Terror of the Risen People Among The Irish Rich not alone Led to the capitulation That Was The Treaty but Also Paralysed the Anti-Treaty Republican Republican Leadership in the Civil War-Connolly had been executed, Larkin was in America, and the leadership of the trade union movement was in the hands of social democratic traitors Tom Johnson and Willie O’Brien. https://wp.me/pKzXa-OT (Analysis Further Down)
Important Reading on War of Independence and the Civil War and Lessons for To-day: Book Ernie O Malley-The Singing Flame; Book C Desmond Greaves: Liam Mellowes and The Irish Revolution; Book D.R. O’C Lysaght: The Munster Creamery Soviets ; Book C Desmond Greaves: History of ITGWU; D.R.O’C Lysaght: Story of the Limerick Soviet;Paper Conor Kostick : The Irish Working Class and the War of Independence. Book Arthur Mitchel : Labour in Irish Politics 1890-1930-The Irish Labour Movement in an Age of Revolution. Case Histories Brian Kenny: When Ireland Went Red; New Book Limerick Soviet, Dominic Haugh :Also Philip Ferguson : https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/the-working-class-and-the-national-struggle-1916-1921/
Revolt of Dublin Unemployed against First Free State Government: Seizure of the Rotunda https://www.irishtimes.com/news/offbeat/when-the-unemployed-seized-the-rotunda-in-protest-1.3762826
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Remember that the” red brigandage” rife, particulaly in Munster(Red Flag Creameries, land seizures by the poor, farm labourers’ strikes etc), was the explanation given by both sides for the DeValera-Collins pact in the post treaty election.
There had been huge mass actions by the Irish working class in support of the war of independence as detailed below by Conor Kostic. This played a huge role in making the the country ungovernable together with the military campaign.
In his book the Singing Flame, Ernie O’Malley, explained how the Republican Leadership–Rory O’Connor, Liam Lynch et al through their inaction allowed the Free State to set up an army to beat them instead of arresting Collins on his return from London.
Sending hundreds of republican fighters from Munster, Derry and Tyrone to “co-operate” with their free-state enemies in Donegal “in an attack on the north”, is another example of the abject failure of Republican leaders to defend the 32-county republic. They sent their front line troops into a free state military trap! This ruthless manoeuvre by the Free State couldn’t have worked without the compliance of the republican leaders.
The reality was that the republican leaders were terrified by the Munster “Soviets”(creameries seized by workers), the land seizures, the farm labourer strikes …. They were politically and militarily paralysed by their links to the propertied classes. They placed the defence of huge farms, and big businesses before the Republic
The ELECTION PACT between DeValera and Collins after the Treaty was driven by common opposition to “the red brigandage” that was rampant in Munster. It came from the same stable as the disastrous military/political decisions of O’Connor and Lynch
The failure of the Labour Party and Trade Union Congress led by Tom Johnson and The Irish Transport and General Workers Union led by Willie O’Brien to participate militarily in the War of Independence and afterwards on the republican side in inevitable the civil war, came home to roost.
Connolly had said to the Irish Citizen Army as they went out in 1916: “Should we win, hold on to your guns” . He correctly predicted that there would be a class division over the nature of the republic
Tom Johnson and Willie O’Brien hadn’t even taken up arms in 1919!
The Class division over the nature of the Republic was expressed in the Civil War
Though Ernie O’Malley came from a professional family, his commitment to the Republic was greater than any loyalty to the propertied classes.
Wikipedia–Irish Labour Party and TUC and the Treaty
The Anglo-Irish Treaty divided the Labour party. It did not take an official stand. From his American prison cell, Jim Larkin opposed the Treaty while the only Labour member of the Dáil, Richard Corish of Wexford spoke and voted for the Treaty. Johnson, never a republican, privately supported the Treaty, while O’Brien did not oppose it. Following the approval of the Treaty by the Dáil in January 1922, the executive of the ITUCLP succeeded at a special conference held in February, in passing a motion to participate in the forthcoming General Election. Successful Labour candidates were required to take their seats in the new Free State Dáil, and a reformist programme was adopted.
The Irish Working Class and the War of Independence
Conor Kostick
Lessons of Civil War for To-day https://wp.me/pKzXa-OT
Full Article http://www.irishmarxistreview.net/index.php/imr/article/download/180/177
INTRODUCTION
‘Workers Soviet Mills, We Make Bread Not Profits’
In the coming centenary commemorations of the Easter Rising of 1916 (and now the war of Independence-PH) there will be a great deal of enthusiasm for the efforts of that generation to escape the British Empire. Yet nearly all the public attention and memorial events will be directed to discussion of the role of the senior figures of the national movement. One of the most neglected groups in the social memory of these years was the working class. Yet it was working class action above all that stymied British authority in Ireland. In the revolutionary period of 1918 to 1923, Irish workers made an enormous contribution to the fact that Britain lost its ability to govern the country.
More, they created moments in which an alternative to partition emerged, moments
where it seemed like Ireland might follow Russia in becoming a republic governed by
soviets. The argument that Ireland was too rural to have been able to experience a social
revolution at this time – too dominated by the church and the outlook of a conservative
peasantry – is refuted by a close look at the evidence. Near constant class warfare existed
on the land in these years. In the east, where most of the land was held by large farmers and worked by a rural proletariat, there were the most extraordinary scenes and battles involving the derailing of trains, as rural workers fought for higher standards of living. There were also scenes reminiscent of the Great War, in which red armies of rural workers battled white armies of the FFF (Farmers Freedom Force). In the west, where great tracts of land were still owned by absentee landlords, the struggle took the form of small farmers breaking up the large estates or in some cases appropriating them collectively and working them as soviets.1 Yet, of course, it was in the urban centres that the working class displayed the greatest militancy and in addition to an almost continuous sequence of strikes and local general strikes there were five crucial turning points in these revolutionary years created by urban working class activity: firstly, a general strike against conscription; secondly, a general strike at the beginning of 1919 in Belfast; thirdly, the Limerick Soviet of April 1919; fourthly, in April 1920 a soviet takeover of the major towns of Ireland for the release of hunger strikers; and fifthly, throughout 1920, the refusal of transport workers to move British troops or army equipment.
On 16 April 1918, with the passage of the Military Service Bill by 301 votes to 103, conscription was brought to Ireland. The plans of the War Cabinet, however, failed disastrously and not one Irishman was dragged off to the trenches. Instead, the issue of conscription was a tipping point. It brought the country to its feet. And if readers in the Republic today feel that the issue of the water charges is doing something similar, you can imagine how the much more life-and-death issue of conscription in 1918 galvanised the population.
Crucially, workers entered the conflict as a class and much to everyone’s astonishment,
including their own, proved themselves to be an enormously powerful force.
A general strike against conscription took place on Tuesday 23 April 1918, with work
all over the country suspended. A ban on marches for the day from the British authorities proved unenforceable and almost every town, especially in the 26 Counties, had its own march, usually organised by the local Trades Council.
The overall success of the day’s action was acknowledged by the Irish Times, which stated that “April 23rd will be chiefly remembered as the day on which Irish Labour realised its strength.”
1See Conor Kostick, Revolution in Ireland (Cork, 2009), pp. 118 – 124; Dan Bradley, Farm Labourers’; Irish Struggle 1900 – 1976 (Belfast, 1988).
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DEATH OF LIAM COSGRAVE , SON OF WT COSGRAVE
The Cosgraves were ruthless representatives of the Irish Rich and big property owning classes. They were strong on Law and order against the common people. But they had no compunction about officially murdering the Four Courts Four- Rory, Liam, Dick and Joe- without trial or indeed any process whatever
Ernie O’Malley pointed out in his wonderful book The Singing Flame that the revolt of the masses during the war of independence made clear that the only way to get a republic was to be prepared for it to be a workers republic. Though Ernie was not a socialist he was prepared to accept that it would have to be a workers republic. In Munster “red brigandage” was rife-workers seizing creameries(D.R.O’C Lysgaght has written on this), huge farm labourers strikes, land and cattle seizures etc. The WT Cosgrave wing of Sinn Féin decided to stop the war of independence and to prioritise crushing the revolt of the masses. The De Valera wing and the anti-Free State IRA leaders were paralysed by their opposition to the mass revolt on the one hand and their desire for a capitalist republic on the other. Rory O’Connor, Liam Lynch et Al refused to arrest the treaty signatories and take control. They hung about and allowed the Free State to build an army with British money and guns to defeat them and to execute them.
