Table Of ContentTHE WAR
FOR THE
LAND IN
IRELAND
Even if you have read
"a thousand books about
Ireland” you "will yet do well
to read this one,” says the
NEW STATESMAN & NATION, for
to do so is "a new experience”
BRIAN O’NEILL
X 4 v ■ •
First published in
November 1933
Reprinted January 1935
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
In the present cheap reprint the special
tables at the end of the wor\, to which
reference is made in the text, have been
omitted.
Printed in England by the
FARLEIGH PRESS
LONDON, E.C.I.
TO
MY MOTHER
WHO KNEW THE
EMIGRANT
SHIP
CONTENTS
page
INTRODUCTION - - - - - - - - II/
chapter on e : Eighteenth Century Struggles - - 19
chapter tw o : Ribbonmen and the Hunger - - 25
chapter th ree : Fenianism and the Land League 61'
chapter four : The Middle-Class Betrayal: Kil-
mainham - - - - - - - - 78 v
chapter fi ve : Bondlordism Replaces Landlordism 96
chapter six: The World Agrarian Crisis - - 117
chapter se ven : Ireland and the Crisis - - - 138
chapter ei ght : The Way Out - - - - 159 /
chapter ni ne : Undoing the Conquest - - - 178 ■,
APPENDIX ........
TABLES
(1) Land Purchase, Irish Free State
(11) Land Purchase, Northern Ireland
(in) Agricultural Occupations
(iv) Numbers of Agricultural Machines, &c., in 1917
(v) Numbers of Live Stock in 1912
(vi) Numbers of Live Stock in 1926
(vn) Agricultural Labourers’ Wages
(vm) Fall in Agricultural Prices, Irish Free State
(ix) Fall in Agricultural Prices, Northern Ireland
(x) Soviet Agricultural Growth
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book makes no pretence to any great original
research in its historical part. We all know our history
in Ireland; what is needed is Marxian analysis. The
material on the present position of Irish and world agri
culture will, however, be new to most readers. I desire
to thank George Anstrom, of the Labour Research
Bureau, New York, to whom I am indebted for data
on the United States; Proinnsias O’Riain, who gave me
the use of the files of An Phoblacht; Sean Murray, who
read the manuscript and made many suggestions; and
Caitlin Ni Leidhin, who performed much drudgery in
connection with the book.
B. O’N.
Dublin, May 1933.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION - - - - - - - - II
chapter on e : Eighteenth Century Struggles ' 19
chapter tw o : Ribbonmen and the Hunger - - 25
J
chapter th ree : Fenianism and the Land League 61
chapter four : The Middle-Class Betrayal: Kil-
mainham -------- 78
chapter fi ve : Bondlordism Replaces Landlordism 96
chapter six: The World Agrarian Crisis - - 117
chapter se ven : Ireland and the Crisis - - - 138
chapter ei ght : The Way Out - - - - 159
chapter ni ne : Undoing the Conquest - - - 178
appendix - -- -- -- - 1^3
TABLES
(1) Land Purchase, Irish Free State
(11) Land Purchase, Northern Ireland
(m) Agricultural Occupations
(iv) Numbers of Agricultural Machines, &c.> in 1917
(v) Numbers of Live Stock in 1912
(vi) Numbers of Live Stock in 1926
(vn) Agricultural Labourers’ Wages
(vm) Fall in Agricultural Prices, Irish Free State
(ix) Fall in Agricultural Prices, Northern Ireland
(x) Soviet Agricultural Growth
INTRODUCTION
HERE is a book quarried out of material that is of
vital importance to separatist movements in
Ireland to-day, and especially to the Irish rural masses.
At long last the wealth of experiences concealed in the
records of the fight for land in Ireland is being called
on to yield up its story and its lesson. And, it is not
without significance that this task is undertaken by
Brian O’Neill, a member of the youthful Communist
movement in Ireland.
Dangerous writing in our country seems always to
have been done by that section of the national revolu
tionary forces which Brian O’Neill represents. One
recalls Connolly’s statement that all the really dangerous
revolutionaries in Ireland advocated their principles as
part of the creed of the democracy of the world. If
the presentation of the various Irish struggles is going
to come to-day from the pen of the revolutionary work
ing class factor in the anti-imperialist alignment, then
we are on the fringe of a new phase in Irish politics.
