Election Insurrection: The Death of the Irish Parliamentary Party and the Ascendancy of Sinn Féin in the General Election of 1918 in Ireland

War and Peace?

While not exactly unwelcome, the Armistice on the 11^th November 1918, that finally put an end to four years of war, complicated an already tense situation in Ireland. “The defeat of the German Army which they believed to be impossible was an embarrassing surprise” for Sinn Féin, wrote Sir Joseph Byrne, the Inspector-General of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) in his monthly report to Dublin Castle. Such feelings could go beyond mere awkwardness. According to Ernest Blythe, then a political prisoner in Dundalk Jail, so convinced were many of his fellow Sinn Féiners of a German win that the news to the contrary plunged them into a state of gloom.[1]

Armistice Day, November 1918 (Source:

All of which was less to do with a desire for a German win and more for a British loss. But what really rubbed Sinn Féin activists like Liam de Róiste and Kevin O’Shiel the wrong way was having to watch some of their fellow countrymen revel in the victory. “Soldiers and their ‘women’ paraded [through] some of our [Cork] city streets last night, jeering, shouting, ‘singing’,” wrote the former in his diary on the 12^th. Still, after a few scuffles and a baton-charge by the RIC, “things passed more quietly than might have been expected, with the flush of victory strong in the blood of the pro-English.” O’Shiel was similarly aggrieved at the sights and sounds of the “rejoicing pro-British crowds” and “Rathmines Jingoes” as they marched through Dublin, waving Union Jacks and singing wartime songs such as It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.[2]

Thomas Kelly

Unlike Cork, things in Dublin did not pass quite so quietly. By coincidence, Sinn Féin was having a big event of its own that evening, at the Mansion House, presided over by Alderman Thomas Kelly. The agenda was originally intended to be the start of the party’s campaign for the forthcoming general election, Kelly told the packed hall, but, given the news of the day, something more was now to be announced: the declaration of Ireland’s independence as a separate and distinct nation.

So full was the venue that some of the attendees had to stand outside in the street, where they passed the time by singing The Soldier’s Song and other rebel tunes in vogue. This caught the notice of travellers on the passing trams, who either waved Union Jacks and Stars-and-Stripes in provocation or shouted ‘Up the Rebels’ and ‘Up de Valera’ in support. After two hours of this, the crowd, numbering in the hundreds, decided to take a more proactive approach and marched in processional order, still singing, away from the Mansion House, over O’Connell Bridge and into Sackville (now O’Connell) Street.

“The crowd through which they passed was thoroughly good-humoured,” reported the Irish Times, “and no collision occurred.” The only flickers of trouble was when a British officer grabbed the tricoloured flag at the head of the procession, leading to a fracas on the corner of Grafton Street and, later, when the marchers attempted to return by Westmoreland Street, only to be blocked by police. Instead of pressing ahead, the Sinn Féiners dispersed. Similarly civilised was when the meeting at the Mansion House drew to a close and those inside departed, “singing and cheering, along the same route, but no untoward incident occurred.”[3]

The Mansion House, Dublin

The Order of the Day

Given the tempers of the time, this ‘live and let live’ attitude could not last long. On the following evening, as the celebrations continued in Dublin, incidents of a more serious nature were reported in different parts of the city centre, as Sinn Féiners clashed with British soldiers, prompting on one such occasion a police charge in Grafton Street (among the injuries of the day was a constable struck on the head with a bottle). But it was the day after that, on the 13^th November, that the city practically became a warzone.[4]

Members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) during the course of their duties (Source: https://www.rte.ie/centuryireland/index.php/articles/the-dublin-metropolitan-police-the-colonial-legacies-of-irish-policing)

“The streets of Dublin were almost in their normal state yesterday,” reported the Irish Times on the 14^th, “but after nightfall crowds assembled in the principal thoroughfares, though not on a scale approaching the dimensions of the gatherings of the two previous nights.”[5]

Smaller, perhaps, but no less volatile. By the end of the night, no less than four places in particular had borne the brunt of the crowd’s wrath:

• The Mansion House, Dawson Street.
• Sinn Féin headquarters, 6 Harcourt Street.
• Liberty Hall, Beresford place, headquarters of the Transport Workers’ Union.
• Emmet Hall, Inchicore, meeting place of the Irish Transport Union.

