Stephen Ferguson is Assistant Secretary of An Post and the curator of its Museum and Archives. He has already published on diverse aspects of postal history in Ireland, from post boxes to nineteenth century robberies and reward notices. He has also written extensively on the GPO, its staff and the effects on the service of the 1916 Rising.
At almost five hundred pages, his latest work is undoubtedly the magnum opus. The first thing that needs to be mentioned about The Post Office in Ireland, an illustrated history is that its front cover includes an impressive black-and-white photo of Co. Offaly postman Arthur Doran in 1930. It is a pleasant portrait Mr. Doran, his bag and bicycle, but in some respects does not do full justice to what follows within.
Ferguson’s book stands out as one of the most uniquely and impressively-illustrated books on modern Irish history published in recent times.
In spite of the recent behemoth Atlases of the Irish Famine and Revolution, Ferguson’s book stands out as one of the most uniquely and impressively-illustrated books on modern Irish history published in recent times. It is handsomely typeset and beautifully bound.
In fact it would not be going too far to say that, in reading it, one is given a thorough tour through An Post’s Museum and Archives. It also includes numerous illustrations and memorabilia that Ferguson has himself collected, along with copious colour portraits and maps from the National Gallery and National Archives (of the Republic and Northern Ireland).
His chapters covering telegraphy and telephony include a number of rare Fr. Browne photos of the brave chaps who erected the first telephone poles in the 1920s and 30s. It would make an ideal Christmas gift for the lover of social history in anyone’s life. Those interested in Irish art, print, post or Christmas cards, letter-writing and philately will discover a veritable treasure trove at their fingertips. It is of value as much to collectors as to researchers.
In recent years the Post Office has featured heavily in media discourse regarding its central social role in rural communities with declining populations. Ferguson’s greatest achievement in this work is to show just how central the postal services and how wide their remit have been to all aspects of national development throughout the centuries. Their activity has been a fulcrum to so much of the national story.
Everyone is familiar with the now iconic status of the GPO, but few will be familiar with the story of Napper Tandy raising an ‘Erin go Bragh’ standard at the post office on the Donegal island of Inishmacadurn in the autumn of 1798. A local tale recounts that one of the French general’s left a gold ring to the postmistress of the island in thanks for her hospitality.
It is a testament to the centrality of post that the earliest surviving document from Irish history, and one of the very few surviving written witnesses from beyond the confines of the Roman Empire in fact, is St. Patrick’s excommunicatory Letter to the soldiers of Coroticus. Toward the end of it we are given something of the challenges then facing communication we now take for granted:
‘I ask earnestly whatever servant of God is courageous enough to be a bearer of this letter, that it in no way be withdrawn or hidden from any person. Quite the opposite – let it be read before all the people, especially in the presence of Coroticus himself.’
Nor does Ferguson neglect the far less popular Laudabiliter of Pope Hadrian IV, and its implications on the whole of Irish history, in spite of the long debate amongst historians on the text’s contemporary significance. The book follows a clear and thorough chronological progression, beginning with the first stirrings of a centralized postal system in late medieval France.
The first Irish postmaster was magically-named Melchior van Pelken, appointed in 1618, but the development of a postal system proper had to wait until the Cromwellian era
The first Irish postmaster was magically-named Melchior van Pelken, appointed in 1618, but the development of a postal system proper had to wait until the Cromwellian era (p. 43). There were from the start serious challenges to the new system; as with many of the new trades of the era, centralization was a constant government concern; the crown wary of all ‘disavowed messengers, Curriers or foote Posts.’ Moreover London traders and guilds had their vested interests, and swiftly sought as they did in other areas like printing or wine-selling, a monopoly over the Irish postal trade.
Geography played a significant role too; irrespective of what was stated in official documents, territory was inevitably difficult to govern effectively, if it was only possible to cross the Shannon by foot or horse. Even after the coming of the mail coaches of the eighteenth century, the ‘roads’ from Athlone to Galway or Limerick could still prove virtually impassable in winter. It was the coming of the railways that cemented the Post Office’s hold over the communication corridors of the country and the same period (1830-1920) saw much closer integration with the service in Britain.
The railway was integral too to the development of telegraphy. While the electrification and ‘telephonication’ has been addressed in previous studies, Ferguson’s book delivers a fascinating and insightful account on the development of telegraphy and the revolution it wrought, hailed as it was at the time as a ‘bond of perpetual peace and friendship.’
Once again the first steps in this new development were taken in France by Claude Chappe and his brothers, but Ireland produced at least three figures that made major contributions to the telegraph. Chief amongst these was the Limerick-born medic William O’Shaughnessy, who through a keen eye and a stroke of good fortune, noticed that when a wire fell into a large tank at his medical college in Edinburgh, that when submerged in water, only one insulated wire was required for clear two-way communication. O’Shaughnessy went on to pioneer the electrical telegraph throughout much of the Indian subcontinent (p. 240).
On the technical side, Ferguson gives great insight into the first transatlantic cables, which were no small achievements of human ingenuity, given that they had to be laid down at a depth of 16,000ft, across 3,000 miles. The transatlantic cables from were so heavy, made as they were from copper with iron insulation, that two ships had to carry two respective halves to the mid-Atlantic, splice them there, and then sail back to opposite sides of the ocean.
The first transatlantic cables, which were no small achievements of human ingenuity, given that they had to be laid down at a depth of 16,000ft, across 3,000 miles.
The second Irish pioneer in this area was Robert Halpin of Wicklow town. Known at the time as ‘Mr. Cable’, perhaps ‘father of global communications’ might be more fitting. He laid the first French-Canadian cable, then one going from Bombay through Aden to Suez and later oversaw the linking of Madeira with Brazil, thereby linking four continents in one career. Stories of similar interest are covered in the subsequent chapter on the spread of the telephone.
The last chapters of The Post Office in Ireland cover more recent times, focusing especially on the workers and their lives; postmen of course, but sorters, couriers, telephonists, railway carriers and packet ship crew. The life of the sorter was no walk in the park! The post office was a venue that gave much employment to women at an early stage; it also had (and still has) an essential social role, as an integrator and sustainers of dispersed communities, the stories of which will entertain any reader.
There are some exemplary appendices at the end, including a list of all the Postmaster Generals since the beginnings of the service in the seventeenth century, along with a fulsome bibliography for those in search of further specific detail. Stephen Ferguson should be commended for his Trojan work. There is something in this book for all historians of modern Ireland. The depth of his scholarship becomes clear as one reads his book and realizes that the history of the Post Office is in many ways the history of Ireland.
Why celebrating the election of 1918 too enthusiastically might not be in the Irish state’s interests in 2018. By John Dorney
The year 2018 is the centenary of one of the most important years in modern Irish history. Nineteen eighteen saw not only the end of the Great War, but, in Ireland, the decisive tipping point towards independence from Britain and ultimately, the partition of the country.
Nineteen eighteen, much more than the Rising of 1916, was the origin of the modern, democratic, independent, Irish state.
While 1918 may not have the glamour of the failed but romantic insurrection (romantic that is, in hindsight) of 1916, its events are, in many ways, at least as important, if not more so.
For it was in April of that year that the Irish public decisively rejected participation in Britain’s war effort, resisting successfully, through mass mobilisation, passive resistance and a general strike, an attempt to impose conscription on Ireland.
Even more importantly, at the end of the war, in the most democratic election up to that date in the United Kingdom, the Irish electorate voted overwhelmingly for the separatist party Sinn Fein. This despite the fact that many Sinn Fein leaders had been arrested in May of that year, on very flimsy charges of ‘plotting’ with the Germans to aid their war effort.
Initially it was hoped that this would secure Ireland a place in the post war Peace Conference, on the basis of American President Woodrow Wilson’s stated goal of self-determination for all nations, but even if it did not, in the words of Sinn Fein activist PS O’Hegarty;
‘It declared to the British that they had no claim to Ireland which was not rendered null and void by the Irish people’s definitive repudiation of any such claim, and that the only just and constitutional government in Ireland was the Government of Dail Eireann, which was elected by the people and represented the people’. [1]
Here, much more than the secret conspiracy of 1916, was the origin of the modern democratic, independent, Irish state. So, at any rate, have argued all shades of Irish nationalism ever since.
And yet, so far, official soundings on commemorations of 1918 have been muted. The only official commemoration noted so far has been a project to commemorate the extension of the franchise to women in that election. Some of this reluctance, no doubt, is due to preoccupation with more pressing contemporary matters – managing Britain’s exit from the European Union and its fallout in Ireland, dealing with a spiraling increase in the cost of housing and rent, and dealing with a potentially very divisive referendum on abortion.
However, commemorating the legacy of 1918 in Ireland may also present some very modern problems in 2018.
Self-determination of nations
The First Dail of January 1919.
If the principle to be celebrated in Sinn Fein’s electoral victory of 1918 is that, on the basis of the democratic will of the majority, Ireland could unilaterally declare independence, this poses some rather uncomfortable modern difficulties for the Irish government.
The 1918 election was the most democratic election in Ireland up to that date. The franchise was expanded, under the Representation of the People Act, from one including only property-holding men, to one that gave the vote all men over 21 and women over 30. Under the new franchise the electorate in Ireland was almost tripled, from 700,000 to over two million, and in contested constituencies there was a turnout of around 68 per cent.[2]
The December 1918 election was far more democratic than any that had preceded it but it still had some very significant shortfalls.
However while the December 1918 election was far more democratic than any that had preceded it, it still had some very significant shortfalls to modern eyes.
For one thing in 25 constituencies, the Sinn Fein candidate was elected unopposed. Secondly, due to the first past the post system, Sinn Fein did much better than its share of the vote would allow under the proportional representation system that is used in Ireland today. In total Sinn Fein won 46 % of the popular vote in the December 1918 election but nearly 70% of the seats – 73 seats out of 105.[3]
An anti-conscription rally in Roscommon, 1918.
In some of the uncontested constituencies, for instance in East Cavan, where Arthur Griffith had won a contested by-election the year before, Sinn Fein would almost certainly have won anyway.
Furthermore, there were fewer uncontested seats in 1918 than in the previous election in Ireland. In 1910, 64 out of 103 constituencies were uncontested, compared to 27 out of 105 in 1918.[4]
Still, looked at in this light, Sinn Fein’s mandate to act as the sole representative of the Irish people becomes somewhat more problematic.
Now translated into the present, the Irish government, should it commemorate the events of December 1918 and January 1919 too enthusiastically, could be drawn into a web of extrapolations which is would no doubt prefer to avoid.
Brexit
Pro Brexit protesters – picture courtesy of London Independent.
The first of these is that the implications that the Irish nationalist revolutionaries took from the 1918 election are a little too close to those taken by the British (or English) nationalist ‘Brexiteers’ from the British referendum on European Union membership of 2016.
The ‘Brexiteers’ argue that the British people voted for national self-determination and that there should be no compromise with ‘Brussels’ on, for instance, remaining in the common market and free trade area in Europe, nor guarantees given to the Irish government that there be no ‘hard border’ in Ireland.
Never mind, in their eyes, that the majority to leave the EU in the referendum was small – 51% to 49% – nor that other parts of the United Kingdom, Scotland and Northern Ireland, voted to remain in the EU. No, ‘the people have spoken’. Though it is doubtful if they would appreciate the comparison, in their single minded interpretation of a single vote, the Brexiteers could almost be Sinn Feiners of 1918 vintage.
Though it is doubtful if they would appreciate the comparison, the British ‘Brexiteers’ could almost be Sinn Feiners of 1918 vintage.
For the Irish government, by contrast, the task at hand is to minimise the disruption caused by ‘Brexit’, keeping open the border in Ireland and maintaining free trade and free movement of people between Ireland and Britain. In this sense, paradoxically, they have something in common with British politicians after 1918, trying to downgrade Irish aspirations from independence back to Home Rule or limited self-government.
Additionally the Irish government of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar upset both British Conservatives and Northern Irish unionists by its determined stand on the Irish border, demanding guarantees that it would not again be fortified or ‘hardened’ to trade, as a prerequisite to negotiations on Britain’s exit from the EU. While this stance is highly popular in Ireland, Varadkar will probably not be keen to further heighten anti-British sentiment by enthusiastic commemorations of 1918.
All of which makes commemorating 1918 sensitive enough. There is, however, another reason why, in 2018, the Irish government will not want to emphasise the principle of national self-determination being decided by strict majority votes. That reason is the ongoing political crisis in Catalonia and Spain.
Catalonia
On October 1, 2017 Catalan nationalists held a unilateral referendum on independence of their region from Spain. Despite a declared victory of 92% in favour of independence, the low turnout of 43% meant that the real result was about 38-40% in favour of separation from Spain.
The Spanish government under the centralist and Spanish nationalist Partido Popular declared the referendum illegal and deployed police from outside Catalonia to the region, in a failed, though quite violent, attempt to block the vote.
Subsequently they dissolved Catalonia’s regional government, the Generalitat, imprisoned a number of nationalist leaders – the nationalist leader Puigdemont is effectively in exile in Brussels to avoid arrest – and called fresh regional elections. Disastrously for the Madrid government, the regional elections were won, albeit narrowly, by Catalan nationalists, giving renewed legitimacy to their calls for independence.
The situation in Catalonia in 2018 mirrors very closely that of Ireland in 1918, but the Irish government has declared support for the unity of Spain.
While Brexit may be more prominent in the minds of Irish politicians and senior civil servants at the moment, the situation in Catalonia in fact mirrors much more closely the events in Ireland of 100 years ago. And like Ireland from 1919 onwards, the situation in Catalonia has an extremely dangerous potential to career off the rails of civil politics and towards violence, armed and otherwise, in the coming months.
Again, while enthusiastic commemoration of the Sinn Fein victory in 1918 and the declaration of an Irish Republic in 1919 would suggest that the Irish government should support the Catalans, the interests of the Irish government, as a responsible EU member state, concerned with maintaining the integrity of the Union of its constituent states, are quite the opposite.
The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs confined itself to a terse statement about ‘respecting the territorial integrity of Spain’;
We are all concerned about the crisis in Catalonia. Ireland respects the constitutional and territorial integrity of Spain and we do not accept or recognise the Catalan Unilateral Declaration of Independence.
The resolution of the current crisis needs to be within Spain’s constitutional framework and through Spain’s democratic institutions. Ireland supports efforts to resolve this crisis through lawful and peaceful means.[5]
Precisely the opposite of the principles of Sinn Fein in December 1918 – that revolutionary nationalists could unilaterally declare independence based on a strict, though not overwhelming, majority vote.
Up the Republic?
Two IRA Volunteers demonstrate the Thompson submachine gun, in 1921. The political victory of 1918 quickly led to violence.
Finally, in Ireland itself, there remains a stubborn ‘legitimist’ republican minority, who will always argue that the result of the 1918 British general election – the last all-Ireland poll before partition – should still be taken as a democratic mandate for an all-Ireland Republic, invalidating both of the existing states in Ireland.
This claim at least, Irish governments have long experience in managing. Any official commemoration of the 1918 election or of the First Dail will portray the current (26 county) Republic of Ireland as the logical outcome of those years. They will argue that the democratic will of the Irish people, north and south, was expressed in the referendums approving the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.
It is no longer in the interests of the Irish state to support separatist nationalism elsewhere.
In conclusion then, the Irish state will have difficulty in fully endorsing the nationalist revolutionaries of 1918 in 2018, not because of the familiar alibi of fearing to encourage republican violence, but rather for a deeper reason.
The needs of the Irish state in 2018 are not after all for the ‘self-determination of the peoples’ but for the smooth management of multi-national federation that is the European Union.
Commemorating the principles of Sinn Fein’s declaration of independence in 1919 are, perhaps, more dangerous today than commemorating those of the insurrectionists of 1916 in 2016.
References
[1] PS O’Hegarty, the Victory of Sinn Fein, UCD, 2016, p23
Eamon de Valera celebrates his election victory in East Clare, 100 years ago in 2017.
These were our top ten most read articles of 2017. Thanks to all our readers and contributors and happy 2018 to you all.
Top Ten articles
Dr Shane Kenna a Tribute – Shane Kenna, much loved friend and contributor of many fine articles to the Irish Story passed away tragically after a battle with cancer in 2017. Our tribute to him was our most read article of the year.
Shane Kenna. (Photo Courtesy of the National Graves Association).
Reflecting on the Civil War in Dublin – not quite a book review, but an introduction to ‘The Civil War in Dublin, The Fight for the Irish Capital 1922-1924, by John Dorney.
By Darragh Gannon (with contributions by Sandra Heise, Brenda Malone and Pádraig Clancy)
Published by Irish Academic Press, (Newbridge, Co. Kildare: 2016)
Reviewer: Daniel Murray
Consider…
…The quirky egg-shaped ceramic salt dispenser which reads Laid at Westminster, 1912, HOME RULE, but won’t hatch in Ulster…
…The bullet-holed khaki hat which belonged to a man killed during the fighting in Moore Street…
…Countess Markievicz’s repeating pistol, which she kissed reverently before surrendering it…
…A silver cigarette case, inscribed by John MacBride on the 25th April 1916 while in the midst of the Easter Rising…
Darragh Gannon’s book is both a history of the Rising and an overview of the National Museum’s collection on 1916.
…and the many other fascinating objects on display, both in Collins Barracks as part of the National Museum’s exhibition, Proclaiming a Republic: The 1916 Rising, and between the pages of this book as the exhibition’s companion piece. Lavishly illustrated and skilfully written, the book superbly serves as a guide to this tumultuous period, in all its colour and complexity, as well as to the items on offer.
First established in 1935, based on the pioneering work of Nellie Gifford-Donnelly, the Museum’s collection grew within its first decade to a full 4,275 artefacts, most of which were from private donors. Not that parting was easy for some. Of her postcards from Tom Clarke, Countess Markievicz and Seán MacDermott, the Limerick republican Madge Daly wrote: “I am giving them to the Museum as I feel they will be of great interest in the future and that they should belong to the nation,” adding, “it hurts to part with them. The writers were all my dearest friends.”
Others were almost pugnacious about the historical record, particularly in regards to themselves. Sean Doyle, who had participated in the Rising in Wexford, explained his contributions to the Museum as intending to illustrate “the interesting part played by Wexford [which] has not been hitherto adequately represented.”
By 2016, the collection compromised of over 15,000 items. Not everything had been accepted in the process; 10 out of the 25 items being loaned by the widow of Joseph Plunkett, such as his slippers, a cigarette case and a lock of his hair, were declined on the grounds that “they are purely personal items, adding nothing to historical knowledge and they should be retained in the family.”
A fear of the collection becoming overly familiar seems to have been an early concern, with a Director of the Museum questioning the value of displaying items which are “neither scientific nor artistic nor illustrating antiquity or industry.” But then, commemoration has long been a nervous question for the Irish state since its origin, made awkward in no small part due to the turbulence and recriminations against which it was birthed.
Commemoration has long been a nervous question for the Irish state since its origin, made awkward in no small part due to the turbulence and recriminations against which it was birthed.
Who was present at the annual ceremonies at Arbour Hill to mark the 1916 Rising depended on which party was in office. Opponents to the Treaty were barred from the Cumann na nGaedheal-led event in 1924. Later, when the political wheel had turned, attendance at Arbour Hill was limited to Fianna Fáil delegates and relatives of the rebels, causing over 200 previous invitees to find themselves struck off the guest list.
Times had changed by the 50th anniversary in 1966. The Easter Sunday parade outside the General Post Office (GPO) featured, along with the customary military personnel, a civic procession of 5,000 people representing language, labour, sporting and cultural interests. Keeping with this new spirit of inclusion, the official programme encouraged active communal engagement with the legacy of the Rising.
In this, the commemorations were following a trend, for the country was experiencing something it had not had for quite a while: a sense of self-confidence and a fresh engagement with the outside world, as per the policies of Seán Lemass, in his last year as Taoiseach in 1966. So striking were the events that year that the poet Dermot Boyle commented on how “for anyone who grew up in the 1960s, the Easter Rising meant 1966 and not 1916.”
Very different, again, were the subsequent years, overshadowed as they were by the Troubles in Northern Ireland, when the military ceremonies outside the GPO were discontinued between 1972 and 2005, save for a brief return for the 75th anniversary in 1991.
The army parade returned for good for the 2006 commemorations, thanks to the renewed sense of self-assurance emanating from the Peace Process. Inclusivity was the watchword of the day, exemplified by an opening speech by Bertie Ahern as Taoiseach at the 1916 exhibition at the National Museum, entitled ‘Remembrance, Reconciliation, Renewal.’ Such commemoration was for the sake, Ahern said, of enabling Ireland to remember its past.
Of course, which past – and whose – remains an open question. At this book states: “The memory of the 1916 Rising, as projected by official state commemoration, has never been absolute.”
It is partly to challenge all and any orthodoxies that the Proclaiming a Republic exhibition items were selected.
It is partly to challenge all and any orthodoxies that the Proclaiming a Republic exhibition items were selected. The focus on items, many of such a personal nature, opens the period and the people who lived through it “to further reading. Objects such as ceramics, craftwork and clothing bespeak the primacy of the individual like no other historical source, effecting a truly democratic collection.”
Through the Uilleann piper’s uniform of Éamonn Ceannt, the watercolours by Countess Markievicz, and the tea-set used by Patrick and Willie Pearse, something more personal can be glimpsed other than icons of veneration to which the Rising leaders have sometimes been elevated, without allowance for any intimate nature.
Perhaps it was Nellie Gifford-Donnelly who said it best – and as a participant in the Rising, as well as a sister-in-law to Joseph Plunkett and Thomas MacDonagh, she had a lot to say. “Data is a cold affair, for the professors,” she said. “History will be cold on the warm, human motive that impelled them, towards their target, or the odd kinks, loves and capabilities – all, in short that makes the man live on.”
Constance Markievicz addresses a republican meeting.
‘Kiss Daddy goodbye, darling, he’s going off to fight for the Republic.’ Countess Markievicz’s propaganda cartoons, in the lead up to and during the Irish Civil War (1922-1923). By Alison Martin
Over the years, Countess Markievicz has been the subject of several biographies and articles. Markievicz is most commonly remembered for her role in the Easter Rising and for her contribution to the women’s movement.
Thus far however, relatively little focus has been devoted to the propaganda cartoons which she produced around the time of the Irish Civil War. Although by no means a comprehensive study of all her drawings during this period, this article will look at some of the most interesting examples of her work.
During the first six months of 1922, the historian Lauren Arrington observed that the struggle between the pro and anti-treaty factions was ‘a war for public opinion.’[1] Evidently propaganda was important to both sides. The anti-treaty clandestine newspaper Poblacht na hÉireann, appeared in print several days before the vote had even been taken in the Dáil to decide the fate of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.[2]
Between 1922 and 1923, Markievic’s cartoons lambasted the treaty, leading treatyite politicians, the National Army and anyone else associated with the Free State.
Once the civil war began however, the use of propaganda became even more crucial. Between 1922 and 1923, Markievicz produced a number of cartoons criticising the treaty, leading treatyite politicians, the National Army and anyone else associated with the Free State.
As anti-treaty republicans had more limited outlets for their work, Markievicz’s cartoons featured in several clandestine newspapers, including Poblacht na hÉireann and the Republican War Bulletin, both of which she had a hand in running.[3] Some attempts were also made to get a wider audience for her work. Indeed, anti-treaty IRA leader Ernie O’Malley later remembered that some of Markievicz’s cartoons were ‘pasted on letter-boxes and lampposts’ around Dublin.[4] They were also circulated by members of Cumann na mBan.[5]
Depictions of the National Army and specific civil war incidents
Aside from references to individual incidents, it is difficult to determine the exact date to the month, that some of Markievicz’s cartoons were published in. It is noticeable however, that several of her 1922 cartoons depicted the National or Free State Army. Needless to say, these cartoons were less than flattering. One rather self-explanatory cartoon ‘A leaf from the Black and Tan book,’ suggested that there were parallels or even signs of continuity between the newly created National Army and the Black and Tans, an overwhelmingly British force that had come to be associated with brutality and ill-discipline during the War of Independence.[6]
Such comparisons were fairly common republican slurs against the National Army. Another cartoon, ‘Free Staters in action,’ which was printed in the Republican War Bulletin depicted an elderly man trembling at gunpoint during a National Army raid on his home.[7] The obvious message being that the Free State forces were preying on the vulnerable and humiliating those suspecting of harbouring or aiding republican fighters.
Evidently, the brutality of the Free State forces was a common theme throughout Markievicz’s cartoons. Arguably though, her most shocking drawings were the ones that depicted specific civil war events.
Markievicz’s illustration of the murders of two senior Na Fianna Éireann officers, nineteen-year-old Sean Colle and twenty-one-year-old Alfred Colley for instance, would have struck a chord with the public as it closely emulated witnesses’ descriptions of the event. At an inquest into their deaths, Alderman Michael Staines, a pro-treatyite, claimed that the young men could have been killed by their own side, as he believed that Cole whom he was acquainted with, was allegedly about to leave the irregulars.[8] Similar claims were made by other figures.[9]
Markievicz’s illustration of the murders of two young Na Fianna Éireann officers, would have struck a chord with the public
There was some evidence however, to suggest that the young men had been abducted and murdered by Free State forces, most likely by elements within the Free State Army Intelligence and/ or the notorious plain-clothed detective squad the CID (sometimes known as the ‘Oriel House gang’).[10] In this case there was no real need for Markievicz to use artistic licence in her illustration, as the true horror of the event was only too evident. For dramatic purposes however, she included the biblical quote ‘father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’[11]
Depictions of republican women
Despite Markievicz’s belief in gender equality, for propaganda purposes, the female subjects of her cartoons were sometimes relegated to conventional gender roles. Indeed, one of her most poignant civil war cartoons, ‘At a republican home’, depicted a mother and child kissing goodbye to their father before he goes out to fight in the civil war.[12]
The illustration, which is reminiscent of British recruitment propaganda from the First World War, includes a caption which reads ‘kiss Daddy goodbye, darling, he’s going off to fight for the republic.’[13]
Admittedly, this rather stereotypical portrayal of the woman being left at home with the children while her husband goes off to fight, would have been accurate in some cases and undoubtedly added to the tragedy of the scene.
Despite Markievicz’s belief in gender equality, the female subjects of her cartoons were sometimes relegated to conventional gender roles.
This was not always the case however. One of her cartoons ‘the bodyguard of the republic,’ depicted the figure of Hibernia with her arm around a female republican fighter in military uniform, though it was noticeable that an armed male figure was also present. Ultimately, it cannot be denied that women were sometimes subjected to violence and intimidation during the civil war. However from a propaganda perspective, it would seem that it sometimes suited Markievicz to play up to certain gender stereotypes, in order to emphasise the apparent brutality of the Free State forces.
Caricatures of Michael Collins
As chairman of the provisional government of the Irish Free State from January 1922 onwards, then commander-in-chief of the National Army, it is perhaps unsurprising that Michael Collins became was one of Markievicz’s prime targets. This was despite, or maybe even partly because of his respected revolutionary record.[15]
Although Collins claimed that the treaty was a stepping stone to independence, from the anti-treaty point of view, the acceptance of dominion status was a betrayal of the republic that had been declared in 1916 and ratified by the Dáil in January 1919. It is unsurprising therefore, that Markievicz usually depicted Collins as either a traitor to the cause or an unwitting puppet of the British government.
Markievicz usually depicted Collins as either a traitor to the cause or an unwitting puppet of the British government.