When nationalist insurgency occurs in the era of late capitalism, its leadership tends to break up along class lines at crucial moments short of victory
The lessons of the civil war are strongly relevant today, as it has become clear that there is negligible sovereignty of the Irish people through Leinster House
How long is it since Sinn Fein mounted a genuine mass demonstration to Leinster House against any form of austerity???
Question to me on Cedar Lounge Revolution—What is Late Capitalism?
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Execution of Drumboe Martyrs by Free State Donegal 14 March 1923
further down: Comment By Sean Bresnahan Tyrone 1916 Societies
The execution of the Drumboe Martyrs was an atrocity by the Free State authorities.
But how did they and hundreds of brave republican fighters from Munster, Derry and Tyrone arrive in a situation where they were completely vulnerable to attack by the Free State?
In his book the Singing Flame, Ernie O’Malley, explained how the Republican Leadership–Rory O’Connor, Liam Lynch et al through their inaction allowed the Free State to set up an army to beat them instead of arresting Collins on his return from London.
Sending hundreds of republican fighters from Munster, Derry and Tyrone to “co-operate” with their free-state enemies in Donegal “in an attack on the north”, is another example of the abject failure of Republican leaders to defend the 32-county republic. They sent their front line troops into a free state military trap! This ruthless manoeuvre by the Free State couldn’t have worked without the compliance of the republican leaders.
The reality was that the republican leaders were terrified by the Munster “Soviets”(creameries seized by workers), the land seizures, the farm labourer strikes …. They were politically and militarily paralysed by their links to the propertied classes. They placed the defence of huge farms, and big businesses before the Republic
The ELECTION PACT between DeValera and Collins after the Treaty was driven by common opposition to “the red brigandage” that was rampant in Munster. It came from the same stable as the disastrous military/political decisions of O’Connor and Lynch
The failure of the Labour Party and Trade Union Congress led by Tom Johnson and The Irish Transport and General Workers Union led by Willie O’Brien to participate militarily in the War of Independence and afterwards on the republican side in inevitable the civil war, came home to roost.
Connolly had said to the Irish Citizen Army as they went out in 1916: “Should we win, hold on to your guns” . He correctly predicted that there would be a class division over the nature of the republic
Tom Johnson and Willie O’Brien hadn’t even taken up arms in 1919!
The Class division over the nature of the Republic was expressed in the Civil War
Though Ernie O’Malley came from a professional family, his commitment to the Republic was greater than any loyalty to the propertied classes.
<meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”0; URL=/paddy.healy.50?sk=approve&highlight=1519535774736956&log_filter=review&_fb_noscript=1″ />(138) Paddy Healy
Today in Irish History, The execution of the “Drumboe Martyrs”, 14 March 1923
http://www.theirishstory.com/2012/03/14/today-in-irish-history-the-execution-of-the-drumboe-martyrs-14th-march-1923/#.WMPOz9Lyhdg
Publisher 14 March, 2012 Irish History, The Irish Civil War, Today In Irish History
A flyer for a memorial rally for the ‘Drumboe Martyrs’ in 1925.
Kieran Glennon tells the story of the four Republicans executed in Donegal in 1923, by among others, his grandfather.
Four Republicans, who subsequently became known as the “Drumboe Martyrs”, were executed by a Free State firing squad in Donegal in March 1923. None of the four was from that county – all had come there as part of a joint campaign against the north involving both the Provisional Government and their anti-Treaty opponents.
Encapsulating the tragedies of the Civil War, not only were there personal ties between their leader, Charlie Daly, and his Free State opponent, Joe Sweeney, but the former may have previously saved the latter’s life. To add further poignancy, it is quite likely the men were executed in reprisal for a shooting that was not part of the civil war at all.
I should, at the very outset, clarify that the Tom Glennon referred to in this article, as a Free State officer, was my grandfather. While it is natural and understandable that some readers may fear that this will lead to family bias on my part, I hope the article will prove any such concerns to have been unnecessary.
Background
The Civil War in Donegal had an almost-uniquely northern dimension.
Firstly, two of the key protagonists’ involvement in the War of Independence had been in the north. Originally from Kerry, Charlie Daly had been appointed as a full-time IRA organiser in October 1920, responsible for Tyrone and the rural part of Co. Derry. He went on to command the 2nd Northern Division in this area until early March 1922, when he was removed due to his opposition to the Treaty. By mid-1922, he was Vice-Commandant of the Republican forces in Donegal.
On the other side, the Free State officer Tom Glennon was originally from Belfast. The month after Daly’s appointment as a full-time organiser in Derry-Tyrone, he had been appointed to an identical role in Co. Antrim, later becoming Officer Commanding of the Antrim Brigade until he was captured; his area of responsibility thus directly bordered Daly’s to the east. In November 1921, following his escape from internment in the Curragh, he was appointed Adjutant to the IRA’s 1st Northern Division in Donegal.
Secondly, and more significantly, the overwhelming majority of Republican forces in Donegal were from outside the county and were there directly because of the situation in the north. In April 1922, as part of their efforts to maintain unity in the IRA in the face of the split over the Treaty, Michael Collins and Liam Lynch had agreed on a joint military strategy to attack the Northern Ireland government.
None of those executed at Drumboe were from Donegal. They had come there to fight the Northern government.
The Provisional Government swapped British-supplied rifles with anti-Treaty units in Munster, the southern weapons then being smuggled into the north for use by local units of the IRA in staging an uprising in May. For their part, the Republican Army Executive in the Four Courts agreed to send men from anti-Treaty units of the IRA in Cork and Kerry up to Donegal, under the leadership of Cork man Seán Lehane, in order to launch attacks across the border. By early July, Free State Chief of Staff Eoin O’Duffy estimated that 700 Munster Republicans were in Donegal 1; in addition, several hundred anti-Treaty members of Daly’s old division had fled west from Tyrone and Derry to avoid internment.
However, what had been planned as a united campaign against the north instead saw the first fatal clashes between pro- and anti-Treaty forces in the country. For reasons that have never been clearly established, the Free State commander in Donegal, Comdt.-General Joe Sweeney, refused to co-operate with Lehane’s forces. This led to increasing tensions in the county, culminating in a gun-battle between the two sides in Newtowncunningham on 4th May in which four Free State soldiers were killed. 2
Early stages of the Civil War in Donegal
The day after Free State troops began shelling the Four Courts in Dublin on 28th June 1922, Sweeney’s troops launched a swift offensive in Donegal, rapidly over-running and capturing Republican posts at Finner Camp, Buncrana, Ballyshannon, Bundoran and Carndonagh, taking several hundred prisoners in the process. 3
In the early stages of the civil war in Donegal, Free State forces rapidly overran the Republican positions
Co-ordination of Republican resistance was weakened by the fact that at the outset of the fighting, Lehane was in Dublin, taking part in unity negotiations following a split in Republican ranks at an Army Convention on 18th June; he did not return to Donegal until mid-July, having had to walk all the way from Sligo. In his absence, Daly withdrew much of the remaining Republican force to Glenveagh Castle in west Donegal, where he established a new headquarters.
One IRA man wanted to ‘plug’ Free State officers Sweeney and Glennon when they arrived for negotiations. It was Charlie Daly who stopped him.
There were immediate attempts to negotiate an end to the fighting. On the morning of 5th July, Sweeney and Glennon travelled under a promise of safe passage to meet Daly and some of his senior officers at Churchill, near his headquarters. Sweeney hoped to agree a basis on which the southern Republicans would leave Donegal; in the event, neither side was prepared to accept the conditions proposed by the other and the negotiations proved fruitless. However, it was the immediate aftermath of the meeting which was to prove poignant several months later.
