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Industrial Revolution

This term was coined in the 19th century to describe the massive changes that transformed the British economy and society from the middle of the 18th century on. For some reason or reasons, this process happened first in GREAT BRITAIN and then spread to Europe and America. The possible explanations are that a fairly advanced system of finance with banking and credit existed beside a well-developed trade network and colonial markets, and at home there was the right combination of raw materials, especially coal, iron, and wool. A number of other characteristics have been cited (enterprise connected with nonconformity, stability of political regime) but whatever predisposed Britain to this modernizing change, there is more agreement about what it was. There have been many ways of presenting the elements of industrial development, but any explanation must take account of the roles of power, capital, and transportation.

The use of coal, whether in the coking process, which produced better iron, or in the fuel for the steam engine (first used to pump out mines, later as a power source for looms and locomotives) captures the sense of the industrial transformation. The development of fuel-driven engines was a slow and erratic process. The early mine engines were at work in 1710, the first power loom only went into operation in 1806, the locomotive in 1830. Nevertheless they each used this new source of energy, which seemed to have unbounded potential.

The other “engine” that drove industry was the accumulated capital (from farming, finance, and most of all commerce) which was invested in factories. The new power and new production methods (spinning, weaving, engineering) required new workplaces of a size and structure unknown outside of a few older operations (mines, shipyards, breweries). The most dramatic change was from the cottage spinner to the large cotton factory, but the pattern was applied many times over, and it required investment on a large scale.

The final element in this equation was trans- port—that is, the ability to move the product to

markets and a capacity to move the workers to the new workplace. There were connected transport revolutions in the 18th and 19th centuries: a canal-building boom beginning in the 1770s brought new waterways for the shipment of heavy cargoes from most points of production to the ports of Britain. There soon followed rapid improvement and expansion of ROADS, especially turnpike roads. These served to move goods and people more efficiently by about 1800. It was much later, around 1840, that a boom in railroad building began, and an entirely new, powerdriven transport revolution propelled the industrial era further. The movement of workers came from displaced agricultural workers and from

IMMIGRATION, mainly from IRELAND.

The impact of industry was felt in many ways. In society it had the twin results of fostering a larger middle class and a newly conscious working class. The latter was exploited in many of the new factories, but at the same time, industrial concentrations helped workers to form groups that could eventually exercise greater influence, whether in unions or in other efforts like the

COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT. In social geography,

industry transformed whole regions of Britain: the Clyde around Glasgow, the midlands of England around Manchester and Birmingham, and the region of South WALES all were radically changed from agrarian to urban-industrial communities. These shifts had positive and negative effects, and sometimes those were interdependent. The affected areas all experienced great increases in wealth and population. Many also suffered the consequences of rapid growth and intermittent economic distress. The new cities had neighborhoods which were the worst slums imaginable, but those conditions attracted sufficient concern to cause reformers to campaign for public health measures, and these produced significant advances in that area by 1850.

injunction

In church affairs, an instruction to the clergy from the Crown or BISHOPS regarding visitation

or more general conduct (the latter were used especially in the 16th century). In secular courts, an injunction is an order to perform or desist from an act; it may be temporary or permanent.

Inns of Court

Collegiate institutions in medieval LONDON, where lawyers lived and worked. They became the central training and licensing bodies for BARRISTERs. Only a small number of the original inns survive: Middle Temple, Inner Temple, Lincoln’s Inn, and Gray’s Inn. They are unincorporated bodies controlled by the senior members, or benchers.

inquest

An inquiry, always held by a coroner, to determine the cause of a death. Typically held before a jury, witnesses are called to give evidence, and the resulting findings are held to be a judicial decision. This does not prevent the findings being overturned by subsequent legal action.

Instrument of Government (1653)

The constitution drafted by the Council of State which reconstituted the government, creating

the PROTECTORATE of Oliver CROMWELL. He was

designated Lord Protector, and he governed with elected PARLIAMENTS which had members from

ENGLAND, WALES, SCOTLAND, and IRELAND.

interregnum

The term interregnum is used to denote a period of interrupted monarchic rule. The best-known example in English history was the period from the execution of CHARLES I and the abolition of the monarchy (1649) to the RESTORATION of CHARLES II in 1660. Monarchists believed that the eldest son inherited the title and position of the father at the moment of the sovereign’s death. Therefore, Charles II dated all his acts as if the first year of his reign were 1649. Implicit in this practice, and in the term interregnum, is a

denial of any legitimacy to the rule of those who usurped royal power.

