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Military conscription has never applied in Ireland (both Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland). The Defence Forces are the armed forces of the Republic of Ireland, and serves as an all-volunteer military. Irish neutrality means Ireland has been neutral in international relations since the 1930s, though it has participated in several United Nations peacekeeping missions.
During the period of British rule, press gangs operated in Ireland as they did in Britain, conscripting men to serve in the Royal Navy. Impressment in Ireland began in the early modern era, with such activities peaking during major conflicts and then subsequently receding. [1] In 1793, the Irish Militia was established by the Dublin Castle administration as a result of the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars to defend Ireland from invasion. Enlisted members of the Irish Militia were officially intended to be randomly chosen by local ballots, though widespread opposition to this led to the introduction of an amendment to allow for parishes to pay fines in lieu of holding ballots, which would be used to recruit volunteer replacements. [2]
The Irish Volunteers, an paramilitary organisation founded in 1913, took the name of the 18th-century militia units raised in Ireland; both groups saw the fact that they were all-volunteer forces as a source of pride. The term "volunteer" is used as a title for members by Irish republican paramilitary groups descended from or inspired by the Irish Volunteers, such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
The Conscription Crisis of 1918 arose when the Lloyd George ministry attempted to extend conscription, which was already implemented in Britain, to Ireland due to World War I. The Mansion House Conference, held to oppose the introduction of conscription to Ireland, was organised by Irish nationalist groups, including Sinn Féin, the Irish Parliamentary Party and the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference. Sinn Féin's perceived leading role helped it to win most Irish seats in the 1918 general election. [3] [4] [5]
During World War II, the Republic of Ireland remained neutral and initiated a state of emergency. The Emergency Powers Act 1939 gave the government of Ireland sweeping powers to bypass the Oireachtas and the Constitution of Ireland for the duration of "the Emergency". However, both military and industrial conscription were excluded from the scope of the act by a section added at committee stage. [6] [7] In May 1941, there were reports that the Churchill war ministry was considering extending conscription, which was already in place in Great Britain, to Northern Ireland due to wartime demands. On 26 May, the 10th Dáil was recalled for a special sitting to protest. [8] On 27 May, Winston Churchill told the House of Commons of the United Kingdom "it would be more trouble than it is worth" to introduce conscription to Northern Ireland, and the idea was abandoned. [9]
Many supporters of Irish neutrality oppose the deepening of the Common Security and Defence Policy of the European Union. Irish supporters of European integration have accused their opponents of circulating rumours about Irish citizens being potentially conscripted into a European army. [10] [11] [12] [13] Such claims were made regarding the Treaty of Lisbon by some fringe groups during the 2008 referendum campaign and believed by "48% of 'no' voters and remarkably 26% of 'yes' voters". [14]
The Irish Civil War was a conflict that followed the Irish War of Independence and accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State, an entity independent from the United Kingdom but within the British Empire.
Éamon de Valera was an Irish statesman and political leader. He served several terms as head of government and head of state and had a leading role in introducing the 1937 Constitution of Ireland.
William Thomas Cosgrave was an Irish Fine Gael politician who served as the president of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1932, leader of the Opposition in both the Free State and Ireland from 1932 to 1944, leader of Fine Gael from 1934 to 1944, founder and leader of Fine Gael's predecessor, Cumann na nGaedheal, from 1923 to 1933, chairman of the Provisional Government from August 1922 to December 1922, the president of Dáil Éireann from September 1922 to December 1922, the minister for Finance from 1922 to 1923 and minister for Local Government from 1919 to 1922. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1921 to 1944. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Kilkenny North constituency from 1918 to 1922.
The Oireachtas, sometimes referred to as Oireachtas Éireann, is the bicameral parliament of Ireland. The Oireachtas consists of the President of Ireland and the two houses of the Oireachtas, the Dáil Éireann and the Seanad Éireann.
The First Dáil was Dáil Éireann as it convened from 1919 to 1921. It was the first meeting of the unicameral parliament of the revolutionary Irish Republic. In the December 1918 election to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the Irish republican party Sinn Féin won a landslide victory in Ireland. In line with their manifesto, its MPs refused to take their seats, and on 21 January 1919 they founded a separate parliament in Dublin called Dáil Éireann. They declared Irish independence, ratifying the Proclamation of the Irish Republic that had been issued in the 1916 Easter Rising, and adopted a provisional constitution.