According to Republican Mick O’Donoghue, Daly saved the lives of the two Free State officers:
“As Sweeney, Daly, Glennon, Cotter and I dallied at the door, Jim Lane… slouched in and beckoned me over. I went. ‘Jordan and some of the northern fellows outside are threatening to ambush Sweeney and plug him on the way back,’ Lane whispered to me. I was startled.
Knowing Jordan’s reputation for recklessness and bloodthirsty callousness, I would not put such a thing beyond him. We had given Sweeney a pledge of safe conduct and he had trusted in our word of honour … Approaching the group at the door, I called Charlie aside and asked the others to hold us excused for a few moments.
Briefly I told Daly what was afoot outside. He was appalled. The soul of honour himself, he could hardly believe that any Republican soldier could stoop to such treachery and disgrace and dishonour a pledge of safe conduct … Calling Lane, he ordered him to see that none of the Republicans moved out of Churchill until Sweeney had gone, and to stay side by side with Jordan to prevent him from any rash attempt to carry out his threat.” 4
Unaware that Daly had just prevented their deaths, Sweeney and Glennon left to return to their headquarters at Drumboe Castle.
The Free State offensive resumed the following day and they captured more Republican bases at Skeog and Inch Island in mid-July. By then, the Republican force at Glenveagh had been whittled down to eighty and Lehane decided to take his remaining men on the run. As the Republican column separated into ever-smaller groups to avoid detection and capture, the next three months saw a protracted game of cat-and-mouse with pursuing Free State forces.
Daly had already been ordered to evacuate his men from Donegal when he was captured
At the beginning of November, Republican GHQ bowed to the inevitable and ordered the evacuation of Donegal by their forces. Lehane sent the following despatch to Daly, whose tiny group was still hiding out in the northwest of the county:
“I have received an order from E. O Maille [Ernie O’Malley] authorising us to leave Donegal at once and withdraw our men. I believe our work here is impossible. We have to steal about here like criminals at night, and it gets on one’s nerves. In order that we may try and make arrangements, could you please bring your lads on towards Drumkeen and we will go that length to meet you … We will be able to talk things over there … Until I see you and the lads, good luck. Seán Ó Liatháin.” 5
Daly did not make it to the rendezvous – on 4th November, the usual sequence of weekly intelligence reports from Drumboe Castle to Free State GHQ at Beggars Bush was broken for a special message:
“A flying column of Irregulars were captured at Meenabaul, Dunlewy on Tuesday night, 2ndinst., by troops operating from Glenveagh Castle under Lieutenant-Commandant McBrearty. Charles Daly, late O/C 2nd Northern Division was in charge. He was acting as Deputy O/C 1st & 2nd Northern Divisions (Irregular).” 6
The capture and trial of Charlie Daly
The cottage where Daly and his men were captured.
Daly later admitted that the night they were captured, he and his men were too exhausted to even post a sentry:
“After their capture, Charlie wrote me and told me the reason that they did not put out a guard was that not a man was fit to stand on guard duty. They had travelled several miles over the mountains and were dead on their feet and so took a chance.” 7
A vivid description of the arrest was given some time later by one of his former officers, Séamus McCann from Derry:
“Donegal was very much for the Treaty with the result it was very hard to operate, the column having to walk long distances to get to friendly houses. Charlie and his little party were getting it tough, with a large, well-equipped army on his tail. They could only spend one night in any townland. They had just arrived in the townland of Dunlewy and were dead beat. They had just lay down with their boots on when the house was surrounded by a large force of military. Charlie reached for his rifle half asleep. But before he could do so he received a blow from a rifle butt. Charlie and his little band were taken prisoner and lodged at Drumboe Castle.” 8
According to Free State officer Denis Houston, a large force of Free State soldiers acting on a tip-off had arrived at Meenabaul near Gweedore at 7:15pm on the evening of 2nd November and had gone to search the house of John Sharkey:
“I saw Francis Ward and Daniel Coyle both of whom I recognised in the kitchen and three other men who were strangers to me. They were put under arrest and then the soldiers proceeded to another room off the kitchen. A man opened the door of the room whom I recognised as Charlie Daly. He was put under arrest and immediately stated he accepted responsibility for all of the men arrested and that he was in charge.” 9
Two other Republicans were arrested in another house nearby.
Although the required documents were initially prepared at the end of November, the court martial did not finally convene until 18th January 1923, some two and a half months after the men’s arrest. The prosecutor was a Mr. Cunningham and the court was made up of Deputy Divisional Commandant Joe Seán McLoughlin and State Solicitor William McMenamin. The third member of the court was Tom Glennon: he was now going to hear the case against the man who – probably unknown to him – had saved his life after the abortive peace meeting in Churchill the previous July.
The six men arrested by Houston were each charged with being in possession of three rifles, a revolver, 300 rounds of .303 ammunition, six rounds of .45 ammunition and a German egg bomb “without proper authority”. The other two Republicans were charged with being in possession of three rifles, three revolvers, three bandoliers of .303 ammunition and a pouch of .45 ammunition “without proper authority.”
The eight republicans were found guilty of bearing arms, ‘without the proper authority’ but heard nothing of their sentence for over three months.
The only likely outcome was that all eight would be found guilty which, given the charges, the evidence and the provisions of the Public Safety Act passed the previous October, meant possible death by firing squad. Daly might have sought a lighter sentence by appealing to his past friendship with Sweeney (they had been in university together) or by pointing to his saving of Sweeney’s and Glennon’s lives at Churchill and subsequently going out of his way to get medical aid for two Free State soldiers wounded in an action at Drumkeen in mid-July. But he did not. These actions would suggest that Daly’s nature as an officer was too honourable to even contemplate such a course.
The Republicans were found guilty by the court martial, but no sentence was passed at first. Three weeks after the trial, one of the men, Tim O’Sullivan from Kerry, wrote in a letter to a long-term girlfriend: “Nothing strange here only that we were court-martialled on Jan. 18th and we got no account of it since. We are as happy as the flowers in May.” 10
Rumours that death sentences would be handed down did spread as both Donegal County Council and Dunfanaghy Rural District Council discussed the issue at their respective meetings during February – the latter passed a motion calling on the government “to exercise their prerogative of mercy and not to inflict the extreme penalty in these cases.” 11
The eight men – Daly and O’Sullivan from Kerry, Dan Enright also from Kerry, Seán Larkin and James Donaghy from Derry, Dan Coyle and Frank Ward from Donegal and Jim Lane from Cork – remained in a cell together in Drumboe Castle, still unaware of their fate but prepared for the worst. Daly was visited regularly by C.S. Sweeney, one of the Free State soldiers wounded at Drumkeen: “Eleanor [C.S. Sweeney’s wife] was indignant but C.S. took the view that Daly could have dropped both him and Harkin in a bog hole.” 12
C.S. Sweeney may not have been the only Free State soldier sympathetic to the plight of Daly and the others. In his autobiography, written ten years later, Peadar O’Donnell, the prominent Donegal Republican, referred to a soldier named Dan McGee as “…the one man in Tirconaill who was a volunteer in enemy uniform. This youngster had just failed to effect the release of Daly, Larkin, Enright and O’Sullivan.” 13
The “Drumboe Martyrs”
Although they had been found guilty of possession of weapons and ammunition, the “Drumboe Martyrs” were shot in reprisal for the killing of a Free State officer.