That each were associated in some way, either with Sinn Féin in particular or, in the case of the last two, the current rise in radicalism, makes it hard to believe that their targeting was by chance or a coincidence. “I was sitting in my study about 7:45 [pm],” Laurence O’Neill, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, told the press later about the assault on the Mansion House:

Looking out, I noticed a __ __ __, numbering two or three hundred, waving sticks and Union Jacks, and making use of language certainly not very polite towards me.

Rough speech was soon to be the least of the Lord Mayor’s concerns:

Some came to the door and made use of hatchets, with the object of forcing it in. They broke the windows with stones and used sticks to break the lamps outside. Things looked very dangerous, when a bluejacket got on the steps and exhorted the crowd to move off.

Laurence O’Neill, Lord Mayor of Dublin

After one final indignity, an attempt to set fire to the door of the Mansion House that mercifully fizzled out, the mob did indeed move off, singing, according to O’Neill, God Save the King as they did so.

Emmet Hall in Inchicore had it the easiest that night, ‘only’ enduring stones thrown at it by soldiers who otherwise did not approach the building, and even then the fusillade lasted for no more than six minutes. Over at Liberty Hall, clerks and union officials huddled inside as a crowd consisting of “noisy young soldiers, accompanied by sailors, members of the WAAC [Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps], and several males and female civilians” smashed the lower windows and the glass panes in the door with sticks and trench tools. When the sounds of several gunshots were heard, seemingly from the roof of the building, the assailants decided they had had their fun and hastily scattered.

As for the Sinn Féin offices on Harcourt Street, they “presented a strange appearance” the following morning, almost every window being broken and an iron railing left lying by the front entrance. But visiting journalists found the party officials, far from being downcast or defeated, in a jubilant mood over how they had heroically held their own:

At about 7:40, practically the same hour as the raid on the Mansion House, a crowd of soldiers and civilians…proceeded to attack the headquarters of the Sinn Fein Organisation. There were about 30 Sinn Feiners inside the premises…The defenders with sticks and bare knuckles beat back the attackers, and although the latter reached the steps of the house, they never succeeded in gaining an entrance.[6]

Harry Boland

“This was primitive warfare at its best,” recalled Simon Donnelly with some gusto. Stones through the window had alerted him and the other Irish Volunteers stationed inside to the onset of the anticipated attack. At a given signal, other Volunteers, waiting on standby outside, rushed into the fray and soon “skull-cracking was the order of the day” on the street. One combatant in particular made an impression on Donnelly: Harry Boland, “a man of fine physique” who “did trogan [sic – Trojan] work, as everytime he hit an enemy went down.” Soon the battle of Harcourt Street was done and won, and “the mob eventually retired, sadder but wiser people.”[7]

Perhaps de Róiste summed it up best. “True, peace is in being,” he wrote in his diary. “But an armistice is only a temporary cessation of hostilities” – at least, where Ireland was concerned.[8]

Intemperate Language

Amidst this turmoil was the General Election to be conducted the following month, in December. The only certainty, it seemed, was that Sinn Féin would win and the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) was on its way out. When reviewing the month of November for Dublin Castle, Sir Joseph Byrne gave the IPP only a single paragraph. It was all the former party of Parnell and Redmond, and the standard-bearer for Irish national aspiration for decades, warranted, it seemed.