One cartoon for instance, depicted Collins who was accompanied by W.T. Cosgrave and a bishop, holding a gun to the head of the shackled figure of Hibernia whilst ordering her to swear allegiance to the King.[16] Another depicted Collins and Arthur Griffith as literal puppets of Winston Churchill.[17] Interestingly, some of Markievicz’s cartoons also contained criticisms of Collins which were slightly less ideologically driven. One particularly scathing cartoon depicted Collins dressed in a military uniform, looking down at the coffin of his former friend and fellow revolutionary Harry Boland.[18]
This image would have struck a chord with the public, as the later had been shot under questionable circumstances on 30th July 1922, during a raid by Free State troops at the Grand Hotel in Skerries. He died in hospital two days later. Despite the tragedy of the situation, Markievicz’s caricature of Collins is accompanied by a caption that reads ‘What will the Morning Post think of me now?’[19]
The obvious implication being that Collins was primarily concerned with the potential damage to his reputation and with how he was being portrayed by the media. Markievicz’s specific reference to the Morning Post, a respectable British newspaper, is also significant as it had a primarily upper and middle class readership.[20]
It would seem then, that Markievicz was mocking Collin’s new found acceptance by certain high society circles in both Britain and Ireland. Moreover, she also seemed to be suggesting that Collins was primarily motivated by social climbing ambitions and a desire for respectability. Yearnings which she seemed to be suggesting were closely connected to Collin’s support for the treaty.
Depictions of treatyite politicians
An anti-Treaty cartoon from 1922 depicts Michael Collins backed by Britain.
Collins was not the only treatyite politician to become a victim of Markievicz’s pen. Indeed, a rather unflattering series of caricatures entitled ‘Free State freaks’, have become one of the more well-known examples of Markievicz’s work. As a result of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the treatyite politicians were often depicted by Markievicz as being controlled by or even enthusiastically supportive of the British government.
In one cartoon for example, the President of the Executive Council, W.T. or ‘Comic Cosgrave’ as he is referred to, is portrayed sitting on a throne in a jester suit with a union jack card in his left hand.[21] Beneath the surface however, some of Markievicz’s cartoons contain slightly more subtle criticisms of the politicians, which are based more firmly on their supposedly new found wealth and social status.
Another cartoon in the ‘Free State freaks’ series for instance, depicted Andy Cope, the assistant under secretary at Dublin Castle, as the puppet master who is literally pulling the strings of the Free State politicians.[22] It is noticeable however that W.T. Cosgrave has been portrayed with a top hat his left hand.[23]
Markievicz’s cartoons mercilessly mocked Free State politicians as ‘freaks’ careerists and imperialists.
Whilst Cosgrave and some of the other government ministers did sometimes wear a top hat on more formal occasions, it could be argued that the inclusion of the hat in cartoon encourages the public to forge a link between Cosgrave’s apparent subservience to British fashion and from anti-treaty point of view, his subservience to the British crown. Moreover, the top hat is a fashion accessory commonly associated with privilege and respectability.[24]
Given Markievicz’s own privileged background, her criticism may seem ironic. However, as a committed socialist and anti-treatyite, Markievicz was eager to promote the idea that government ministers were overpaid and out of touch with ordinary people.
Anti-Treatyite caricature of pro-Treaty activist Sean O Muirthile.
Indeed despite the fact that several government ministers had previously taken up arms to fight for Irish independence, several of her cartoons also suggest that the treatyite politicians were motivated by personal ambition and financial gain rather than any deep political beliefs. Markievicz’s rather unflattering caricature of Ernest Blythe for instance, makes a clever a pun on his name forename Earnán in Irish. The accompanying caption reads ‘I am Blythe for my salary is worth Earnin.’[25]
Propaganda, if managed effectively, can play an important role in shaping public opinion in the lead up to and during a conflict. It can be used for example, to maintain support for a particular cause or to reinforce specific arguments or ideas. It can also be used to maintain morale or to lower the morale of the enemy.
Ultimately though, in this case, it is difficult to deduce whether Markievicz’s civil war cartoons would have had a major impact on public opinion. When it came to propaganda, the anti-treaty republicans were working at a distinct disadvantage from the outset, as they had limited outlets for their work.
Clandestine newspapers for instance, could not compete with the circulation figures of mainstream newspapers, which for a number reasons tended to be generally supportive of the pro-treaty position. The distribution of propaganda was also a much more precarious task for the anti-treaty side. Moreover, several of the anti-treaty printing presses in Dublin, were eventually discovered and closed down by government authorities.
In spite of these obstacles however, Markievicz’s cartoons contributed significantly to the republican propaganda effort during the civil war. These cartoons along with the work of other anti-treaty propagandists such as Erskine Childers, helped to some extent to counteract the generally pro-treaty mainstream press coverage of the civil war. Moreover, her cartoons helped to highlight and reinforce specific republican criticisms of the treatyite politicians, the National Army and anyone else associated with the fledgling Free State.
References
[1] Lauren Arrington, Revolutionary lives: Constance and Casimir Markievicz (Princeton, New Jersey, 2016), p.216.
[2] Ann Matthews, Renegades: Irish Republican women 1900-1922 (Cork, 2010), p.308.
[3] Ibid, p.308. Also see, Arrington, Revolutionary lives, p.227.
[4] Donal Fallon ‘Colley, Cole and murder at Yellow Road’ Come Here to Me! Blog accessed at https://comeheretome.com/2016/11/21/colley-cole-and-murder-at-yellow-road/
[5] John Dorney, The Civil War in Dublin: the fight for the Irish capital, 1922–1924, (Newbridge, Kildare, 2017), p. 149.
[6]National Library of Ireland, call number PD 3076 TX 22, accessed at http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000148604
[9] Donal Fallon ‘Colley, Cole and murder at Yellow Road’ Come Here to Me! Blog accessed at https://comeheretome.com/2016/11/21/colley-cole-and-murder-at-yellow-road/
[10] Gavin Foster, The Irish Civil War and society: politics, class and conflict (New York, 2015), p.35.
[11] Donal Fallon ‘Colley, Cole and murder at Yellow Road’ Come Here to Me! Blog accessed at https://comeheretome.com/2016/11/21/colley-cole-and-murder-at-yellow-road/
I think it is fair to say that to the casual reader of Irish history that Justin Keating is not a name which stands out as worthy of note in the plethora of twentieth century figures which shaped the nation. Indeed, his impact was not as dramatic as many who occupy the shelves of both general and specialist outlets in history.
He didn’t participate in war, he didn’t die young in the glory of battle or assassination, nor was he at the forefront of many major political battles which have defined so many in our history.
Keating’s book, not unlike a lot of memoirs of those in the public eye, are a chance to ‘set the record straight’, sometimes coming as this one does, posthumously. The problem this kind of tome poses for the historian therefore is how much historical value is it worth? Memoirs of political figures are invariably strongly biased towards their own political viewpoint, and the inaccuracy of personal memory is an ever-present problem. Indeed, Keating himself concedes at the outset that he was often described as an ‘opinionated little git’.
Justin Keating was a long time Labour Party politician and in his own words ‘an opinionated little git’
He freely acknowledges that he retained poor documentation of his life and that the book offers no new revelations. Further to this, Keating claims that the recital of his daily life would be of not much interest to anyone, even himself. It therefor begs the question, why then should the public want to read of his exploits?
Well, for this reviewer, it is the time period in question more-so than the author which held the attention when the assignment was offered. Keating was born into an Ireland still raw from the ravages of revolution and in a time when religiosity was ever-increasing and fusing with ideas of national identity. From his formative years in the early 1930s, through to his death on New Year’s Eve 2009, Keating witnessed a massive number of changes in Irish society. The chance to read the testimony of a life in public office which spanned these decades of change was something the reviewer could not pass up.
However, Keating’s opening statement that records related to his life were poorly kept, colours the experience and leaves the reader wondering what is the truth and what, if anything has been exaggerated to make a life seem more windswept and interesting when coming from the pen of a man nearing the end of his days.
There has been some academic input into the project, a number of archivists and academics have helped with primary material to bolster the manuscript, most notably from historian David Dickinson. Nevertheless, the work is a personal testimony rather than a work of historical record and the reader should not lose sight of this.
Early Life
Keating’s early home life and schooling reads like a novel. Descriptions of his rural Irish upbringing, with milking cows, mountains, poor quality land and frequent trips to the Arran Islands are strangely reminiscent of the memoirs of the post-Celtic Twilight islanders of Sayers, Ó Súilleabháin, and Ó Criomhthain, popular representations of a culture which Keating deromanticises as a decaying ‘dependency culture’ infected with ‘racist Celtic nationalism’.[1]
Keating is scathing about Irish ‘racist Celtic nationalism; and ‘dependency culture’.
Keating’s assessment of the cure for this Celtic dependency culture in Ireland has not aged well since he penned his memoirs in the mid 2000s. He stated: ‘I hate those gestures of pretended servitude, and I am very pleased to say that the Irish are coming of age and gaining some self-respect. Success is the best cure, the ‘Celtic Tiger (I hate that racist term) is healing us’.[2]
Keating’s description of an idyllic, if poor-ish life in 1930s Ireland is all too familiar to those with a knowledge of either twentieth century Irish history or contemporary Irish literature, and like so many recollections of the period the ‘shadow of the gunman’ isn’t too far away from the surface of a seemingly innocent and tranquil rural society. Arms dumps, and family connections to veterans of recent conflicts were daily reminders of political and territorial issues which weren’t quite settled.
The IRA murder of a neighbour, family friend, and local Detective Sergeant in Special Branch, Denis ‘Dinny’ O’Brien in 1942 had a profound impact on Keating and cemented his hatred of paramilitarism of all descriptions.
Keating’s hatred of political violence was not confined to Ireland’s troubles, however. He recounts on his honeymoon in 1953 that while in France, celebrating the anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July that he witnessed the killing of six Algerians by French police. This he said brought back troubled memories of O’Brien’s murder and cemented his detestation of physical force in the pursuit of political aims.[3] He did not, however comment on the irony of at the time taking part in the celebration of an act of revolution in which some ninety-nine people had lost their lives in political violence in one afternoon.
His political awakenings, influenced by his mother, in political and Bohemian Dublin circles are very interesting. His mother’s knowledge of iconic political figures such as Rosa Luxemburg, and closer to home, that of Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, not forgetting his parents stance on the Spanish Civil War provide an appealing insight on the ideological battles fought in Irish homes in the 1930s on the various viewpoints of the Spanish conflict.
The staunch support of the then powerful Irish Catholic hierarchy for the ‘upstart dictator’ Franco seemed to be Keating’s biggest awakening, both in terms of his political leanings and his distaste for religion and its influence in Irish public life.[4]
Catholic Church
A major theme of this work which stems from the stance of the Church on the Spanish Civil War, is the impact the Catholic Church had on Irish education, as well as healthcare and the control over generations of disadvantaged youths. Keating is scathing of the monumental abuse the Catholic Church oversaw, and the financial profiteering from ‘the ill-treatment of their unfortunate and mostly blameless charges’.
Aspects of the Catholic education system, especially the ‘reform schools’ ‘infuriated’ Keating.
The attack of a man well into his seventh decade at the time of writing is passionate and impossible not to side with. His anger at the cruelty, violence, and sexually-inspired beatings which he states have ‘long categorised Irish education’ and the infuriation at a system of reformatories which ‘churned out angry, antisocial kids who spent a lifetime in conflict with society’, clearly come from a man who valued, above all, educating young minds.[5] Almost ten years after his own death the words in this particular passage are bursting with life.
His take on the problems within all levels of the Irish education system are noteworthy and display many ideological battles, from cultural to religious and philosophical. His assessment of the thorny issue of the Irish language in Irish education, particularly the counterproductive methods of forcing the language down the throats of school children, especially in the mid decades of the twentieth century are reminiscent of themes explored in Donald Akenson’s A Mirror to Kathleen’s Face: Education in Independent Ireland 1922-60.[6]
A much more interesting, and less discussed aspect of Irish education history arises during his time as a student at UCD, studying the biological sciences. The complete omission of Darwinian Theory from third level education shocked Keating, and showed just how far Ireland lay behind in terms of scientific educational advancement. He credits Darwin and Marx as major figures in his intellectual development.
Throughout the book Keating takes pot shots at Irish sacred cows. The Irish Catholic Church bearing the brunt of his ire. Other targets include political and cultural nationalism, sectarianism, certain politicians, and that once sacred icon in Ireland, Mother Teresa: ‘I think she is a phoney, more concerned with snatching souls than with saving bodies’.[7]
Politics
Keating in cabinet 1973, on the far right.
The later chapters which cover his political career are focused on the home and European fronts. His first major political battle in front line politics, the 1972 European Referendum is interesting given the blanket coverage for the past eighteen months of Brexit. Campaigning for the No side he travelled the country setting out his case. During campaigning he developed a firm friendship with Garret Fitzgerald. Keating’s assessment of Fitzgerald is what we’ve come to expect from political recollections, a man who was well informed, fair, and courteous.
Keating rubbed shoulders with the giants of late twentieth century Irish politics Garret Fitzgerald, Charles Haughey and Conor Cruise O’Brien.
Equally unsurprising is his appraisal of one Charles James Haughey. Wildly ambitious, with an intense hunger for the goodies of the nouveaux rich, it is hardly revelatory. Nevertheless, it is during the passages on Northern Ireland and the Arms Crisis of 1970 that we see what Keating really thought of ‘the Boss’.
Although he didn’t think Haughey was directly involved, he did accuse him of opportunistically sitting on the fence, non-committal to the Blaney/Boland camp, waiting to see if he could use the mess to his own political advantage and unsettle his long-term target, Jack Lynch. Haughey’s dismissal saw him begin the long pilgrimage back into power and into the nation’s affections: ‘ultimately, all was forgiven, leading Fianna Fáil from the Taoiseach’s chair. The Irish people love a rogue’.[8]
His sympathy for the people of the north (dismissing easily applied terminology such as ‘tribal’) and understanding of the complexity of the conflict, shows a empathetic politician who saw the need for give and take on all sides (although he was at times scathing of the British establishment). Reconciliation seemed to be his watchword to the end.
Besides Fitzgerald, a number of other politicians made the list of the admired. Paddy Hillery, Brendan Corish, and Noel Browne were all figures held in high regard. Undoubtedly the most complicated political relationship of his life was with Conor Cruise-O’Brien, who he first encountered in 1939 and would end up in Government with in thirty years later. Keating’s mother had been the secretary of the Cruiser’s aunt, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington. Initially in awe of him, they became quite close family friends, before political differences wedged them apart.
Cruise-O’Brien’s dislike of John Hume was one particular sticking point, while the publication of his book States of Ireland proved to be the point of ideological departure between the two. Keating spoke of the seriousness of Cruise-O’Brien’s viewpoint: ‘I believe that Conor has done great harm to the broad policy of sincere reconciliation of both communities and has, against his own wishes, borne great aid to the IRA’.[9]
The remainder of the book sees Keating wrestle with the familiar subjects of the church, religion, atheism, globalisation, war and the military. No doubt his views are interesting, but they won’t sway anyone’s political leanings. I don’t believe they are meant to.
Throughout the book, from his upbringing, the social circles his parents inhabited to his time as a politician, one gets a real sense of just how small the circles of the political and cultural elite in Ireland have been. One is left with the opinion that they have always been a breed apart. For all of Keating’s genuine concern for his fellow man and woman, he at times seems part of that elite society which replaced the previous elite in 1922. That is not a slight on the memory of the man, but a comment on the society which he was born into.
The evolution of Keating’s political journey is, well, it is the main theme of this book and takes the reader on an interesting voyage. The influence of his parents, particularly his mother, the Spanish Civil War, witnessing shocking acts of violence, education, his brief broadcasting career, political battles and campaigns, Europe, Northern Ireland, the environment, and global concerns, have all contributed to a fairly fluid left of centre political journey.
As Keating himself pointed out at the beginning, there were no revelations to be had. At times it reads like a novel, at other times it is clear his intended audience was himself. Despite the admission that poor documentation had been retained and the apprehension that it will be of little value to the historian, the book is engaging, and the author comes across as genuine. There are valuable passages within, which the historian can find useful. Nevertheless, it is no substitute for proper history.
References
[1] Justin Keating, Nothing is Written in Stone, p.15
[4] For an example of the impact the Spanish Civil War had on Irish daily life see Fearghal McGarry ‘Irish Newspapers and the Spanish Civil War in Irish Historical Studies Volume 33, Issue 129
[6] Donald Akenson, A Mirror to Kathleen’s Face: Education in Independent Ireland, 1922-60 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1975)
On the morning of April 20, 1923, the doorman of the Corinthian cinema on Dublin’s Eden Quay, was ‘held up by two armed men’, who told him they ‘intended to blow up the theatre’.
He warned them that there were women and children inside- the family of the owner, who resided on the premises – but they told him they had ‘no time to wait’. They placed a bomb in the door of the cinema, lit a two inch long fuse on it and made their getaway.
To the relief of the door man the fuse was faulty and burned itself out before detonating. The mine was removed by CID detectives from Oriel House.[1]
The anti-Treaty IRA campaign against ‘public amusements’ during what it termed ‘a period of national mourning’ was one of the stranger features of the Irish Civil War of 1922-22. In an effort to resurrect the Irish Republic it believed had been abandoned by the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the IRA had embarked on a campaign of bombing theatres and cinemas throughout the Irish capital, Dublin. How had the guerrilla army come to this?
Context –executions and reprisals
Free State troops with prisoners.
In late 1922, the Provisional government of the Irish Free State had embarked on a policy of official executions, by which it hoped to coerce the anti-Treaty guerrillas into calling off their campaign against the new state. By the end of January 1923 over 50 had died before the firing squads.
In February 1923, the government temporarily halted executions and issued an amnesty for those ‘irregulars’ who gave themselves up. Despite the surrender of some prominent anti-Treatyites such as Liam Deasy, on the whole this had little effect and though the government’s National Army was gradually wearing down the armed resistance of anti-Treaty Republican forces, the war stubbornly stuttered on.
March 1923, saw a series of brutal reprisal massacres of anti-Treaty IRA prisoners in Kerry (twenty nine men were killed in all), by pro-Treaty troops as well as a restarting of official executions on March 13, which accounted for ten more deaths by firing squad before the end of the month. The anti-Treatyites retaliated, with several ‘executions’ of unarmed National Army troops, including three in Dublin, another three in Wexford and up to four more in Tipperary. [2]
The IRA ordered: ‘it is ordered that a time of national mourning be proclaimed, all sport and amusements be suspended, all picture houses [cinemas] and theatres and other places of public amusement be closed,
Liam Lynch, the IRA Chief of Staff and the man responsible, more than any other, for the continuance of the Republican guerrilla campaign, in fact disapproved of some of these attacks on the grounds that some of the soldiers were unarmed. In any case, he had his own answer to the renewal of executions.
Once, in the early days of the Civil War, Liam Lynch had issued orders that civilians were not to be interfered with under any circumstances, even if they were passing information to the pro-Treaty authorities. Now he issued orders that were almost the polar opposite, ordering that civilians must be coerced into mourning for the Republican dead.
The Amusements Order
Liam Lynch.
When executions were re-started on 13 March 1923, Lynch responded by issuing the ‘Amusements Order’ which declared that: ‘it is ordered that a time of national mourning be proclaimed, all sport and amusements be suspended, all picture houses [cinemas] and theatres and other places of public amusement be closed, especially horse riding, hunting, coursing, dancing and outdoor sports. Anyone refusing this order will be treated as an enemy of the Republic.’[3]
The Amusements Order had first been discussed in January 1923 and drafted in February. While there had already been a bomb attack on a cinema in Dublin – a ‘mine’ at the Pathe Freres Cinema on Lower Abbey Street in February the injured eight civilians[4] and the Rotunda theatre was burned in November 1922 – it was only after the executions resumed that it was issued.
Eamon De Valera, the anti-Treatyites’ political leader, while warning Lynch that ‘our ultimate hope of success is based on winning the people to our side [and] anything that savours wanton disregard of their interests will operate against this hope’, agreed reluctantly to approve the order. Of the public at large he wrote: ‘I admit that they do not deserve much consideration for they seem indifferent to the judicial murders going on.’[5]
The amusements order was a somewhat nihilistic attempt to share the suffering of the anti-Treatyites among the general public, a lashing out at a public that had, by and large, rejected them. But it also made some tactical sense.
The Free State’s war aim was to return ‘settled conditions’ where normal life resumed in so far as possible and the ‘Irregulars’ were reduced to an irrelevance. The Amusements Order was an attempt to show that, despite military defeat, despite the failure of such schemes as the attempt to collect for the Republic dog licenses and other taxation, the anti-Treaty IRA could still coerce the public.
Implementing the Order
The Rotunda theatre Dublin, burnt by anti-Treaty IRA in November 1922
Around the country, the Amusements Order had some strange results. In Ballina, County Mayo, the National Army reported that the ‘Irregulars’ had demolished the enclosure at a coursing meeting and released the hares to prevent the coursing from going ahead.[6]
In Dublin also there were some eccentric manifestations of it, golfing at Portmarnock was disrupted by armed men for instance, who ordered the golfers home.
Interestingly enough, the order does not seem to have been applied to popular field sports. The Football Association of Ireland Cup Final, for instance, was held without disruption in Dublin’s Dalymount Park on March 17, 1923, watched by 14,000 people, in the midst of the IRA’s prohibition on public entertainments. [7]
For those businesses which were targeted, there were serious ramifications, however. Cinemas and theatres in Dublin were delivered a threatening notice ordering them to close.
The Government was horrified to learn that ‘the majority of theatres and cinemas closed in the city of Dublin in compliance with threatening orders by the Irregulars’ on 15 March. Outraged at the challenge to its authority in the capital, the Government placed hefty fines on any cinema or theatre that closed and dispatched elements of the Army, CID, Protective Corps and CDF to guard them. Punitive measures were also taken against anti-Treaty prisoners, ‘no letters, no parcels, no tobacco’ until the Amusements Order was withdrawn.[8]
The Siki-McTigue fight
La Scala theatre on Dublin’s Prince’s Street (since demolished)
Almost incredibly, given the times, on 17 March, St Patrick’s Day, Dublin was due to host a major boxing match, the world heavyweight title fight between an Irish fighter Mike McTigue and a Frenchman, Louis Mbarick Fall (better known as ‘Battling Siki’) at La Scala Theatre on Prince’s Street, just beside the GPO.
Even with the Civil War violence winding down in Dublin (at least it had been, up to the second week of March) it still seems remarkable that the fight went ahead. [9]
That it occurred just after Lynch had issued the Amusements Order heightened the risks even further. The scenario around the Amusements Order, and the Siki fight in particular, was the closest the Irish Civil War in Dublin came to what we might call out and out terrorism – that is deliberate mass violence against civilians.
Attempts were made to bomb a world title boxing match held in Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day 1923.
The IRA Dublin Brigade had orders to disrupt the fight and enforce the ban on public entertainments and planned to bomb the theatre, despite the risk of mass civilian casualties. Second Battalion reported that it tried to blow up La Scala’s power station, but found ‘it had a strong guard on it’ and settled for detonating a mine in nearby Henry Place instead, flying glass from which injured two bystanders.[10]
When questioned by his superior on why the fight had not been prevented, the commander of Dublin IRA’s Second battalion responded that La Scala was so heavily guarded that it was a ‘regular death trap’.[11]
A battalion of regular Free State troops guarded the fight, searching all 2,000 spectators as they entered the theatre. They reported that the mine was laid by ‘two girls and one man with a Thompson gun’, who got away in a car. When another car pulled up outside, the troops opened fire, fearing a follow up attack, but the vehicle turned out to be a CID car. One CID officer was wounded, another was arrested and brought to Oriel House, where it was verified he was a CID detective.[12]
This was not the last incident of ‘friendly fire’ that night – an indication of the nervousness of pro-Treaty troops. Colonel McDonnell, the commander of the National Army Dublin Brigade, was shot and seriously wounded by his own troops when his car ‘failed to halt’ at Kingsbridge.
Another soldier was accidentally shot and killed in Collins Barracks.[13] Meanwhile, across town at the Theatre Royal, on Hawkins Street, there was an attempt by the anti-Treatyites to shoot Frank Bolster, the National Army Intelligence officer with a ferocious reputation for mistreatment of prisoners and a member of the ‘Murder Gang’. He and another officer were wounded.[14]
‘Hit them up’
Free State troops outside City hall in Dublin.
There were some sharp rebukes within the IRA for the Dublin Brigade that the Siki-McTigue fight was allowed to take place.
Liam Lynch wrote indignantly to IRA Director of Intelligence Michael Carolan that it was ‘very disappointing’ that the fight had not been prevented from going ahead. He had, he wrote, ‘expected to La Scala go up’ and demanded ‘action be taken against those who flout the warning’ on public entertainments’.
He told the Director of Intelligence and the commander of the Dublin Brigade, Frank Henderson, that they had, ‘better make a success of something… ‘blow up a picture house, theatre or a residence with a mine’. It was he said, a ‘a disgrace that the enemy can attend dances’ in peace and cited for example a dance organised by the pro-Treaty women’s group Cumann na Saoirse that was held on St Patrick’s Day and attended by soldiers and Free State detectives at Dublin’s Mansion House. ‘Hit them up’ Lynch ordered. [15]
IRA Chief of Staff Liam Lynch was scathing about the Dublin Brigade’s failure to impose the Amusements Order and ordered cinemas, theatres and dances to be ‘hit up’.
And so, on the urging of IRA GHQ, in the days that followed, there was a second wave of attacks on public entertainments in Dublin, which could have easily caused carnage among the Dublin public.
A mine was laid at the Fountain Cinema which failed to go off and one actually did explode at the Grand Central Cinema on O’Connell Street, causing ‘extensive damage’ and wounding two passersby in late April. While the intention was to damage property, not people, it would have only taken one mistimed bomb for a massacre to have taken place in a crowded cinema.[16]
As it was though, only one man died in the anti-Treatyites’ campaign against public entertainments and he was one of their own fighters. Patrick O’Brien of First Battalion was shot dead by National Army troops on 24 March, after laying bomb at the Carlton Cinema on O’Connell Street.[17]
National Army troops came upon the cinema just as flame leaded from its front door. As they approached the mine detonated and the two anti-Treaty fighters who had laid it opened fire on the troops before trying to flee down North Earl Street. A National Army officer told the subsequent inquest that he ordered ‘five rounds rapid fire’ at the two men, the taller of whom, O’Brien fell, mortally wounded.[18]
The other man seems to have been Martin Hogan, an IRA volunteer originally from Tipperary, who was wounded in the hand in the incident. Hogan himself was killed, shot after arrest about a month later.[19]
The brief resurgence of anti-Treaty attacks in Dublin in response to the March executions could not be sustained. An internal IRA document of April 6, captured by the National Army in May, complained about ‘marked inactivity in Brigade area’. It reminded Battalion commanders that the ‘Amusements Order will have to be enforced’ and that ‘posts must be constantly attacked’ and bemoaned the lack of ‘midnight fusillades’ or gun attacks on Barracks which had been regular occurrences in 1922.[20] Though some such attacks occurred in the spring of 1923, they caused virtually no casualties.
The Irish Civil War finally ended in late May 1923. Liam Lynch was killed in the Knockmealdown mountains on April 10 and Frank Aiken, his successor as Chief of Staff called a ceasefire on April 30 and a ‘Dump Arms’ order on May 24.
The final attacks of the IRA campaign against public entertainment seem to have occurred in late April, 1923, just before the IRA ceasefire. The Irish Times reported, as well as a bomb on the Dublin to Drogheda train at Amiens Street station and a mine explosion wrecking a drapery shop in Rathmines, an attempt to blow up the Grand Central Cinema on O’Connell Street, which blew off some of the marble steps and damaged the entrance but otherwise left the cinema intact. [21]
The end of the campaign
Gavin Foster writes that there was some attempt to revive the campaign against public entertainments in late 1923 as a protest at the continued detention of republican prisoners, but this phase seem to have been far less violent than that before the ceasefire.[22]
Some of those anti-Treaty fighters involved in the campaign met a violent death themselves; five anti-Treaty volunteers assassinated by clandestine pro-Treaty forces in Dublin in late March and early April 1923
Some of those anti-Treaty fighters involved in the campaign, notably Martin Hogan, met a violent death themselves; five anti-Treaty volunteers assassinated by clandestine pro-Treaty forces in Dublin in late March and early April 1923.[23]
If we accept that such civil wars are essentially contests in who can control the civilian population then perhaps we should not be surprised by the belligerents using violence in order to coerce civilians.