At 1:40pm on 11th March, a brief radio message was despatched from Drumboe Castle to GHQ in Dublin: “Captain Bernard Cannon killed in attack in Creeslough Post last night. Particulars later.” 14 At first sight, this might seem to be the outcome of an attack by Republicans, but the reality is murkier. Ernie O’Malley noted that Republicans believed there had been a fight among the Free State soldiers in the barracks:
“Both Peadar O’Donnell and Joe Sweeney discussed the shooting of Cannon in my presence. Frank O’Donnell, Peadar said, told Cannon’s father the man who had shot him and he was Free State. Joe Sweeney said he investigated the shooting but found that Lt. Cannon had been shot through the skylight of the front door.” 15
In a separate interview, O’Malley talked to Sweeney alone, who told him:
“One of our officers, Lt. Cannon, was killed in the barracks at Creeslough. The barracks had been fired at. He went into the hall and was shot dead … I was talking to Peadar and Frank O’Donnell about the shooting of Lt. Cannon. They are positive none of their men were there that night. Nor was there a row in the barracks that night which I thought there might have been for I examined the scene. Outside, behind a wall, we found a box of cartridges.” 16
At the inquest into the dead soldier’s death, a Sergeant Gallagher told how he had been out on patrol, after which the soldiers returned to the barracks. At around 11pm that night, shots were fired at the barracks and he went into the hall, where he saw Cannon had been hit; he dragged him into another room and said an Act of Contrition which the officer repeated, but Cannon died ten minutes later. Gallagher said the shooting at the barracks continued for another hour. 17
But Cannon may have fallen victim not to the Civil War but to the violent lawlessness that accompanied it. In the absence of the disbanded RIC and with the Garda Siochána only recently-established, responsibility for maintaining law and order fell to whichever military group controlled a particular area. As everyday policing could not be their main priority, parts of Donegal – in particular, the east of the county, with its sizeable but vulnerable unionist community – descended into semi-anarchic chaos during the Civil War, with frequent reports of armed robbers preying on the population. According to local historian, Fr. John Silke, the attack on the barracks was mounted by locals after the Army’s arrest of some men in the village:
“On Saturday, March 10, the date of the village monthly fair, the barrack was providing hospitality for the night to a number of men who had imbibed well, if not too wisely and whom the Army patrol had rounded up. Shots were fired at the barrack from across a stone wall on the other side of the then Ferry’s Bar and Baird’s forge … the inexperienced captain unwisely opened the door and was shot.” 18
It is thus very possible that the denials of responsibility by both Sweeney and the O’Donnell brothers were well-founded and that the dead officer was actually killed by friends of the arrested drunks who were neither Republicans nor Free State soldiers.
Daly and his men were shot for the killing of a Lt. Cannon – who was probably killed by armed local criminals
By that time, the conduct of the Civil War was increasingly bitter. The attack on Creeslough barracks came less than a week after the infamous series of atrocities in Kerry, (in which 24 prisoners were killed in a two week period) but whether there was any connection between those events and the fact that three of the prisoners in Drumboe Castle were from Kerry can only be speculated on. However, when Sweeney reported the fatality at Creeslough to GHQ, the reply was unequivocal:
“We reported it and back came an order to execute four men, one of them Larkin. I sent a wireless message back for confirmation. The same message came back later. Then I sent a message direct to the A/G [Adjutant-General] Gearóid O’Sullivan. Larkin’s name came back again. He was from the Six Counties and I didn’t want to shoot a man from the Six Counties. I was very fond of Charlie Daly. He had been tried shortly after he was arrested but the sentence was confirmed.” 19
Even while Sweeney was arguing with GHQ, the eight prisoners in Drumboe Castle still had no idea what had happened – as late as 12th March, two days after Cannon’s death in Creeslough, O’Sullivan wrote to a fellow Republican who had been arrested in Listowel: “We were court-martialled here on the 18th January. The charge was unlawful possession of arms and we have heard no account about it since.” 20
The following afternoon, four of the men – Daly, O’Sullivan, Enright and Larkin – were informed that they would be executed the next morning. That evening, in a final letter to his mother, Enright wrote: “The sentence of death is just after being passed upon me, but I am taking it like a soldier should.” 21 Although all eight had been found guilty, O’Sullivan wrote in a farewell letter to his friend Maurice O’Connor that “My other four comrades are spared for the present, Dan, Charles, Sean Larkin and I being pulled out.” 22
A few hours before dawn, Daly wrote a last letter to his own mother: “We got the news about four this evening. Though ‘twas rather sudden it was not altogether unexpected; besides we had never lost sight of the possibility of our C.M. ending at death.” 23
‘It is an awful thing to kill a man you know in cold blood’: Joe Sweeney
Daly’s cousin was Dr. Charles O’Sullivan, Bishop of Kerry and although he disapproved of Daly’s actions, it was perhaps through his contacts that Archbishop Patrick O’Donnell of Raphoe diocese called on a meeting of diocesan clergy to plead for the lives of the condemned men. A phone call was made to Minister for Defence Richard Mulcahy but the plea for clemency fell on deaf ears. 24
While Mulcahy was unyielding, Sweeney was torn over the death sentences:
“The terrible thing then was that Daly had to be executed. We had received word from Dublin that anyone captured carrying arms was to be court-martialled and sentenced to death. I had to do the job myself, to order a firing party for the execution, and it was particularly difficult because Daly and I had been very friendly when we were students, and it is an awful thing to kill a man you know in cold blood, if you’re on level terms with him. Trading shots with a man in battle is one thing, but an execution is something else altogether. I wasn’t present at the execution myself but to make sure there was no foul-up the firing party were all picked men and they were told that they were to put them out of pain as quickly as possible. At that time you had this barbarous system where the Provost-Marshall had to go along afterwards to deliver the coup de grace through the heart. I didn’t agree with it but they were orders and you had to do it.” 25
C.S. Sweeney visited Daly again on the evening of 13th March – “Daly told [him] that while Larkin had a death wish, he himself did not want to die.” 26 But after a visit from a priest who heard his confession, Daly reconciled himself to his fate and found great solace in his religious beliefs; his final letter to his mother is couched almost entirely in spiritual terms: “I am now within a few short hours of death and writing you with perfect calmness, all I think of is Eternity and I am ready to go out at 7 o’clock and face the firing squad with confidence and hope in God’s great mercy for the salvation of my soul.” 27
At 8am the next morning, Daly, O’Sullivan, Enright and Larkin were taken into the woods outside Drumboe Castleand shot: “[Comdt.-General Joe Sweeney] went off before the executions, which were left, according to C.S. Sweeney, to a firing party made up of ex-British Army veterans, with Comdt. Sheerin as detail officer.” 28 Later that day, a terse statement from GHQ simply stated that “All four accused were found guilty and sentenced to death. The findings and sentences were duly confirmed in each case.” 29
A week after the executions, Fr. McMullan, the Free State army chaplain at Drumboe Castle, wrote to Fr. Brennan, parish priest of Daly’s home village of Castlemaine in Kerry, paying tribute to how Daly had faced his death:
“I felt, too, that he was a tower of strength to the others all of whom like him met their deaths like true heroes. It was touching to see his generosity of nature, no word of complaint or recrimination, every man acted for the best and according to his lights so that those who differed from them were just as right and well intentioned as himself, such was his creed. He was emphatic in his appreciation of the kindness and consideration shown by all, those offices and men in whose custody he was, and this he expressed to me not only that night, but more than once before.” 30
‘I was a soldier, not a politician’: Tom Glennon
It seems likely that the attack on Creeslough barracks which led to the death of Captain Cannon was – without being properly investigated – simply presumed to have been carried out by the most obvious suspects. As a result of this mistaken attribution, the men subsequently known as the “Drumboe Martyrs” were then executed in reprisal for a killing which had not even been committed by Republicans.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, Joe Sweeney tried to block out all memory of the events:“It’s very hard to describe a war among brothers. It was fierce and it was atrocious. You had family against family and brother against brother, and I’ve tried to wipe it out of my mind as much as possible because it is not pleasant to think about.” 31
Similarly, Tom Glennon kept his memories to himself and never spoke in later life about his experiences in either the War of Independence or the Civil War. Once – and only once – his son tried to broach the subject of the Civil War, asking his father what he had thought of the Republicans’ position on the Treaty. His father brought the conversation to an abrupt end, declaring “I was a soldier, not a politician.”
Notes
- Report on 1stNorthern Division, 3rd July 1922, Mulcahy papers, UCD Archives, P7/B/106. Historian Robert Lynch estimates that the Munster Republicans in Donegal numbered “at most one hundred” (Donegal and the Joint-IRA Northern Offensive, May-November 1922, Irish Historical Studies, Volume XXXV, No. 138, November 2006) but in view of the number of prisoners subsequently captured by Free State troops, this estimate seems too low.