Intolerable Acts (1774)

These laws, passed after the Boston Tea Party closed the port of Boston until there was compensation for the tea destroyed, revoked the charter of Massachusetts, allowed the quartering of British troops in the COLONY, and provided for trials of British troops outside the colony.

Ireland

The history of Ireland is often told in terms of the English occupation, but it is clear that an ancient civilization occupied Ireland before the Romans built their empire, and the Irish developed unhindered until the arrival of the AngloNormans in the 12th century. Those 16 or 17 centuries were much longer than the period of English invasion and occupation, and many would argue that the period of Ireland’s early autonomy was far more significant in European and world history. This sketch begins with that period and then traces the main stages of the English occupation, with highlights treated in detail afterward.

CELTIC IRELAND

CELTS had entered the British Isles centuries before the Romans, and Celtic Ireland was untouched by that later invasion, at least in military and political terms. Indeed, the Celts were part of a well-developed civilization, one which had spread to central Europe, to Gaul, and to the Iberian peninsula. Celtic peoples had mastered the use of iron, and they had applied that to their warrior culture, developing weapons and chariots. Their culture was tribal and pastoral, their gods were of human form and superhuman abilities. Though illiterate, their bards and lawmen kept an oral tradition that recorded their genealogies, history, and tribal customs.

There may have been missionaries who reached Ireland before St. Patrick, but his work

and his life are so well-recorded and revered that he deserves to be identified with the foundation of Christian Ireland. A young boy who was captured in BRITAIN and enslaved in Ireland, he escaped and went to the continent to study, was ordained, and vowed to return and save the souls of his captors. Sometime in the fifth century he reached Ireland, and he succeeded in converting many and in establishing a highly successful mission church, reputedly based at Armagh. A century later there were missions from Ireland to northern Britain, and the establishment of the monastery of Iona by St. Columba (563) was followed by mission work among the Picts and Scots and the establishment of the monastery at Lindisfarne (634), whence came several bishops of the church in Northumbria. It is in this period that Irish legend and history were first transcribed by monks who preserved a great deal of classical culture. This was retransmitted along with their knowledge of Christian tradition, in the course of their later missions, both to Britain and to the continent.

At the end of the eighth century the same monasteries that were the pride of the Celtic church became the first targets of the deadly assaults of the Norsemen. The Viking raiders were only interested in plunder on these raids, but it was not long before others had landed on the Irish coast and settled, creating trading towns in DUBLIN, Limerick, Wexford, Waterford, and Cork. In the 10th century there was a joint kingdom of Dublin and York, which only lasted for a generation. In the early 11th century at the famous Battle of Clontarf (1014), the Irish highking was killed, but the Norsemen were defeated and confined to their coastal towns.

MEDIEVAL IRELAND

Two years after Clontarf, LONDON fell to the Danes, and ENGLAND became part of a short-lived Danish Empire, only to be succeeded by the Norman Conquest a half century later. These events had little immediate impact in Ireland. The Norman influence in England created a geopolitical orientation to the east, toward France. Indeed,

the Normans had created garrisons on the Welsh border, making that the limit of their westward expansion. A century after the conquest, though, an Irish king sought aid from Henry II and inadvertently began the process of English conquest. Dermot McMurrough (king of Leinster) petitioned Henry for aid, and he was allowed to solicit help from some of the king’s vassals. One of them, the earl of Pembroke (alias Strongbow), fought for Dermot and was promised the title to Dermot’s kingdom. This prospect was too alarming to the English king, who led an army to Ireland in 1171 to discipline his wayward vassal. Henry also brought a papal bull which gave him the lordship of Ireland. He received the submission of his English vassals and of most of the Irish rulers.