MPs from the IPP assembled at the House of Commons, July 1914 (Source: https://www.rte.ie/eile/election-1918/2018/1211/1016473-election-1918-what-you-need-to-know-about-how-ireland-voted/)

“For some time past it has been obvious that the Irish Parliamentary Party had outlived her popularity, even with the R.C. [Roman Catholic] clergy,” the RIC Inspector-General noted:

The chief complaint now urged against them is that they failed to obtain from Government satisfactory guarantees with regards to Home Rule. Their organization has been similarly apathetic with regard to the new register of voters. Thirty-two members of the Party did not seek re-election, allowing twenty-five Sinn Feiners to be elected on nomination day unopposed, and it is not improbable that many more Nationalist seats will be lost.

Sir Joseph Byrne (from the ‘Irish Independent’, 20th December 1919)

Against such a backdrop, it is unsurprising that Sinn Féin would merit far more attention in Byrne’s report. In contrast to the flaccid defeatism of the IPP, “the Sinn Fein party was most active and nominated candidates for 102 of the total 105 constituencies.” Despite this, public meetings for the party remained small and “none of them could be described as enthusiastic,” which the Inspector-General attributed to the mass arrest of its leadership, including its president Éamon de Valera, who were now sitting behind prison bars for their supposed role in the so-called ‘German Plot’ earlier in the year, in May 1918.

Not that the absence of its head had tamed the Sinn Féin body, whose speakers at meetings “made the usual demand for separation from England and complete independence,” but “making allowance for the heated atmosphere of an election contest the language used, though disloyal and bitterly anti-English, was, on the whole, not worse than might be anticipated.” Still, what was being said was ‘disloyal’ enough, particularly for the party’s clerical supporters, who “were more intemperate in their language than the lay men.”

An example of the kind of speech being typically used at Sinn Féin rallies, and from two men of the cloth no less, was at Kilfinane, Co. Limerick, on the 24^th November 1918. There, the Rev. Father Hayes read out the oath of allegiance taken by Members of Parliament (MPs), and then asked how any man could take that oath and be faithful to Ireland. Any and all past concessions had not been earned by sending men to Westminster, quite the contrary in fact: Catholic emancipation was won by British fear of Irish rebellion, Church of Ireland disestablishment by the sacrifice of Fenians, and land acts by farmers barricading their houses.

Sinn Féin poster, 1918

Next to speak was the Rev. Father Wall. The policy of Sinn Féin, he told his audience, was that of Ireland as a nation:

In the course of his speech he said that they had more than one string to their bow. They did not depend entirely on the [post-war] Peace Conference. Sinn Féin would establish a constituent assembly which would use moral force, and perhaps other force, in furtherance of the cause of their country, and that later they would if necessary use physical force. He added that they intended to send envoys to the United States and other countries to stir up enmity against England.

Not everyone in Sinn Féin was quite so committed, at least according to one police informant who had spent time in the Dublin offices on Harcourt Street. “Most of the extremists do not expect a republic and would be satisfied with colonial home rule,” this anonymous source told their handlers – that is, if it was Sinn Féin who could claim responsibility.

Otherwise, what the spy reported chimed in with what Father Wall said at Kilfinane: that Sinn Féin (1) was willing to set up for Ireland a parliament of its own, “a constitutional assembly to replace British rule”, (2) was looking overseas for support, particularly at the Peace Conference, “to lay out the Sinn Fein cause before the nations”, (3) had a willingness to employ violence for its ends due to “an extreme section which in time of excitement might plunge the country into serious trouble.”

Sinn Féin postcard, circa. 1918, imagining Ireland being welcomed by ‘Uncle Sam’ as an equal at the Peace Conference (rather fancifully as it turned out)

‘This Branch of Sinn Féin’

Sinn Féin was indeed a broad church or, as Father Wall had put it, a string with many bows. Making up its prospective candidates for the election were a mix of doctors, solicitors, farmers, shopkeepers, clerks, students and even a humble labourer, their only requirement being “rebel antecedents” as none had ever sat in Parliament before, a far cry from the decades of service many of the MPs in the IPP could point to.