- DerryJournal, 5th & 8th May 1922
- Ibid, 3rdJuly 1922
- Michael O’Donoghue statement, Bureau of Military History, Military Archives, WS 1741
- Seán Lehane despatch to Charlie Daly, undated, O’Malley papers, UCD Archives, P17a/76
- Donegal Command Intelligence Report,4thNovember 1922, Military Archives, CW/OPS/06/11
- Martin Quille letter to Paddy —, undated, in James Quinn,The Story of the Drumboe Martyrs, (McKinney & Callaghan, 1958), p49
- Seamus McCann letter to Fr. David, Capuchin Franciscan monastery, Letterkenny, undated, O’Donoghue papers, NLI, Ms 31,315
- Abstract of evidence for court martial, O’Malley papers, UCD Archives, P17a/191
- Timothy O’Sullivan letter to Helena Maye, 9thFebruary 1923, O’Mahony papers, NLI, Ms 44,055/1
- DerryJournal, 21st February 1923
- John Silke,The Drumboe Martyrs, Donegal Annual, Volume 60 (2008)
- Peadar O’Donnell,The Gates Flew Open (Mercier, 1932), p159
- Donegal Command radio report, Military Archives, CW/OPS/06/12
- Joe Sweeney & Peadar O’Donnell interview, O’Malley notebooks, UCD Archives, P17/b/98
- Joe Sweeney interview, O’Malley notebooks, UCD Archives, P17b/97
- DerryJournal, 16th March 1923
- Silke,The Drumboe Martyrs
- Joe Sweeney interview, O’Malley notebooks, UCD Archives, P17b/97
- Timothy O’Sullivan letter to Michael McElligott, 12thMarch 1923, in Quinn, The Story of the Drumboe Martyrs, p45
- Dan Enright letter to his mother, 13thMarch 1923, in Quinn, The Story of the Drumboe Martyrs, p50
- Timothy O’Sullivan letter to Maurice O’Connor, 13thMarch 1923, in Quinn, The Story of the Drumboe Martyrs, p43
- Charlie Daly letter to his mother, 14thMarch 1923, O’Donoghue papers, NLI Ms 31,315
- Silke,The Drumboe Martyrs
- Joe Sweeney, interviewed in Kenneth Griffiths & Timothy O’Grady,Curious Journey (Hutchinson, 1982), p305-306
- Silke,The Drumboe Martyrs
- Charlie Daly letter to his mother, 14thMarch 1923, O’Donoghue papers, NLI, Ms 31,315
- Silke,The Drumboe Martyrs
- DerryJournal, 16th March 1923
- McMullan letter to Fr. Brennan, 21stMarch 1923, in Quinn, The Story of the Drumboe Martyrs, p27
- Sweeney, interviewed in Griffiths & O’Grady,Curious Journey, p306
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Extract From Constance Markevicz Speech Against The Treaty
“But looking as I do for the prosperity of the many, for the happiness and content of the workers, for what I stand, James Connolly’s ideal of a Workers’ Republic – (A pro-Treaty deputy interjects: Soviet Republic) – co-operative commonwealth, these men who have opposed everything, are to be elected and upheld by our plenipotentiaries; and I suppose they are to be the Free State, or the Cheap State,* Army, or whatever selection these men are, to be set up to uphold English interests in Ireland, to uphold the capitalists’ interests in Ireland, to block every ideal that the nation may wish to formulate; to block the teaching of Irish, to block the education of the poorer classes; to block, in fact, every bit of progress that every man and woman in Ireland today amongst working people desire to see put into force.
That is one of the biggest blots on this Treaty; this deliberate attempt to set up a privileged class in this, what they call a Free State, that is not free.
I would like the people here who represent the workers to take that into consideration – to say to themselves, what can the working people expect in an Ireland that is being run by men who, at the time of the Treaty, are willing to guarantee this sort of privilege to a class that every thinking man and woman in Ireland despises.”
Of Course the Sinn Féin Government, before the division on the Treaty, had been opposed to soviets and protective of the private property of factory owners.
In at least two cases, Markevicz herself, minister for Labour is alleged to have threatened to send in the IRA to evict sovieteers . It is also claimed that the pre-Treaty IRA was used to break up certain soviets.
Bruree Soviet Wikipedia
On August 26th 1921, the bakery and mills in Bruree, County Limerick (owned by the Cleeve Family) were occupied by almost all of its employees save the manager and a clerk. The workers raised a red flag, raised a banner reading “Bruree Soviet Workers Mill” and proclaimed they were now in control of the mill and would be selling its food at a lower price, forgoing the “profiteering” formerly being practised there. Forcing the owners to the negotiation table at Liberty Hall in Dublin, Union officials claimed the soviet was able to drop prices, double sales and increase wages.[10]Sinn Féin’s Minister for Labour Countess Markievicz mediated the negotiations and it is alleged she threatened to send in IRA troops to the Bruree Soviet if they did not accept the outcome of the arbitration.[7
……. it is also claimed that the IRA was used to break up soviets in Whitechurch, County Dublin, Youghal and Fermoy.[3
From the Munster Soviets and the Fall of the house of Cleeve by David Lee
The Castleconnell Fisheries Soviet ended in December 1921. Negotiations had taken place under threat from Markevicz, Minister for Labour, to send in the IRA to evict the sovieteers.
From minutes of Sinn Féin Dáil Cabinet, 2 December 1921: “Minister for Home Affairs to instruct police to proceed with the aid of volunteers to put strikers out of Mr Mackey’s premises.-Mininister of Labour (Markevicz) to interview Liberty Hall officials in the meantime with a view to having an organiser sent down to settle the dispute.”
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Support Commemoration of Limerick Soviet
Lessons of the War of Independence and of the Civil War For Today https://wp.me/pKzXa-OT
Commemorate The Limerick Soviet 1919—Centenary Events
Click to access Limerick-Soviet-100-Festival-Brochure-Web-Version.pdf
———————————————————–Free State Crushed Munster Worker-Controlled Creameries And The Labour Party and Trade Union Leaders Meekly Sat in The Usurping Free State Parliament Legitimizing This Action, as the Anti-Treaty Republican Forces Organised Military Resistance to The Partition Treaty and to The Free State Forces which were funded and armed by the British Government
Not Alone Did The Trade Union and Labour Party Leaders Legitimize The Actions of The Free State Army in Crushing the Munster Soviets, They Called a General Strike in Support of the Partition Treaty
“In April 1922, in protest at the IRA’s rejecting the vote of the Dáil, the unions, which had declared general strikes against the British in 1918 and 1920, called one against ‘Militarism’ and the threat of civil war. It was generally understood that this was particularly targeted against the anti-Treatyites” (John Dorney, The Irish Story)
Coalition of The Labour Party Backed by the ITGWU Leaders with Fine Gael, Began During The Civil War. They Were United in their Support for The Retention of Capitalism and the Partition of Ireland
From Liam Mellowes Days Before His Execution by the Free State as a Reprisal-Dec 3 1922 https://wp.me/pKzXa-OT
“Labour played a tremenduous part in the establishmen of the Republic (First All-Ireland Dáil 1919). Its leaders had it in their power to fashion that Republic as they wished-to make it a Workers and Peasants Republic. By their acceptance of the Treaty and all that it connotes-recognition of the British Monarchy, The British Privy Council and British Imperialism, partition of the country and subserviency to British Capitalism, they have betrayed not alone the Irish Republic but the Labour movement in Ireland and the cause of the workers and peasants throughout the world”—–From Article by Frank Gallagher in Sinn Féin, Dec 20, 1924
http://www.limerickcity.ie/media/limerick%20soviet%2015.pdf
The Munster Soviets And The Fall of The House of Cleeve
By David Lee, UCC
One of the first acts of Free State troops when they arrived in a town or village was to immediately suppress any soviet they found and arrest the leaders. Tipperary Town and Carrick-On Suir are prime examples
Conclusion
Reality was not proving a kind friend to the “sovieteers” as they were dubbed. The end of the Munster Soviets came with the Civil War and the routing of the Republicans in the towns and cities by Free State soldiers in July and August 1922. During their advance into Munster the Free State Government was anxious not only to suppress armed resistance to the Treaty but also to deal decisively with “Bolshevik” agitation and with militant trade unionism that had come to increasingly annoy employers, farmers, financial institutions and anyone else who had a vested interest in a return to normal economic life and political stability. The Free State Government was also anxious to convey to the British Cabinet and the world financial community in general, that it would not put up with all this “Bolshevik” nonsense
Although the Munster Soviets were a “third force” in some areas leading up to the period of the Civil War, they could not prosper long in the face of a strengthening national conservatism, that had very distinct ideas about what “Freedom” was all about and what limits needed to be imposed. There was also the harsh reality that the Irish Labour movement did not have the guns (they had allowed the Citizen Army to wither-PH), nor indeed the political will, to impose its vision of the future of the Irish Nation.