The actual “conquest” of Ireland took place over the next four centuries, and for much of that time the progress was invisible. Henry had received pledges from the Irish rulers and had recognized their subordinate authority in quasifeudal terms. Henry’s son John was made “lord of Ireland,” and as such he visited in 1185 (he went again as King in 1210), and there were formal extensions of English law and legal procedures. Meanwhile, a process of colonization had begun, with eager lords and GENTRY seeking estates on the cheap. Much of Ireland appeared to be under English control by 1300. However, the next two centuries saw a considerable recession in that control, with a remarkable resurgence of Irish culture and an absorption of the colonists into it. This was not supposed to happen. In 1366 the Statutes of KILKENNY ordered the English not to use the Irish language or to intermarry or to allow the Irish into any church properties or patronage or to deal in horses or armor with the Irish or even to play Irish games. The fear of cultural assimilation was clear in these laws; their efficacy in retarding the process is doubtful. After another century, the only part of Ireland under the control of the king’s deputy was the PALE, a territory around Dublin, which varied in size, but by 1500 it extended about 50 miles north of Dublin and 30 miles inland. Fur-

thermore, a deputy like Gerald FITZGERALD, earl of Kildare (1457–1513), was often a law unto himself. It was this shrunken area that the Irish

PARLIAMENT, which passed POYNINGS’ LAWS in

1494 (taking effect in 1495), was representing.

EARLY MODERN IRELAND

The tide began to turn with the reign of HENRY VIII. The futile revolt of Silken Thomas FITZGER- ALD (1513–1537) and the extension of the king’s reformed church brought major changes, symbolized by Henry’s creation of the title “King of Ireland” in 1541. English power was hereafter exercised much more vigorously, through PLAN- TATION of colonists, military campaigns, and administrative control. But Ireland remained impossible to govern as an English province. The majority support for the Catholic Church; the alienated aristocrats who found allies in Rome, in Spain, and in other parts of the British Isles; and the widespread resistance to many measures of colonial government boiled over during the period of CIVIL WAR in England. The rebellion in ULSTER in 1641 pushed the English crisis into armed conflict, and the fighting in Ireland, especially Oliver CROMWELL’s campaign of 1649, was some of the bloodiest of the period. The particular significance for Ireland was that many English soldiers were promised grants of Irish LAND as payment for their fighting; as one leader put it, they needed another Ireland to have enough land to fulfill all the promises.

Between 1660 and 1690 there were further convulsions as the English Crown became a prize in the battle between Protestant and Catholic claimants. The result for Ireland was another invasion and the imposition of a stronger Protestant regime. This time the government used the infamous PENAL LAWS to support Protestants against their Catholic neighbors, barring them from land ownership, schooling, and other rights. The government of Ireland was the preserve of Protestants and their English

sponsors. A LORD LIEUTENANT, a PARLIAMENT, a set

of COURTS OF LAW, and an established church were all copies of the English model, but they were operated in Ireland by and for the Anglo-

Irish minority. Yet even this privileged class felt oppressed by English colonial rule, and in the wake of rebellion in America, they pressed for and obtained a degree of autonomy: Poynings’ laws were repealed, the DECLARATORY ACT of 1720 was repealed, and the Irish parliament enjoyed 20 years of something like autonomy (1782–1800). This era was marked by a rising demand for more freedom, both from colonial rule and from the power of the landed aristocracy. The UNITED IRISHMEN joined others, influenced by revolutionary ideas from France, to begin a long period of radical and violent resistance to English rule. The first major explosion came in 1798. A disorganized series of uprisings ended with many Irishmen dead, many more in prison, and a firmer union being forged with

Britain: the UNITED KINGDOM of GREAT BRITAIN

and Ireland, which came into existence in 1801.

