenant in Belfast in that year. And it says a lot of them signed it in blood as well. And it said that if we're forced into any form of all Ireland government and remember here we're not talking about island republic, we're talking about devolution from Dublin under British rule, they said if that happens we will resist it by any means necessary, which means use of force or violence if need be. And exactly what you said. It's crucial that Asquith and Lloyd George was in the government at that point as well. I had enough of this. So Pre World War I, a place called Karra Military Camp, which is today, would be in today's Republic of Ireland, they asked the British forces, which was a large concentration of them there, to go north and crush what was called the Ulster Volunteer Force. So the UVF were connected to that point, the main Unionist Party, and they were resisting the Home Rule and they were gun running and drilling, mainly gun running, somewhat ironically from Germany and large segment. The British army refused to do that. And their argument was, look, these are loyal British subjects, so we're not going to put down law for British subjects. So you were in big trouble then before World War I, because Irish Volunteers start drilling in retaliation, saying, well, if the Ulster Protestants are arming themselves, threaten the Civil War, then we need to protect ourselves and we'll start drilling.

[Narrator / Host]

I'm going to jump in here and interrupt Thomas's Herculean account of almost 800 years history once again because especially around this point, things get a little confusing. I feel like I've said that once or twice on this podcast already, but there are now lots of different groups in the mix. So here's a quick summary, remember of the terms as they stand. In broad terms, Unionist refers to Protestants, largely from Ulster, but definitely other parts of Ireland as well, who wanted to maintain Ireland's position within the United Kingdom. They liked the Union, so effectively this.

[Dan Snow]

Meant they were happy with rule from.

[Narrator / Host]

Westminster, rule from Westminster Parliament that was overwhelmingly Protestant and Protestant in nature.

[Dan Snow]

At this time, they were firmly against.

[Narrator / Host]

Irish self government, devolution, if you like, Home rule, because that would have meant that Irish Catholics had the upper hand in Ireland itself. By contrast, the term nationalists broadly means Irish Catholics who at this time sought self government, however within the existing British Empire. Now, a subset of these nationalists were actually Republicans. They were people who took this step further and they wanted an Irish Republican that had nothing to do at all with Britain. Ow gone. Thank you. No king, no queen, separate republic. These terms evolved and adapted somewhat over the decades as the situation changed. But that's a broad sweep. That's where we are in the buildup to the First World War. Now in the early 1910s, these things really mattered in Westminster, in British politics, not just in Irish politics, in British and Irish politics, because the Liberal Party were in power in Westminster, they won very narrow Election victories. They beat the Conservatives, but they only beat the Conservatives because they could rely on votes from Irish nationalist MPs. So these are members of the Irish Parliamentary party who at that time wanted Home Rule. They wanted devolution of power for Ireland. The Liberals needed their votes in order to maintain a majority in the House of Commons. But in the House of lords, it's the UK's upper chamber and therefore any statute has to have passed through both Houses of Parliament. So the House of Lords effectively has a veto on any legislation. Well, the House of Lords is absolutely stuffed full of Conservatives. All the old aristocrats are in there, aren't they? These deeply Conservative, all men who owe their position to hereditary inheritance and therefore they like to be pretty conservative. They are allied with the Ulster Unionist Party overwhelmingly. They were fiercely opposed to Irish self government, so they blocked all and any Home Rule legislation. Their fear was that if they allowed self government, it would mean Catholic rule and that would effectively mean rule by.

[Dan Snow]

The Pope in Rome and it would.

[Narrator / Host]

Mean persecution against the Protestants in Ireland. Now, actually, the power of the House of lords changes in 1911 with the parliament act, and we won't get too much into that, but it meant that the power of the House of Lords was much reduced and there was a process by which the House of Commons could kind of steamroll legislation through. And so Home Rule was actually passed in 1911. But many of these Conservatives and Unionists, they declared actually that this was such an important issue that Parliament was not supreme and this law must be opposed by any and all means, including violence. So not super conservative there, folks, calling for violence. And this is the funny thing to remember about the build up to the First World War. Many Europeans, certainly many Brits, were not looking at the Balkans. They were not looking at Austria, Hungary and Serbia.

[Dan Snow]

They thought the next war would be in Ireland.