Today we are familiar with mass indiscriminate violence against civilians being used as a tactic by armed insurgent groups. Bombs in trains stations, airports, concert venues and cinemas no longer shock as they once did.
While this type of violence was not the primary feature either of the Irish Civil War or of the anti-Treaty IRA’s campaign in general, the episode of the Amusements Order demonstrates, perhaps the potential of all armed conflict to degenerate into outrage and nihilism.
[2] See John Dorney, The Civil War in Dublin (Merrion, 2017), p.245-246, for the February amnesty and the Wexford shootings, see Michael Hopkinson, Green Against Green, The Irish Civil War, p.222 and p.246, for Tipperary see http://www.theirishstory.com/2017/04/28/civil-war-casualties-in-county-tipperary/#.Wm3fMHzLjIU though only soldier there was positively identified as having been killed and secretly buried there in March 1923.
[6] Historian Eunan O’Halpin wondered ‘what on earth possessed them’ but wise or not, what the local anti-Treatyites were doing was enforcing an order that came down from IRA GHQ: O’Halpin, Defending Ireland, p. 28.
[7] Shelbourne of Dublin were defeated Alton United of Belfast 1-0. The GAA’s hurling intermediate league final between Fontenoy and Colberts also went ahead at without incident at Croke Park on April 8, although the attendance was reported as ‘not too packed’, Irish Times, March 18 and April 9, 1923.
[15] CS to DI, 17/3/1923 Twomey Papers, UCD P69/11, IRA Intelligence.
[16] Twomey Papers UCD P69/20, Irish Times, 28 April 1923.
[17] NA Dublin Reports CW/OPS/07/03. The Irish Times identifies O’Brien as being from 28 Cadogan Road the Clontarf area of the city and says he was shot at the Masterpiece Cinema on Talbot Street.
This year, 2018 is the centenary of one of the most important years of modern Irish history, 1918. The Irish Story is proud to present, in association with the People’s College a series of four talks in commemoration of that momentous year.
No Conscription! Stand United! The anti-Conscription campaign of 1918
John Dorney, February 28 2018. 6:30 pm
In April 1918, with the German Spring offensive threatening to bring them to defeat in the Great War, the British government extended compulsory military service to Ireland. This sparked off a storm of protest that developed into a national movement. Half a million people signed a pledge to resist conscription, the Labour movement called a general strike and the Volunteers prepared for ‘ruthless warfare’. Conscription was abandoned.
The movement, led by Sinn Fein, transformed the rebels of 1916 into leaders of a mass movement It marked the rejection by the Irish public of membership in the British Empire and may have been the beginning of the end of British rule.
Ireland last great plague – the Spanish flu of 1918
Ida Milne March 7 2018.
The Great War 1914-1918 killed 10 million people but the great Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-19 killed up to five times as many. In Ireland at least 20,000 people died over the winter of 1918-19.
The disease, believed to have been carried home by returning soldiers from the Great War, killed old and young, male and female, nationalist and unionist. It also impacted on campaigning for the seminal election of December 1918 and imperilled the lives of political prisoners held by the British during its course.
Ida Milne will talk about Ireland’s last great plague.
Votes for Women!
Mary McAuliffe March 14 2018
Women first received the right to vote in Ireland in the election of December 1918. It was the culmination of decades of struggle by suffrage activists. In Ireland they elected the first female Member of Parliament, Constance Markievicz, who went on to serve as a minister in the First Dail.
But in Ireland also, there was a militant republican women’s movement, Cumann na mBan, who saw women’s liberation and national liberation as the same cause. Here Mary McAuliffe will talk about women’s suffrage and 1918.
Birth of A Republic – Sinn Fein and the election of 1918
Brian Hanley, March 21
In December 1918, Sinn Fein won a crushing election victory, taking 70 out of 110 seats in Ireland. They were the party that celebrated the legacy of the 1916 Rising, who had done most to oppose conscription and who campaigned on a platform of Irish independence. They vowed that if they won the election they would declare an Irish Republic that, in January 1919, is just what they did.
Here Brian Hanley will discuss this historic election. Was it a referendum on Irish independence? The birth of Irish democracy? Or a slide towards extremist and civil conflict?
All talks will be at 6:30 pm at the Teachers’ Club, Parnell Square.
Women, the right to vote and the struggle for Irish independence. By John Dorney
This year, 2018, marks the centenary of women’s right to vote in Ireland. Under the Representation of the People Act in the British Parliament, voting rights were extended to all men over the age of 21 and to women. In the General Election of December 1918, women across the United Kingdom who were over 30 years of age and owned some property were, for the first time, entitled to vote.
In Ireland this came with a particular context. The country was in the grip of constitutional crisis over its status within the United Kingdom. Thus, the first woman elected to Westminster, Constance Markievicz, representing Sinn Fein, refused to take her seat and instead attended the rebel parliament, the First Dail, set up in Dublin in January 1919.
In the years that followed, 1919-1923, Ireland was to see upheaval, insurgency, nationalist revolution and Civil War. Irish women for the first time played an important role in politics, but most of them considered themselves part of a nationalist, not feminist movement.
Perhaps for this reason, the influence of women activists faded rather than increased after Irish independence.
Before 1918
Constance Markievicz addresses a republican meeting.
Aside from their traditional role as mothers and wives and girlfriends of political figures, women had played some role in Irish politics before 1918.
In 1881 for instance, when Charles Stewart Parnell and other leaders of the Land League – the nationalist organisation that lobbied for tenants’ rights – were imprisoned. Parnell’s sisters Anna and Fanny took over the campaign of tenant farmers to withhold rents and resist eviction through their organisation the Ladies’ Land League.
Indeed the women were considered more militant than their male counterparts and of the British government’s conditions for releasing Parnell in 1882 was that the Ladies’ Land League be dissolved.[1]
Irish women played an important role in politics, but most of them considered themselves part of a nationalist, not feminist movement.
By the 1910s, women in Britain, the so-called suffragettes, led by activists such as Emeline Pankhurst, were campaigning for women’s right to vote. Women’s suffrage was one of the principal radical battlegrounds in British politics in the years leading up to the First World War.
The suffrage activists used sometimes violent direct action, such as throwing at hatchet at Prime Minister Asquith on a visit to Dublin in 1912 (it in fact hit and injured Irish Parliamentary Party leader John Redmond) to highlight their cause.
However, the women’s movement in Ireland could not escape the deep division caused by competing national aspirations. If women were to vote, was it as part of the United Kingdom or to a proposed Irish parliament in London? In Ireland, as result, there were two women’s suffrage leagues, one nationalist, led by Hanna Sheehy Skeffington and the other unionist. [2]
Women and Irish nationalism
The separatist newspaper Irish Freedom applauded militant suffragette action as consistent with their ‘fight for freedom’, but although some republicans, such as the socialist James Connolly were feminists, most nationalists were not.
The Irish Parliamentary Party’s leadership were generally against women’s suffrage, one leading member, John Dillon stating, ‘women’s suffrage will, I believe, be the ruin of our western civilisation. It will destroy the home, challenging the headship of man, laid down by God’.[3]
Despite this, or perhaps because of it – in order to stake a claim as equals in the nationalist struggle, most Irish feminists who were not unionists tended to put Irish independence before women’s rights. One might assume that politicised Irish nationalist women would also be ardent feminists and indeed, some such as Helena Molony, Maud Gonne and Constance Markievizc, were. In general however, most women nationalist movements, although in theory committed to universal suffrage subordinated it to the ‘national cause’.
The main women’s-only nationalist organization was Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland), formed in 1903 by Maude Gonne (a well-heeled English woman by origin but nevertheless a veteran of the Land War, and the Amnesty Campaign for Fenian prisoners) on the occasion of a Royal visit to Ireland in 1903.
According to Helena Molony, ‘It came into being as a, ‘counterblast to the orgy of flunkeyism which was displayed on that occasion, including the exploitation of the school children – to provide demonstrations of “loyalty” on behalf of the Irish natives.’ The Inghinidhe (satirically nicknamed the ‘ninnies’ by its detractors, with a roughly correct phonetic rendering of the name) organised a Patriotic Children’s Treat as rival to official parties held under the Union Jack for the Royal visit and claimed to have attracted 30,000 young patriots to it. [4]
They were, Molony recalled, ‘Irishwomen pledged to fight for the complete separation of Ireland from England, and the re-establishment of her ancient culture’. They also ran a campaign at one point to stop Irish girls from having sex with British soldiers.
According to Molony, ‘many thousands of innocent young country girls, up in Dublin, at domestic service mostly, were dazzled by these handsome and brilliant uniforms, with polite young men with English accents inside them – and dazzled often with disastrous results to themselves, but that is another side of the matter, and we were only concerned with the National political side.[5]
Constance Marcievicz, like Maud Gonne, of aristocratic Anglo Irish background, founded Na Fianna Eireann in 1909, as a nationalist rival to Baden Powell’s ‘Imperialist’ Boy Scout movement.
Women separatists figured prominently in the Rising of 1916, but with some exceptions, generally not as combatants.
Nationalist women tended to assert their equality with the men by equal, or superior zeal in pursuit of Irish independence. Helena Molony thought that the pre-war Sinn Féin of Arthur Griffith, being, ‘definitely and explicitly against physical force’ was too moderate in the years before the First World War. ‘It all sounded dull, and a little bit vulgar to us’, she recalled. [6]
In 1913, parallel with the creation of the nationalist militia the Irish Volunteers, women created Cumann na mBan (roughly 1,500 strong) was formed to assist the Volunteers, absorbing many of the militants of Inghinidhe ha hÉireann, though some of the most radical of the latter, such as Helen Molony and Constance Markievicz, elected to join the socialist Irish Citizen Army instead, where they given equal standing with the men.[7]
In the Rising of 1916, Cumann na mBan and Citizen Army women were prominent, mostly as medics, nurses and messengers, but only a handful, notably Markievicz and Margaret Skinnider, actually took part in combat, the latter being badly wounded. Elizabeth O’Farrell, a Cumann na mBan member and nurse, took Pearse’s offer to surrender to the British military, though as Michael Barry has noted, she was literally airbrushed from history by photographers who captured the moment.
Though over 70 women were arrested at Easter 1916, unlike the men, they were, for the most part, released within a short time. The main exception was Constance Markievicz, who had shot dead a policeman in the Rising. However, like the male prisoners, she was released under a general amnesty in 1917.
Patrick Pearse surrenders to the British in 1916, Elizabeth O’Farrell,s feet are next to him.
Women also played an increased role in the separatist movement immediately after the Rising, with so many male activists dead or imprisoned. Kathleen Clarke, the widow of Tom, was the first to organise a fund for the families of prisoners.
In 1918, women were prominently involved in the successful campaign against conscription and in May of that year, the British arrested many prominent female activists including Kathleen Clarke and Constance Markievicz, along with male leaders such as Eamon de Valera, for conspiring in an alleged ‘German plot’.
Other women separatists such as Helena Molony and the doctor Kathleen Lynn had to go on the run to avoid arrest, many, including Lynn were to forefront in social activism at this time, helping to nurse victims of the ‘flu’ epidemic.[8]
Thus by the time women received the right to vote in Ireland in 1918, there was a perception that women were supporters of militant nationalism. While at this stage this was a gross exaggeration, it is possible that the majority of the relatively small pool of committed female activists, certainly in the south of Ireland, were involved in the separatist movement by this time.
The election of 1918 and after
Cumann na mBan marching in uniform.
In December 1918, a month after the end of the Great War, the United Kingdom held its first-ever general election with almost universal adult suffrage.
Sinn Féin, running on a promise to withdraw from the British parliament and set up a rival Irish one, buried the moderate Irish Parliamentary Party.
The separatists won 73 seats out of 105 and just under 50 per cent of the vote – though as many constituencies were uncontested this underestimated their actual support considerably.[9]
For the first time, all adult men over twenty-one and women over thirty-one (though women, unlike men, were still subject to some property restrictions) had the vote. Under the new franchise, the electorate in Ireland was almost tripled, from 700,000 to over two million.[10] It is impossible to state of course, under a secret ballot, how women voted, but most, certainly outside north east Ulster, must have cast their vote for Sinn Fein.
Under he Representation of the People Act, women over 30 received the right to vote in 1918 and the first woman MP was Sinn Fein candidate Constance Markievicz.
Constance Markievicz was the first woman elected as an MP in the United Kingdom, but like all Sinn Fein candidates, she refused to take her seat in Westminster. Nor could she take her seat in the First Dail, or unilaterally declared Irish Republican parliament, because she was imprisoned at the time in Holloway Prison in England. Markievicz was released in 1920 and served as Minister for Labour under the underground government of the First Dail.
As the British government banned the Dail and as the Volunteers or IRA increasingly engaged in attacks on the Royal Irish Constabulary, the political crisis in Ireland soon lurched into an insurgency that we now call the Irish War of Independence.
Constance Markievicz in Citizen Army uniform. She was the first woman elected to the British or Irish parliaments in 1918.
The women’s organisation, Cumann na mBan, was always subservient to the male-only IRA, but Republican women did play an important role in the War of Independence. One aspect of their role was social activism, which helped to shore up political support for Republicans.
Máire Comerford recalled that women doctors, Kathleen Lynn and Catherine Ffrench Mullen, set up temporary hospitals and ‘battled disease among the children of the awful slums of Dublin’. Áine Ceannt was head of the White Cross, the Republican Prisoners welfare organisation.
Cumann na mBan also carried clandestine messages to IRA commanders; fed the men in safe houses and manned the mass protests that took place outside Mountjoy Gaol and other prisons when Volunteers were executed. Female activists also typically provided the staff of the Republican Courts, where they functioned.[11]
The women also, in large part, directed the Republican propaganda effort. Maire Comerford remembered that Dorothy Macardle and Charlotte Despard, living in a flat owned by ‘Madame MacBride (Maud Gonne), wrote much of the ‘Irish Bulletin’ newsletter, and that ‘the British dreaded their pens as much as they dreaded an IRA column in the field’.[12]
Unlike the men, they were rarely on the receiving end of direct violence at the hands of British state forces and generally speaking, within the Republican movement, they were not expected to perform a military role. While around 6,000 men were imprisoned by the British by July 1921, only seventeen women were imprisoned.[13]
In May 1921, the British held elections for a proposed parliament of ‘Southern Ireland’. Sinn Fein ignored the formal legal structures of the election and contested it as an election for the Second Dail. This time six women were elected, though all were unopposed: Mary MacSwiney of Cork, Constance Markievicz, Kathleen Clarke and Margaret Pearse of Dublin and Kathleen O’Callaghan of Limerick and Ada English for the national University of Ireland.
Though this would appear to show strong progress for women’s role in politics, most were elected on the basis of their relation to a nationalist ‘martyr’. Of those six, all apart from English and Markievicz had seen their husbands or in Pearse and MacSwiney’s case, their brothers, killed by the British in the preceding years.
Women and Treaty split
An anti-Treaty cartoon by Constance Markievicz from 1922 depicts Michael Collins backed by Britain and the Catholic Church to force Ireland to accept the Treaty.
The War of Independence was ended with the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which did not deliver the Republic proclaimed in 1919 but did allow a self-governing 26 county Irish Free State. Acceptance of the Treaty brought about a bitter split in Republican ranks.
Some commentators put the bitter split in the nationalist movement over the Treaty and the subsequent Civil War down to the rantings of ‘hysterical women’.
Pro-Treaty politician, P.S. O‘Hegarty, wrote that Republican women were ‘harpies, ill-suited for rational political discourse’. While, during the Civil War, W.T. Cosgrave called them, ‘neurotic girls [who] are among the most active adherents to the Irregular [anti-Treaty] cause’.[14]
The first Republican group to openly split over the Anglo-Irish Treaty was Cumann na mBan. In the Dáil vote on the Treaty, all five women TDs voted against it: On 11 January 1922, the Cumann na mBan Executive voted by 24–2 to reject the Treaty. The two dissenters were Jennie Wyse Power and Miss Mullan from Monaghan.
Cumann na mBan came out strongly against the Treaty of 1921, but not all women were staunch anti-Treatyites.
On 5 February at a Special Convention of the women’s movement, delegates voted 413–62 against accepting the Treaty.[15]
All of which appears to show that nationalist women were implacably opposed to compromise with the British. Máire Comerford, for instance, wrote that ‘most women, like myself were too intransigently Republican to make concessions’.[16]
This assumption was a common feature of representations of the Treaty split, on both sides. Anti-Treaty leader Éamon de Valera, for instance, in arguing against an early election in the Free State in early 1922, made the point that the electoral roll had not been updated since 1918, when women over thirty had first received the right to vote, meaning that many of what he assumed to be his female supporters would be disenfranchised.[17]
In Dáil debates on 2 March 1922, the anti-Treaty Republicans appealed for the voting age for women to be brought down from thirty, where it had stood in 1918, to twenty-one, as it was for men and the property restrictions abolished. Pro-Treaty leaders Griffith and Collins did not disagree in principle, but argued, playing for time, that the three months until the Free State’s first election was due was not enough time to update the register of voters.[18]
However, the Cumann na mBan that so emphatically rejected the Treaty was a rump organisation. In the period of the split, the women’s movement haemorrhaged members, its number of branches collapsing from over 800 down to 133. The pro-Treaty women, led by Jenny Wyse Power, left to form their own women’s group, Cumann na Saoirse (the League of Freedom) in March 1922. [19]
All women nationalists were not diehard Republicans. Rather the anti-Treatyities among the women’s movement dominated the Cumann na mBan leadership and their intransigence caused the organisation to shrink and to split. All of the female TDs lost their seats in the 1922 election.
There is also a broader point. Cumann na mBan cannot be taken to represent all women in Ireland in 1922. Some of the separatists’ bitterest enemies during the independence struggle had also been women, notably the ‘separation women’ who had male relatives in the British armed forces and who had rioted ferociously against Republican activists from before the Rising of 1916 right up to the elections of 1922.
With that said, women Republicans, in what remained of Cumann na mBan, did form a particularly militant strand of the anti-Treaty movement.
Women and the Civil War
Graffiti with the initials of Cumann na mBan and a rifle in Kilmianham Gaol.
Republican women played a more significant role in the Civil War than in the War of Independence, at times playing the role of active combatants. Ernie O’Malley later wrote, ‘During the Tan War the girls had always helped but they had never had sufficient status. Now [in the Civil War] they were our comrades, loyal, willing and incorruptible comrades’.[20]
In the Civil War, some Cumann na mBan women acted as combatants and many as very close auxiliaries of fighters on the anti-Treaty side.
Todd Andrews voiced his admiration for O’Malley’s secretary Madge Clifford, ‘a young Kerry woman…who was as well informed about every detail of the IRA as O’Malley himself’. For the first time he realised that, ‘women had role outside of the home. Hitherto I had regarded women as appendages to men, whose function it was to rear children, provide meals and clothes, keep the house clean and nurse men when they were sick. It had never occurred to me that they could operate successfully as administrators or political advisors’.[21]
Many pro-Treatyites blamed the Civil War on ‘mad women’. And conversely, a narrative of the Civil War exists whereby anti-Treaty women were victims of a misogynist, male, pro-Treaty establishment. One fact that has hardly ever been acknowledged, however, is that it was also a conflict between women – ‘sister against sister’ as well as ‘brother against brother’.
At the time of the split in Cumann na mBan over the Treaty, the pro-Treaty Republican women led by Jenny Wyse Power had split off to form their own organisation, Cumann na Saoirse. During the Civil War, Cumann na Saoirse acted in concert with the pro-Treaty forces, especially in Dublin, assisting in the searching and arrest of anti-Treaty women, to the extent that the ant-Treatyites bitterly nicknamed them ‘Cumann na Searchers’.
Jennie Wyse Power, a veteran suffrage campaigner and nationalist, as well as the leader of the pro-Treaty women and Alice Stopford Green, who had helped to plan the Howth gun running back in 1914, had to be granted an armed guard by the CID in early 1923 to protect them from their former comrades on the anti-Treaty side.[22]
The Civil War was also a war between women – Cumann na mBan on the anti-Treaty side and Cumann na Saoirse on the pro-Treaty.
When the 238 Republican female prisoners were forcibly removed from Kilmainham to the North Dublin Union, it was the pro-Treaty Cumann na Saoirse women who were to the forefront of what turned into a hand-to-hand fight between the women. According to the pro-Treaty report, ‘the prisoners viciously attacked the female attendants’ some of whom had to be surgically treated and one of whom was knocked unconscious.[23]
The Republican women told a very different story of the removals, writing that Máire Comerford was ‘badly beaten’, two other women were thrown down the stairs and one woman, Sorcha McDermott, was ‘knocked on the floor, stripped, held on the floor and beaten with her own shoes by five Cumann na Saoirse women.’ They were followed by the men the anti-Treatyites alleged were ‘the murder gang from Oriel House and Portobello’ who ‘pulled out the girls kicking, beating, dragging them down the staircase, some by the hair.’[24]
Women in independent Ireland
Women republicans and feminists, and perhaps lovers, Kathleen Lynn and Madelaine Ffrench Mullen. Independent Ireland proved a disappointment to many women radicals.
While women played in important role in the struggle for Irish independence, many were disillusioned with the results.
Feminists such as Helena Molony voiced their disappointment with the results of the national struggle. There were some gains for women, all of whom over the age of 21 got the right to vote in 1923, four years ahead of women in Britain.
However it was not until 1987 that the number of female TDs elected in 1921, five, was equalled. Between 1927 and 1977, only fourteen women TDs were elected to the Dail.
There was no revolution in the social and economic status of women in independent Ireland.
Politics in the Irish Free State, (after 1949, Republic of Ireland) was a man’s game.
Moreover, the economic and social conservatism that took hold after the Civil War also affected women’s rights. In the United Kingdom in 1923, women gained the right to petition for divorce on certain grounds. In the Free State by contrast, divorce was technically legal under the 1922 Constitution, but the Dáil declined to legislate for its implementation in 1925 and it was made unconstitutional in 1937. It was not legalised until a referendum in 1996. Contraception, legalised in the late 1920s in Britain, remained illegal in Ireland until 1980, condemning many women to having huge families.
The consensus in the new Irish state was that women’s role was in the home. In 1927, Kevin O’Higgins passed a bill excluding women from jury service on the basis that he did not want them exposed to disturbing cases.[25]
De Valera’s 1937 constitution stated that ‘by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved… The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.’[26] There was certainly to be no revolution in women’s social status in the early decades of independent Ireland.
The Republican women, who had played such an active part in the Civil War, never again recovered their prominence in Irish public life. Part of this was undoubtedly the atmosphere of social conservativism in the Free State after the Civil War, but part of it also was that the women had assumed great importance as part of a nationalist, not feminist movement.
Once the Republican movement lost its central relevance after 1924, so the anti-Treaty women too either, like Dorothy McCardle and even Constance Markievcz, became loyal followers of Fianna Fail and Eamon de Valera, or lapsed into obscurity on the fringes of radical Republican politics, like Maire Comerford or Charlotte Despard.[27]
Women’s search for political and social equality in Ireland in the twentieth century did not begin or end in 1918.
[22] McCarthy, Cumann na mBan, pp. 198–9. Strictly speaking they were guarded by the Protective Corps, CID list of protectees, Mulcahy Papers UCD P7/B/94.
[23] Report on North Dublin Union, June 1923, NA TAOIS/1369 Box 3.
[24]An Phoblacht, Dáily Bulletin, 9 May 1923 NLI MS 15,443.
[27] For potted biographies of women nationalist revolutionaries after the Civil War see, Sinead McCoole, No ordinary women, Irish Female Activists in Revolutionary Years, 1900-1923, pp141-215
Dockers were a significant part of Dublin’s working class both in terms of numbers and reputation. This book tells the story of their working life, family life, and social life, warts and all. The book was compiled using interviews and reminiscences by dockers themselves and from Port records.
Dock labour was marked by insecurity and uncertainty of employment, and a degrading method of selection for work. The method of selection was known as the “Read”. Each morning a group of men seeking work gathered in the open. Above them stood a foreman who selected those who would work that day, by calling out the names of the fortunate. Those not called were destined for unemployment.
This book tells the story of the Dublin dockers’ working life, family life, and social life, warts and all.
Docker competed with docker at the read, jostling and shoving to get noticed by the foreman. One docker described the “read” as a Me Fein affair. Employment prospects were however improved by leaving a drink for the foreman in the pub ,the evening before the read , or by passing money ,hidden in a match box while drinking.
To combat this harsh system, a Trade Union list of full time dockers was drawn up, those on it to be employed as a priority and before all others. These men were known far and wide as button men. They were identified by wearing the appropriate button on their belt.
The work when it was secured was punishingly hard, working in dust filled holds, shovelling coal and grain with specialised shovels. [Giving inspiration to the song ‘dont forget your shovel if you want if you want to go to work’].
Work on the docks was usually casual and often punishingly hard.
Diverse cargoes; wood ,chemicals, ore, newsprint, tea and fancy goods, all required specialised knowledge to unload. A diverse range of Dockers were employed to do the unloading, Crane men, Pushers off , singers out checkers etc., each with their own expertise. It was dangerous work and accidents did happen.
Michael Donnelly a Docker trade unionist said in 1998 “to my knowledge we had quite a few deaths, around 20. When something goes wrong it is serious”. Despite the harsh conditions, dangers and indignities involved, dockwork became a tradition amongst families with father following son onto the docks. When they did work, the money was good.
To combat the insecurity and poor conditions dockers embraced trade unionism. Most followed Jim Larkin and joined the I.T.G.W.U. they were the backbone of that Union. They again followed Larkin when he split from the Transport Union to form the Workers Union of Ireland in 1924.The port was split from end to end by rivalry between the two Unions. Eventually tired of the bitter inter Union rivalry, a new Union the Irish Seamen and Port workers Union was formed, later renamed the Marine Port and General Workers Union.
Despite all the division, the interest and welfare of dockers was advanced. Following a protracted strike, a 40 hour day week was achieved in 1966 without loss of pay. The button system led to decasualising for many, giving those covered a guaranteed income even when work was not available. In return for decasualisation, dockers agreed to lift their five year opposition to containerisation, this led to the death knell of the docklands and dockers in the traditional sense.
Containerisation led to the death knell of the docklands and dockers in the traditional sense.
Home life was centred mainly in dockside tenements, cramped accommodation, outdoor toilets ,communal taps, heating by open fires. Families were large with wives staying at home to mind the children. Children often worked to supplement family income. Major rehousing took place to the suburbs (Beaumont, Cabra ,Inchicore, Kilmanham) to alleviate the poor living conditions. Despite these improvements many criticised the move for breaking the strong community spirit, sending families outside the canals to “culchie land”
Dublin’s quays in around 1900. The Custom House is in the background.
Casual labour led to variable daily cash-into the hand payments for dockers. Very often the dockers hid their true income from their wives. Regular employment led to fixed incomes, known to wives, much to the chagrin of the dockers.
Cash into the hand payment each day led to the temptation to visit pubs on the way home from work. According to one docker, this system led to a situation where ‘every day was Saturday’ on the docks. Dockers saw their role as that of breadwinner, which absolved them from responsibility for running the home. They saw the pub as their refuge. No such refuge was allowed to their wives.
The dockers’ morning tea break was also a temptation with three to four pints being consumed, it was nicknamed ‘the beero’.
Another topic dealt with in the book was pilfering from ships, which was a feature of all docklands, Dublin being no different. Examples given by O’Connell and Bennett include two combine harvesters beng stolen in 1964 and 100 barrels of nickel weighing 254 kilograms in 1970. Most Pilfering was on a much lesser scale. However it was also emphasised that some dockers never took anything. For those caught the penalty was suspension for the first offence, prosecution and sacking for repeated offences.
The book is wide ranging in its scope, seeking to show how dockers lived. It is compiled from interviews and reminiscences from dockers themselves.