MODERN IRELAND

The new structure incorporated the Irish into the British Parliament, but otherwise left institutions in Ireland much as they had been. In other words, a colonial executive, colonial courts, and a colonial church were operating beside a joint legislature managed by an imperial cabinet. More important, since the late 18th century the penal regime had been crumbling. Catholics were freed of many penal restrictions (1778), allowed to vote (1793), and finally, by 1829, allowed to sit in Parliament. After achieving this “emancipation,” Daniel O’CONNELL formed a large successor organization aimed at repeal of the Act of UNION. He managed to rouse wide support for this effort, but it was blunted by demographic disaster. The most profound event of the 19th century was the IRISH FAMINE. When more than a million people died (1845–50) because of the successive failures of the potato crop (1846–48), the whole society suffered a massive blow. Its effects were seen in several stark facts: emigration rose and stayed high for the rest of the century, the population declined from over 8 million to about 4 million by the end of the century, and the total failure to provide elementary security fundamentally damaged the government’s credibility. The responses

came in the form of radical outbursts by YOUNG

IRELAND (1848) and by the FENIAN BROTHERHOOD

(1867); lawful political organization for IRISH HOME RULE (from 1870); and a mixture of violent and peaceful efforts to change the structure and economy of Irish land (see IRISH LAND ACTS).

The debate over Irish Home Rule occupied the British parliament for almost half a century. The consequences were quite far-reaching. Charles PARNELL organized his supporters well enough to be able to filibuster and disrupt proceedings in the HOUSE OF COMMONS. This led to the adoption of means to cut off debate, known as the “guillotine,” which shocked contemporaries. The alliance between Parnell and Michael DAVITT of the Land League seemed to be giving terrorists a role in politics. This was vividly portrayed by the Phoenix Park murders of 1882, when the chief secretary and his under secretary were killed in broad daylight by a group calling themselves the “Invincibles.” The killers were never found, but their actions were taken as a symbol of the depths Irish radicals might reach. Some years later there was a scandal when The Times claimed to have letters proving that Parnell was linked to the crime—letters which turned out to be forged. But a real scandal developed shortly afterward: Parnell had been living with another man’s wife, and the effect of this revelation and the ensuing divorce proceeding ruined his career and severely shook the leadership of his movement.

More important to Ireland’s future was the increasing commitment to reform the system and the structure of Irish landholding. By the 1880s there was a general acceptance that land law needed reform, and out of that came a series of Irish Land Acts to provide subsidies to tenant farmers to help them to buy land from their landlords. This brought a major shift by the early 20th century, and the absentee English landowner began to disappear as a figure on the Irish scene. He was replaced by another factor in the years before the war.

There was serious opposition to Home Rule in the province of ULSTER, the nine northeastern counties that were heavily PROTESTANT in composition. The resistance to constitutional reform

had been evident from the time of the first Irish Home Rule bill in 1886, and opinion was only more inflamed as the cause of Home Rule seemed to move closer to realization. In 1912 a new Home Rule bill was likely to become law, because the HOUSE OF LORDS could not stop it, due to the ACT OF PARLIAMENT of 1911. Therefore, Sir Edward CARSON and others organized the Ulster Volunteers and promoted the signing of the ULSTER COVENANT (1912). Their activity included shipping arms to Ulster, drilling units of volunteers, and forming what appeared to be a rebellious organization, one which some ARMY officers at the Curragh army station were going to refuse to fight. War in Europe intervened in 1914, and home rule was put on hold; and when fighting did come over home rule, it came to the South. The EASTER REBELLION in 1916 was a failure, but it ignited a larger movement for separation. The election of 1918 was a victory for SINN FÉIN and independence, though the civil war (1919–21) brought a DOMINION government in the form of the IRISH FREE STATE.

The British government had passed a Government of Ireland Act in 1920, which anticipated the partition of Ireland into southern and northern regions. While the civil war went on in the south, political leaders in the north took steps to consolidate their position, and King George V went to Belfast in 1921 to preside over the opening of the parliament of Northern Ireland, making the division of the country more permanent.

After the government of the Irish Free State defeated its internal rivals, it had to pull together the divided community of the 26 southern counties of Ireland. That process was accelerated in the 1930s, and in 1937 a new constitution was adopted for a virtual republic, one that was officially proclaimed in 1948. The leader of this movement was Eamon DE VALERA, a hero of 1916, leader of the provisional government in 1919, but an enemy of the 1921 ANGLO-IRISH TREATY who only returned to normal politics in 1926.

Ireland’s break with Britain was epitomized by her decision to be neutral in WORLD WAR II. This decision was highly unpopular in Britain, as was the continued activity, albeit low profile, of