Less easy for the RIC to evaluate were the Irish Volunteers as, since the recent ban on political gatherings without a permit and a general clampdown on the part of the authorities, “the Irish Volunteers have become practically a Secret Society.” Information on that paramilitary body was thus hard to come by, save from documents found on suspects or in their homes during searches; even the source of their newspaper, An tÓglach (spelt ‘An Toglach’ in Byrne’s report) was largely unknown.

Irish Volunteers

Still, the RIC had observed enough about the Volunteers to know that they and Sinn Féin were very much joined at the hip. An example of this alliance was how the number of companies nearly corresponds to the number of Sinn Fein clubs reported by the police.” Elsewhere in his summary, the Inspector-General referred to the Volunteers as “this branch of Sinn Fein” as if they were one and the same, which was not, strictly speaking, true, but also not entirely inaccurate at the same time.

A more pressing question for Dublin Castle about the Volunteers was their capacity for another uprising. For this, Byrne presented a mixed picture. At first glance, the Volunteers did not appear to be a great threat, being insufficiently armed and equipped for conflict with soldiers, and fear of the troops restrains them from rebellion.”

In the long run, however:

Unless a counter movement of the responsible citizens should arise, of which at present there is no indication, [the Volunteers] are sufficiently organized with the weapons at their disposal, and supported in every direction by numbers of turbulent young men who if not actually in thier [sic] ranks are in close sympathy with them, to be unmanageable and to make government impossible in the event of the Military Force in the country being reduced.

Sinn Féin likewise looked immune to the apprehension of ‘responsible citizens’ and other respectable types, being “too strong to be affected by adverse opinions or warnings from any quarter” come polling day. And if the Irish Volunteers could indeed make Ireland ungovernable for Britain, then their political partner was already “keeping the whole country in a state of unrest by its republican pretensions.”[9]

Cartoon from the ‘Roscommon Herald’, 3rd August 1918. The caption reads: “Mr Lloyd George seems to be as funky now about facing a General Election as his cast-off pals, Mr John Dillon and ‘Wee Joe’ Develin. They all fear the heap labelled ‘Rubbish shot here.’”

Plenty of Punch

Which is not to say Sinn Féin was having everything its own way, nor that the IPP had completely given up the will to live. The former, to quote O’Shiel:

…fought the General Election of 1918 under very great handicaps. Most of its leaders and, indeed, its candidates, were imprisoned or interned, most of its newspapers and journals were suppressed and what was permitted of them so severely censored that they were of little propaganda value.[10]

Sinn Féin was forced accordingly to rely on whoever it had on hand for help. P.S. O’Hegarty walked in on Harry Boland in their Harcourt Street offices reading through a list of names and picking who was to stand and who would not, a slightly disconcerting sight which O’Hegarty found to be “an illuminating insight into democracy” (‘skull-cracking’ being only one of Boland’s many duties). Compounding the difficulties was the arrest of Robert Brennan on the 20^th November 1918 at the Sinn Féin headquarters, the fourth such raid on the premises in the past six months. Given the thirty armed policemen and half a dozen detectives in attendance, the authorities were clearly taking no chances and Brennan was driven away in a military motor van, along with six hundred confiscated copies of the party manifesto.[11]

British soldiers outside the Sinn Féin headquarters at 6 Harcourt Street, Dublin (Source: https://www.rte.ie/centuryireland/index.php/articles/cradle-of-the-irish-republic-a-journey-through-6-harcourt-street

That made him the third Director of Elections for Sinn Féin to be so removed (his predecessors, Seán Milroy and Dan MacCarthy, having both been deported earlier that year). Luckily, Brennan had had the foresight to leave for party workers like Máire Comerford:

…very precise instructions as to our duties before and during the campaign. These were observed in scrupulous detail. With patience and devotion we copied every name on the [electoral] register into three different notebooks for each townland in every constituency. The attitude of voters, after each of the three canvasses, was recorded and sent to the constituency director. Absolutely no effort was spared to win the contest.

