"The inborn hate of things English": Ernie O'Malley and the Irish Revolution 1916-1923

Past & Present, May, 1996 by Richard English

This pattern of antipathy, respect and emulation on the part of nationalists towards their opponents is plainly not confined to relations between Ireland and Britain. Liah Greenfeld has recently argued that the historical development of nationalism can best be explained by means of the concepts of prestige and resentment, combined with the elements of inferiority and emulation which have characterized the relations between nationalists of different countries. Her argument is that, against the domestic background of shifting national elites and the redefinition of social hierarchies, questions of dignity and prestige have rendered various nationalisms appealing at key historical moments. Moreover, she asserts the importance of a series of complicated relationships between newly emerging forms of nationalism and their prior existing rivals. Nascent French nationalism, she argues, was defined and characterized by a sense of resentment and inferiority towards England and was further influenced by (and emulative of) English prior example. So, too, Russia's attitude towards the West and Germany's towards France and England evinced this explanatory mixture of resentment, inferiority, influence and imitation. Nationalism having first sprouted in England, its subsequent development -- according, at least, to Greenfeld -- can be traced in terms of these complicated national relationships.(23)

Parts of Greenfeld's generally compelling argument seem to me less than convincing, but her paradigm fits the detailed evidence for early twentieth-century Ireland too closely for it to be casually dismissed. Shifts in domestic elites, the redefinition of social hierarchies, the prestige-bestowing qualities of a new nationalism, considerable resentment towards England (coupled with a telling weight of influence and emulation, and significant evidence of a sense of inferiority) have each a crucial part to play in helping us to understand the Irish Revolution. In O'Malley's case the "inborn hate of things English" coexisted with a very marked degree of British influence, and indeed with an occasional sense of "the superiority of the English",(24) and the Irish Revolution was undoubtedly set against the background of shifting elites and hierarchies. The remainder of this article will explore these themes in further detail under two broad headings, those of Britishness and soldiership. Students of modern Ireland have in different ways begun a thorough exploration of the Britishness of much Irish experience.(25) Nor need this indicate alignment to a particular school of history; for example, scholars of varied political hue are all agreed on the vital importance of understanding the British influences operating upon the eighteenth-century United Irishmen.(26) So, too, with Ernie O'Malley -- an early twentieth-century republican who celebrated the United Irish legacy -- it is crucial to appreciate the nature of the British framework which so significantly contributed to his ideas and actions during the Irish Revolution. The place to begin is the First World War or, more specifically, with O'Malley's British-filtered experience of it. When the War began O'Malley was pro-British and intended, like his brother, to join the British Army. Even after his conversion to an alternative patriotism in an alternative army the British military resonances remained. He read and praised official British military books and enjoyed discussions with his British Army brother,(27) a theme echoed in his friendship with such men as Robert Barton and David Robinson (former soldiers in the British Army who adopted the Irish republican cause). Of the articles published in the Irish Volunteer dealing with guerrilla warfare, he singled out for praise those which expounded material from official British Army textbooks.(28)