The Connolly tradition is coming in again, and the
fight to mobilise the urban and rural masses on its basis
is on. This book will be widely read in rural Ireland.
In many minds it will do two things. It will say things
that small farmer folk have long been fumbling to
express for themselves, and it will reveal where exactly
12 thewarfortheland
the Connolly tradition touches their lives. This book
will raise sparks; it may even start a fire.
Connolly has been almost driven from among the
national fathers, whose teachings are to be studied. We
are back again at the stage when a middle-class leader
ship is busy uniting all the people of Ireland to over
throw the common enemy, England. Anything in the
nature of class warfare is to be suppressed because it
would weaken the national forces. The solution of
Ireland’s political aim is to be sought in this unity. Our
economic needs will be met by a network of tiny private
industries and a mosaic of small farms. In small
farmer areas this sort of talk is hard pushed to raise
any illusions. It has to be supported by relief works
and excited promises to absorb the youth into industries
that are to be created somewhere, somehow. The
leaders of political parties appeal as a last resort to the
patriotism of the rural masses to put up with hardships
as a necessary part of the sacrifice in the fight against
England.
It is obviously necessary to suppress Connolly’s teach
ings if a middle-class leadership is to hold a backing
in these circumstances. This suppression is done quite
cleverly. His name is not dropped, but only such of
his writings as can, by careful selection, be used to
attract the toiling masses to seek the freedom of Ireland
through a “ united struggle ” are invoked. He is never
presented as the leader of the Irish working class, who
saw that the final battleground for Irish freedom must
be the revolutionary struggle of the Irish workers
INTRODUCTION 13
against Irish capitalism. If his Socialism is ever men
tioned, it is to admit a fault which the manner of his
death redeemed!
The blame for this desertion of Connolly must rest in
great measure on the leadership of the Trades Union
movement. They allowed themselves to be pushed
completely out of the leadership of the national struggle
that was re-built after 1916 and failed entirely to keep
closely associated with the Irish Citizen Army. Thus
the revolutionary working class in Dublin was sur
rendered to a middle-class leadership, which flung the
slogan abroad, “ Labour must wait.” Later, when the
Irish middle class was making its bargain with British
imperialism, the Labour leadership carried its betrayal a
step farther and helped the organisation of the usurping
Treatyite Government.
In all this the workers of Belfast and the industrial
North-East generally played a very unfortunate role.
Here, where the great weight of the Irish proletarian
population is concentrated, the owning class were able
not merely to hold these workers apart from the national
struggle, but actually to make them available for impe
rial reaction. This collapse of the working class of the
North-East was a tragedy for the whole working-class
movement and for the national struggle; it was a
calamity for the British workers, too. British Trades
Unions are far from guiltless, for it is undoubtedly true
that in their struggle to hold and recruit members they
yielded to the reactionary ideas, and even capitalised
them where there was competition with an Irish Union.
14 THE WAR FOR THE LAND
Ln my opinion, the relation between the social rights
of the toilers and the fight for national independence
has been more persistendy maintained by the small
farmer population, even than by the industrial workers
in the South. So completely did the Labour movement
yield to the slogan, “ Labour must wait,” that there
was no need to put through, or even to make a pretence
of putting through, any serious scheme of social benefits
On the other hand, in the midst of the ’Tan War, a
department had to be created to hold out a promise for
the distribution of ranches, and right in the midst of all
the turmoil of 1923 the usurping Government had to
rush through a Land Bill, making a similar promise.
During the fever of the Tan days it took all the influ
ence of the Republican Government and the use of
Republican forces to hold the land struggle in check.
It was at this period that the middle-class leadership
exerted itself frantically to keep the movement “ clean.”
Even ranchers themselves helped in this work. I can
recall an instance where a land monopolist complained
to a local company Captain that his fences were being
broken. He assured the I.R.A. officer that while he
differed politically from the Volunteers, he had the
greatest respect for their bravery and their unselfish
struggle for their ideals. “ But there are always people
on the fringe of a movement,” he said, “ who are out
for their own personal gain and such people, if not
checked, would disgrace the movement. There was
this matter of his fences. Greedy small farmers and
men that had never owned a spadeful of land were
