Newfoundland Responses to the Easter Rebellion and the Rise of Sinn Fein, 1916-1919

ON 24 APRIL 1916, at the height of World War I, members of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army occupied key locations in Dublin and began a six-day rebellion against British rule. British forces suppressed the armed insurrection and it was condemned across the English-speaking world. Subsequent executions of its leaders, however, instigated a dramatic shift in Irish popular opinion. Many of those who had previously identified with non-violent, constitutional nationalism were converted to a more militant brand of Irish republicanism. The British government’s attempts to enact conscription in Ireland in 1918 enhanced such sentiments, and the shift in opinion was reflected in the victory of the republican Sinn Fein party in that year’s general election. There is a substantial literature on popular reactions to Irish affairs among members of the Irish diaspora. Generally, historians have argued that while many of the Irish abroad held esteem for the land of their forefathers, reactions to events in Ireland were tempered by new identities. 1 Despite their much-heralded connections to the homeland, the reactions of Catholic Newfoundlanders, who were overwhelmingly of Irish descent, to the Easter Rising and its aftermath have not been studied. I suggest that while Irish-Newfoundlanders maintained a keen interest in Irish affairs throughout World War I and after, their reactions were characterized by a strong loyalty to the British Empire. Writing in 1919, Governor Sir Charles Alexander Harris noted to Colonial Secretary Walter Hume Long that the Roman Catholics in Newfoundland were “generally loyal,” but were “coloured by that tendency to lament the ‘wrongs of Ireland’ which seems to have become inherent in the Irish character, especially on this side of the water.” 2 Newfoundlanders of both

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