[Narrator / Host]

Unionists created the Ulster Volunteer Force, which is a paramilitary group. And on the other side, nationalist paramilitary groups like the Irish Volunteers were on the rise too. So there's a real crisis brewing. There were deep divisions between the Unionists and Nationalists, Protestants and Catholics, roughly. A civil war seemed to be around the corner. And so Winston Churchill talks about this. In some sense, the outbreak of the First World War could not have come at a better time for British politicians, because it interrupted, it overrode, it superseded this brewing conflict.

[Thomas Leahy]

The World War I interrupts it. And it interrupts it because the UVF, the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster British Protestants obviously make sense for their identity. Majority of them going to British forces in World War I. So we'll fight for crown and empire. More surprisingly, over half to three quarters of Irish nationalists agree to fight with British forces in World War I. And they do that because their leader at that point, a guy called John Redmond of the Irish Parliamentary Party, which still in 1914 was the majority party for Irish nationalists on the island of Ireland, said look, this is a way to bring down tensions of Ulster Protestants because we'll show we can agree for a common cause related to Britain and Ireland when needed. So they help reconcile with the Ulster Protestant population. But also was to try and get the British government to get this devolution up and running and say, well, if we show loyalty to the British government, the British forces in this war will be rewarded for that. At the same time, about a quarter of the Irish Volunteers we could label as Irish Republicans said, no way, we're not fighting wars for Britain or as they would call it like England. So in 1916 they stage an uprising in Dublin and they take over the General Post Office. People can still go today if you go outside and the pillars outside, you can still see the bullet hole marks or the British forces have got them out, if you want to put it in that way. And what they did was they said, well, as they put it, England's, you know, difficulties is island's opportunity. So in other words, whilst UK was fighting in World War I, we'll stage an uprising because their backs are turned and we'll see how it goes and see if it works. It doesn't work in terms of the British reinforcements accords. The Irish Republicans call have a proclamation of all island republic. They're blitzed out, basically bombed out of the General Post Office and the leading figures of it, people like Patrick Pierce executed. But if you look at it from the Protestant viewpoint, same year as the Battle of the Somme. So they argued that this is proof the Irish Catholics are going to stabbing Britain in the back and there's no way we can come under any all Ireland government because this is the type of behavior you get. So the majority of the population, like the Irish Catholic population were not actually at the time of the rising in favor of it. What changed? That was a couple of things. One was the execution of the leaders. Quite a few of them were young and this was seen as over the top, not something necessarily that kind of merited that type of treatment. Thereafter there was elements of still martial law that existed to incentive military rule for a while after the Rising, just because of the British government was concerned there'd be any Repeat of this. While World War was going on, the other big changing event as well, or two other things. One is then the other rebels, people like Michael Collins, who later led, was a key figure in Sinn Fein, which Irish Republican Party. And then the Irish Republican army, the IRA and the others were put a place called Frongo in North Wales, which is an internment camp basically. But weirdly, they were allowed to just mix, et cetera. So all they did was just plan another uprising and discuss like, okay, that didn't go well. And their idea was next time we'll copy what we saw, like the Afrikaan Boer population do in the Boer War. That would not have set peace battles because we'll just lose against British forces. Better arm, better train, we'll have hit and run tactics. And that's what they planned from there. And then by 1918, Lloyd George, for some bizarre reason, just releases them all back into Ireland. So that's partly where they picked up these ideas from. And the other key thing was conscription. So although Irish personnel did fight In World War I, until 1918, there wasn't conscription on Ireland because there was a fear it was going to cause more animosity and potential civil war. So because of offensive against Germany at the end of the war, the British forces tried to do that and the government, and then there was animosity, particularly from the Irish Catholic population for all the reasons we've said. And Sinn Fein and the IRA linked it, particularly Sinn Fein, the political Irish Republican Party, linked into that. And that helped them gather Support in Ireland's 1918 general election, where they did win a majority across the island of Ireland. And then they said they're standing on a platform the unilaterally declare Ireland of republic independent. And that's exactly what they did. And they won the majority of the vote.

[Narrator / Host]

The rise of Sinn Fein is a really important part of our story. It was founded in 1905. It gained traction after the Easter Rising in 1916, it became the home of Republicans. And during the 1918 elections, it won 73 of Ireland's 105 seats, overwhelmingly defeating the moderate Irish Parliamentary party. And so suddenly the focus of Irish nationalism has shifted from devolution from Home rule towards complete independence.