After all, more than an election hung in the balance as far as Comerford was concerned: “The responsibility to vindicate the men of Easter Week was on our shoulders.[12]

Máire Comerford (centre) with other women from Cumann na mBan

Even if the Irish Party could not match that sort of crusading zeal, it was to display a dogged, never-say-never determination of its own. Many had been writing it off as early as 1917, when the first of its by-election defeats began, yet still the IPP struggled on, making its would-be successor fight for every inch of political ground, sometimes in more than a figurative sense. “The Redmondites in the city had plenty of punch, and I mean punch, in that election,” Frank Edwards said wryly of Waterford. He was referring to the by-election earlier in 1918, one of the few wins the IPP could claim and which, for a time, looked set to reverse the tide back in its favour.[13]

That hope soon dissipated, yet, even so, Dillon refused to give up, being, in the words of one biographer, “a man fully committed to what he knew to be a mortal combat, and watching every move and sign of the enemy to snatch what advantage he might from a desperate situation.” If victory was no longer plausible, then a rear-guard action would have to do. “It is quite conceivable that in six months,” the IPP Chairman told T.P. O’Connor in June 1918, “Ireland may have sobered down so much that we shall emerge from [the general] election with say 40 seats.” But this was before the results of the East Cavan by-election were in; when they were, and it was known that Sinn Féin had triumphed by over a thousand votes, forty seats suddenly seemed less than attainable.[14]

Cartoon from the ‘Roscommon Herald’ on the 29th June 1918. The caption reads: “With his fiction about a German ‘Plot,’ the Pasteboard Cromwell, Mr. Lloyd George, gasses poor, doddering John Dillon, while his Cavan Defeated lies at his feet. ‘Pasteboard’ fancies once more that the way is again clear for Irish Conscription.”

Disappearing to Reappear?

Dr Patrick O’Donnell

Some long-time allies were wanting the Irish Party to quit altogether: John Horgan in Cork City proposed in October that its MPs withdraw from Parliament to better present a united front with Sinn Féin together at the Peace Conference, while Dr Patrick O’Donnell, the Bishop of Raphoe, similarly urged the IPP to stand down its candidates for the general election that month, to “disappear to reappear”, as His Eminence put it. Dillon firmly declined both suggestions, taking the time to explain to each man in detail his reasons why.

John Dillon

Abandoning Westminster would hand the Irish pulpit entirely to the Unionists, he told Horgan, an act which “is to me an absolutely insane one.” As for the Peace Conference, “there is not the slightest chance of representatives of Ireland being allowed to enter such” an event and, even if they were, the Irish envoys would receive a reception “of a very painful, and to them, surprising character,” thanks to Sinn Féin’s unsubtle favouritism towards Germany – the wrong horse, it turned out, to have backed.

Regarding Dr O’Donnell, Dillon had given his advice “the most careful consideration,” he assured the Bishop. But:

You speak of ‘disappearing to reappear’ – could a political leader guilty of such conduct ever reappear, or show his face, in public life? Could he reasonably expect the people to trust him or place any reliance on what he said?

Clearly not, in Dillon’s opinion:

If there is one thing more than another which the Irish people cannot tolerate in a political leader it is cowardice, and failure to stand and fight for the principles which he says he believes in. And in this I must say I heartily agree with the people.[15]

With that said, there was nothing left for the IPP Chairman to do but gird his loins in defence of the East Mayo seat he had held for thirty years. Not all his colleagues were joining him: as noted in the RIC report for November, some constituencies were being left wide open for Sinn Féin to claim as their previous MPs stood down in the face of almost certain electoral annihilation.

Cartoon from the ‘Roscommon Herald’, 14th December 1918. The caption reads: “Mr John Dillon recognises in East Mayo that even Dublin Castle and all its limbs cannot save him from defeat.”