Dockers had a culture and moral code of their own. To the outsider dockwork was not a respectable profession. Dockers were denied access to many private venues. Attempts to form their own social club foundered on the failure to agree a venue due to the intense north-south side rivalry. In the view of the authors the only acceptable venue would have been an island in the Liffey!
Solidarity was the sine qua non amongst dockers. The unforgiveable breach of this code was strike breaking, or scabbing. Scabs were shunned, isolated and boycotted, not only themselves, but their families and descendants.
The book is wide ranging in its scope, seeking to show how dockers lived. It is compiled from interviews and reminiscences from dockers themselves. In that context one should be conscious that truth never got in the way of a good story, a fact acknowledged by the authors. This leads to a colourful and basically sound picture of life on the docks, but readers should approach some tales with scepticism.
Tribute is paid by the authors to the dock workers preservation society set up in 2011, to preserve the rich history of the dockers and their community. The book has a wealth of photographs, which illustrate graphically the vanished world of the docks. The flavour of the book and of the people profiled in it can be summed up by the quotation in chapter seven, ‘dockers don’t see it as an occupation, they see it as a way of life’.
The decline of employment in the north inner city due to containerisation , has created a vacuum which are tragically evident in many social problems that we see in that area today .
Jim Dorney is the former general secretary of the Teachers Union of Ireland.
Diarmuid Francis Bolger on the battle for ownership of the legacy of the First Dáil Éireann.
January 21 2019 will mark the 100th anniversary of the first meeting of the First Dáil Éireann, where Sinn Féin members who had been elected as MPs in Westminster in the election held the previous month – or at least those newly-elected Sinn Féin MPs not then arrested or on the run – met in Dublin’s Mansion House to declare Ireland to be an independent nation and to establish their own alternative parliament.
With the Representation of the People’s Act of 1918 increasing the number of Irish voters from 700,000 to 2,000,000 voters, the 1918 election can be seen as the first time that a truly representative Irish electorate were able to express their preferences on the issue of self-determination.
January 21 2019 will mark the centenary of the First Dáil Éireann, where Sinn Féin members declared Ireland independent and to established their own alternative parliament
Sinn Féin’s landslide victory gave it an indisputable mandate to boycott Westminster and establish their own alternative First Dáil. On the same day Irish Volunteers shot dead two RIC policemen in Soloheadbeg. Although unconnected, the two events were seen as interlinking the constitutional and physical force streams of nationalism in Ireland and beginning the Irish War of Independence.
The 50th anniversary commemoration of the First Dáil has been well covered in Irish historiography – being remembered more for the inflamed protests that occurred on the streets in that turbulent year of 1969 than for the extremely low key official commemoration ceremony itself.
However there has been little examination of the politics behind the fact that the Irish government in 1969 were so determined to select the First Dáil as the chief event to be commemorated in 1969, when the anniversaries of other major events that occurred in 1919 – like the start of the War of Independence were very deliberately downplayed at an official level.
Commemorating the First Dáil has not been about remembering the past but about controlling the historical narrative of a complex period of Irish history
In this context, the fact that the Fianna Fáil government of 1969 would wish to pay homage to the past and commemorate the First Dáil might be seen as inevitable: marking, as it did, the anniversary of when a constitutionally elected majority of MPs declared the right of the Irish people to have their own democratic state.
However in reality commemorating the First Dáil was not about remembering the past, and more about controlling the historical narrative of a complex period of Irish history; a stance existing with other commemorations in Ireland. Commemorative and celebratory events were common after independence, and often used to emphasis differences and create more selective readings of history and national identity.[1]
They were used by successive governments not only to highlight the roles that they had played in promoting and creating a prosperous Irish independent state, but to lament the failures of either previous administrations or current political opponents. An examination of why the First Dáil was commemorated spreads a fascinating light on the politics behind commemoration in Ireland; not just for the 50th anniversary, but even prior to this.
The first commemoration, 1929
WT Cosgrave.
The first major commemoration was not held until 1929. The ruling Cumann na nGaedhael government after 1923, in the aftermath of the Civil War, wished to move away from the association of physical force nationalism after independence.
Perhaps a key reason as to why commemorations of the First Dáil was rare in those years with its obvious links to physical force republicanism and to claims that the Free State was an illegitimate successor to the Republic declared in 1919.
Cumann na nGaedhael’s decision to downplay the commemorations of the first Dáil could be traced to the divide in Irish politics which occurred after the ratification of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in January 1922. Sinn Féin split into pro and anti-Treaty factions with the pro-Treaty side, who formed the government side in the subsequent Civil War, becoming Cumann na nGaedheal, under the leadership of W.T. Cosgrave in 1923. The anti-Treaty side ran simply as ‘Republicans’ in 1923 but thereafter regrouped in what was effectively a re-founded Sinn Féin.
The first commemoration in 1919 was held by Sinn Féin, who refused to recognise the ‘Free State parliament’ as the legitimate successor to the First Dáil
Sinn Féin then split again in 1926 between what Timothy O’Neill called ‘negotiable republicans and absolute republicans’[2]. Moderates around Eamon de Valera left Sinn Féin to from Fianna Fáil, and in 1927 made the reluctant decision to take an Oath of Allegiance to the King of England in order to take their seats in Dáil Éireann. It was conceivable that, from Cosgrave’s perspective, commemorating such an event could open old wounds – as well as lead to questions about the differences between the ideals presented by the Dáil in 1919 and the reality of the current state.
A lack of governmental desire to commemorate the First Dáil gave its political opponents the potential to grasp hold of what was still seen by many as a momentous occasion in recent Irish history. Whilst the newly created Fianna Fáil party failed to grasp this opportunity, the hard-line republican Sinn Féin chose to mark the event. By doing this, they could claim they were continuing the legacy of the First Dáil, and that they were the only group who could rightfully claim this title.
This would give legitimacy to a party in steady decline following the departure of many of its key individuals in 1926. The need for validation was vital for the political organisation: by 1929 there were only seventy-one party branches in the state and their funds, after expenses, was £3. In the preceding days before the tenth anniversary of the Dáil, they made an appeal for all ‘Republican citizens’ to swear an oath of loyalty to the Republic – making a clear distinction between not only their party and their political opponents, but also distancing any citizen who did not connect themselves to Republicanism.
Mary MacSwiney, leader of Sinn Fein in 1929.
A public meeting was also held on 21 January 1929, on O’Connell Street. Although this was the actual commemoration date, the party had chosen to wait till the following day to have their official commemoration. In attendance at this street gathering were leading party members John Joe O’Kelly, who had joined the part at its inaugural meeting in 1905, and Mary MacSwiney, who had given the longest anti-Treaty speech in the debates of December 1921, at two hours and forty minutes.[3]
In a similarly impassioned, yet substantially shorter speech, MacSwiney denounced the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the government. One key characteristic of the meeting ten years previously had been who was not there – with many elected deputies either on the run from the British authorities, or in prison.
MacSwiney argued that many Irish people were still under the bondage that those individuals had faced, but instead of it being British Rule, it was from those who had surrendered during the fighting; people who she argued had been afraid of losing their best financial customer. Her rhetoric, which matched the other speakers, argued for the people’s right to independence and the choice to decide their own future – but described any electoral decisions, barring joining Sinn Féin, as voting for the ‘English Free State’.[4]
She also announced that Sinn Féin would hold a meeting of “Dáil Éireann” in the Rotunda and that this would be the real legacy of the first Dáil Éireann. Those in attendance were implored to join the I.R.A, Cumann na mBan or Fianna Éireann, and badges were sold which said ‘No British possession here’. They were also encouraged to boycott newspapers for a week.[5]
The following day saw the official commemoration in the Rotunda; where MacSwiney announced the party’s plan to send a copy of the constitution from ten years previously to every house in Ireland and stated her belief that ‘Parliament was a failure…democracy was a failure and that no solution had been found for a real Christian government’.[6]
A meeting was then held by those present – ex-TD’s who had voted against the Treaty. The meeting discussed many of the problems in Irish society – in particular farming and emigration – however, while blaming Cumann na nGaedhael and Westminster for this, there were very few suggestions for policy change.[7]
The other commemoration of 1929 – Catholic Emancipation
While the Cumann na nGaedhael government had chosen not to mark the event, this could possibly have been due to the other anniversary being held that year: the 100th anniversary of the Roman Catholic Relief Act, which had allowed Catholics to take their seats in Westminster.
This event was particularly important because, by commemorating it, the Free State government could project itself as a united, free and Catholic country.[8] This was perhaps best summed up by Joseph O’Connor, who had been second in command in Jacob’s Biscuit Factory during Easter Week and had fought on the Anti-Treaty side in Dublin during the Civil War. Discussing 1929, he recalled that
‘I was in the procession from Phoenix Park to Watling Street Bridge and feeling very discontented was passing along the Quays when I glanced up and saw our flag flying proudly over Collins Barracks. The thought suddenly came to me that all our efforts were not in vain’.[9]
In the 1930s and 40s
Eamon de Valera commemorating the 1916 Rising in 1966
Nineteen twenty nine was an exception however; in reality commemorations of the First Dáil were a rarity. Fianna Fáil came to power in 1932, and were far more focused on commemorating Easter Week rather than the Dáil: as Diarmaid Ferriter has noted, during this period their aim was to ‘claim sole right to the 1916 inheritance’.[10]
In this context, controlling the narrative of the Rising was far more of a priority than that of the First Dáil, especially when considering the different groups also claiming this inheritance: such as Old IRA groups, who Maud Gonne called ‘true Republicans’.[11]
Fianna Fáil came to power in 1932, and were far more focused on commemorating Easter Week rather than the Dáil
However, one newspaper to repeatedly reference the anniversary was The Irish Press. The paper had been controlled by de Valera and his family, and seen as vital for the nationalist movement – writing to Ernie O’Malley in 1928, de Valera informed him that ‘without a newspaper it will be impossible to make any real national progress in our generation’.[12]
In the mid-1930s, the paper effectively became a lone voice to note the anniversary of the First Dail; as well as using the date to raise complaints about the split in Irish politics post-civil war and to call for a return to the unity and Republican vision of 1919. This began in 1932 with one journalist writing that ‘a nation invincible in unity was rendered helpless by internal divisions…national unity can only be achieved on the basis of the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence’.[13]
This rhetoric would visibly become stronger and more impassioned; two years later it called for a unity between all nationalist groups as ‘only such a submerging of all minor differences as characterised the essence of Sinn Féin fifteen years ago can bring us back to the position when we were strong enough to declare our self-established freedom to the world’.[14]
The nationalist rhetoric peaked one year later, claiming that the civil war was entirely to blame for the border with Northern Ireland, and calling for all Nationalists to adopt the slogan ‘A United Ireland in our time’.
In this same year (1935), Sinn Féin also chose to hold another commemoration meeting; led by Father Michael O’Flanagan, who opened his speech by arguing to the crowd that being an Irish Republican apparently was worse than either Jewish or Protestant for how you were treated in society.[15] However, what is clear, through the rhetoric and actions of both Sinn Féin and The Irish Press was how, even only a few years on, a trend was already beginning to emerge of using this event as a commemoration to push agendas further away from the actual event being remembered itself.
It would not be until 1936 that Fianna Fáil would choose to actually host a celebration of the First Dáil – the first government sponsored commemoration. This appears to have been done largely as a response to Sinn Féin’s attempt to control the historical narrative of the event. In response to Sinn Féin’s 1935 commemoration, one year later the Free-State Broadcasting Authorities transmitted a radio broadcast from Radio Athlone – originally known as 2RN and aired in the GPO, before being moved to Athlone. Here, participants from the First Dáil, including Robert Barton and Piaras Béásliá, read out declarations made on the day, in both Irish and English.
It was not until 1936 that Fianna Fáil chose to host a celebration of the First Dáil – and then largely as a response to Sinn Féin’s attempt to control the historical narrative of the event.
It was presented by the Republican leaning Noel Hartnett, who read a vivid description of the event which had been written by a witness in 1919. The key speaker was Fianna Fáil’s Sean T O’Kelly.[16] The event also included songs from the revolutionary period played by the Station Orchestra, and culminated with the Station’s Male Quartet singing such marching songs of the Irish Volunteers as ‘Wrap the Green Flag Round Me Boys’, ‘The Three Coloured Ribbon’ and ‘Kelly, the Boy from Killann’.[17]
A furious Sinn Féin argued that this was a political stunt and that ‘no citizen…will be deceived by this latest attempt by the “Free State authorities” as masquerade as the successors of the First Dáil Éireann’.[18] They held their own commemoration in Wynn’s Hotel, Dublin – and while perhaps this was symbolic due to its importance in Irish history (being the location where Cumann na mBan had been formed on 5 April 1914), it was also a sign that they were reaching smaller audiences.
While it is hard to fully gauge the public’s reaction to the commemorative events held by both parties, it should be noted that they were poorly advertised: one correspondent in Belfast actually believed that the large commemoration in Athlone, which had many TD’s travelling up to the county, was for the death of King George V, who had died on 20 January 1936, before being corrected by an irate commentator in the Belfast Newsletter.[19]
However, the main consequence which seemed to intrigue most commentators was Sinn Féin expelling Father O’Flanagan from the party, who had taken part in the government broadcast.[20] O’Flanagan had been the vice President of the party at the time of the First Dáil, and a committed Republican; although he had also been working with the Department of Education in editing county histories.
The 25th anniversary in 1944 was a large occasion, with commemorations nationwide. Fine Gael established a committee for the event, who commissioned ‘Founders of the Dáil’. These were three oil portraits of those they considered to be rightful heirs to such a title – Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins and Kevin O’Higgins. They were painted by Leo Whelan, and had probably been commissioned by the party in response to de Valera’s removal of the cenotaph during the Second World War, which had honoured the three men.
Another radio broadcast was transmitted, where again O’Kelly made a speech, this time speaking of the work done to establish the policies from 1919 and called for the end of partition, saying Ireland needed to
‘bring all Irishmen under a single rule…make it a just, a kindly, a tolerant rule, a rule that shall cherish all the children of the nation equally, generously allowing for their differences of belief, of tradition and of cultures, trusting to time and the influence of a common nationhood, common interests and common institutions, to make us all again, in the fullest sense, one people’. [21]
The majority of the rhetoric was about presenting how much had been done to implement the policies of the First Dáil twenty-five years previously; arguing that their social programming had been in keeping with that presented by the Democratic Programme – a stance that could be argued by many. The broadcast received some attention in the newspapers – although none were as flowery as the writing in the Irish Press, who stated that the programme ‘turned the memories of the middle-aged and aged back through the mists of twenty-five years and reminded them again of magic names that are slipping into the shadows of the past’.[22]
There were also commemorations held by Sinn Féin, who called for greater protests against partition, as well as Ailtiri na hAlséirghe and Glún na Buaidhe.[23] A public meeting held in Cork saw a passionate defence of de Valera, which argued that just because he had taken wrong turns in his life did not mean that everything he had done previously was wrong as well.[24] Most publically, a large commemoration concert was held in Galway on 13 March.
Here, a tableaux was presented by Walter Macken, portraying many of the leading figures in Irish history, from St. Patrick to 1918. Macken also read a history of Ireland remarkable ‘for its concise yet very lucid review of Irish history’.[25] The crowd were treated to Irish dancing, performed by the pupils of dancing champion, J. McMenamin, and a musical selection played by the Army Pipe band.
However, some of the potential magic of the event was lost when it was announced that the three surviving members of the First Dáil from Galway, Brian Cusack, Pádraic Ó Máille and Frank Fahy, would not be in attendance (the fourth man elected for Galway had been Liam Mellows; a strong opponent to the Treaty in 1921, he had been involved in the occupation of the Four Courts in Dublin in 1922, and later executed by the Free State Army). The money raised from the event was sent to the Green Cross – which provided aid to political prisoners in Northern Ireland.[26]
A concern with partition
As the years progressed, the tone of commemoration continued to focus less on the First Dáil, and more towards partition: one Irish Press article on 21 January 1949 was more concerned with the part of the island ‘torn away, wantonly and arbitrarily by an edict of a foreign Parliament’.[27]
There was also incredible potential for the thirtieth anniversary in 1949. After John A. Costello, Taoiseach of the First Inter-Party Government had declared an Irish Republic while on a state visit to Canada in 1948, the Ireland Act needed to be passed in order to officially create the Republic.
While the Bill was being debated in the chambers of Dáil Éireann on 24 November, de Valera declared that, in his view, the Bill should be passed on ‘the day on which a previous Dáil Éireann proclaimed a Republic, the republic that was destroyed’.[28]
This opinion was backed by Con Lehane and Michael Fitzpatrick. However the bill was ultimately introduced on 18 April 1949; the 33rd anniversary of the Easter Rising – continuing the events role as a catch-all date for commemorations. The 40th anniversary of the foundation of the Dáil saw a concert in the Mansion House, organised by Martin Dempsey, and included performances by Frank Ryan, Maire Ni Scolaidhe and Eamonn de Barra; all accompanied by Evelyn Fitzpatrick.
President Éamon de Valera, spoke of how it was ‘easy to declare something, but to make that declaration effective is another matter’[29] before ending by saying that the last step towards completing this was by ending partition. With attendance numbers limited, the public were treated to a radio broadcast on 30 March instead. Entitled The Vision, this was a documentary highlighting the ideas of the First Dáil, and asked questions including ‘what was the vision that the many and varied leaders of the Rising shared?’ and ‘what, to speak in Greek ideas, were their ideas of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful’.[30]
People were also now encouraged to learn more about the meetings held by both the First and Second Dáil’s, with Fianna Fáil having the Government Publications Sale Office released three volumes containing all the debates of both.
The fiftieth anniversary – 1969
In 1968, it became apparent that Fianna Fáil government needed to organise a large commemoration for the 50th anniversary of the First Dáil. They argued that Fine Gael believed that the foundation of the Irish state dated from the establishment of the parliament under the Treaty of December 1921.
For Fianna Fáil, this was problematic; this stance denied the authority of the First and Second Dáil, meaning any military action done by members of the party during the War of Independence and the Civil War would have been done in order to defend a non-existent Government.
In 1969 Fianna Fáil marked the First Dáil and Irish Declaration of independence to head off a possibility that the fiftieth anniversary of the Anglo Irish Treaty could be heralded as the foundation of the Irish state.
It was believed that the party could not let the anniversary pass without ‘establishing the historical position’.[31] It was argued that, if not, Fine Gael would demand a full commemoration in 1971 for the Third Dáil. This meant that Lynch’s government would be left in ‘the unenviable position of having to celebrate the signing of the Treaty, the partitioning of the country, and the start of the Civil War’.[32]
This would become a key aspect of Fianna Fáil’s attitude towards commemoration of this period – the 50th anniversary of the War of Independence: an acute fear of raising controversy and tensions, in particular in regards to the tensions building in Northern Ireland. In this context, the attitude was to commemorate non-contentious historical events; such as the First Dáil.
This would also be seen in 1971, when the government commemorated the signing of the Anglo-Irish Truce which ended the War of Independence, instead of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It was decided unanimously on 2 July 1968, that the party should organise a state commemoration on 21 January 1969, led by Minster for Finance, Charles Haughey.
The formalities would consist of a simple ceremony in the Mansion House, with short speeches to mimic the First Dáil.[33] A commemorative stamp would be created, as well as a plaque, unveiled at the ceremony. Interestingly, Haughey believed that no historians, especially those based in Dublin, should be involved, believing this aspect must be controlled by the state, particularly arguing against involving those who;
‘Fancy themselves as Lytton Strachey a tháinigh go hÉirinn (the Irish tendency to wallow in the academic fashion of the year before last is really painful). But…commemoration is perhaps not the metier of historians, particularly after a long occupation of the country’.[34]
His feelings were shared by other members of the party, perhaps emphasised by previous Taoiseach Sean Lemass’s desire to ‘minimise the twin dangers of raw irredentism and potential revisionism’ possible in 1966.[35] Arguably, this was also as some historians would make the link between the meeting of the First Dáil and the beginning of the War of Independence.
Haughey believed the commemoration to be ‘political rather than cultural or historical’.[36] One key aspect in the committee’s plans was presenting the First Dáil’s history to schools. For Haughey, the main way of progressing this idea was through the teaching of civics, arguing that the subject’s lack of attention was affecting future politicians who could not follow the increasing complexities of Government business.[37]
In January 1969, Marie Comerford’s ‘The First Dáil’ was published. Comerford was a veteran of the Rising who worked on Roger Sweetman’s electoral campaign in 1918, so unsurprisingly the tone was both passionate and nationalistic, arguing that:
‘it is not fair that we who stand by the 1916 graves at commemoration times should sometimes do so without having taken the trouble to understand the message which the Proclamation of the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic was intended to convey to us. That plan was adopted by the first Dáil Éireann: but what happened to it?’[38]
This book would be used by the Department of External Affairs to create their school booklets on the history of the First Dáil. They also used The Irish Republic by Dorothy McArdle and De Valera and the March of a Nation by American historian Mary C. Bromage.
The choice of authors was telling. McArdle had been one of the first people to leave Sinn Féin and join the Fianna Fáil party. At the time of publication, she would say that ‘I am a propagandist, unrepentant and unashamed’.[39] Bromage had lived in Merrion Square from 1936 to 1939, where she and her husband frequently had tea with de Valera and his wife.[40]
Ultimately, the commemoration was a monotonous yet functional affair: The Irish Times described it as ‘historic, but solemnly uninspiring’.[41] President Éamon de Valera spoke of his party’s determination to ‘not fail the people who have gone before us in maintaining this Irish nation as a living nation’.[42]
The ceremony was aired by Radio Telefís Éireann, with a special programme created for school children.
‘Hypocrisy no! Democracy yes!’
It was outside the Mansion House where the atmosphere was electric, with student groups, protest committees and Sinn Féin members organising large scale demonstrations around the city; interlinked by the belief that the ideals of fifty years previously had not been achieved.
Marching towards the Mansion House, student groups chanted ‘Hypocrisy? No. Democracy? Yes’.[43] This was mainly based around the Democratic Programme – the charter of social rights in an Irish Republic which had been issued fifty years earlier alongside the declaration of independence.
Left wing students protested in 1969 that the social ideals of 1919 had not been achieved.
While the government were worried about what history they would present to the public, they could not control who newspapers chose to write about the period. The Irish Press had Donal McCartney, modern history lecturer in UCD, write an article, which stressed the connection between the First Dáil and the beginning of the War of Independence, arguing that two strands of Irish nationalism came together and that the events significance
‘lies in the synthesis of these two traditions, resulting in a new departure in Irish nationalism that was more dramatic than anything similar ever achieved by Parnell. Ireland not had a nationalist parliament and nationalist army and they were linked together’.[44]
The British Army in Belfast in August 1969. The looming conflict in the north led the Irish government to play down link between the First Dail and physical force.
Irish newspapers had various different reaction to the commemoration. Most innovative was The Irish Times who created a special supplement. It’s began by saying that, ‘In 1971 we will have an opportunity to remember the end of the Anglo-Irish War; then, depending on which government is in power, there may be a call for major ceremonies to mark the 50th anniversary of the Treaty’.[45]
The supplement itself was more nuanced than may have been expected, including detailed analysis of the Democratic Programme, assessments of Ireland politically and socially since, and examining the civil rights protests in Northern Ireland.
The fiftieth anniversary of the First Dáil was significant for the Fianna Fáil government for many reasons. Firstly, although not known at the time, ‘it was perhaps the last year in which the Government could participate in national or republican commemorations without the attendant controversy caused by violence in the North’.[46]
There was little mention throughout the event of the War of Independence, and this is arguably why it was desired for historians not to be involved.
With the tensions existing in Northern Ireland at this time, which would explode into the conflict known as the Troubles by the end of the year, the government desired to distance itself from its republican past, meaning that the events at Soloheadbeg were left out of the official commemorations. The commemoration could also be seen as an ‘object lesson for the historically conscious of the vast difference between the revolutionary aspirations of the founders of the state and the political and social achievements of their successors’.[47]
The protests which did occur were based around the supposed promises of the Democratic Programme, and thus highlighted the differences between the realities of what Irish government’s had implemented since independence and the public’s perceptions of the ideals of fifty years previously. Most importantly, the commemoration could be used to avoid commemorating other, arguably more controversial events.
However, the attitude towards commemorating the 50th anniversary also parallels with previous commemorations held by Fianna Fáil of this event – in essence commemoration for the sake of controlling the historical narrative. Of course they were not unique in doing this – the use of commemoration as a political tool was, and indeed is, common around the world.
After the 50th anniversary, commemorations of the First Dáil continued to be rare occurrences. Sinn Féin famously split in 1970 into two wings, one side being known as ‘Official Sinn Féin’, and later the Workers Party. The other section, ‘Provisional Sinn Féin’ became known as Sinn Féin. A further split in Sinn Féin occurred in 1986 over the issue of breaking its absenteeism from Dail Eireann, with a new faction breaking away, known as ‘Republican Sinn Féin’.
In 1994, the Fianna Fáil government forgot altogether about the 7th anniversary of the First Dail
All these incarnations of Sinn Féin would attempt to gain ownership of the First Dáil, in order to establish their own legitimacy, primarily as successive governments again continued to show a lack of desire to mark the event. This included commemorating the 60th and 70th anniversaries, and in 1990, the Republican Sinn Féin would hold a ‘Walk for Democracy’; a ten day march from Mayo to Dublin, ending with marching to the Mansion House on 21 January 1990.
Fianna Fáil’s lack of interest in marking the event would be best seen in 1994, when they simply forgot the 75th anniversary, later organising a hurried ceremony on 27 April 1994. While there was inevitable criticism towards them for this, especially from Sinn Féin, the mood of the population was best summed up by one Limerick Leader correspondent, who wrote that:
‘The high and mighty civil servants who languish in the splendiferous Taj Mahal in Merrion Square apparently overlooked telling the Taoiseach. But to blame them would be foolish. How many of us on the main streets of Ireland were even remotely interested in celebrating this momentous event’.[48]
In 2009, there was a ceremonial sitting for the anniversary, where Brian Cowen continued to commemoration tradition of looking to the future, comparing the economic crisis and the collapse of the Celtic Tiger to Europe lying in ruin after the First World War, saying that ‘Ireland learned early that the world can be a lonely place for small states. This lesson is as valid today in the depths of a global economic crisis, as it was in 1919, in the aftermath of a war of unprecedented devastation’.[49] In recent times, the idea of making this anniversary an ‘Independence Day’ has been mooted by Fianna Fáil’s Keith Swanick in his ‘Declaration of Independence Bill Day’, and has passed through the Senate.
While big events, such as the 1916 Rising, lended themselves to controversial commemorations, the non-contention of commemorating the First Dáil, as well as the political rather than militant aspect of the event itself, made it a perfect event to be used by political parties in the first fifty years after independence in order to stress their own legitimacy.
References
[1] Brian Walker, ‘Public Holidays, Commemoration and Identity in Ireland, North and South’ in Gabriel Doherty & Dermot Keogh (eds.) De Valera’s Ireland (Dublin, 2003), p.154.
[2] Timothy O’Neill, ‘Reframing the Republic: Republican Socio-Economic Thought and the Road to Fianna Fáil, 1923-26’, in Mel Farrell, Jason Knirck and Ciara Meehan (eds.), A Formative Decade: Ireland in the 1920s (Kildare, 2015), p.157.
[6] Irish Examiner, Sinn Féin ‘Dail’. 22 January 1929.
[7] Connaught Telegraph, Founding of Dáil Commemorated by Former Deputies, 26 January 1929.
[8] Miriam Moffitt, ‘“Ireland’s Destiny is in the Making”: The Impact of the Anniversary Celebrations of 1929 and 1932 on the Religious Character of Ireland’, in Mel Farrell, Jason Knirck and Ciara Meehan (eds.), A Formative Decade: Ireland in the 1920s (Kildare, 2015), p.226.