[Dan Snow]

And on the back of that big.

[Narrator / Host]

Election win, Sinn Fein declared the formation of an Irish Republican Parliament. It began the policy of abstentionism. Sinn Fein MPs would not recognise, would not take their seats in the Parliament of Westminster. This was full separation.

[Dan Snow]

We'll bring this podcast to an end.

[Narrator / Host]

With the end of the first World.

[Dan Snow]

War and that critical election fought as the barrels of the guns on the Western Front were barely cooling down right at the end of 1918. So in four years you've gone from Redmond sort of Home Rule, devolution within the British state, within the British Empire. You've now got a far more radical.

[Narrator / Host]

Vision of Ireland's future Sinn Fein.

[Dan Snow]

And they persuade the Irish electorate of that, do they? And have we covered why that is? Do you think it's just the backlash from that 1916 failed uprising, the British government's heavy handed response and why that radical shift in Irish and opinion?

[Thomas Leahy]

I think it's two things and I think we can just put it into short and long term factors. In terms of long term factors, everything we've been talking about, there would have been animosity going back to things like the famine, there would have been an animosity back to discriminatory laws etc that are in place when Irish Catholics couldn't really take part in any established part of the state or they couldn't vote, et cetera. So that would be in the memory. But the short term factors are key as well. The compounding that, well, hang on, we've been promised Home Rule and then there's not Home Rule, then there's delayed Home Rule and the Ulster Protestants said they resist it and the British army wouldn't put them down. So there's all these factors in the background. The treatment of the easter Rising in 1916, Irish Republican rebel leaders was seen as heavy handed. And I think the second thing is we definitely said there was that the conscription threat people did not like and they saw as this is unnecessary. And you know, again, I think in the Irish Catholic mindset at that point was just what are we getting in return to these things? We make these sacrifices and then we still see Ulster Protestants resisting any form of home rules. We still have to be ruled directly by Westminster, which is not something we agree with doing. So I think that that's absolutely key and you can see that across when you look at the electoral result because you know Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Party, they said they'd get elected in 1918 and they wouldn't take their seats at Westminster. And in this case in 1918 actually set up a rival parliament, an independent Irish Republic parliament and the majority of people across the island voted for that. But of course then if you look at what later became Northern Ireland, so the six counties of the northeast, yeah they have a Unionist majority, so they're in kind of like so Ulster units, British Protestant people who do not want any part of Ireland, but particularly the part where they concentrate the northeast to come under Irish Catholic rule. They perform in the northeast of the island while they get a majority in what later becomes Northern Ireland. There is kind of the seeds of partition, you can see, are partly there at that point in 1918's election.

[Narrator / Host]

Well, that December 19th election was hugely important. It was a real turning point.

[Dan Snow]

Just, I mean, can you imagine, just.

[Narrator / Host]

Because the world hadn't had enough drama during the First World War, suddenly, boom.

[Dan Snow]

A month after the end of the.

[Narrator / Host]

War, you've got this full blown turmoil, crisis, crisis in Ireland. Fascinating.

[Dan Snow]

The war in Europe might have been.

[Narrator / Host]

Over, although there would be fighting around the world in the years that followed through the messy end of the First World War. In fact, we're still dealing with at the moment. And it seemed that war on Ireland was about to be added, that it was about to begin. It would pit communities against each other, neighbor against neighbor, communities that shared this small island but were terribly divided by religion and divided by their visions for Ireland's future.

[Dan Snow]

So join us again on Wednesday when.

[Narrator / Host]

Look at the events of the 20th century, from the Irish War of Independence right through to partition, the civil rights movement.

[Dan Snow]

And we're going to see how all.

[Narrator / Host]

This led up to the crescendo of violence in the 1970s.

[Dan Snow]

So a big thank you to the wonderful Thomas Leahy.

[Narrator / Host]

He'll be joining us again in episode two to help us make sense of this complicated and important story. To make sure you don't miss it.

[Dan Snow]

You know what to do.

[Narrator / Host]

You just hit follow in your podcast player and the episode will just appear in your library automatically. It's beautiful.

[Dan Snow]

That's all well for now, folks.

[Narrator / Host]

See you later.

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[Thomas Leahy]

That's 800-215-51.