The United Irish League in Cork, 1898-1918: Resistance and Counter-Resistance (original) (raw)

The UIL was a composite social and political movement associated with, though not fully part of, the Home Rule movement of the early twentieth century. This article explores that relationship through a case study of the movement in Cork, Ireland's largest county. The chosen area was varied enough geographically and socially for cleavages to occur. Narratives of resistance and counter-resistance ran through these cleavages e.g. rural versus urban, landed versus landless, the Catholic Church versus radical secular nationalists. Further modes of resistance also appeared, such as cultural resistance to creeping British influences. These wider modes transcended the schism in the wider Irish Party (the vehicle of the Home Rule movement) after the passage of the Wyndham Land Act in 1903. That this schism was centred on Cork city and county was in part due to the forceful personality of William O'Brien and the activities of a clique of his followers. From 1910 until 1916 a rejuvenated UIL in Cork was engaged in resisting the advances of O'Brien and his new organisation, the All-for-Ireland League (AFIL).