[10] Diarmaid Ferriter, ‘Commemorating the Rising, 1922-1965; “A Figurative Scramble for the Bones of the Patriot Dead”?’ in Mary E. Daly and Margaret O’Callaghan (eds.), 1916 in 1966: Commemorating the Easter Rising (Dublin, 2007), p.202.
[27] Irish Press, The First Dail. 21 January 1949.
[28] Dail Debates: The Republic of Ireland Bill, 1948 – Second Stage. 24 November, 1948. http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/debates%20authoring/debateswebpack.nsf/takes/dail1948112400052?opendocument
[29] National Archives of Ireland (hereafter NAI), Department of the Taoiseach (hereafter TSCH)/97/9/1465, 22 January 1959, Clipping from Irish Press: ‘Seek now to Consolidate gains’.
[30] Donegal Democrat, Vision of Freedom. 27 March 1959.
[31] NAI, TSCH2002/6/638. Undated, 1968. Memorandum for Taoiseach.
IRA Volunteer John Ryan, killed during land agitation , 1918.
Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc looks at the shooting of IRA Volunteer John Ryan who was shot dead by the RIC at a time when the politics of the ‘land question’ and popular protest against Irish involvement in the First World War were entwined as part of the Republican struggle against British rule.
**The following is an extract from the new book “Volunteer John Ryan” which has just been published by The Volunteer John Ryan Centenary Committee.
Food shortages, protest and the political situation in Ireland in 1918
In 1918 whilst the First World War continued to rage, Europe was suffering from a near critical shortage of food and ‘Bread Riots’ broke out in many countries. The export of thousands of tonnes of food from Ireland to support the British war effort raised political tensions and terrifying memories of An tOcras Mór – the Great Famine.
In 1918 whilst the First World War continued to rage, Europe was suffering from a near critical shortage of food and ‘Bread Riots’ broke out in many countries. Ireland was no different.
In late 1917 members of the newly reformed republican political party, Sinn Féin, gathered in Ennis to form the ‘Sinn Féin Food Council’ to prevent the export of cattle, oats, potatoes, butter and other food stuffs from the county to Britain. In December the Sinn Féin Cumann in Ennis began distributing potatoes to the poor. Following on the lead given by the Clare Republicans, early in 1918 Sinn Féin Headquarters in Dublin established the national “People’s Food Committee” to campaign on the issue.
The Committee declared “Food grown by the farmers of Ireland was the property of the Irish nation, and the Irish people have the first claim upon it.” In large cities such as Dublin, Cork and Waterford members of the IRA mounted an anti-export campaign which saw IRA Volunteers commandeer livestock that were being herded to the docks for export. The animals were butchered and the meat was sold to the urban poor at affordable prices.
In the west the prospect of food shortages was made worse by the ‘Ranch System’ under which wealthy landowners who supported British rule and owned huge estates which they used for grazing cattle. This was a process that had intensified in the 1800’s and the tenant farmers who had been forced off their farms by wealthy landlords intent on creating huge cattle ranches and game reserves swelled the ranks of the Republican Movement.
“Food grown by the farmers of Ireland was the property of the Irish nation, and the Irish people have the first claim upon it.” I
When the Fenians launched their rebellion against the British Government in 1867 they issued a proclamation which not only declared Irish Independence, and called for “universal suffrage” and the “complete separation of Church and State” – the 1867 Proclamation also sought to abolish the system of landlordism in Ireland
“Our rights and liberties have been trampled on by an alien aristocracy, who treating us as foes usurped our lands … The real owners of the soil were removed to make room for cattle and driven across the ocean to seek a means of living … our war is against the aristocratic locusts whether English or Irish who have eaten the verdue of our fields – against the aristocratic leeches who drain alike our blood.”
A poster from the days of the ‘land war’.
In the aftermath of the 1916 Rising the Republicans who followed in the tradition of the Fenians began demanding that the estates of wealthy landlords be broken up and the lands redistributed to poor farmers and used for growing food.
Cattle drives became common as large bodies of men often accompanied by Sinn Féin Clubs, local IRA Companies and band’s carrying Republican flags entered landlord’s estates ploughed the land and drove the cattle away with signs on their horns reading “The road for the cattle – the land for the People”.
Thousands of British soldiers were redeployed to Clare, Galway, Roscommon, Sligo and Tipperary as large bodies of men began seizing lands “by order of the Irish Republic”.
In February 1918, the same month that John Ryan was killed, the President of Sinn Féin, Eamonn de Valera, declared during a speech in Roscommon that: “Every Sinn Féin Club should be associated with a Company of Irish Volunteers (IRA) which may be used to prevent conscription to the British army and help divide the land evenly”.
Irish Republican Army’s involvement in ‘cattle drives’.
Clare Republican Hunger Strikers.
revolt against the emerging food crisis the Irish Republican Army were organising and training throughout Ireland and were seeking new opportunities to challenge the British Army and the British administration’s Police force in Ireland – Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). Throughout 1917 the IRA throughout Ireland had been parading in public in open defiance of British rule and IRA officers were soon arrested en-masse and imprisoned.
Republican prisoners in Mountjoy Jail went on hunger strike to demand prisoner of war status.
In September 1916 the Republican leader and 1916 Rising veteran Thomas Ashe died whilst being force fed on hunger strike. Ashe’s death lead to a huge outpouring of sympathy for the Republicans and 30,000 people attended his funeral in Dublin. Realising that they could not risk creating further republican martyrs the British released the remaining prisoners and halted the arrests of others.
The leader of the IRA in County Clare, Michael Brennan, had been on hunger strike in Mountjoy Jail. When he was released following Ashe’s death he immediately returned to Clare and began looking for new ways to confront the British Forces and publicly defy their authority. “There was much agrarian discontent in Clare and we decided to ‘cash in’ on this. Cattle drives became very popular all over the county and IRA Volunteers took part in them as organised units. The Government reacted violently and excitement grew as fights developed between the IRA and the Royal Irish Constabulary.”
The IRA in Clare under Michael Brennan were heavily involved in ‘cattle driving’ to seize land for poor farmers.
Throughout January 1918 there were frequent cattle drives across Clare and many of these were organised by local IRA officers. At Kilfenora the IRA seized three large estates, redistributed thirty acres of land to local farmers and had part of each estate ploughed to grow food for the poor.
At Ennis cattle were driven from the lands of Dr Howard at Drumcliff and Tom Crewe at Loughivilla; both men were accused of being absentee landlords opposed to republicanism. At Broadford a force of RIC baton charged a group of men who were engaged in a cattle drive but they were beaten back with hurleys and sticks.
Michael Brennan’s plan to use IRA organised cattle drives to bring about a new conflict with the British authorities was working and by February the Clare Champion newspaper reported: “There is no longer even pretence of general respect for the authorities. The police are mocked and the magistrates are ridiculed with impunity.”
Michael Brennan
One of the most serious incidents happened at Scariff on 20th February when IRA Volunteers who were on a cattle drive attacked and disarmed members of the RIC. That morning IRA Volunteers armed with sticks and hurleys seized cattle belonging to Dr Samson at Moyone and General Gore at Bodyke.
The captured beasts were driven along the road to Scariff with placards affixed to their horns reading: ‘The land for the People – the road for the bullocks.’ At Scariff bridge the leading section of the IRA received word that three armed RIC men were on duty outside the National Bank about a hundred yards away on the road to Mountshannon.
Thomas McNamara and the leading IRA Volunteers from the Mountshannon Company decided to disarm the police and capture their carbine rifles: “As soon as the bank was reached we rushed the police. One of them tried to make off on his bike and as he did so I grabbed his carbine rifle and pulled it from him, at the same time knocking him to the ground. I gave this gun to Joe Tuohy of Feakle. Other IRA Volunteers disarmed a second policeman but the third man got away with his gun. He managed to get his back to the wall and fired a number of shots, which caused the crowd to scatter.”
The shooting of Volunteer John Ryan
Armed RIC constables in County Limerick.
On Sunday 24th February 1918 the Doora, Clarecastle and Newmarket-on-Fergus Companies of the IRA, with a group of civilian supporters over two hundred strong carried out a cattle drive on an estate at Manus about five miles from Ennis.
The protestors then moved on toward the Blood-Smyth estate at Ballykilty. The mansion house on the Blood-Smyth estate was being used at that time as an RIC Barracks. As the Republicans approached the estate they were confronted by the RIC garrison stationed there who opened fire on those taking part in cattle drive.
John Ryan was shot through the front of his neck and the bullet passed through his vertebrae partially severing his spinal cord. He was rushed to John Liddy’s house at Blackweir for emergency treatment. John Ryan was initially well enough to meet his father and tell him that he had seen an RIC Constable drop to one knee and take careful aim at him just before he was shot.
John Ryan was shot dead while leading a cattle drive on the Blood-Smythe estate near Ennis.
John Ryan’s funeral.
However Ryan’s condition quickly deteriorated and he died in the kitchen of Liddy’s House a short time later.
Born in 1898, John Ryan, was the second eldest of five children born to Thomas Ryan, a farm labourer, and his wife Margaret who lived at Ryan’s Cross, Crossagh, Newmarket-on-Fergus. John worked as a farm labourer and a domestic servant before joining the IRA
Three other men were wounded in the attack. Patrick O’Neill of Newmarket-On-Fergus was shot in the arm and had to be sent to Dublin for treatment. Martin Liddy was badly wounded in both arms the hip and back – he suffered from his injuries for many years afterwards and died prematurely in the 1920’s. Michael Murray (who had been one of the Mountjoy Hunger Strikers) had a lucky escape, he had been standing behind Ryan when he was fatally wounded and the bullet which passed through Ryan’s neck went through Murray’s hat grazing his head. (Murray proudly displayed the hat for decades afterwards in his shop in Newmarket-On-Fergus.)
John Ryan’s body was taken to the County Infirmary in Ennis and placed in the morgue there. For some reason there was a lengthy delay in securing a doctor to pronounce him dead and his date of death was mistakenly recorded as 1st March when the doctor completed the paper work rather than 24th February – the correct date of his death.
Two days after Ryan’s death the British Government declared all of Clare a ‘Special Military Area’
Two days after Ryan’s death the British Government declared all of Clare a ‘Special Military Area’ and introduced draconian measures aimed at supressing all political protest. A curfew was imposed on the people of Ennis and British soldiers patrolled the town’s streets. Fairs, markets and GAA matches were prohibited throughout Clare. Entry and travel through the county was restricted; all vehicles were searched and an RIC permit was needed to travel from one police sub-district to another. Political meetings were banned and all newspapers were subject to censorship including the Clare Champion which the British Army forced to cease publication for a brief period.
When Ryan’s body was eventually released for burial the British Army were determined now that Clare had been declared a “Special Military Area” to exercise their new powers to prevent any republican demonstrations at his funeral. Thousands of people travelled to Newmarket-On-Fergus to attend the funeral. Many of them were stopped and searched at British Army checkpoints and anyone found wearing Sinn Féin badges or carrying republican flags were not allowed to pass through the cordon.
The funeral procession estimated at two miles long brought John Ryan’s remains to his final resting place in Clonlohan Cemetary. A number of IRA Volunteers had managed to get through the British checkpoints and they draped Ryan’s coffin in the Republican tricolor flag and marched in military formation to his graveside. However the large British military presence at the graveyard initially prevented the IRA from burying their fallen comrade with full military honors. After the British soldiers and most of the mourners had departed a small group of IRA Volunteers reassembled and fired a volley of shots over Ryan’s grave.
The aftermath
Plaque marking site of John Ryan’s death
Two dozen republicans were arrested by the RIC and put on trial in Ennis and charged with taking part in illegal land protests and cattle drives. However as soon as the trial began it was disrupted by Michael Brennan, the leader of the IRA’s East Clare Brigade, and his comrades who had packed the public gallery and began shouting “Up the Republic” “To Hell with England” “Up the Cattle Drives” and “The Land for the People”.
The judge ordered the gallery cleared, the protestors refused to go and a melee ensued. In the middle of the disruption Michael Brennan ordered the IRA prisoners in the dock to make a break for freedom and the RIC Constables guarding them were so shocked by the whole proceedings that they made no attempt to stop the escapees.
Fearing unrest and politically division between the landed and the landless supporters of Irish independence the national leadership of Sinn Féin and the IRA issued orders at the time of John Ryan’s shooting that Republicans should not participate in land seizures and cattle drives in-case they were seen by the public to be taking sides in private agrarian disputes and because it was felt that the cattle drives were distracting IRA Volunteers from other activities.
John Ryan’s death he was largely forgotten as many involved in the struggle for Irish Independence were embarrassed by their earlier association with cattle drives and agrarian protest.
In the years after John Ryan’s death he was largely forgotten because many of those involved in the struggle for Irish Independence had been embarrassed by their earlier association with cattle drives and agrarian protest. More importantly, the focus of commemoration had shifted to those who were killed in action fighting against the British Army, RIC Auxiliaries and Black and Tans. John Ryan’s grave in Clonlohan Cemetery was unmarked until the 1930’s when local Republicans erected a celtic cross over his final resting place bearing the inscription:
Erected by the Republicans of Thradaree, in memory of John Ryan of Crossagh, who was shot by the British Police at Castlefergus on the 24th February 1918 while striving to abolish the ranch system, aged 23 years. A croidhe ro-naofa Íosa dean trocaire ar a ánam.
On Sunday 25th February 2018 to mark the 100th anniversary of John Ryan’s death, The Volunteer John Ryan Centenary Committee, a group of local historians and republican activists from across East Clare and Limerick held a commemoration and unveiled a plaque at at Liddy’s house marking the site where he died.
Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc has written several books on the 1916 Rising, War of Independence and Civil War. He has a PhD in History and is a contributor to “The Atlas of The Irish Revolution”
Historian Brian Hanley speaks at the People’s College Dublin about the historic 1918 election in which Sinn Fein won an overall majority in Ireland and went on to declare Irish independence from Britain.
Among the points Brian makes are:
Sinn Fein did not campaign only on the national question, social activism, against food shortages, conscription and to alleviate the effects of the flu epidemic was also important.
The expansion of the franchise under the Representation of the People Act massively benefited Sinn Fein by bringing a whole new cohort of voters who had no allegiance to the old Irish Parliamentary Party.
Labour (except for a group of brave candidates in Belfast) voluntarily stood aside for Sinn Fein, they were not coerced into doing so. De Valera never uttered the famous quote ‘labour must wait’.
The election was full of rioting and other violence but most of it was between the rival nationalists of Sinn Fein and Ancient Order of Hibernians.In the north the IPP and the Hibernians maintained their support to a greater extent than elsewhere.
There was a substantial unionist vote in the south of Ireland including 19,000 votes in Dublin where they topped the poll in the Rathmines district.
John Dorney speaks at the People’s College on the 1918 Conscription Crisis. Listen below.
The British government attempted to extend conscription to Ireland in April 1918. It had already been enacted in Britain January of 1916. However in Ireland it set off mass resistance.
The Conscription crisis confirmed the separatists of Sinn Fein as the leaders of nationalist Ireland, helped to sink the Irish Parliamentary Party and was in many ways the endo f British rule in Ireland.
Sean Hales, a picture taken not long before his assassination.
Cathal Brennan interviews John Dorney on the assassination of Sean Hales and the reprisal executions of Rory O’Connor, Dick Barret, Lam Mellow and Joe McKelvey in December 1922.
December 1922 was dark time in Ireland, with the Irish Civil War raging. On December 7 1922, two anti-Treaty IRA gunmen shot two TDs Sean Hales and Padraig O Maile, killing Hales.
Liam Mellows, Rory O’Connor, Joe McKelvey and Dick Barret, executed December 8 1922.
The following day the government of the Irish Free State decided in reprisal on the most effective, albeit totally illegal, reprisal, the execution of four leading anti-Treatyites, whom they had captured the previous June at the Four Courts.
Here John Dorney and Cathal Brennan discuss this traumatic chapter of Irish history.
How the attempt to impose conscription on Ireland was defeated in 1918. By John Dorney.
In April 1918, the British government of David Lloyd George tried to extend conscription to Ireland. The policy, logical though it may have seemed during a crisis point in the Great War, was a disaster.
Irish self-government, or Home Rule, promised since 1912, had never materialised. The Rising of Easter 1916 and the British reaction to it had sent shockwaves through nationalist Ireland.
The mass mobilisation of the spring of 1918 in the end not only defeated conscription, but paved the way for the end of British rule in most of Ireland.
Now, when asked to contribute hundreds of thousands of unwilling young men to fight and die for the Empire, Ireland, by and large, refused.
The conscription crisis united a mass movement that included not only the separatists of Sinn Fein, but also the moderate Irish Parliamentary Party, the labour movement and the Catholic Church. The mass mobilisation of the spring of 1918 in the end not only defeated conscription, but paved the way for the end of British rule in most of Ireland.
War enthusiasm
It was all a far cry from 1914, when Great Britain first went to war with the German Empire. Then, moderate Irish nationalist opinion was on the whole, supportive of the war. Germany had, after all invaded Belgium, a small Catholic country, and in the first months of the war, treated Belgian civilians quite ruthlessly.
The ‘sack of Louvain’ in particular aroused much indignation in Ireland. Some Irish nationalist, such as the Irish Party’s rising intellectual star Tom Kettle sincerely saw the war as a struggle for European civilisation against ‘barbarism’.[1]
In 1914 , moderate Irish nationalist opinion was on the whole, supportive of the war.
John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party famously called on his supporters to join the British Army, both ‘in defence of right, morality and religion’ and also in the hope that a grateful British government would then grant Home Rule.
‘The interests of Ireland, of the whole of Ireland, are at stake in this war. This war is undertaken in the defence of the highest principles of religion and morality and right, and it would be a disgrace forever to our country, and a reproach to her manhood, and a denial of the lessons of our history, if young Ireland confined her efforts to remaining at home to defend the shores of Ireland from an unlikely invasion… go wherever the firing line extends’.[2]
He envisaged the Irish Divisions as a sort of proto-Irish Army. And initially, the response in Ireland was positive. Over 200,000 young Irishmen served in the war, of whom about 150,000 volunteered during the war itself. [3]
Redmond himself thought that war service could actually heal some of the divisions in Ireland – between nationalist and unionist, Catholic and Protestant and upper and lower class. They ‘will be fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with nationalists in the trenches in France. In God’s name, let us try to grasp from the situation the real unity of Irish people.’[4]
Even though Ireland was embroiled in a political crisis over Home Rule and even though, just months previously, the British Army had fired on a civilian crowd at Bachelor’s Walk in Dublin, killing three, British troops leaving Ireland for the war front general got a warm send off.
The (admittedly unionist) Irish Times reported,
“The scenes in Dublin during the embarkation cannot fail to have been cheering and encouraging to the gallant soldiers…From the early hours of the morning large crowds assembled on the quays to cheer the troops on their way and to wish them God-speed on their adventure. The main thoroughfares through which the troops passed were lined with spectators and on all sides indications were given of popular sympathy and goodwill.”[5]
‘To hell with the British Empire’.
Sean MacDermott,
However, this was never the full story. Pre-war political divisions remained and support for the war effort in Ireland was never universal.
While Catholics and Protestant did indeed serve together in the trenches of France, Flanders, Gallipoli and elsewhere, Protestants were over represented. Moreover there was a strong concentration of recruits from the urban working class, from which the British Army had always recruited, whereas farmer’s sons were notable by their absence.
Predictably, one source of virulent opposition came from the separatists of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, who were incensed that Redmond had committed the Irish Volunteers, the militia brought into being to ensure Home Rule, to the British war effort.
‘To hell with England! Let her fight her own battles’. Sean McDermott, 1914.
Leading IRB member Sean McDermott told a crowd in Tipperary in 1914, “The Volunteers were not brought into existence to fight for England. To hell with England! Let her fight her own battles. The Volunteers are only intended to fight for Ireland!”[6]
While the IRB newspaper Irish Freedom asked if Redmond was a, ‘madman or traitor?’ for, ‘conspiring with those whose aim is to remove Ireland from the roll of nations’. It was it concluded that his pro-war policy was, ‘either incredible stupidity or damnable treachery’. For separatists it pledged, “Hatred to the Empire and Remember Bachelor’s Walk!”[7]
But the separatists were not the only source of opposition to the war. Even at this early stage, it is possible to discern dissent from two other crucial sources, the labour movement and the Catholic Church.
The Irish Transport and General Workers Union or ITGWU had been founded in 1911 by James Larkin and had from the start had both a nationalist and socialist bent.
In Sligo in September 1914, Thomas Scanlan an IPP Member of Partliament spoke in favour of Home Rule and of the war effort: ‘Ireland is now and shall for all times be a nation once again…but this same Statute binds Ireland indissolubly to the British Empire. A group of labour activists from the ITGWU heckled him with, ‘To hell with the Empire’ and meeting broke up with what the local paper called, ‘a spirited bout of fisticuffs’.[8]
James Connolly, the leader of the union from 1914 until his execution in 1916 for his part in the Easter Rising, wrote that workers all of over Europe should have called a general strike against the War:
‘I believe that the socialist proletariat of Europe in all the belligerent countries ought to have refused to march against their brothers across the frontiers, and that such refusal would have prevented the war and all its horrors even though it might have led to civil war … ; as workers, they were indeed in control of the forces of production and distribution, and by exercising that control over the transport service could have made the war impossible.. [9]
The idea of a general strike against the war would eventually be prophetic in Ireland.
A third, perhaps surprising, source of anti-war opinion came from the Catholic Church. In November 1915, 700 Irishmen trying to emigrate to the US were blocked at Liverpool on the basis that they should be in the Army. John Redmond said that it was ‘very cowardly of them to emigrate’ rather than enlist. To which Bishop Edmund O’Dwyer, of Limerick retorted in public, ‘Their crime is that they are not ready to fight for England. Why should they? What have they or their forbears ever got from England that they should die for her?’.[10]
Losses and decline in recruitment
British troops in the First World War.
However, as yet these voices were in a minority.What seems to have caused a steep drop in Irish recruitment was the mass casualties Irish units suffered in the first two years of the war.
The 10th Irish Division suffered grievous losses at Gallipoli in 1915, while the 16th and 36th (the latter Ulster) Divisions took terrible casualties in 1915 and especially on the Somme in 1916.
Some 44,000 Irishmen enlisted in 1914 and 45,000 followed in 1915, but this dropped to 19,000 in 1916 and 14,000 in 1917.[11]
Irish recruitment fell off rapidly when Irish units began to take mass casualties in 1915.
In addition, there was a perception in nationalist Ireland that their contribution was not appreciated. Redmond’s idea of Irish Division officered by Irish officers had not come to pass – Irish nationalist were still considered too suspect – whereas the predominantly Ulster unionist 36th Division, generally was led by ‘its own’ officers. It is possible also that economic recruitment had reached its ceiling by this point.
It should not surprise us at all that growing awareness of the lethality of the Great War stymied voluntary recruitment. The same was true in Britain itself, which prompted the Government of Asquith to introduce the Military Service Act in January 1916 bringing in compulsory military service in England, Scotland and Wales.
This was not yet, in 1916, extended to Ireland. For one thing, John Redmond appealed to the government not to, aware that is was unpopular. For another, Augustine Birrell and Matthew Nathan, the senior British officials in Ireland, made it their priority not to provoke nationalists – seeing their role as overseeing a peaceful transition to Home Rule.
It became even more difficult for administration to envisage the orderly implementation of conscription after the Rising of 1916, which gave the youth a very different idea of ‘fighting for Ireland’ also played a role, as did outrage at the British execution of the Rising’s leaders and wholesale arrests of suspects in its aftermath.
Birrel and Nathan lost their jobs as a result, but their successors were equally cautious. Henry Duke, the Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1916-18, wrote, very presciently, to his superiors, that extending conscription to Ireland, especially if Home Rule were not enacted first, would, ‘consolidate into one mass of antagonism all the Nationalist elements in Ireland, politicians, priests, men and women’. [12] Similarly the Inspector General (commander of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) Joseph Byrne, though that in Ireland compulsory military service ‘can be enforced with the greatest difficulty’. [13]
New forces: Sinn Fein and labour
A flag from 1917 featuring Eamon de Valera.
This difficulty would only increase as the war sent on. After the Easter Rising of April 1916, with its overt military challenge to British rule, with the British execution of the Rising’s leaders and mass arrest of suspects, latent opposition to the British war effort began to coalesce into something more solid.
Though the Rising was initially met with incomprehension and quite a lot of hostility among the general Irish public, attitudes began to shift quite quickly after it.
British repression was harsh enough to spark a sense of outrage, but not harsh enough to terrorise the population into compliance. Most of the insurgent prisoners were released by the Christmas of 1916 and the rest, including the surviving leaders, were released the following summer.
By 1917, a combination of discontent with the war, disappointment at the failure to deliver Home Rule and anger at the repression of the Easter Rising was driving the rise of new political forces in Ireland,
The Rising veterans regrouped both in the Volunteers and in the separatist political party Sinn Fein, headed by Rising veteran Eamon de Valera, which suddenly began to win elections – three by-elections in 1917. Sinn Fein explicitly campaigned on the basis that they would not attend the British parliament and that if they secured a majority in Ireland, would unilaterally declare independence.
By the close of 1917, they also had fresh martyrs, the most high profile being Republican leader Thomas Ashe died as a result of force feeding while on hunger strike in Mountjoy Prison in September of that year.[14]
But Sinn Fein was not only rising force in the land. Also rebuilding its strength was the Irish labour movement. Like the republicans, the labour movement had taken some hard knocks. Firstly the Transport Union (ITGWU) had fared disastrously in the great Lockout of 1913, haemorrhaging members and funds.
Then in 1916, though only the Citizen Army, a militia formed to defend strikers in 1913, took part in the Eater insurrection, it too had hit the unions hard. James Connolly the leading ideological light of the movement, had been executed, the ITGWU’s headquarters at Liberty Hall wrecked and many activists, including ITWGU leading figures William O’Brien and PT Daly, were arrested and interned. Richard O’Carroll the general secretary of the bricklayers’ union was also killed in the Rising. [15]
The Irish Trade Union Congress in 1914. James Connolly, standing far left, was executed in 1916, Richard O’Carroll, standing on the right was also killed. James Larkin, seated, centre, left for America in 1914, but others such as William O’Brien, standing beside Connolly, helped to rebuild the movement in 1917-18. (picture courtesy of the Irish Times)
However, the labour movement and in particular the ITGWU also experienced a resurgence in the following two years, growing from a post-Lockout low of some 5,000 members to over 60,000 by 1918. Partly this was the result of the release of activists such as O’Brien. However the rush into the unions was, essentially a defensive reaction to wartime inflation, trying to bring wages up to the level of rising food prices. The subsequent strike-wave, which saw 120 disputes in 1917 and 200 every year from 1918 1920 should be understood in these terms.[16]
Nevertheless, organised labour was now a serious political force. And it too positioned itself against conscription and for an end to the war. The Irish Trade Union Congress in Derry August 1917, resolved for peace without indemnities (i.e. without war reparations for either side), by 64 votes to 24 – the dissenters were mostly northern unionists and unanimously resolved against the proposed partition of Ireland.[17]
By this point the Catholic Church had also turned against the war, with Pope Benedict XV calling the conflict ‘futile’ and calling on Christians to make peace. In Ireland, Bishop O’Dwyer wrote that ‘prolongation of this war for one hour beyond what is necessary is a crime against God and humanity.’[18]
As yet though, the disparate voices against the war in Ireland had not come together.
The German Spring Offensive of 1918
British troops on their way to the front during the Spring offensive. (Picture Courtesy of Wikipedia)
What changed everything, and forced the British government’s hand with regards to conscription in Ireland, was the German spring offensive on the Western Front in 1918.
This was last-gasp attempt to win the war before American reinforcements arrived to bolster the British and the French and to give the Entente powers an overwhelming numerical and material advantage. Initially the Germans made rapid gains, threatening Paris and opening the prospect of splitting the British and French armies.