Gerald Boland was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as Minister for Justice from 1939 to 1948 and 1951 to 1954, Minister for Lands from 1936 to 1939, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs from 1933 to 1936 and Government Chief Whip from 1932 to 1933. He served as a Senator from 1961 to 1969 and a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Roscommon constituency from 1923 to 1961.
Cathal Brugha was an Irish republican politician who served as Minister for Defence from 1919 to 1922, Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann in January 1919, the first president of Dáil Éireann from January 1919 to April 1919 and Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army from 1917 to 1919. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1918 to 1922.
The Irish Volunteers, also known as the Irish Volunteer Force or the Irish Volunteer Army, was a paramilitary organisation established in 1913 by nationalists and republicans in Ireland. It was ostensibly formed in response to the formation of its Irish unionist/loyalist counterpart the Ulster Volunteers in 1912, and its declared primary aim was "to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to the whole people of Ireland". Its ranks included members of the Conradh na Gaeilge, Ancient Order of Hibernians, Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Increasing rapidly to a strength of nearly 200,000 by mid-1914, it split in September of that year over John Redmond's support for the British war effort during World War I, with the smaller group opposed to Redmond's decision retaining the name "Irish Volunteers".
Francis Patrick Fahy was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann from 1932 to 1951. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1919 to his death in 1953.
Events from the year 1922 in Ireland.
Patrick John Little was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician. A founder-member of the party, he served in a number of cabinet positions, most notably as the country's longest-serving Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various paramilitary organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dedicated to anti-imperialism through Irish republicanism, the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic free from British rule.
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) of 1922–1969, an anti-Treaty sub-group of the original Irish Republican Army (1919–1922), fought against the British-backed Irish Free State in the Irish Civil War, and its successors up to 1969, when the IRA split again into the Provisional IRA and Official IRA. The original Irish Republican Army fought a guerrilla war against British rule in Ireland in the Irish War of Independence between 1919 and 1921. Following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6 December 1921, the IRA in the 26 counties that were to become the Irish Free State split between supporters and opponents of the Treaty. The anti-Treatyites, sometimes referred to by Free State forces as "Irregulars", continued to use the name "Irish Republican Army" (IRA) or in Irish Óglaigh na hÉireann, as did the organisation in Northern Ireland which originally supported the pro-Treaty side. Óglaigh na hÉireann was also adopted as the name of the pro-Treaty National Army, and remains the official legal title of the Irish Defence Forces.
Michael Joseph Staines was an Irish republican, politician and police commissioner. He was born in Newport, County Mayo, his mother Margaret's home village, and where his father Edward was serving as a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) officer.
In the United Kingdom, military conscription has existed for two periods in modern times. The first was from 1916 to 1920, and the second from 1939 to 1960. The last conscripted soldiers left the service in 1963.
The Emergency Powers Act 1939 (EPA) was an Act of the Oireachtas enacted on 3 September 1939, after an official state of emergency had been declared on 2 September 1939 in response to the outbreak of the Second World War. The Act empowered the government to:
make provisions for securing the public safety and the preservation of the state in time of war and, in particular, to make provision for the maintenance of public order and for the provision and control of supplies and services essential to the life of the community, and to provide for divers and other matters connected with the matters aforesaid.
Pádraig Mac Lochlainn is an Irish Sinn Féin politician who has been a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Donegal constituency since the 2020 general election, and previously from 2011 to 2016 for the Donegal North-East constituency. He previously served as a Senator for the Industrial and Commercial Panel from 2016 to 2020.
The Sinn Féin Funds case was a 1942–1948 Irish court case in which the Sinn Féin party claimed ownership of funds deposited with the High Court in 1924 which had belonged to the Sinn Féin party before 1923. The Sinn Féin Funds Act 1947, which attempted to halt the court case and assign the funds to Bord Cistí Sinn Féin, was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in an important judgement on separation of powers and private property rights. The original action was subsequently decided against Sinn Féin, on the basis that the pre-1923 party was separate from the 1940s party. Most of the disputed funds were consumed by legal costs.
The Dáil loans were bonds issued in 1919–1921 by the Dáil (parliament) of the self-proclaimed Irish Republic to raise the Dáil funds or Republican funds, used to fund the state apparatus the Republic was attempting to establish in opposition to the Dublin Castle administration of the internationally recognised United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The subscribers were Irish nationalists, in Ireland for the Internal Loan and in the United States for the External Loan.
Nothing in this section shall authorise ... the imposition of any form of compulsory military service or any form of industrial conscription