Ireland's Right to Unity
- Title:
- Ireland's Right to Unity
- Alternate Title:
- Ireland's Right to Unity
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- The All-Party Anti-Partition Conference
- Date:
- 1950
- Posted Date:
- 2024-04-25
- ID Number:
- 2387.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2387_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1940 - 1959
- Subject:
- Imperialism
Politics & Government
Suffrage - Measurement:
- 25 x 19 page (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- In April 1916, a group calling itself the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic published a declaration of Ireland's independence from the United Kingdom, marking the beginning of the bloody "Easter Rising." The brutal suppression of the Rising and the execution of most of its leaders by the British led to greater support for independence, and particularly for the Republican Sinn Féin party. Two years later, in the U.K. parliamentary General Election of December 1918, Irish voters elected 79 Republican candidates (73 of them members of Sinn Féin), and only 26 Unionists of Northern Ireland. The successful Sinn Féin candidates did not take their seats in the U.K. Parliament, choosing instead to convene in Dublin and declare themselves Dáil Éireann, the parliament of a newly-independent Ireland, leading to the War of Independence (1919-21).
In May 1921, Britain partitioned Ireland into two political entities: six counties of predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kingdom), and the much larger, predominantly Catholic balance of the country, now the independent Irish Republic. The Irish Republican movement refused to accept the lawfulness of British action, and the ongoing political and religious dispute - often violent - had raged for more than 30 years before this map appeared, and would continue at least to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.
This map is one of four illustrated here that appear in (or derive from) a 16-page political pamphlet arguing the case for a unified Ireland entirely independent of British rule. ID #2387.01-.04. The pamphlet sets out the history of Irish partition and British rule from the Republican perspective, focusing on the issue of fairness. It was issued by the “All-Party Anti-Partition Conference,” a group organized in 1949 “to wage an international propaganda campaign against the perceived injustices of partition.” O’Corrain 2006, 65. Consistent with this intent, the pamphlet was distributed with a full page sheet reminding “Every Irish man and woman” of “the importance of getting the facts about Partition to friends of Ireland abroad.” To this end, readers were urged to pass the pamphlet along “to a friend outside Ireland” and provided with information about postage and the addresses of anti-partition organizations in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, England, Scotland and Wales - along with postcards “to greet your friends abroad on St. Patrick’s Day” (ID #2387.04.)
This map appeared on the cover of the pamphlet. The legend at the top left emphasizes the argument that opposition to Irish unity “comes mainly from an area, marked in orange on the map, which is roughly within a 30 mile radius of Belfast . . . just over one-third of the partitioned territory and is only one-sixteenth of Ireland.” For a strikingly similar map published more than 30 years earlier, supporting the same cause and even employing the same color scheme, see ID #1200, "Map of the Irish Republic showing result of General Election, Dec. 1918.”
Cornell University Library is pleased to present this digital collection of Persuasive Maps, the originals of which have been collected and described by the private collector PJ Mode. The descriptive information in the “Collector’s Notes” has been supplied by Mr. Mode and does not necessarily reflect the views of Cornell University. - Source:
- The All-Party Anti-Partition Conference. Ireland's Right to Unity. Dublin: Cahill & Co., 2nd ed., [1950].
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.