In Britain itself, plans were made to call up men aged up to 48 years old for military service. It must have seemed logical for David Lloyd George, the new prime minister, to tap the pool of available young men in Ireland. Very much against the advice of the British administration in Ireland itself, at this crisis point of the war for Britain, conscription was extended to Ireland.
The German Spring Offensive of 1918 created a crisis for Britain on the western front and force Lloyd George’s government to extend conscription to Ireland.
On April 16, 1918, the Westminster Parliament extended the Military Service Bill to Ireland. Lloyd George was determined to push the bill through, shrugging off opposition by noting that during the American Civil War Abraham Lincoln had also had to fight impose the draft to preserve the Union. Lloyd George, it was implied would do the same. [19]
In order to impose conscription in Ireland, the reluctant Henry Duke, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, was by-passed, eventually to be replaced in May 1918 by Edward Shortt. In the short term however, Lloyd George appointed a general, Sir John French, commander of the British Expeditionary Force in France in 1914, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, a posting he interpreted as ‘a quasi-military government’ in Ireland to impose conscription.[20]
French thought that there would be ‘disturbances’ but was confident he could overcome them. He planned to use air power, located at ‘advanced bases’ to play about with either bombs or machine guns’ on those who opposed conscription.[21]
It was hoped to gain about 160,000 recruits in Ireland, a wildly optimistic total given that in four years only about 150,000 men had volunteered.
Opposition
A Sinn Fein poster mocks John Redmond’s call to join the British war effort.
The Irish Parliamentary Party, who had always argued that it was by working inside the British system that Irish demands could be fulfilled, were suddenly made to look impotent. For all of its avowed loyalty and support of the war effort, for all of its pleas and back door negotiating, conscription had come to Ireland anyway.
John Redmond had died in early 1918 and leadership of the party was taken over by the markedly less pro-British John Dillon. But even though the IPP withdrew from Westminster in protest at conscription and its leader John Dillon shared platforms with Eamon de Valera, it was Sinn Féin, the party that advocated Irish independence and armed resistance who led the way.
Even some Irish Party members who had followed John Redmond and joined up for the War were turned into separatists by the conscription crisis. Daniel Sheehan, for example, an Irish Party MP and Captain in the British Army, told the House of Commons that everything he had signed up for in 1914 had been a fraud.
The conscription crisis brought separatist rhetoric, of ‘English tyranny’ and military occupation and the obligation of national resistance, into the mainstream
‘You state that you are fighting for justice, freedom and liberty. It was in the belief this country was fighting for those principles that I and others offered our services in the earlier months of the War. I ask what freedom, what justice, or what liberty is the Irish conscript going to get?’
He raged that, contrary to the promises made to Redmond in 1914, there was no Irish legislature, and no Irish units led by Irish officers:
The officers were a horde of English Cockneys… A similar pledge was given in the case of Carson’s army, and it was observed; but it was not observed in the case of the Irish Brigade…. I tell you that you may take our men at the point of a bayonet – you will not get them in any other way, but you will not succeed in killing the spirit of Irish nationality, and at the end you will find you have lit a flame which is not likely to die out in our generation.
He raged also about the repression of the Easter Rising:
You have not trusted Irishmen. You have not dealt fairly with them since this war broke out. You have heaped insults and humiliations upon them… I remember reading with horror what I regarded as a butchery of a Labour leader [James Connolly] in Dublin in Easter Week. Although he was not able to stand up to be shot, although he was wounded, if he had been a soldier serving in any other part of the world he would have received the honour due to a soldier, but he was brutally butchered, maimed and mangled. You are teaching us once again that we cannot trust you, and that if we are to exist as a nation we must fight for our nationality… That is a right which we Irishmen are asserting for our people, and if need should arise, we will be ready to seal it with our blood’.[22]
That such rhetoric could come from a Member of Parliament and serving British Army officer was extraordinary. The conscription crisis had brought separatist rhetoric, of English tyranny and military occupation and the obligation of national resistance – all of which had seemed outlandish to moderate nationalists in 1910 – into the mainstream. The Irish Party was suddenly irrelevant.
A mocking portrayal of the force the British would need to enforce conscription, (Courtesy of the Irish Memory Blog)
The Catholic Bishops issued a statement thundering, ‘the attempt to force conscription upon Ireland against the will of the Irish people and in defiance of the protests of its leaders’ [is] an oppressive and inhuman law which the Irish people have the right to resist by all the means consonant with the law of God.’[23]
But it was the separatists of Sinn Fein who led the anti-conscription campaign. Eamon de Valera, addressing a meeting in Dublin, made the case not only against conscription but against British rule in Ireland: ‘We deny the right of the British government or any other external authority to impose compulsory military service in Ireland against the expressed will of the Irish people… The passing of the Conscription Bill by the British House of Commons must be regarded as a declaration of War on the Irish people.’[24]
It was they who drafted an anti-conscription pledge that they the Irish Party and the Labour Party presented to the public at Dublin’s Mansion House on April 18 1918, which the following Sunday (often at Church gates after Mass) was signed by hundreds of thousands of people.
As well as mass passive resistance the Volunteers planned ‘ruthless warfare’ including the killing of all government officials, should conscription be enforced.
The nationalist militia, the Volunteers, who saw their numbers swell from less than 10,000 to over 100,000, drew up plans for a new insurrection should conscription be introduced. Every police station was to be seized and its arms taken, every road was to be blocked and communications severed. Anyone siding with or representing the government was to be shot. So argued Ernest Blythe in a pamphlet titled Ruthless Warfare.[25]
In Kerry, where he had returned after imprisonment, he told his company of Volunteers ‘about the necessity of fighting with whatever weapons were available if an attempt were made to apply conscription, and said it was better to die fighting for our freedom and for Ireland than to be led out like dogs on a chain to die for England on the Continent.’[26]
Volunteer Laurence Nugent recalled’ Had the British attempted to impose conscription there would have been great slaughter, as every man of military age would have fought with every means at his disposal and the women would have made a good showing in the fight’.[27]
Cumann na mBan, the Republican women’s movement, also called a day of protest, Lá na mBan (‘The Day of Women’) in which they urged women not to take the jobs of men conscripted for the army.
General Strike
British troops police a later general strike in Dublin in 1920.
However it the end it was not petitions, nor the threat of force, that defeated partition. That the Volunteers would have resisted by force we need not doubt, but they were almost without arms after the 1916 Rising. What was decisive was rather a general strike, that brought the country to a standstill on April 23 1918, that defeated partition.
An emergency Trade Union conference was called for April 20, 1918 on conscription at which the delegates voted, much as James Connolly had recommended in 1914, for a general strike. April 23 and £1000 was withdrawn from Congress strike funds.
What finally defeated conscription was the general strike April 23, 1918.
The cause seems to have been popularly taken up. In the case, for example, of the Bricklayers’ union or AGIBSTU [28] the members of the union resolved unanimously to comply with its call to abstain from work on 23 April and to institute a special levy for ‘defence purposes.’ On Tuesday 23 April all members of the bricklayers’ union duly ceased work in Dublin, and all around the country. Three hundred members attended the union headquarters at Cuffe Street to sign the anti-conscription pledge. The one man who did go to work that day was ‘fined severely’.[29]
While the Bricklayers were a small craft union, large unions were involved; the: the largest, the ITGWU, had 40,000 members, the Railway union 20,000 more. Almost everywhere, the country lurched to a halt; transport, even the munitions factories set up for the war, ceased work for the day. As it happened, such was the popular support for the strike that many employers paid workers for the day and the strike funds pooled were not needed.[30]
Laurence Nugent recalled: ‘On April 23rd labour declared a one day strike as a protest against conscription and business of all descriptions was completely suspended. The Post Offices and schools were closed.[31]
In Dublin, there was no march or demonstration because the strike fell almost on the second anniversary to the day of the outbreak of the Easter Rising and all meetings had been banned, but major demonstrations took place in Limerick, Sligo and Cork on the day of the general strike.
The one exception was Belfast, where many workers were unionists and many trade unionists refused to participate.[32] In the event though Thomas Johnson did address an anti-conscription meeting of 3,000 at City Hall in Belfast against conscription, in which he told his listeners;
‘The Irish Labour Movement now stands as the bulwark of free democracy in Western Europe. We are resolved to fight for the freedom of the working classes of Ireland and we are also fighting for the freedom of the working classes of England.’[33]
Even the British Labour Party voiced its opposition to the imposition of conscription on Ireland. [34]
The British back down: The Hay Plan and the German Plot
The general strike was a one day protest but it demonstrate the inability of the British government to impose conscription. With the prospect of no transport running or essential services operating, not to mention determined resistance from the populace, a huge number of troops would have to be withdrawn from the fronts to secure an unspecified number of recruits of dubious loyalty to the British cause.
In the aftermath of the general strike the British government quietly back down and conscription was never imposed on Ireland.
In the end the government quietly went along with Henry Dukes pessimistic view that, ‘We might almost as well as well recruit Germans’ as attempt to impose conscription in Ireland and plans to enforce it were shelved’[35]
There was brief and somewhat eccentric plan, thought up by a British officer named Stuart Hay, and taken up briefly by the new Chief Secretary Edward Shortt, to induce Irishmen to recruit instead for the French army, or at least labour battalions in French service, with the blessing of the Catholic Church. Although some churchmen such as Cardinal Logue, a long-time opponent of Irish republicans, showed some interest, nothing of substance came of it.[36]
By the summer of 1918 in any case the dire crisis of the British and French on the western front had eased. The German spring offensive had stalled and American troops had begun arriving at the front in large numbers. The urgent need for more recruitment in Ireland was over.
However the confrontation between the British state in Ireland and the separatists was only beginning. In the aftermath of the conscription crisis public fairs and sporting events were temporarily banned to prevent seditious public meetings, Sinn Fein, Gaelic League and Cumann na mBan meetings were declared illegal and 13 counties were ‘proclaimed’ or put under a kind of military rule.[37]
In May 1918, alleging a ‘German plot’ between the ‘Sinn Feiners’ and their enemies in Europe, the British issued arrest warrants for hundreds of leading separatists. While there had been contacts between the Germans and Irish republicans since Easter 1916, the charge was essentially an excuse to round up militant leaders after the mass protests against conscription.
Edward Shortt, the new Chief Secretary, all but admitted as much, “we do not pretend that each individual has been in personal active communication with German agents, but we know that someone has.” Some 70 suspects, including Eamon de Valera, were arrested and imprisoned.[38]
Aftermath
The conscription crisis of 1918 was a crucial turning point in twentieth century Irish history – as important, as the Rising of Easter 1916, if not more so. It was the anti-conscription campaign that made the Volunteers (as of 1919, the IRA) and Sinn Fein into mass movements. It also showed the political power of the labour movement and how it could be mobilised to nationalist ends. And in showed them that the Catholic Church, traditionally an enemy of Irish Republicanism, might not be an ally, or at least a tacit supporter.
The conscription crisis made the British look cruel but weak in Ireland, a highly dangerous position for any government.
Moreover, it left British legitimacy in Ireland in ruins. It had brought to a head the discontent over the postponement of Home Rule since 1912 – by the end of the war it still seemed no closer – and stretched to breaking point any feelings of loyalty the majority in Ireland had to the British Empire. It had totally undermined John Redmond’s vision of a loyal, contented, self-governing Ireland within the United Kingdom.
The British were now perceived by separatists and their supporters as cruel and arbitrary, but, more importantly, beatable. Put enough pressure on them, the conscription crisis showed, and they would bend.
It should not be imagined that the conscription crisis turned everyone in Ireland against the war. Thousands, both north and south still supported their relatives in British uniform by the time of the Armistice in November 1918.
But there is no doubt at all that the conscription crisis also laid the way open for the victory of Sinn Fein in the general election of December 1918 and ultimately to the declaration of Irish independence.
[15] O’Carroll was a Volunteer rather than a Citizen Army member, he was arrested and summarily executed by Captain Bowen Colthurst at Portobello Barracks. For the tollof the Rising on the labour movement, see, Padraig Yeates, A City in Wartime, Dublin 1914-1918 p.125
[19] Townshend, The Republic, p.11, In 1863 Lincoln imposed the draft on the Unioni States during the American Civil War, a policy that sparked off bitter rioting in New York and others places, especially, as it happens, among Irish immigrants.
[32] Some notably Conor Kostick, in Revolution in Ireland p.39, blamed the ‘pan Catholic’ character of the anti-conscription campaign for the reluctance of Ptotestant Belfast workers to join it and William O’Brien in particular for launching ‘no real campaign’ against conscription in the northern city.
[33] Greaves the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, p.200-202
[34] Ibid. Though as Padraig Yeates has noted, many rank and file British trade unionists could not understand why they should be drafted and the Irish should ‘shirk’. See History Ireland, April 2018.
‘Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, I would say, was the ablest of the women we have had in public life in Ireland of the last 30 or 40 years. Among them she stood apart…she had a place of her own even among those of her political class and calibre in America and Great Britain.’
On the occasion of Hanna’s death in 1946, Cathal O’Shannon, writing in the Irish Times, highlighted her importance among twentieth century Irish women. Desmond Ryan, writing in the Bakery Trades Journal described her as a woman ‘whose like we will not see soon again’.
The Irish Press however noted that to people who did not know her personally she was ‘but a name in the newspapers’. For the current generation who might know the name but not much more, this book is an indispensable fleshing out of the extraordinary woman Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and her immense contribution to Irish society and international feminism.
This book is an indispensable fleshing out of the extraordinary woman Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and her immense contribution to Irish society and international feminism.
Hanna is often recalled as the widow of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, the pacifist who was murdered by the British Army during the Easter Rising. However, as this book makes clear, Hanna is a fascinating figure in her own right.
Although Hanna herself noted that she was ‘more interested in doing things than writing about them’ she left a remarkable legacy of written material. Dr Margaret Ward, the renowned historian of Irish female nationalism, has assembled in one volume a collection of Hanna’s memoirs and political writings, published and unpublished, relating to Hanna over the course of her life (1877-1946). It is arranged thematically in chapters with each including a detailed introduction by Ward, outlining the context of the subsequent documents.
Hanna came from a family of activists at the centre of Irish public life in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Her father David Sheehy was an Irish Parliamentary Party MP while her uncle Father Eugene Sheehy was actively involved with the Land League, and was a founding member of the GAA.
Hanna’s sister Mary married Tom Kettle and although often referred to dismissively in history books as Mrs Tom Kettle and purely as his widow, she was active in public life herself. She became the first woman ‘chairman’ of Dublin city council in 1928 and later served as chair of the Joint Committee of Women’s Societies and Social Workers. Another sister, Kathleen, married the journalist Frank Cruise O’Brien. Their son Conor became a well-known politician and writer.
In her draft of a memoir, Hanna recalled her childhood in a ‘political household’ where they played at Evictions and Emergency Men, and visiting her uncle Eugene in Kilmainham Gaol in the 1880s when he was imprisoned along with Parnell and a few hundred others. As children, they learned the work of ‘Thomas Davis, Mangan, the Poets of the Nation, Moore’s Melodies, Emmet’s speech from the dock, we read Mitchell’s Jail Journal…’
Hanna recalled her childhood in a ‘political household’ where they played at Evictions and Emergency Men, and visiting her uncle Eugene in Kilmainham Gaol in the 1880s when he was imprisoned along with Parnell
Her feminist aspirations also became evident from early on. Hanna was educated at the Dominican Convent on Eccles street in Dublin and at St Mary University’s College for Women, established by the Dominicans in 1893. She received her BA from the Royal University of Ireland in 1899 and later a Master of Arts.
She then became a teacher in Rathmines. When she and her husband Francis got married in 1903, they wore their graduation gowns instead of the traditional wedding gown and suit, indicating the importance they both placed on their education. They were a modern couple, each taking their spouses’ surname to create the joint surname of Sheehy-Skeffington. There is no photograph of their wedding day in this book but there are many more evocative images of Hanna over the course of her life.
Francis was a strong supporter of women’s suffrage and he was one of the editors of the Irish Citizen, the suffrage newspaper, until his untimely death. The book includes copies of articles written by Hanna to the Irish Citizen, mostly on suffrage and nationalist matters but also on diverse topics such as women’s employment during the First World War.
It collects together articles Hanna wrote for many other newspapers and journals over the course of her career. It includes for example, her letter to the Irish Independent in May 1914, criticising the establishment of the Irishwomen’s Council (later known as Cumann na mBan), describing it as ‘an animated collecting box’. The thematic structure allows one to trace the evolution of her opinions on political issues over time.
The section on Easter week and the death of Francis is particularly moving. It comprises a copy of a lecture delivered by Hanna in the USA and published at the time in pamphlet form as British militarism as I have known it. Ward includes with the original text copies of the forwards that Hanna wrote for both the 1936 and 1946 editions.
Reflecting on the murder of Francis in 1946, she concluded that it was the British military and government’s attempted cover up of the murder which ‘damns beyond redemption the whole apparatus of British imperialism’.
Hanna said of her husband Francis’s murder in1916 that the British military and government’s attempted cover up of the murder ‘damns beyond redemption the whole apparatus of British imperialism’.
She describes in cool dispassionate detail the execution of Francis and of hearing the news of his death: ‘he told me he had seen my husband’s dead body with several others in the mortuary’. The trauma is more evident when she describes the confiscation of her letters from her husband during the raid on her house later in Easter week: ‘most of my most cherished possessions have never been returned’.
Another noteworthy source for scholars of the Irish revolution is Hanna’s account of her tour of the USA in 1917 and 1918, first published in 1919. Hanna spoke at more than 250 meetings in the USA, mobilising support for the Irish republican cause. Hanna’s granddaughter Micheline Sheehy-Skeffington, an academic and activist, recreated parts of this tour in 2017.
While the book as a whole will be of interest to many, individual chapters have much to offer. For example, the section on the War of Independence and the response to the Treaty provides another perspective on those years of political turmoil, highlighting the atrocities committed by the Black and Tans against women and children, and bringing attention to the role of women voters in the 1922 election.
Many of us are more familiar with Hanna’s role in the suffrage movement and as the tragic widow of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington. Her life after the founding of the Free State is less well-known but no less interesting.
Her articles outlining her opposition to the conservative policies of the Irish Free State, together with documents relating to the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Congress, held in Ireland in 1926, are instructive reminders of ongoing female activism during the early decades of the Free State.
Sheehy Skeffington helped to organise the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Congress, held in Ireland in 1926
Writing in the Irish World in August 1926 Hanna described how the Congress threw a ‘flood of light and truth upon conditions in Ireland, such as no counter-camouflage on the part of the Free State could obscure or avert. At last informed and representative women from the world outside were able to penetrate our gloom’. How often does this international feminist congress feature in accounts of 1920s Ireland?
The chapter on feminist reflections and fightback in the 1930s further demonstrates Hanna’s continuing activism and her opposition to the Catholic Church influenced policies of the Free State government. She was involved in protesting the 1937 constitution with the Women’s Graduate Union.
Hanna was not an insular thinker however; her concern with the rise of fascism and militarism internationally is very evident in this section. She visited women’s congresses across Europe and in the USA, seeking to form internationalist connections and to find what Ireland could learn from their women’s movements.
Later chapters in the book include Hanna’s account of her memories of Constance Markievicz after Markievicz’s death in 1927, and her reflections on other feminist colleagues such as Jennie Wyse Power and Sarah Harrison following their deaths in the 1940s. There are also somewhat eclectic chapters such as Hanna’s correspondence with Sean O’Casey over the play The Plough and the Stars, her account of travels in Europe in the 1920s, book and theatre reviews and inclusion of obituaries of Hanna published in various newspapers in 1946.
Overall this is an exceptionally valuable book, beautifully produced by UCD Press.
Occasionally the thematic organisation can be jarring. The chapter on prison experiences includes accounts of her imprisonment in 1912 and 1913 for militant suffrage activity, and in 1918 for opposing the British government’s refusal to let her re-enter Ireland; but also, articles regarding her imprisonment in Armagh Jail in 1933.
On that occasion, she was imprisoned for defying a barring order against speaking in support of republican women prisoners in Northern Ireland. Given that this chapter follows one on her feminist activism in the 1930s, the return to the suffrage campaign of 1912 seems somewhat out of place. It also would have been helpful to have had a list of the documents used in each chapter included at the start. As always footnotes are preferable to endnotes, particularly for a book of this length, but few publishers seem to agree.
These are small quibbles however and overall this is an exceptionally valuable book, beautifully produced by UCD Press, which will become a standard text to own for those interested in the role of women in society, the history of feminist activism, and the history of the Irish revolution and the Free State. The very extensive array of primary documents will be very helpful for use in teaching and will hopefully inspire future research projects.
A good ‘survey’ text is a vital possession for any serious historian who wishes to specialise in a particular region and/or subject in a specific period.
Historians have long lacked a detailed overview the political history of the Irish Free State (which lasted roughly from 1922-37). David Fitzpatrick’s The two Irelands, 1912-39 does explore this period, but only as part of a broader study, which encompasses the Irish Revolution and the experience of Northern Ireland. [1.]
John Regan’s The Irish Counter Revolution, whilst an accomplished, scholarly account of Free State politics sets out to explore the dynamics of ‘Treatyite’ politics: through Cumman na nGaedheal, the Blueshirts and Fine Gael. [2.] Until now, we have not been blessed with a solid overview which comprehensively explores the political parties, politicians and ideologies of the Free State.
Mel Farrell suggests in this study that the success of Irish democracy constituted a ‘joint enterprise involving constitutional figures, on both sides of the Civil War divide
Mel Farrell, however, provides us with such an overview. Rather than framing Free State party politics as irrevocably divided between ‘Treatyites’ and ‘non-Treatyites’, Farrell instead suggests that the success of Irish democracy constituted a ‘joint enterprise involving constitutional figures, on both sides of the Civil War divide.’ [3.]
The narrative proceeds logically and each chapter discusses a key flashpoint in the consolidation of the Irish democracy: the events leading up to and following the signing of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, Cumann na nGaedheal’s early achievements in government between 1923-6, the 1927 elections, the last years of Cumann na nGaedheal in government between 1927-32 and the impact of the Great Depression, the 1932 election, and the challenges to democracy in the 1930s.
The book opens with an extensive and useful summary of the historiography of the Irish Free State. This first chapter should be compulsory introductory reading for any students keen to deepen their understanding of the politics of Interwar Ireland.
Farrell criticises undue focus on individual political parties and the persistent of a cliched and flawed notion of ‘Civil War politics’.
Here Farrell clearly highlights the limitations of historians’ work on this period: namely undue focus on individual political parties at the expense of a bigger picture which is conscious of connections between parties and individuals. He also critiques the persistence of the clichéd (and rather flawed) notion of Civil War politics, in particular, critiquing Tom Garvin’s work on the Treaty for overemphasising the democratic credentials of the Treatyites and denigrating the republicans for alleged anti-democratic tendencies. [4].
Allegiance to different political parties was fluid, and interestingly, several figures switched from supporting Cumann na nGaedheal to Fianna Fáil.
Farrell argues, that developments over the course of 1922-37, rather than 1922-3 alone, shaped the character of modern Irish politics. Farrell also seeks to offer a fully contextualised account of this transformative period, looking ‘beyond domestic issues such as the Treaty, and frustrated nationalism,’ and exploring the impact of wider macro-economic issues, namely the Great Depression. [5.]
The second chapter offers a whistle-stop tour of the events of the Irish Revolution, starting in the 1890s, and working right up to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and its aftermath. The discussion of the Treaty debates is nuanced and complex, with one of the key points being that the Treaty split ‘cut across the distinctions between purists and pragmatists, or politicians and soldiers.’ [6.]
Farrell argues that since no single, coherent ideology lay behind the Treaty, it could not easily form the basis for subsequent coherent ideological divisions
Farrell argues that since no single, coherent ideology lay behind the Treaty, it could not easily form the basis for subsequent coherent ideological divisions in the period 1923-37.
WT Cosgrave leads the funeral procession for Kevin O’Higgins, the government minister assassinated in July 1927
The third chapter begins by setting the Civil War firmly in a European context. Here, Farrell skilfully highlights similarities between this disruptive period in Irish history, and contemporary examples in Finland, Russia, Italy, Spain and Germany. Farrell then traces the establishment of the organs of the Free State and Treatyite political institutions.
We hear, for instance how Cumann na Saoirse (the Treatyite offshoot of Cumann na mBan) was actually the first distinctly pro-Treaty political organisation to be formed. The discussion of the constitution of the Free State Constitution is excellent, and here Farrell, notes its points of similarity with other new European Constitutions drafted in the aftermath of the First World War.
Farrell sets the Irish Civil War in the context of other interwar conflicts.
Farrell also offers some illuminating discussion of the political parties that emerged during the period 1922-3, with full discussion of Cumann na nGaedheal, Sinn Fein, the Farmers’ Party and Labour Party. We hear, for instance, how Cumann na nGaedheal, in organisational terms, took inspiration from the British Liberal party.
We then hear about the 1923 election. Farrell’s discussion of elections is particularly detailed, and is a commendable feature of this book. We hear much about the electoral machinery and preparations of both parties- increasingly, we are left with a sense that democracy was not just rhetorical aspiration, but indeed an ongoing commitment in daily life.
Chapter 4 focusses on Cumann na nGaedheal’s aspirations for and achievements in government in the years 1923-6. This discussion encompasses several different themes: such as fiscal policy, foreign policy, law and order, and cultural nationalism. Farrell makes a particularly intriguing point about the social activities it offered party members. It would be interesting to hear more about this.
Farrell devotes the fifth chapter to charting the events of 1927. This signifies a key part of the book’s central argument- that the characteristics of Interwar Irish politics cannot solely be explained by the Civil War, other turning points also matter, in particular, the year which saw the assassination of Kevin O’Higgins, book-ended by two general elections.
In 1927 in which ‘military commanders, authoritarian demagogues and imitators of Mussolini increasingly came to the fore in the politics of Europe, 1927 was the year in which the Dáil finally became fully representative of the Free State electorate.’
Farrell reminds us that in this year ‘as military commanders, authoritarian demagogues and imitators of Mussolini increasingly came to the fore in the politics of Europe, 1927 was the year in which the Dáil finally became fully representative of the Free State electorate,’ as Fianna Fáil chose to enter Dáil Éireann. [7.] Keen to avoid ‘Civil War’ dichotomies, Farrell reminds us of the significance of the Farmers’ Party and the National League in this pivotal election.
Eoin O’Dully inspects some Blueshirts.
The sixth chapter is particularly commendable, as it focuses on the years 1927-32, a period which has been particularly neglected by historians. Here, Farrell articulates many of his monograph’s key arguments.
The five years before 1932 were a crucial turning point in shaping Irish democracy because ‘the party system [that] had characterised Ireland’s politics during the twentieth century had its roots in the September 1927 election result, while the smooth transition of power in 1932 laid the basis for subsequent changes of government.’ [8.]
Farrell notes that, during this period, support for Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil began to solidify into two distinct blocks, though not necessarily along the Treaty split, and ‘defections of figures such as Patrick Belton, James Geoghegan, Dan O’Rourke, Padraic Ó Máille and J.J. Walsh showed that it was becoming less relevant to the political divide between the two parties.’ [9.]
The party system [that] had characterised Ireland’s politics during the twentieth century had its roots in the September 1927 election result, while the smooth transition of power in 1932 laid the basis for subsequent changes of government.
Economics, not ‘Civil War politics’ takes centre stage here. The 1932 election is presented as a contest between two distinct economic philosophies, and Farrell argues, convincingly, that it was Fianna Fáil’s support for tariffs and protectionism that brought Cumann na nGaedheal closer to the ‘Blueshirts’ and National Centre Party, thus laying the groundwork for the formation of Fine Gael.
Fianna Fáil differed from its rivals in that it was ‘less interested in economic efficiency and more concerned with worker pay and conditions.’ [10.] Meanwhile, W. T. Cosgrave was described by John Maynard Keynes as a ‘nineteenth century liberal.’ [11.]