One of the first acts of Free State troops when they arrived in a town or village was to immediately suppress any soviet they found and arrest the leaders.
Tipperary Town and Carrick-on-Suir
When pro-treaty soldiers fought their way into Tipperary Town during the weekend of 28/29 July, they shot down the red flag that had flown over the Gasworks since 4th of March. Retreating republican forces burnt down a number of buildings in the town including the military barracks and Cleeve’s Creamery
The arrival of government troops in Carrick-on Suir in August, saw the end of that particular experiment in workers’ control
( The Clonmel Soviet, in Cleeves Cremey on Suir Island, had already collapsed under pressure from Sinn Féin Mayor Frank Drohan and the Church. But there was a significant military engagement in Clonmel before the Free State Prevailed-See further down for details)
———————————————————-Shameful Record of First Free State Government on Social Welfare Issues-And The Labour Party Stayed Sitting There as Impotent Loyal Opposition, as Anti-Treaty TDs continued to abstain from Dáil https://wp.me/pKzXa-OT
In Response to a request from Labour Party Leader, Tom Johnson for increases in welfare to avoid people starving in the coming winter, Free State Minister Paddy McGilligan replied: “ People May Have to die in this country and may have to die through starvation.” Dáil Record, October 30, 1924
On April 27, 1923, Mr Cosgrave had discarded the President Higgins’ quoted clause in the Constitution that had been adopted by the First Dáil because “the clause threatened to push the new party on the treacherous ground of State-sponsored medicine and welfarism”.(Dáil Report)
Minister Ernest Blythe introduced the Old Age Pension Act 1924, cutting the OAP by a shilling a week. The pension was withdrawn entirely if the recipients or their family had any means of supporting their parents.
Letters to the Editor: ‘Fine Gael should be embarrassed by its record a century after the first Dáil’
Irish Independent, January 24 2019
Sir: It must have been embarrassing for the Fine Gael TDs who attended the Mansion House commemoration of the first Dáil. President Higgins reminded the attendance of what Griffith and Collins felt was the first duty of the Government of the Republic, namely to make provision for the physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing of the children and secure that no child shall suffer from hunger or cold or lack of food.
The present leader of Fine Gael( Varadkar) might have mentioned how the founding father of his own party, W T Cosgrave, mangled the social issues in the first written Constitution after Griffith’s death and Collins’s murder. Instead, he(Varadkar) had to blame the nuns for “betraying those ideals”.
Mr Varadkar also decided not to mention homelessness, children waiting years for dental treatment and waiting lists for hospital appointments of more than a year; the mishandling of the cervical cancer cases, shortage of hospital beds; not to mention the failure of the Garda to follow up thousands of young offenders who require help.
Far easier to focus on the nuns in Tuam, the only home for pregnant women discarded by their families.
On April 27, 1923, Mr Cosgrave discarded the President’s quoted clause in the Constitution that had been adopted because “the clause threatened to push the new party on the treacherous ground of State-sponsored medicine and welfarism”.(Dáil Report)
A second clause concerning free education in primary and post primary schools had survived the December “cull” but at a special meeting held on April 25, 1923 attended by the executive council (the Taoiseach and ministers), Kevin O’Shiel, assistant legal adviser, “found that this provision was unacceptable”.
Though not accepted, these social clauses were far ahead of the conservative orthodoxies which both typify and hindered the new State. There was somewhere in the Treaty Party, a semblance of original and progressive thinking which was out of step with the (Cumann na NGaedhal) party’s elite.
For example, Mr Blythe introduced the Old Age Pension Act 1924, cutting the OAP by a shilling a week. The pension was withdrawn entirely if the recipients or their family had any means of supporting their parents.
A further “social improvement” was to abolish the widow’s pension in 1927, leaving the lady with no choice but to revisit the relieving officer for a “few bob” to survive. Her children were sent to an industrial school.
Eoin MacNeill insisted the elite should attend a meeting of the grassroot memberships. The Treaty issue according to MacNeill was dead and the real question was how to entice people to join before the next election. He warned them not to adopt the policies of the old Irish Parliamentary Party, which they did and as a result they were in the wilderness as a party until John A Costello resurrected them in a coalition government in 1948.
Hugh Duffy
Cleggan, Co Galway
Not Alone Did The Trade Union and Labour Party Leaders Legitimize The Actions of The Free State Army in Crushing the Munster Soviets, They Called a General Strike in Support of the Partition Treaty
“In April 1922, in protest at the IRA’s rejecting the vote of the Dáil, the unions, which had declared general strikes against the British in 1918 and 1920, called one against ‘Militarism’ and the threat of civil war. It was generally understood that this was particularly targeted against the anti-Treatyites” (John Dorney, The Irish Story)
Coalition of The Labour Party Backed by the ITGWU Leaders with Fine Gael, Began During The Civil War. They Were United in their Support for The Retention of Capitalism and the Partition of Ireland
—————————————————-Glenstal Benedictine Historian, Dr Brian Murphy, Says RIC Was Implementing a MILITARY DICTATORSHIP Before First Dáil Met-Letter to Irish Times https://wp.me/pKzXa-OT
They(these events) also serve to confirm that the RIC was no ordinary police force. Since the start of the first World War in 1914, the RIC had implemented the Defence of the Realm Act and the Defence of the Realm Regulations, both of these measures taking precedence over civil law; and, while continuing to implement these Acts, they also enacted the martial law edicts of Lord French. In short they were not a normal police force; they sustained a military dictatorship
Dr Murphy is author of the book Patrick Pearse and the Lost Republican Ideal
The centenary of Dáil Éireann
Sir, – Regarding your important supplement on the centenary of Dáil Éireann, the photograph chosen for the supplement was that of the meeting of Dáil Éireann on April 1st, 1919, and not that of the first meeting of January 21st, 1919. The selection of the correct photograph is important as it was the 24 men pictured in the January photograph who were mainly responsible for the significant declarations made on that day: the Declaration of Independence, the Message to the Free Nations of the World and the Democratic Programme. Michael Collins and Harry Boland also contributed to these statements but they were not present in January as they were planning the escape of de Valera from Lincoln jail. Members of the Labour Party also contributed to the contents of the Democratic Programme.
Second, there is no presentation of the character of Lord French’s rule in Ireland, although there is an article by Ronan McGreevy on his attempted assassination. An understanding of Lord French’s position is critical to any understanding of the War of Independence and the role of the Royal Irish Constabulary in that war. Lord French was appointed on May 6th, 1918, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland on the understanding with Lloyd George that he was “to set up a quasi-military government in Ireland with a soldier lieutenant”. His appointment was made to counter the response of all Irish politicians to the imposition of a Conscription Act on Ireland on April 12th, 1918. That response had been made on April 18th, 1918, at a large gathering in the Mansion House, in which it was declared that the Act was “a declaration of war on the Irish people”. Eamon de Valera and Arthur Griffith of Sinn Féin were joined by John Dillon and Joseph Devlin of the Irish Party and by representatives of the Labour Party and trade unions. Their action was supported by the Roman Catholic hierarchy. It was in this context that Lord French, signing himself “Governor General”, issued a proclamation on May 16th, which announced that some people were plotting with the Germans. This led to the arrest and imprisonment, without trial, of over 100 men and women of the Sinn Féin party.
