The beginning of the end

Joe Carroll on the effects of the Rising on the British Empire

The Proclamation of an Irish Republic from the steps of the GPO did not exactly ring around the world in April 1916 but it did start a long drawn-out process of dismantlement of the then mighty British empire. The 1916 rebellion had, after all, been ruthlessly suppressed by British power just as stirrings of revolt in the colonies from time to time were stamped out.

But the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 showed independence movements, especially in India, that it was possible to win a measure of freedom from the imperial power. If Ireland, which was an integral part of the United Kingdom, could progress to the status of a self-governing dominion, surely the faraway colonies could aspire to this kind of freedom also.

By achieving dominion status instead of the sought-after republic, the Irish Free State joined Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa as partners in the British Commonwealth. Allegiance was due to the king, who was represented by a governor-general in the dominions, but in practice these countries were independent, although Britain preferred to be vague about what this meant constitutionally.

The Free State pushed Britain hard to spell out the independent status of the dominions at imperial conferences in the 1920s and 1930s, at which Ireland was represented by ministers such as Kevin O'Higgins and Patrick McGilligan. In 1926, the "Balfour Declaration" defined dominions as "autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations".

The Statute of Westminster in 1931 spelled out the implications further. McGilligan declared that the imperial system, which it had taken centuries to build, had been demolished. He was referring, of course, only to the white dominions and not to the British colonies all around the world. In Asia these included India, Burma, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Borneo; in Africa there was Uganda, Kenya, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Somalia, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, Bechuanaland, Nigeria, Cameroons, Gold Coast, Togo, Sierra Leone and Gambia; in the Caribbean there were numerous islands including Jamaica, Bahamas, Barbados, Trinidad and Grenada.

The Free State ministers had played a leading role in securing an independent status for the dominions but it was Eamon de Valera coming to power in 1932 who exploited this freedom. He proceeded to abolish the Oath of Allegiance and the office of governor-general, to take the king out of the 1922 Constitution and to remove international relations from any British tutelage. He deliberately left the crown with a technical role in the accrediting of diplomats.

The 1937 Constitution completed the process and made Ireland into a republic in all but name. This attracted the close attention of the Congress party in India, some of whose leaders visited Dublin to meet de Valera. The Irish example showed India could be a republic and also in the Commonwealth. The value of Ireland's increasing emancipation from Britain was clearly shown when the second World War broke out. Ireland declared its neutrality while the British viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, declared war on behalf of India without consulting any Indian political leaders.

India and Pakistan became independent in 1948 as republics within the Commonwealth. Ironically, Ireland a year later formally declared itself a republic and left the Commonwealth. This was not done by de Valera but by the all-party government which came to power in 1948 hoping "to take the gun out of Irish politics".

The second World War and its aftermath speeded up the disintegration of the British, French and Dutch empires. In a speech in Cape Town in 1960, the British prime minister, Harold Macmillan, warned that the "winds of change" were blowing for the African continent. Ghana (formerly Gold Coast and Togo) had become independent in 1957. The decolonisation of the rest of the British Empire in Africa followed soon afterwards.

The map of the world with the large swathes coloured in the red of the British Empire on which "the sun never sets" was history by 1966, just 50 years after the Easter Rising. Those first shots in Dublin were the start of the process, but how much they influenced it can still be debated.