The 1932 election, in which Fianna Fail first came to power, is presented as a contest between two distinct economic philosophies.
This chapter, in focussing on economics, is well-contextualised. Few historians have fully considered the significance of the Great Depression for the Free State, but Farrell explores its impact fully, and moreover, he thinks about the Free State in comparative perspective. Whilst Cumann na nGaedheal’s laissez-fair policies worked well in the context of the 1920s, the international Great Depression made Fianna Fáil’s protectionism all the more respectable.
The following chapter explains what happened after 1932. The key strengths of this work remain consistent: extensive attention is devoted to what Fianna Fáil’s economic policies once in government, and this is fully outlined with reference to the wider circumstances of international trade. Farrell also cogently explains why Fascism (and other forms of dictatorship) were unsuccessful in Ireland.
The Blueshirts, for instance, were rather unusual in that ‘few [other] Fascist movements were concerned about the protection of free speech or the protection of an existing state.’ [12.] After their merger into Fine Gael, the new party retained little of the symbols of continental fascism. Furthermore, whilst Fascists and Nazis in Italy and Germany quickly co-opted traditional conservatives to their movement, in Ireland, the Blueshirts were effectively subsumed to the more constitutional remnants of Cumann na nGaedheal (along with the National Centre Party).
Although Fine Gael departed from Cumann na nGaedheal, in some respects, namely in its embrace of more interventionist economic positions, the remnants of the latter remained committed to liberal, democratic values, and moved decisively against O’Duffy’s drift to authoritarianism. In the same way, and, at the same time, de Valera’s Fianna Fáil distanced itself from its links to the IRA. Irish democracy, therefore, had to be fought for and consolidated in the 1930s.
The final chapter opens with a good, in-depth discussion of the 1937 Irish Constitution and its wider meanings, and then discusses two important questions: ‘What really is the difference between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil?’ and ‘Why was Irish democracy uniquely successful?’ Farrell notes that despite the clichés of Civil War history Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil remain distinct parties up to the present day.
In 2016, both parties refused to form a coalition government following the Irish election. The reasons for the Fine Gael- Fianna Fáil gulf cannot be reduced simply to the Treaty split and the Civil War. Both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were formed several years after the Treaty split. The circumstances of their formation suggest that they cannot be merely reduced to their positions on the Treaty.
Fianna Fáil left Sinn Féin because it needed to do more than simply oppose the Treaty. Sean MacDermot and James Dillon of the National Centre Party saw merger with Cosgrave’s Cumann na nGaedheal as an opportunity to end Civil War bitterness. Moreover, there were serious economic differences between both parties.
One supported ‘commercialism, free trade, financial orthodoxy,’ the other, ‘self-sufficiency, protectionism, social reform.’ [13.] Subsequent similarities between the two parties are not merely reducible to the superficiality of differences. Consensus between political parties has been fairly normal in European politics, not least after the Second World War. Political ideologies and identities are often fluid, and most major European political parties have seen rightward and leftward turns.
Nor can the question of why Irish democracy was successful (perhaps uniquely so), be reduced to the Civil War. Irish democracy was not simply ‘born’ in 1922 (as Tom Garvin perhaps suggests). Rather, like Ireland’s political parties, democracy evolved and was consolidated over time.
This may be seen in the key turning points of the 1922 Free State Constitution, the 1924 Army Crisis, the General Elections of 1927 and 1932, Cosgrave’s and de Valera’s decisive movement against extremists in the mid-1930s and the 1937 Constitution.
Whilst in Europe, anti-democrats were more prominent, anti-democratic tendencies were largely marginal in Irish political culture. Constitutional leaders, on both sides, were able to contain them. The Free State inherited a strong political tradition of democracy, individual rights and liberal values from its predecessors in the O’Connellite movement, the Irish Parliamentary Party and Sinn Féin.
Farrell’s monograph is well-researched, and draws upon an impressive array of archival sources from (among others) the National Archives of Ireland, the National Library of Ireland and University College, Dublin. The monograph also engages pointedly with the wider historiography on this period of Irish history, and a particularly impressive feature of this text is its deep awareness of wider European trends and parallels.
It retains a strongly comparative framework, and this greatly enhances our understanding of the argument. This text originated as Dr. Farrell’s PhD thesis, which was supervised by Prof. Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses, at Maynooth University (who specialises in the history of modern Portugal). This supervision has clearly done this monograph good and Dr. Farrell demonstrates an intimate and detailed acquaintance with broader trends in Interwar Europe, a feature which enhances this research greatly.
The emphasis on wider socio-economic questions also strengthens this work considerably. John Regan’s work on the Irish Counter-Revolution adopts a predominately ‘high-political framework’ and focusses minutely on the key personalities in Cumann na nGaedheal. Rather than focussing solely Leinster House machinations, Farrell shows us ministers who had to combat the effects of the Great Depression, deal with oscillating agricultural prices for farmers and fight elections.
The detail on the elections of the period 1922-37 is commendable. Farrell engages effectively with sources from the Fianna Fáil, and Cumann na nGaedheal/Fine Gael party archives, and we emerge with a sense of how all the political parties (not just the main two) went about engaging with a wider voting public.
We hear, for instance, about how political parties used cutting edge forms of technology for electioneering purposes- such as loudspeakers at public meetings. Admittedly, some of the ground has already been broken here by Ciara Meehan’s work on Cumann na nGaedheal [14.], but, by bringing in other parties, Farrell still makes an important contribution to knowledge.
On the whole, then, this is an entertaining, well-researched and eminently readable piece of scholarship.
Nonetheless, although we hear how politicians sought to engage with a wider public, the wider public remains somewhat absent. The reader does not hear much about the rank-and-file members of political parties in the Free State, their contributions, perceptions and beliefs.
Whilst Farrell does makes some interesting points about the social activities offered to ordinary members of both Cumann na nGaedheal and the Blueshirts, it would be good to hear more about the ordinary citizen’s participation in the democratic culture and processes of the Irish state. What activities and duties might ordinary party members have engaged in?
What factors swayed individual allegiance? What impact did propaganda have on the ordinary voter? However, in Farrell’s defence, it is difficult to see what sources one might have used in this research. Since few now remain alive who would remember this period as adults, oral interviews may not be viable.
In explaining the endurance and strength of Irish democracy, in the final chapter the analysis notes the resilience of a democratic tradition stretching back to the 1820s. This argument has certainly been advanced before [15.] What would be interesting to hear, however, is the extent to which the political culture of the Free State incorporated hangovers and inheritances from previous eras of Irish history. How, for instance, did longer-standing Irish political traditions negotiate with the modernity of the Interwar politics?
On the whole, then, this is an entertaining, well-researched and eminently readable piece of scholarship. It engages incisively with a wider historiography, and therefore has much to interest the scholar.
Since it offers an accessible overview of a pivotal decade and a half in Irish politics, it therefore, also has much to attract the student and general reader of Irish history. With the close of the ‘decade of centenaries’ in 4-5 years, our attention will naturally turn to the politics of the Irish Free State. It may well be the case that this book spearheads a blossoming of interest and scholarship in this most fascinating phase in Ireland’s political development.
___________________________
Footnotes:
[1.] David Fitzpatrick, The two Irelands, 1912-39 (Oxford, 1998).
[2.] John Regan, The Irish counter revolution, 1921-36: Treatyite politics and settlement in independent Ireland (Dublin, 2001).
[3.] Mel Farrell, Party politics in a new democracy: The Irish Free State, 1922-37 (Basingstoke, 2017), p. 13.
[4.] Ibid, pp 9-10; Tom Garvin, 1922: The Birth of Irish Democracy
[5.] Farrell, Party politics in a new democracy, p. 14.
[6.] Ibid, p. 45.
[7.] Ibid, p. 151.
[8.] Ibid, p. 194.
[9.] Ibid, p. 195.
[10.] Ibid, p. 209.
[11.] Ibid, p. 224.
[12.] Ibid, p. 266.
[13.] Ibid, p. 294.
[14.] Ciara Meehan, The Cosgrave party: A History of Cumann na nGaedheal, 1923-33 (Dublin, 2010).
[15.] See, for instance, Bill Kissane, Explaining Irish democracy (Dublin, 2002), p. 16.
From the American-journal Harper’s Weekly The Revival of Ribbonism 1859
Rival forms of popular Irish nationalism in 19th century Ulster. By Kerron Ó Luain
Founded in Dublin and New York on St. Patrick’s Day in 1858, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) left an enduring legacy. Shortly after its establishment its members came to be known as Fenians to both their supporters and detractors, and the ‘bold Fenian men’ are familiar to most readers of Irish history.
During the mid-nineteenth century the Fenians were a secular, Irish republican, conspiratorial movement who vowed to oppose British rule in Ireland by force of arms and who drew inspiration from the republicanism of the United States, France and from their United Irish antecedents of the 1790s.
Yet, what is less widely known is that in Ulster, when Fenians in that province began their organising and recruitment efforts in the 1860s, there already existed a not entirely dissimilar nationalist conspiratorial culture – whose practitioners sometimes double-jobbed as agrarian conspirators or agents of local Catholic defence – known as Ribbonism.
The Fenians were secular and Republican, while the Ribbonmen were Catholic and conspiratorial in character.
The head of the British Army in Ireland, Sir Hugh Rose, distinguished these two movements in the following manner in 1865:
‘Ribbonism is not too strong, separated as it is, to some degree from Fenianism – The one is of pure Irish, a religious growth, the other is of Irish origin, but tinged with Americanism, free thinking or free acting, and not subject to religious discipline and control.’[1]
While Rose over-emphasised the lack of clerical influence on the Fenian rank-and-file, he was correct in his analysis of Ribbonism as having been fervently Catholic in character; a fact borne out by its evolution into the conservative, clericalist Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) organisation later on in the nineteenth century.
At the behest of ‘Wee’ Joe Devlin of the Irish Parliamentary Party, the AOH, at the turn of the twentieth century, represented a formidable opposition to the IRB. But what were the mid-nineteenth century origins of this rivalry? And was the relationship between these two varieties of nationalism defined entirely by perpetual and outright hostility, or were there some surprising overlaps which have up till now had little light shed upon them?
Ribbonism’s origins
The Ribbon societies were Catholic secret associations that emerged during the nineteenth century and were strongest in North Leinster, North Connacht and Ulster. They were hierarchical in nature and centred on a Ribbon lodge whose place of meeting was often the local public house. The use of the term ‘Ribbon’ originated in the habit of Ulster’s faction fighters sporting ribbons to distinguish opposing combatants.
The Ribbon societies were Catholic secret associations that emerged to oppose ‘Orangeism’ during the nineteenth century and were strongest in North Leinster, North Connacht and Ulster.
The Ribbonmen’s primary outlook was anti-Orangeism; by extension they were infused with Catholic nationalist ideology which manifested in processions on religious feast days such as St. Patrick’s Day (17 March) and the Feast of the Assumption, or Lady Day (15 August), as well as in clashes with the Orange Order during the summer marching season. Within the Ribbon mentality the folk memory of dispossession intertwined with a militant, though sometimes ill-defined, Catholic nationalism and vestiges of 1790s Republicanism.[2]
Indeed, Ribbonism emerged from the culture and framework of the Defenderism of the late eighteenth century and as Tom Garvin has asserted ‘the old Defender net appears to have been reconstructed’ in the early nineteenth century when in 1816 delegates met in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, and ‘agreed to set up a revived Defenderism’.[3]
Ribbon passwords found in Carrickonshannon in 1857 harked back to United Irish and Defender times and contained the line ‘they should remember 98’.[4] Above all, however, Ribbonism carried forward a sense of grievance towards Protestant ascendency and English governance and its networks of correspondence and association persevered for the greater part of the nineteenth century.
Between the 1860s and the 1880s Ribbonism – heavily influenced by developments in Irish emigrant communities abroad – evolved into the more open and public Hibernianism. The Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) shared the obsession for marching which the Ribbonmen had and utilised all the signs, symbols, regalia and ideology Ribbonism had displayed for a large part of the nineteenth century.
But the AOH was distinguished from Ribbonism by its attempt to locate itself in middle-class, ‘respectable’ society (while drawing on working-class support) and receive the approval of both government and the Catholic Church – both of which it managed to secure by the early twentieth century, both in Ireland and overseas. In the process of its absorption and evolution into Hibernianism and the Irish Parliamentary Party, Ribbonism cast off much of its conspiratorial baggage and became more forthrightly involved in mainstream party politics and electioneering.
In the two decades following the Great Famine of 1845-50, Ribbonism was mostly composed of small traders (especially publicans) and other lower middle class occupations in the towns, while small to middling farmers and agricultural labourers predominated in rural areas.
By the end of the nineteenth century, the Ribbonmen began to abandon plans for violent insurrection and become absorbed into the Ancient Order of Hibernians – a Catholic adjunct to the Irish Parliamentary Party.
The financial situation of its leaders was often quite comfortable, which led to accusations of self-enrichment from some quarters. Ribbonism was a fraternity of the politically and economically disenfranchised centred on the province of Ulster. The northern province was polarised on sectarian lines and religion often blocked social advancement for Catholics. Consequently, Ribbonism offered a leadership clique of ambitious Catholic men, outside of mainstream Protestant society, the opportunity to gain local standing as they ascended the society’s hierarchy.[5]
Its rank and file also valued the economic and social standing it bestowed upon them. Ribbonmen achieved this by acting as arbiters in trade disputes and by enforcing protectionist policies in local markets.[6]
They also facilitated emigration to Britain during the pre-Famine period for economic reasons, or if the Constabulary needed to be evaded, while unemployment benefit and funeral expenses were provided to members too. The key to receiving these benefits and being a part of the system which conferred them were the quarterly passwords, or as Ribbonmen termed them; ‘the goods’.[7]
The nature of post-Famine Ribbonism
The Great Famine accelerated the shift in Ribbonism away from being an insurrectionary body and towards becoming a benefit network. Ribbonmen had entertained notions of national rebellion up until the early 1840s, but after the leaders who advocated this were transported such plans were shelved.[8]
The Ribbonmen became in part a Catholic benefit society and in part a protection racket, extorting money from non-members.
By the 1850s and 1860s Ribbonism acted primarily as a mutual-aid and associational network, with centres of activity on the Ulster borderlands of South Armagh and around East Donegal especially where strong links were maintained with the industrial hubs of Scotland and Northern England.[9]
Along with this move away from rebellion came a drift towards respectability. Some Ribbonmen, when seized with what government would have alleged were ‘seditious’ documents during this period, bemusedly questioned the constabulary as to what the harm was in having them.[10] Magistrates, moreover, sometimes prevaricated over prosecuting Ribbonmen as the documents sometimes lacked any content that could be deemed seditious.
Elsewhere, common criminality, intimidatory practices and conspiracy prevailed. In Sligo in 1853, Michael ‘Captain’ Conlon, apparently a Ribbon lodge master, attempted to coerce Thomas McGarry into joining the Ribbon society by forcing him into paying a shilling and threatening that he could not leave the house in which they were drinking ‘until you treat me’, to which McGarry refused, whereupon Conlon physically assaulted him.[11]
Such association with the murky criminal underworld, and Ribbonism’s innate secrecy, earned the condemnation of the Catholic Church. Bishop of Down and Connor, Cornelius Denvir, writing to the Vatican in 1855, optimistically claimed he and his clergy had succeeded in persuading many Ribbonmen away from the networks during the early 1850s to the point that they had almost disappeared.[12]
Despite the selfish, secretive and criminal tendencies so despised by the clergy, Ribbon associational activity, crucially, occurred within an Irish nationalist context, and the Ribbon networks were not friendly societies in the same sense as their apolitical British counterparts examined by E. P. Thompson.[13]
Ribbonism and Catholic defence
Riots in Belfast, this one in 1886.
Ribbonmen also continued in their role as defenders of the Catholic population in the face of Orange aggression into the post-Famine years, and so remained active in the communal riots which frequently broke out in Ulster during this period.
The most serious of these riots occurred in Belfast during 1857 and 1864, and there were hints of organised Ribbon activity among the Catholic crowds during both outbreaks.
The riots of 1857 saw the majority Protestant Sandy Row district square off against the majority Catholic Pound district, after tensions arising from the Orange Order’s Twelfth of July parades and inflammatory sermons by Protestant firebrand preacher Revered Thomas Drew. This sparked rioting for nearly a week, in July and again in August after more anti-Catholic preaching by Protestant evangelists such as Orange Order member Hugh Hanna.[14]
During bloody riots in Belfast in the 1850s and 60s, Ribbonmen were rumoured to have organised the defence of Catholic neighbourhoods.
Defence of the Catholic Pound district demonstrated some organization. In the midst of the violence a Catholic Gun Club – accused by the Tory press of having been a Ribbon creation – was formed and one historian, Mark Doyle, has hypothesised that Ribbonmen formed an ‘organisational skeleton’ among Catholic rioters during 1857 due to the co-ordinated nature of the rioting from within the Pound community.[15]
There was further suggestion of Ribbon involvement in the rioting of August 1864, sparked by Protestant objections to a delegation of Belfast Catholics travelling to Dublin to attend the laying of the foundation stone on nationalist and Catholic leader Daniel O’Connell’s statue on the main street of that city. On their return, Sandy Row Protestants burned an effigy of the ‘Liberator’ and deposited its ashes in a coffin. The next day about 2,000 Protestants marched in procession at a mock funeral for O’Connell. Widespread rioting followed which lasted ten days and at least eleven deaths and 300 injuries were recorded as a result of the violence, which spread throughout much of Belfast.[16]
At least one report during the 1864 clashes in the metropolis noted that the Belfast Ribbonmen requested the assistance of their north Connacht brethren. Stipendiary magistrate P. C. Howley wrote from Sligo to inform Under-Secretary Thomas Larcom that he had heard:
from a reliable source that a communication has been made by the Ribbonmen of Belfast to their brethren in this town and county requesting their co-operation and aid in that city at the present juncture, and consequently many persons have left here privately with a view of taking party with their co-religionists.[17]
The Ribbon networks and agrarian crime
The phase of Ribbonism emerging from the shadows occurred primarily in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and Foy has argued that 1872, the year in which the Party Processions Act of 1850 was repealed, marked a turning point as Ribbonmen could march in Ulster without being impeded by the police.[18] But in both the early 1850s around South Armagh and in the late 1850s and into the early 1860s in Donegal, Ribbonism was involved in conspiratorial agrarian violence.
Ribbon members in reality, bore more similarities to a protection network similar to the mafia than an agrarian secret society, like the Whiteboys of a previous generation.
Ribbonism’s links to agrarian violence – especially after the Famine – are often misinterpreted. The two phenomena are not always inherently intertwined as is often believed. Kelly has concluded that Ribbonmen attacked those who transgressed the land code not to redress a wrong felt by the wider peasant community, but instead to mete out retribution where individual Ribbon members had been slighted and thus, in reality, bore more similarities to a protection network similar to the mafia than an agrarian secret society.[19]
Despite this important finding having been made over a decade ago, many historians continue to portray Ribbonism as simply another in a long series of agrarian secret societies in the vein of the Whiteboys, but with some politico-religious vestiges.
The detection of these Ribbon agrarian crimes often occurred due to an increased surveillance by the police during phases where landlord-tenant conflict was most marked. As a result of the agrarian unrest of the early 1850s Ribbon lodges were detected in urban Dundalk in 1849 and in Drogheda, Belfast and Randalstown, Co. Antrim in 1851 and Downpatrick, Co. Down in 1852. In 1853 a number of other lodges were broken up which uncovered a network stretching from Slane, Co. Meath, to Mohill, Co. Leitrim, and back across South Ulster towards Monaghan and Louth.[20]
In the wake of these arrests, a series of Ribbon trials were held in which Hugh Masterson and another man named Gerald Farrell gave testimony. In one such trial in Dundalk it came to light that £70 had been collected to help the killers of a land agent named Robert Lindsay Maulever emigrate during 1851 and that the lodge in question had continued to meet regularly in the town up until August 1853.[21]
In places like Mid-Ulster, where pressure for land was not as intense as in South Ulster, and in urban Belfast where land conflict was obviously not a feature, countering Orangeism was the main Ribbon pre-occupation, outside of its primary function of association and mutual-aid. But on the Ulster borderlands where population density was high, lodges in towns such as Dundalk and villages such as Crossmaglen became involved in the agrarian struggles of the countryside.[22]
Ribbonism abroad
Because of its role in facilitating emigration and supporting migrants as a mutual-aid society Ribbonism became more prominent in industrial England and Scotland as the outflow of people leaving Ireland’s shores increased.
The Ribbonmen had a presences in both England and America.
It was reported by one Head Constable that there were three to four thousand Ribbonmen in Manchester in 1854, [23] far above the 700 estimate provided by Doyle for Belfast Ribbon society members during the same decade.[24]
By the 1850s and 1860s in the US, Ribbonism’s offshoot, the AOH, attended St. Patrick’s Day demonstrations and church consecrations in their thousands, and held annual conventions with delegates from Divisions across the Union.[25]
During 1855 in Sligo town a father and son, surnames Marron, were suspected of being Ribbonmen and of propagating the network in the area. Second Head Constable Lowe believed that Marron’s son, amongst many others, had returned from America to busy themselves in spreading the system in the county.[26] Lowe had picked up on a phenomena of crucial importance to not just Ribbonism, but also Fenianism later.
Reports of returned emigrants suspected of propagating Ribbonism and Fenianism reached the Castle from places like Cavan and Westmeath towards the close of the 1850s. But as early as 1854 Under-Secretary Thomas Larcom had received information, in which the sentiment rather than the detail was more important, that ‘over 20,000 men from all the States are already enrolled and ready at a moment’s notice, to take advantage of the slightest embarrassment of the Government, by means of the approaching European Wars, to sail for the invasion of Ireland’.
Though Ribbonism was not serious about sending a naval expedition of Irish-American soldiers from the US to Ireland in the way the embryonic Fenian Brotherhood was in the mid-1850s, much of the impetus for Ribbon re-organisation between and the 1850s and 1880s – and its consequent transition into Hibernianism – emanated from the US and Britain where large numbers of Irish Catholics had settled and had their nationalist views reinforced by their experience of exile in the wake of the Great Famine.
Carrying forward nationalist sentiment
An image of the ‘battle of Tallaght’, the Fenian rising in 1867.
Although Irish Ribbonism was not as robust as its outgrowths in other corners of the globe, vibrant Ribbon networks persisted in the northern half of Ireland into the late 1850s and onwards through the 1860s.
In some parts of Ulster these provided fertile ground for Fenian ideas, while in other areas of the province Ribbonism’s already existing associational culture and staunchly Catholic ethos provided a formidable obstacle for republican emissaries.
The years 1856 and 1857 were relatively quiet in terms of Ribbon networks and activity being uncovered by the police. The agrarian struggles of the early 1850s had ended, but Phoenix Society and IRB organisation had not yet begun in earnest in Ulster and the constabulary do not appear to have been as focussed on detecting secret societies. Nevertheless, the sources reveal that Ribbon activity continued beneath the surface through these years.
In some parts of Ulster Ribbonism provided fertile ground for Fenian ideas, while in other areas of the province Ribbonism’s staunchly Catholic ethos provided a formidable obstacle for republican emissaries.
On 7 October 1856 the police entered the backroom of a public house in Ballinamore, County Leitrim, where they found seven men. On the floor near the men were the following passwords:
What is your opinion of England and France?
They will have war at first chance
The French are angry, you see it plain
Because of raised rebellion in Spain
The clouds are changeable
So the Church of England
May France and England disagree
And by the aid of America we will be free.
Such sentiments show that England’s difficulty being Ireland’s opportunity was not a concept confined to the Fenian leaders. Similar ideas existed within the lower-class nationalism of Ribbonism. Whether they emanated from there or were adopted is another question and further research on the continuity of such thought between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is certainly warranted.
Towards the end of 1857 more passwords were discovered in Ballinamore. They contained the usual strong nationalist flavour, this time alluding to Daniel O’Connell. Passwords nearly identical to these were found on Patrick Duffy in Belfast in 1858 and later on Thomas Healy in the village of Leitrim in 1859.[27] Thus Belfast and the west of Ireland continued to be linked by Ribbon networks right up to the end of the decade.
In the 1860s when the re-emergence of republicanism in Ulster was driven by the Fenian movement, the ambiguity of Ribbon politics – at once harking back to the United Irishmen of 1798, yet at the same time sectarian – allowed for some organisational and philosophical fluidity between the two strains of nationalism.
1858: enter the republicans?
A Fenian flag captured at Tallaght in 1867.
In Ireland and America during the 1850s various republican organisations began to organise towards the objective of overthrowing British rule in Ireland through the use of physical force.
The US-based Emmet Monument Association funded Joseph Denieffe to carry out efforts to recruit in Ulster from 1856, while Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa established the Phoenix National and Literary Societies in the south-west of Ireland the same year.
These strands were amalgamated into the IRB, or Fenian movement, upon its foundation in 1858 and from then on the Trans-Atlantic relationship in Irish republicanism was crucial in terms of manpower (and womanpower in the form of the Fenian Sisterhood), in the transmission of ideas, and in financing the build-up towards potential rebellion in Ireland.
The Irish Republican or Fenian Brotherhood was founded in 1858 but at first found it difficult to make inroads into Ulster.
The US-based Clan na Gael, for instance, which was particularly active from the 1870s onwards, through the years of the Land War of 1879-82 and into the revolutionary period of 1913-23 played no small part in the history of Ireland.
In Ulster in the mid-nineteenth century, at the close of 1858 an increase in working-class nationalist conspiratorial organisation took place in Derry City and appeared to be influence both by Ribbonism and the emergent Fenian movement. An ex-constabulary man named Michael McGawley became involved in what he believed to be Ribbonism in the city.
By March 1859 McGawley had divulged all he knew of the organisation to Sub-Inspector Thomas Kirk. Neal Gallagher, who propositioned McGawley about joining the Ribbon Society, stated that ‘it would be of benefit to him and protect him in Derry’. This was typical of other accounts of inductions into Ribbonism.
The following week the men met in Hogan’s public house where Gallagher informed McGawley that ‘his name and the Donnells were the names in this county that were destined to free this country’. They then left the public house and in the street opposite McGawley was sworn in and afterwards paid Gallagher a shilling for doing so.
McGawley reported that he had been at other lodge meetings where small urban traders predominated, and that on 2 March 1859 a meeting was to have taken place with what he described as a deputation from Inishowen. McGawley further described some of the details of the society to the Sub-Inspector:
In any conversation had with members of the society they were to use every means that could possibly be resorted to, to upset the Government of Ireland and that the Americans would assist. That Patrick Gallagher and James Joyce instructed the members that they were to provide me arms.
McGawley also recounted the oath to the Sub-Inspector, which contained clauses to ‘never be satisfied with any other but a republican [government] for the Irish nation’ and not to purchase goods from Protestants so long as they could attain such from Catholics.[28]
The above episode at first reading appears to have been a curious admixture of Ribbonism and a nascent Fenian separatism. The oath and objectives mark it as the earliest example of Fenianism in Ulster. However, other traits are typically Ribbon, most glaringly its anti-Protestant character. The sources do not tell us whether this organisation was affiliated with the IRB which had been formed in the south by Fenian leader James Stephens some six month previously, or whether it was an American Fenian import.
The IRB did not make significant gains in the north until the early 1860s. Perhaps the most likely reason for the activity in Derry were that Fenian ideas had reached the city and been adopted by the traditional bearers of lower-class nationalism there, the Ribbonmen.
Seeing as how such ideas were really only the more developed expression of the Ribbon passwords which had cropped up through the mid to late 1850s in various locations this seems a plausible explanation, although McGawley’s credibility as an ex-constabulary member ought to be questioned too.
The Belfast Ribbonmen
Frank Roney.
A Ribbon meeting broken up in Belfast towards the close of 1858 revealed that Ribbonmen who had been affected by arrests during 1851 had regrouped and a vast network of up to twenty lodges existed in the city.