So significant were these events that a case might be made that they marked the first steps of the War of Independence; at the very least they cannot be ignored in any consideration of the background to the meeting of the first Dáil Éireann. They also serve to confirm that the RIC was no ordinary police force. Since the start of the first World War in 1914, the RIC had implemented the Defence of the Realm Act and the Defence of the Realm Regulations, both of these measures taking precedence over civil law; and, while continuing to implement these Acts, they also enacted the martial law edicts of Lord French. In short they were not a normal police force; they sustained a military dictatorship. – Yours, etc,
Dr BRIAN P MURPHY OSB.
Glenstal Abbey,
Murroe,
Co Limerick.
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FINTAN O’Toole Criticises the Action at Soloheadbeg on The Same Day That The First Dáil Convened. BUT THE LEADERS OF THE 3RD Tipperary Brigade were proven right by history
O’Toole sets out evidence that the 3rd Tipperary Brigade did not trust the members of the first Dáil or even IRA GHQ. Fintan’s pro Free State prejudice does not allow him to admit that Robinson, Breen and Treacy were right! Setting aside the measured language which Robinson used to the Bureau of Military History , the colloquial word in Tipp was: “If we don’t do something that crowd talking above in the Dáil will never do anything” They were right of course. More than half of the TDs voted for the partition deal. The Free State Government which they formed was far more murderous than the Black and Tans in crushing the risen people.
And as Ernie O’Malley shows in The Singing Flame, the IRA leaders Rory O’Connor and Liam Lynch through inaction, allowed Collins to build a paid army to crush the risen people. They were paralysed by their fear of the red flag creameries, the farm labouers strikee and the land seizures.
Come to think of it, the Tipp view in 1921 is also relevant to-day though what is now needed is mass action, not military action. Other wise “That crowd above in the Dáil” will do nothing!!
Fintan O’Toole: The first murky, inglorious shots of the War of Independence
Fintan O’Toole Irish Times Saturday, January 12, 2019
Soloheadbeg is not much of a place, though most Irish people have been close enough to it at some stage; it is about a mile from Limerick Junction.
In 1919, by far the most famous living native of the place was Sir Michael Francis O’Dwyer, the son of local farmers who had risen to be Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab. Later in the year, he would retire from that high imperial office, blamed in part for the mass killing of unarmed Indian protestors at Amritsar.
But on January 21st, Dan Breen, waiting in ambush on the by-road from Tipperary town to the quarry at Soloheadbeg, imagined the place rather differently, evoking in his imagination the epic history of the land around him: “In this plain, dominated by the Galtymore mountains, Brian Boru and his brother Mahon fought their first great battle with the Danes in 968.”
In Breen’s mind what was about to occur here would be another “first great battle”.
“We were to begin another phase in the long fight for the freedom of our country.”
At around 12.30pm, eight masked IRA men waited on a one-and-a-half metre-high bank screened by whitethorn and briar. Forewarned by a scout, they stopped a small convoy coming from Tipperary town.
The IRA’s commander on the scene later called the ambush ‘the accidental starting point of what later became known as the ‘Tan War’ ‘
It was made up of a heavy cart carrying gelignite for the quarry, driven by a local man, James Godfrey, accompanied by a county council official Patrick Flynn and guarded by two armed constables of the Royal Irish Constabulary, James McDonnell and Patrick O’Connell. Both were Irish Catholics.
McDonnell, who was 56, was a native Irish speaker from Belmullet, Co Mayo, and was the widowed father of seven children. O’Connell, who was 30, was from Coachford, Co Cork, and was engaged to be married. Both seem to have been well-regarded in Tipperary.
According to Breen and other members of the IRA party, the two policemen were warned to put their hands up but instead “raised their rifles” and were consequently shot dead. One of the IRA men, Patrick O’Dwyer, recalled that “the whole thing happened very suddenly, in less, perhaps, than half a minute, and in much less time than it takes to relate”.
Yet that half-minute and those two killings came, largely through Breen’s vivid memoir My Fight for Irish Freedom, to be memorialised as the beginning of the War of Independence.
If so, it was a strange, murky and inglorious beginning. The IRA’s commander on the scene, Séamus Robinson, later called the ambush “the accidental starting point of what later became known as the ‘Tan War’” – the idea of an accident being very much at odds with Breen’s narrative of a consciously epic moment.
False start
There was no significant violent action by the IRA for another two months, suggesting that it was at best a false start.
In retrospect, Soloheadbeg was shaped as a mythic point of origin. In reality, it looks more like a local coup – not against British rule but against those in Sinn Féin who favoured a nonviolent path to Irish independence.
Soloheadbeg looks more like a conspiracy within a conspiracy within a conspiracy
Sinn Féin had won a majority of seats in the historic election of December 1918. Its manifesto had reserved the right to use “any and every means” – a deliberately slippery term – but specified only the peaceful ones of establishing an Irish parliament and using its democratic mandate to seek a hearing for Irish independence at the Versailles peace conference.
But at the same time, the Irish Volunteers, gradually becoming known as the Irish Republican Army, was rebuilding its military capacity under the leadership of the secretive Irish Republican Brotherhood.
There was never a simple and single Irish revolution, more what historian Richard English has called “overlapping revolutions… conspiracies within the revolutionary conspiracy”. And Soloheadbeg looks more like a conspiracy within a conspiracy within a conspiracy.
The first Dáil met for the first time on January 21st, 1919 – the same day as the ambush at Soloheadbeg. The coincidence makes it seem as if the two events were joined as the twin prongs of a dual republican strategy: a Lee Enfield in one hand and a ballot box in the other.
But a co-incidence is exactly what it was. The IRA unit had expected the attack to happen days earlier, but the convoy did not arrive. There was, in republican claims, only one legitimate source of authority in Ireland at this point: the elected Dáil.
The faded headstone to Constable James McDonnell who was killed during the Soloheadbeg ambush states that he died in the line of duty. Photograph: Ronan McGreevy
As one of its prominent members Erskine Childers put it, the Dáil was “the only authority in Ireland with the moral sanction of a democracy behind it”.
So on whose authority were the policemen killed at Soloheadbeg? Séamus Robinson, who was, with Breen and Seán Treacy, a central figure in the ambush, was commander of the IRA in South Tipperary, and though Breen was at great pains to play this down, it was in fact Robinson who led the ambush.
In his account for the Bureau of Military History, written in 1950, Robinson is quite clear that the decision to launch an armed campaign was in keeping with the general aims of “GHQ” – the executive of the IRA – but against the known wishes of both the Sinn Féin leadership and the democratically elected Dáil: “The passive-resistance policy of old Sinn Féin and the apparent policy of the Dáil was not the policy of GHQ.”
Ruthless fighting
Robinson quoted approvingly from Óglach, the bulletin of the emerging IRA: “‘Passive resistance is no resistance at all. Our active military resistance is the only thing that will tell. Any plans, theories, or doubts tending to distract the minds of the people from the policy of fierce, ruthless fighting ought to be severely discouraged.’ Inference: Ruthless fighting encouraged.”
And another inference: the Dáil was a distraction from the real business of ruthless fighting. As Robinson explained it, the ambush was aimed at pre-empting the authority of the Dáil, creating a violent fait accompli that could not be gainsaid by “righteous indignation speeches of dyed-in-the-wood pacifist members” of the new Irish parliament.
In this sense, Soloheadbeg was as much a blow at the nonviolent wing of Sinn Féin as it was against the RIC or Britain. It was also, however, a defiance even of the authority of the IRA itself. Breen wrote that it was conceived because the IRA was “in great danger of becoming merely an adjunct to the Sinn Féin organisation”.
The specific proposal for the ambush seems to have come from Treacy, whose farmhouse was beside the quarry. According to Robinson, “He came to me in Kilshenane with his fiancée, May Quigley, shortly after Christmas 1918. After tea, the two of us went out to the haggard where he told me of the gelignite that was due to arrive at Soloheadbeg quarry in two or three weeks’ time – he could not find out the exact date, which was kept under sealed orders. He wanted to know should we capture it.”
