Two Nations Theory (Ireland)

In Ireland, the two nations theory holds that Ulster Protestants form a distinct Irish nation. Advocated mainly by Irish unionists, who used it as a basis for opposing Home Rule and, later, to justify the partition of Ireland, it has been strongly criticised by Irish nationalists such as John Redmond (who stated that "'the two nation theory' is to us an abomination and a blasphemy"),Éamon de Valera,Seán Lemass and Douglas Gageby.

According to S J Connolly's Oxford Companion to Irish History (p. 585), the two nations theory first appeared in the book Ulster As It Is (1896) by the Unionist Thomas Macknight. It was also advocated by the Tory writer W F Moneypenny in his 1913 book The Two Irish Nations: An Essay on Home Rule, and was later taken up by the British Conservative politician Bonar Law.

It was advanced in 1907 by the future Supreme Court judge and Sinn Féin Republican TD Arthur Clery in his book The Idea of a Nation. Clery appears to have been motivated by his view of Irishness as essentially Gaelic and Catholic, and by the belief that partition would facilitate the achievement of Home Rule. He is unusual in supporting the two nations theory from a nationalist perspective; it is more usually advocated by Unionists.

In 1962, the Dutch geographer Marcus Willem Heslinga (1922–2009) argued in his book The Irish Border as a Cultural Divide that there were good cultural reasons for the existence of the border. Paramount among these was religious difference which resulted in the partition of Ireland being a division between 'two nations' on the island of Ireland – the Catholic Irish nation in the Republic and the Protestant Ulster nation in Northern Ireland.

This view was also put forward by the Irish Communist Organisation (ICO) (later the British and Irish Communist Organisation (B&ICO)) in 1969, in response to the crisis in the North. On the basis of the Leninist theory of nationalities, they theorised that Ireland contained two overlapping nations and that it was necessary to recognise the rights of both. This led to their formation of the Workers' Association for the Democratic Settlement of the National Conflict in Ireland, in an attempt to draw the left to a non-nationalist position. Its policy sought the ending of the Republic's claim to Northern Ireland in Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution. The ICO/B&ICO Two Nations idea is discussed in Ireland: Divided Nation, Divided Class by Austen Morgan and Bob Purdie.Jim Kemmy TD of the Democratic Socialist Party was influenced by these ideas.

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