As had been the case in Belfast before, their main purpose was association for economic and social benefit with the secondary purpose of countering Orangeism. But, significantly, the notion of Irish American assistance for rebellion seen in their passwords chimed well with the budding Fenian movement:
We expect a war between England and France
Yes, the Irish brigade is on the advance
Let each man fill his station
The navies are making preparation.
When the constabulary once again moved on the networks through the use of informants, Patrick Cairnes, who had acted as secretary for one of the Belfast lodges, fled to New York where he conversed with the eminent Fenian John O’Mahony. O’Mahony later wrote that:
‘The news he brings is highly encouraging. The Ribbonmen throughout the North are fully determined to join the Phoenixes, as they call them. In Belfast they have 20,000 stand of arms. Their organisation extends through all Ulster and much of Connacht and Meath.’[29]
It is not necessary to accept all of Cairnes’ claims as truthful, merely to note that as a prominent Belfast Ribbonman he was sympathetic to the budding Fenian movement.
More discoveries of Ribbonism were made in 1860 in both Dundalk and Donegal, and in Westmeath and Donegal again in 1861 and 1862. Furthermore, an elaborate network that linked Fermanagh, Armagh and Newcastle upon Tyne was uncovered in 1863 and 1864. Post-Famine Ribbon survivals, then, were to have a significant bearing on the birth of the northern IRB.
Enter the republicans proper
Veteran Fenian Jermiah O’Donovan Rossa.
When Carlow native John Nolan, a key figure in northern Fenianism, entered the headquarters of the IRB in Dublin during 1862 and explained to the leadership of James Stephens and Thomas Clarke Luby that he had been propagating Fenianism in the north for some time, both men registered surprise.
This was indicative of the low priority which had been placed on spreading IRB circles in Ulster by the southern leaders in the early years. Why this was remains a mystery.
But, with the exception of Belfast where the Repeal movement of the 1840s had been strong, the more prosperous and commercialised Dublin, Munster and South Leinster regions had since O’Connell’s time been the traditional hubs of popular nationalism in the country.
Perhaps the Fenian leaders initially sought to focus their efforts in those areas where success would come more readily, rather than in Connacht which exhibited lower levels of politicisation or Ulster where Orangeism, and indeed Ribbonism, may have blocked the way.
Perhaps as a result of this oversight, the only attempt that had been made in Ulster prior to 1862 was on an individual basis by Nolan, unbeknownst to the key Dublin and Munster figures. Formal efforts appear to have been stepped up following the encounter.[30]
Afterwards, Fenianism began to register on the radar of the administration in the north. In 1863 Sir Henry John Brownrigg, Inspector General of the Irish Constabulary, noted in one of the earliest mentions of Fenianism in Ulster by officialdom that:
It must always be borne in mind, that, wherever there is Ribbonism there is an agency which may be turned to ill account at any time of excitement. Accordingly in the County of Down, Ballinahinch District, a society is said to be springing up under the name of the Fenian Brotherhood, composed of the lower class of farmers, their servants, labourers etc., all reputed ribbonmen under the guidance of a national school teacher.[31]
Frank Roney
Frank Roney.
Around the same time, an iron moulder and Fenian Head Centre for Belfast, Frank Roney, who had already built up a force of 1,000 IRB men in Belfast by 1861 after being sworn in by John Nolan, embarked upon organising missions to South Ulster where he found that Ribbonism around Armagh and Monaghan in particular was split into two factions.
The so-called ‘old’ faction was wedded to anti-Protestantism and according to Roney the ‘new’ faction (effectively a British-based Hibernian network), led by a figure named Nolan of Manchester, ‘held that religion was no bar to Irish brotherhood’. For Roney, the IRB ‘was Irish and Nation; the Ribbon society was sectarian and Catholic, and was banded to fight the Orangemen’.
Roney claimed that in Armagh he was successful in weakening and ultimately destroying the old faction of Ribbonism, the county Delegate being the last to be sworn in as a Fenian. In Monaghan, however, a conference between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ factions ended in failure when Roney and some of his Armagh IRB comrades were attacked with a barrage of ginger ale bottles on their way home.
Later on, Roney succeed in overcoming some of the animosity toward the new-fangled republican ideology in Monaghan when he won over prominent local Ribbonman James Blayney Rice to Fenianism sometime in 1862 or 1863. Rice appears to have used his local status and knowledge of pre-existing Ribbon structures to bring a not insignificant portion of Monaghan and Cavan Ribbonmen into the Fenian fold.[32]
Southern recruiters into the fray
Robert Emmet. Fenians used the Protestant republican leader of 1803 to combat Ribbon sectarianism.
It was not until 1864 when southern IRB emissaries made their way north in the hopes of extending recruitment into the northern province. To this end, Fenian leader O’Donovan Rossa made a number of tours of Ulster.
He encountered many of the same problems that Roney had. In the area outside Newry one group of Ribbonmen expressed opposition to the IRB after they learned that there were Protestants within their ranks. When it was explained to them that the United Irishmen Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Robert Emmet were Protestants, the Ribbonmen claimed they had been agents of the English, which provoked a row in the room and Rossa walked out.
In Cavan, Rossa was blocked by a parochial mentality when he came across some members of the Ribbon Society near Cootehill who would not be sworn into the IRB due to their suspicion of him as an outsider, rather than from any ill will towards Protestant Fenians.[33]
Fenian organisers were dismayed at the level of anti-Protestant sentiment among northern Ribbonmen, even towards United Irish heroes of 1798.
In 1865, Edward Duffy, the great organiser of northern and Connacht Fenianism, registered some success in swearing in Ribbonmen. Duffy had contacts within Donegal Ribbonism and on one occasion at a fair in Stranorlar was said to have recruited a considerable number of Ribbonmen into the IRB.[34]
Knowledge of many of these episodes of Ribbon and Fenian rivalry emanate from the personal accounts and memoirs of Fenians written many years after the events. Contemporary government and press sources are lacking in this regard in that after the onset of hysteria over the IRB threat to the British establishment (known as ‘Fenian fever’) in the run up to the rebellion of 1867, many reports began to conflate any sort of conspiratorial or nocturnal group with the IRB.
A few perceptive exceptions existed, such as the report during 1864 by The Enniskillen Mail that ‘several more arrests have recently been made in Fermanagh for what is popularly termed Fenianism, but which is probably no more than the old Ribbonism’.[35]
Ribbonmen or Fenians?
One of the most insightful series of correspondence came from County Cavan between 1866-67 where Ribbonmen at once adopted Fenian symbolism and displayed antipathy towards IRB organisational advance. In November 1866, John B. O’Reilly, a school teacher in Virginia, County Cavan, wrote to the Lord Lieutenant:
‘to offer my services to get up an anti-fenian society in this country, as I am sure I can do it to a very large extent as I am well liked in the country for miles around me, and I can lead the young men as I like’.
O’Reilly continued, ‘my lord, we had a society here called the Ballags but it is going to the bad for the want of some little help’.[36] County Inspector Patton noted that the constabulary had always looked on Reilly as being a ‘Ribbonman’ and ‘indeed his father whom he had quarrelled with . . . on one occasion tarred him with Ribbonism before the constabulary’.[37]
Not long after, on 1 January 1867, the police passed O’Reilly’s home and heard shouting and loud noise inside. ‘We are all true Irishmen, we will all free Ireland’, ‘let us sing that song by [Fenian leader] Charles J. Kickham’. The police entered as the men were about to leave and found O’Reilly, Patrick O’Reilly, John McMahon (son of a publican) and James Reilly (shoemaker).
A book with a large number of nationalist songs which the men had all joined in singing was discovered. Some of the songs included ‘The Shan van Vocht’ (an old 1798 song which foretold the salvation of Ireland by the French), ‘O’Donnell Abou’ (a song written in the mid-nineteenth century about the Nine Years War and in praise of Gaelic Chieftain, Hugh O’Donnell) and ‘Dear old Ireland’ (also a song of the mid-nineteenth century, written by constitutional nationalist T. D. Sullivan).[38]
Whether O’Reilly’s motivation in offering to assist government was financial or a means of protecting his Ribbon territory from IRB encroachment is not clear, but the presence of Fenian song and sentiment in his Ribbon lodge-cum-Fenian circle is significant as an example of the overlapping nature of Ribbon and IRB nationalism at the grassroots level during these early years.
However, away from small rural homesteads, the merger of Ribbonism and Fenianism seemed to have been most successful in the condensed urban environment of Belfast. The northern capital had been the stronghold of Ulster Fenianism from early on.
In March 1864 Terrence McCann and Patrick Lynch were arrested on a charge of Fenianism. As a result James Magee of Co. Down was also arrested and some documents found including ‘a prayer book in which was a piece of paper containing passwords, also the oath and obligation of the Fraternal Society dedicated by St Patrick’.
During the trial which followed the Belfast Newsletter stated that the facts would go to show that the men were connected with both the Fenian Brotherhood and the Ribbon Society.[39] Yet, more convincing evidence detailing the interaction of the two movements in the towns and cities remains elusive.
Better Orangemen than Ribbonmen?
The Fenian John O’Leary asserted that ‘it was easier both in 1848 and in Fenian times to make a rebel of an Orangeman than of a Ribbonman’.[40] In fact, O’Leary had exaggerated slightly. Although the Fenians certainly managed to swear in some Protestants, there is little trace of genuine Orangemen being converted to the republican cause. By contrast, the Fenians had varying levels of success in winning over Ribbon recruits in Ulster. In some places they had foundered due to the suspicion of non-members, staunch ethno-religious loyalty, conservatism and factionalism of Ribbonism.
Despite their differences, the basic nationalist ideology held by many Ribbonmen was enough to propel some towards the the more sophisticated republicanism of hte Fenians.
But elsewhere the basic nationalist ideology already held by many Ribbonmen was enough to propel some of them toward the advanced nationalism and republicanism of the Fenians, or at any rate into the IRB organisation even if they may not have fully embraced Irish republicanism on an ideological basis.
Some of the key figures of the later Easter Rising, Tan War and Civil War period of 1916-23 such as Seán Mac Diarmada, Rory O’Connor, and Liam Lynch received their elementary education in nationalism from Ribbonism’s successor organisation, the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Elsewhere, and especially in Ulster, the AOH and IRB became bitter – and often deadly – rivals. James Connolly, for instance, detested the AOH for sectarianising nationalism as he saw it, and compared the organisation to an ‘ulcer’ on the Irish body politic.
Nevertheless, due to the focus placed on its counter-revolutionary, clericalist and sectarian proclivities, the AOH, and prior to that the culture of Ribbonism from whence it sprang, has been too readily overlooked as a catalyst in moving some of its adherents towards more radical republican positions. To gain a picture of the history of republicanism in Ireland the entire milieu of nationalist culture in which it developed must also be taken into serious consideration.
Hobsbawm, in his Primitive Rebels book which appeared first in the 1960s, delineated a progression between the reactionary and inarticulate peasants and labourers of Southern Europe in the nineteenth century and more modern, progressive political formations.[41]
Though the abovementioned Tom Garvin picked up the slack in the Irish context during the 1980s, there still remains much work to be done to see if Irish republicanism had a equivalent trajectory.
References
[1] Commanding General in Ireland Sir Hugh Rose to Lord Lieutenant John Wodehouse, Curragh, 27 Aug. 1865 (Bodleian Library Oxford, Kimberley Papers, Ms Eng C 40 30, 164-7).
[2] Tom Garvin, ‘Defenders, Ribbonmen and others: underground political networks in pre-Famine Ireland’ in Past & Present, no. 96 (August 1982), pp 133-55.
[3] Tom Garvin, The evolution of Irish nationalist politics (2nd edn., Dublin, 2005), p. 42.
[4] Copy of Passwords found on Andrew Spollen, Carrickonshannon, 18 Feb. 1857 (N.A.I., CSORP 1858, 8812).
[5] Jennifer Kelly, ‘An outward looking community?: Ribbonism and popular mobilisation in Co. Leitrim 1836-1848’ (PhD thesis, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, 2005), passim.
[6] Jennifer Kelly, ‘The Downfall of Hagan’: Sligo Ribbonism in 1842 (Dublin, 2008), pp 14, 25-28, 128-129.
[7] John Belchem, ‘”Freedom and Friendship to Ireland”: Ribbonism in early nineteenth-century Liverpool’ in International Review of Social History, no. 39 (1994), pp 33-56.
[8] Garvin, ‘Defenders, Ribbonmen and others’, p. 149
[9] Kerron Ó Luain, ‘The Ribbon societies of counties Louth and Armagh, 1848-1864’ in Seanchas Ard Mhacha, xxv (2014), pp 140-1.
[10] For instance, in the case of Redmond O’Hanlon, a Ribbon leader apprehended near Crossmaglen in 1864 Sub-Inspector Holmes to Inspector General, Crossmaglen, 20 April 1864 (N.A.I., CSORP 1864, 16011).
[11] RM Knox to Larcom, Tubbercurry, 9 Aug. 1853 (N.A.I., CSORP 1853, 7207).
[12] Bishop Denvir to Propaganda, 19 Nov. 1855, cited in Ambrose Macaulay, Patrick Dorrian: bishop of Down and Connor, 1865-1885 (Dublin, 1987), p. 183.
[13] E. P. Thompson, The making of the English working class (London, 1963), p. 418.
[14] Dictionary of Irish Biography (http://dib.cambridge.org) (20/08/2014).
[15] Mark Doyle, Fighting like the devil for the sake of God: Protestants, Catholics and the origins of Violence in Victorian Belfast (Manchester, 2009), pp 63, 68.
[17] RM Howley to Larcom, Sligo, 17 Aug. 1864 (N.A.I., CSORP 1864, 18255)
[18] Michael Thomas Foy, ‘The Ancient Order of Hibernians: an Irish political-religious pressure group 1884-1975’ (MA thesis, Queen’s University, Belfast, 1976), pp 10-15.
An Irish Army recruitment poster during the Emergency.
A short history of Ireland during the Second World War, by John Dorney.
The Second World War was the defining event of the twentieth century. It saw, as well as the deaths of tens of millions and devastation of two continents, the defeat of Hitler and Nazism, the decline of the once dominant European empires and the rise to superpower status of the United State and the Soviet Union.
In the Irish state, popularly known throughout the war years as ‘Eire’ it was also a crucial event, though more for what did not happen than what did.
Ireland did not join the war, but declared neutrality. Indeed the world war, in Ireland, was not referred to as a war at all, but as ‘The Emergency’.
In staying neutral, despite British and latterly American pleas to join the war, Ireland, under Eamon de Valera, successfully asserted the independence of the new state.
However, Irish neutrality was a fraught affair – a delicate balancing act between neutrality and secretly aiding the Allied powers.
Instead, the Treaty settlement of 1921 left two states in Ireland, one the Irish Free State, in 26 of Ireland’s 32 counties was a self-governing dominion of the British Empire. The other 6 counties, Northern Ireland, was a unionist dominated autonomous region of the United Kingdom.
While the Free State was much more independent than Northern Ireland, it was not completely so. As well as symbolic ties to Britain – an oath of fidelity members of parliament had to take to the British monarch and Governor General who represented the King as head of state in Ireland, the British retained three naval bases around the Irish coast, at Cobh, Bearhaven and Lough Swilly.
The acceptance of this settlement tore the unity of the Irish nationalist movement apart, in a bitter Civil War in 1922-23, won by the pro-Treaty faction.
The Irish state stayed neutral during the War to assert its independence from Britain.
The anti-Treaty Republicans never fully accepted their defeat however. What was left of the guerrilla army that had fought British and the Civil War, the IRA, never accepted the Free State. In 1932, the major political party that emerged from the anti-Treaty movement, Fianna Fail, came to power by election.
Under Eamon de Valera, they set about dismantling the Treaty, abolishing the oath to the British monarchy, the Governor General and the Senate and introducing a new constitution in 1937. They also initiated a tariff war with Britain by refusing to pay back the Land Annuities that Britain had granted to subsidise land reform in Ireland in the early twentieth century.
While this satisfied many of de Valera’s supporters, the IRA continued to oppose anything short of a fully independent Irish Republic. De Valera had legalised the organisation in 1933, but he banned them again in 1936, as they would not give up their arms or illegal methods.
De Valera’s new constitution removed the name Irish Free State and stated that the country’s name was ‘Eire, or in the English language Ireland’. The name ‘Eire’ stuck abroad to distinguish the former Free State from Northern Ireland.
By 1938, however, both de Valera and the British government of Neville Chamberlain, were eager to normalise relations with each other. De Valera agreed to pay a lump sum towards the land annuities and in return, Chamberlain lift the onerous tariffs on Irish agricultural imports.
Most importantly though, the British agreed to return to Ireland the three ‘Treaty ports’ on the Atlantic Coast.
The British analysis was that the ports had not been well-maintained, required investment and would be difficult to defend in wartime should the Irish ever try to take them back. But the British thought were being returned to Ireland on the implicit understanding that British naval forces would be allowed to sue them in the event of a European war.
The Treaty ports and Irish unity
The location of the Treaty Ports. (Co. Wikipedia).
Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, causing Britain and France to declare war on Germany. Ireland immediately declared neutrality.
By the summer of 1940, however the situation had changed dramatically and to the peril of neutral Ireland.
German forces had rolled over most of western Europe, occupying Denmark, Norway the Netherlands, Belgium and most importantly, France. The British Army had only barely escaped annihilation at Dunkirk.
Britain now faced a fight for its life, with the Atlantic Ocean and trade with America as it last lifeline. Now it again desperately needed the use of Atlantic Ports that it had returned to Ireland in 1938, to safeguard the convoys of merchant ships that crossed the Atlantic with food and arms.
Winston Churchill had to be persuaded not to invade Ireland to take Ireland’s Atlantic ports.
At this point Neville Chamberlain was replaced as British Prime Minister by Winston Churchill, who took a far less conciliatory position on Irish neutrality than his predecessor.
Churchill was one of the architects of the Anglo-Irish Treaty back in 1921 and considered that the Irish state only existed as agreed under the Treaty, as a dominion of the British Empire. He therefore considered Irish neutrality as a breach of the Treaty and that Britain would be within its rights to re-occupy the territory of the Irish Free State.[1]
On numerous occasions he to be talked out unilaterally taking back the ‘Treaty Ports’ in Ireland by military action by his cabinet. [2]
Churchill however also attempted to lure de Valera into the war by offering him the prospect of Irish unity in return for an end to the policy of neutrality. In popular consciousness this is often held to have been confined to a late night note Churchill fired off to de Valera in which he wrote ‘now or never, a nation once again’.[3]
In reality however, the British offer of a united Ireland was far more concrete than is widely understood. Irish and British teams negotiated for months and the British under Neville Chamberlian offered de Valera of formal offer of unity on June 28 1940, in return for British troops, planes and ships being allowed to garrison the Treaty Ports.[4]
What decided de Valera against accepting the offer, part from the innate fears of entering the war, was that a prospective united Ireland would have to be approved in the Northern Ireland Parliament. As long as this was dominated by unionists, this meant that no British offer of unity was likely to come to pass. Ireland and her ports stayed out of the war.
Northern unionists were outraged at the prospect of a united Ireland negotiated between London and Dublin.
Neutral?
The Irish Army in 1930s German style helmets. They were re-kitted with British pattern gear during the War.
Because of Ireland’s stance, many in Britain claimed that Ireland was secretly pro-axis and rumours, mostly unfounded, abounded of German u-boats docking on Ireland’s west coast.
Pressure increased on Ireland to join the war after the entry of the United State in 1941. The American consul in Dublin David Gray, was extremely hostile to Irish neutrality and consistently reported, erroneously, that Irish neutrality was pro-Axis.
This meant that Ireland had to aid the Allies in order placate Britain, avoid a possible British invasion and to avoid American hostility. At the start of the war, De Valera secretly agreed with the British to share naval and marine intelligence with them.[5]
Dan Bryan, the head of Irish military intelligence developed particularly close relations with his British counterparts during the war.
The standard practice for neutral countries was to intern any belligerent personnel who landed there. At the start of the war, Ireland followed this practice and detained both Allied and German airmen who crash landed in Ireland.
Despite its neutrality, in practice Ireland aided the Allies in many ways.
However, in 1943, Ireland quietly released all its 33 Allied internees while keeping the Germans incarcerated. About 260 other German military, air force and naval personnel, who had mostly crashed landed in Ireland, were also interned in Ireland during the war. [6]
From this point onwards, when allied aeroplanes crashed in Irish territory, their surviving crews were secretly escorted across the border back into British territory. And where possible, their machines were also repaired and returned. The official justification for this was that all allied planes over Ireland were on training missions.
From 1941 onwards, Ireland also permitted allied planes to fly over Irish air space in an ‘air corridor’ over County Donegal into Northern Ireland. In 1944, in the run up to the Normandy Landings in France, Irish weather stations provided the allies with secret weather reports that helped the invasion of Europe to go ahead. [7]
Northern Ireland, meanwhile, became a major staging post for United State military, with a naval and Marine Corps base in Derry and thousands of American military personal, including five Army divisions, garrisoned there ahead of the invasion of Europe.
The role of the IRA
The aftermath of an IRA bomb in Coventry in August 1939 that killed 5 civilians.
One of the major headaches for those trying to safeguard Irish neutrality was the IRA, which was determined to get German military aid to overthrow both states in Ireland, north and south.
As well as defying Irish law, the IRA’s actions threatened to undermine Ireland’s neutrality in the war and bring about a confrontation with Britain.
IRA Chief of Staff Sean Russell tried to make contact with the Germans as early as 1936 and IRA leader Tom Barry, was brought to Germany as a guest of German intelligence in 1937 and asked about the possibility of the IRA carrying out sabotage against Britain in the event of war.
The IRA sought German aid during the War but was harshly repressed on both sides of the border.
In 1939, starting before war broke out between Britain and Germany, Russell launched a bombing campaign in England, targeting power stations and factories but also cinemas and post offices. The logic of Russell’s campaign was that while Britain was engaged in a world war it might be forced to leave Northern Ireland in order to stop the bombing campaign at home.
Seven English civilians were killed and two IRA members were hanged in Birmingham for their role in a bomb attack in Coventry that killed five people.
In Ireland the IRA was also involve in intermittent anti-state activities. In December 1939 they also stole one million rounds of ammunition from the Irish Army’s depot at the Magazine Fort in the Phoenix Park. They also bombed Garda (police) headquarters at Dublin Castle and shot a number of Garda detectives in various incidents, killing five detectives over the course of the war. [8]
In response, the de Valera government interned over 500 IRA members at the Curragh and jailed another 100 for the duration of the war. The Irish government also executed six IRA members between 1940 and 1944 for shooting Gardai or soldiers.
In Northern Ireland, the IRA also carried out some attacks from 1942 onwards, killing over the course of the war, six RUC men. There too, internment was introduced, 300 IRA men were imprisoned and one IRA man, Tom Williams, was hanged by the Northern government for the killing of an RUC constable in 1942.[9]
German and IRA collaboration
Hermann Goertz, the German agent sent to Ireland to liaise with the IRA.
Essentially the Germans wanted two things from Ireland during the Second World War. The first and most important was that Eire would remain neutral and deny the British use of the Treaty Ports on Ireland’s western coast.
Because of this they discouraged the IRA from attacks south of the border.
Their secondary objective and reason for cooperating with the IRA, was to foment a rebellion by nationalists in Northern Ireland to divert British resources from war fronts elsewhere.
In 1940 the Germans also considered invading the south coast of Ireland, in plan known as Operation Green. This would have been intended as a diversionary attack during an invasion of Britain itself. However this never got beyond the planning stage.
Alternatively if the British invaded Eire in order to take the Atlantic ports, Hitler thought that de Valera might ask for German assistance, in which case Germany would invade in support of Irish forces. In fact, while de Valera rebuffed the offers of military aid from the German ambassador Hempel, he did make a working agreement to invite British troops into Ireland in the event of a German invasion.[10]
The Germans wanted to use the IRA to launch an insurrection in Northern Ireland.
Sean Russell, the IRA leader who had pioneered cooperation with Nazi Germany, died of a burst ulcer aboard a u-boat on his way back to Ireland in August 1940. However this was far from the end of the IRA‘s contacts with German intelligence.
The Germans landed over dozen agents in Ireland during the war, the most important of whom was Herman Goertz, a military intelligence officer, whose job it was to liaise with the IRA.
Stephen Hayes, the IRA Chief of Staff, had a plan drawn up ‘Plan Kathleen’ for a German invasion of Northern Ireland, involving a landing in Derry, which the IRA would have supported through an attack over the border from County Leitrim.
Goertz discussed the plan with Stephen Hayes but was not impressed either with Hayes, the IRA’s capabilities or with the details of the plan.
In fact, the German agent concluded that the IRA was all but useless to German war aims and instead began trying to create a network of informants based on far-right wing sympathisers such as Niall MacNeill, an Irish Army intelligence officer and former Blueshirt leader Eoin O’Duffy. [11]
After 18 months in Ireland, Goertz was arrested in November 1941, more or less ending the overt collaboration of the IRA with Nazi Germany.
Despite the Germans’ on-off dealings with the IRA, the Eamon de Valera and the Irish government generally had a cordial relationship with the German ambassador, Eduard Hempel, who was regarded as dealing more respectfully with neutral Ireland than did the British or American representatives in Dublin.
For this reason de Valera consistently refused Allied demands that the German ambassador be expelled.
Bombing
The aftermath of the North Strand bombing.
One of the main reasons for Irish neutrality, apart from the demonstration of independence from Britain it allowed, was that the country would be defenceless against aerial bombing.
And certainly the southern state was spared the fate of Northern Ireland during the war. Belfast in particular was systematically targeted by German bombers in April and May 1941 due to its possession of shipyards and war industries.
During the ‘Belfast Blitz’ – consisting of three large air raids – over 1,000 people were killed and thousands more injured and made homeless.
Dublin was bombed accidentally but Belfast was systematically bombed and over 1,000 civilians were killed.
Southern fire engines were sent north to aid the Northern authorities in the aftermath of the bombings.
While it did not see concerted bombing of that kind, on a number of occasions, the 26 county Irish state was indeed bombed by the Germans, most notably the North Strand area of Dublin in May 1941, in which 28 people were killed. The Germans later apologised for the bombing and paid compensation
While it has been speculated that such bombings were a veiled threat from the Germans as to what would happen if Ireland abandoned neutrality, historian Michael Kennedy judges that they were in fact the result of German bombers dumping their bombs on return flights from unsuccessful mission in Northern Ireland. [12]
End of the War
Destruction in Belfast after the Blitz there in 1941.
Germany surrendered to the Allies on May 8 1945 after Adolf Hitler’s suicide. Very controversially, Eamon de Valera paid a courtesy visit to the German ambassador Hempel’s residence to offer his condolences on the death of the Nazi leader.
De Valera maintained that he was merely observing the standard diplomatic protocols on the death of a foreign head of state.
Ireland survived the war more or less unscathed. Strict rationing had to be applied and there were severe shortages of items such as coal and petrol during the war years. Still, this was insignificant compared to the devastation that had been wrought in much of the rest of Europe.
However its neutral stance during the war left it somewhat isolated in the immediate postwar years.
For instance, while other western European countries received free American aid under the Marshall Plan in the 1940s, the Americans queried why neutral Ireland either deserved or needed such aid. In the end Ireland got a loan of £36 million. [13]
The sharp contrast between the experience of the war north and south of the border also tended to reinforce the partition of Ireland in the coming decades.
References
Note: References have been selectively applied here and only used for controversial or little known points.
[1] Robert Fisk, In Time of War, Ireland Ulster and the Price of Neutrality 1939-45 (1985), pp. 120-122218-219
[2] Michael Kennedy, Guarding Neutral Ireland, The Coast Watching Service and Military Intelligence 1939-45 (2008) p.75
[3] Claire Willis, This Neutral Island, A history of Ireland During the Second World War, p.386
[4] The proposal is included as an Appendix to Firk’s In Time of War, p564-565.