Crucially, Robinson’s decision to try to do so was made without reference, not only to the elected Dáil, but even to the IRA executive: “Seán Treacy said ‘Will you get permission from GHQ?’ I looked inquiringly at Seán to see if he were serious, before I replied ‘It will be unnecessary so long as we do not ask for their permission. If we ask, we must await their reply.’”
This pleased Treacy: “When Seán was suddenly pleased with anything his quizzical eyes opened for a flash and the tip of his tongue licked the outside corner of his lips.”
But even within this tiny self-appointed group, there is no clarity about precisely what they intended to do. Specifically: Did they or did they not intend to kill the RIC men? One of the eight men in the IRA ambush party, Patrick O’Dwyer later recalled that “It was, as far as I am aware, definitely the intention to hold up the escort, disarm them and seize the gelignite without bloodshed if possible.”
Dan Breen’s account is deeply ambivalent. On the one side, he blames the policemen for their own deaths: “They were Irishmen too . . . We would have preferred to avoid bloodshed; but they were inflexible.”
On the other, he calls them “a pack of deserters, spies and hirelings” and expresses regret that there were only two policemen to kill: “If there had to be dead Peelers at all, six would have created a better impression than a mere two.”
Soloheadbeg gave sanction to a fatal belief that would remain in place for much longer; that anyone with a gun could claim the authority of the Irish republic
Danced around
Robinson maintained that he had issued specific instructions before the attack that if there were indeed six RIC men, they should be shot without warning, since otherwise they would pose a danger to the attackers. But if there were only two, they should be called on to surrender:
“The reason for the difference was that there would be so little danger to us if only two appeared that it would be inhuman not to give them an opportunity of surrendering.”
By the time the convoy arrived, Robinson and his men knew from their scout that it contained only two policemen. It seems clear that the only shots fired came from the IRA’s side, the first almost certainly from Treacy who was hidden behind a bush with a Winchester repeating rifle. When the shooting had stopped, according to Robinson, Treacy “was jubilant and danced around, he kissed his rifle and said ‘That was a comfortable place to fire from’.”
It also seems clear that many of the IRA recruits in Tipperary regarded the killings of McDonnell and O’Connell as both deliberate and shocking.
According to Michael Fitzpatrick, subsequently a senior IRA figure: “Those of us who were intimate with Treacy knew his mind was set on renewing the fight, but most were taken by surprise and took some time to recover from the shock of the shooting, deliberately, of the police at Soloheadbeg.”
It would take some time, more deaths and more indiscriminate British reprisals and repression, before most Irish republicans could metaphorically join Seán Treacy in kissing a rifle and dancing in jubilation at the deaths of fellow Irishmen.
But as they came to do so, Soloheadbeg gave sanction to a fatal belief that would remain in place for much longer; that anyone with a gun could claim the authority of the Irish republic.
© 2019 irishtimes.com
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Bruton wrong to claim Ireland could win independence by peaceful means alone
DR Brian Murphy OSB GLENSTAL, Historian
John Bruton, the former taoiseach, speaking in Dublin on September 18th, 2014, the centenary day of the Home Rule Act, declared himself to be a supporter of John Redmond and his policies rather than those of Pearse and his colleagues.
Significantly, his speech in the Royal Irish Academy was hosted by the Reform Group; an organisation which has, as one of its aims, the return of Ireland to the British commonwealth.
In the autumn 2014 issue of Studies, Bruton gave a statement of his thinking. “Ireland could have achieved better results for all the people of the island if it had continued to follow the successful non-violent, parliamentary path, and had not embarked on the path of physical violence initiated by the IRB and the Irish Citizen Army in Easter Week of 1916. ”
Central to his thesis was the contention that the Home Rule Act, although suspended, was on the statute book, and would, in time, have produced more beneficial results for Ireland than anything achieved by the Rising. “I believe,” said Bruton, “Ireland would have reached the position it is in today, an independent nation of 26 or 28 counties, if it had stuck with the Home Rule policy and if the 1916 rebellion had not taken place.”
In the early months of this year Bruton has continued to advance his campaign for giving more recognition to Redmond.
A new dimension was added to his thinking, when, in the Irish Catholic (January 21st, 2016), he stated “the choice to use force in 1916, and again in 1919, must be subjected to severe reappraisal in light of what we can see might have been achieved, without the loss life”. The extension of Bruton’s argument to 1919 and the War of Irish Independence is significant but largely unrecognised.
One person who has noted the evolution of Bruton’s thinking, and who has approved of it, is Prof Geoffrey Roberts of UCC, who, writing in The Irish Times of January 19th, 2016, stated that “as former taoiseach John Bruton has argued on many occasions the violence of the Rising and the War of Independence was not necessary to achieve Irish independence. There was a non-violent alternative and thousands of lives would have been saved by sticking to constitutional politics.”
Other members of the Reform Group, to which Prof Roberts belongs, have regularly endorsed Bruton’s interpretation of history.
Historical reality
However, the historical reality of the time does not support Bruton’s hypothetical historical conjectures in two important respects.
Firstly, the terms of the Home Rule Act of 1914 were so limited that it did not confer any real degree of independence upon Ireland. The Act affirmed the supremacy of the parliament at Westminster and, while creating an Irish House of Commons, it stated that matters pertaining to the crown, peace or war, the army and navy, foreign relations and foreign trade were reserved to the imperial parliament.
Other matters were removed from the power of the Irish parliament for a period of time, for example, the Land Purchase Act, the Old Age Pensions Act, the collection of taxes, the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Post Office Savings Bank. Above all it confirmed the position of a lord lieutenant in Ireland who would have the power to approve, veto or place a reserved judgment on any legislation passed by the Irish House of Commons.
Secondly, Redmond himself rapidly came to the conclusion that British politicians, especially Tory Unionist politicians, were not going to allow the evolution of Irish Home Rule in the manner that he had hoped for and which is now envisaged by Bruton.
Redmond expressed his views on the matter after Lloyd George attempted to amend the Home Rule Act, with provision for the Ulster Unionists, and following the declaration by Lord Lansdowne in the House of Lords, on July 11th 1916, that these structural changes to the Act would be “permanent and enduring” and the exclusion of the six counties would be “permanent”.
Redmond responded, on July 12th, by declaring that Lansdowne’s speech “amounts to a declaration of war on the Irish people, and to the announcement of a policy of coercion”.
Then, following the announcement by Asquith’s government on July 24th, 1916, that it was abandoning its plans to construct a Home Rule settlement, Redmond said “they have entered on a course which is bound to increase Irish suspicion of the good faith of the British government”.
Indeed, Redmond was so frustrated by the policy of the British government that on October 18th, 1916, he moved a vote of censure against it in the Commons. In his speech he asserted that “the system of government at present maintained in Ireland is inconsistent with the principles for which the allies are fighting in Europe”. He had trusted in the promises of Asquith’s government but that trust had been ill-founded.
Conscription Act
If any possible doubt remains as to the possibility of a Home Rule settlement for Ireland, as envisaged by Bruton, it was removed by the events that immediately followed the death of Redmond on March 6th, 1918.
The British government passed a Conscription Act to apply to Ireland on April 12th, 1918; representatives of all Irish political parties, with Éamon de Valera joining John Dillon, met at the Mansion House on April 18th, 1918, and declared that the Conscription Act “must be regarded as a declaration of war on the Irish nation”; and on May 6th, 1918, Viscount French accepted the position of lord lieutenant of Ireland on the understanding that he would head “a quasi-military government in Ireland with a soldier lieutenant”.
The British decision to govern Ireland by military rule was followed by the political decision to refuse Irish representatives, selected by the first Dáil Éireann, a place at the Paris Peace Conference in January 1919. It was evident that, owing to British diplomatic pressure, President Wilson’s concern for “the rights of small nations” was not to apply to Ireland.
These events confirm that any hopes of a Home Rule settlement were baseless and that peaceful democratic appeals would not secure Irish independence.
Dr Brian P Murphy OSB is a historian. He is author of Patrick Pearse and the Lost Republican Ideal and other books
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Analysis