In South Meath, for example, David Sheehy seems to have decided that three general elections were enough for one career and that a younger candidate should to try his luck. Lorcan Sherlock was asked by telegram to stand instead for the IPP, despite his current duties as City Sheriff in Dublin, a place he had far more connection with as a former lord mayor than he did with Meath; besides, Sherlock had not been notified in advance and so unsurprisingly turned the invite down. It was not much of an offer anyway. So desperate by then were the IPP supporters in South Meath for someone that they resorted to asking Dillon to provide a name.

The one they eventually got, Thomas Peter O’Donoghue, also lacked a background in the constituency, being a Kerryman, and while he proved an active enough campaigner in the short amount of time left, the contrast with the Sinn Féin campaign, which selected its candidate, Eamon Duggan, early on and began canvassing at once, could not have been starker.[16]

Conor Cruise O’Brien

In the years to come, Monsignor M. Curran, secretary to the Archbishop of Dublin and a keen political observer, would read the obituaries of former Irish Party stalwarts and remark along the lines of ‘I thought that man was dead long ago.’ David Sheehy exemplified that decline into shabby obscurity, living with a daughter who, as his wits wandered in his old age, “was inclined to bully him,” remembered his grandson, Conor Cruise O’Brien (who was to walk a political path of his own). “Was she unconsciously punishing him for having lost his parliamentary seat in 1918, and for our dynasty’s decline?”[17]

‘Not as Rebels, but as Insurrectionists’

Those still standing worked hard at giving as good as they got. In South Roscommon, John Patrick Hayden dismissed his rival, the ubiquitous Harry Boland, as “only a tramp tailor”, the Sinn Féin policy of an Irish Republic as “impossible to realise, unless it could be enforced by an army and navy equal to that of Great Britain,” and the other main Sinn Féin platform, that of abstentionism, in a tone of incredulity: “How were social reforms to be won? How were Irish interests to be safeguarded?”

Cartoon from the ‘Roscommon Herald’, 23rd November 1918. The caption reads: “Mr John Dillon, MP, will begin his canvas in East Mayo next week, arrayed in his Election suit for the occasion – an empty porter cask.”

As Hayden was the proprietor of a local newspaper, he could at least expect a certain amount of good coverage. One poem submitted to the Roscommon Messenger just happened to chime with Hayden’s stated sentiments – assuming, that is, Hayden was not its author:

I would ask you, Mr Boland, will you stay

From attending to our business in the Commons o’er the way?

Where our taxes will be trebled by Lloyd George and Bonar Law,

Who, for all your bogus risings, do not give a single straw.

“Friend,” he says. “the House of Commons is no fitting place for me,

I’m too advanced a rebel for that quarter, don’t you see;

But to South Roscommon’s business I’ll attend without a stint,

When we form our new Republic and our Irish Parliament.

Boland, for his part, generally avoided that type of personal attack, preferring – for the most part, anyway – to argue in favour of his cause rather than against the opposition’s. “We are not looking for prolonged power,” he told a Sinn Féin rally in Roscommon town on the 24^th November 1918. “We believe in new times, new men and new ideas.” He did not so much counter Hayden’s accusation of abstentionism leaving Ireland open to taxation as dismiss its importance altogether: “I do not like to discuss these questions from a material point of view. I, for one, would rather see Ireland with a crust in her mouth standing erect, proud and free, than fat and sleek and prosperous, a beggar and a slave” – which, judging from the resulting cheers, shows Boland had read his audience well.

During the Rising, he and his comrades had gone out “not as rebels, but as Insurrectionists, for we spoke for a Nation”; he contrasted them with those Irishmen who had fought in the Great War “now lying in unhallowed graves in France and Flanders and every other battle front.” Boland could not resist another dig, this time at the IPP’s expense: “The Party complained that the people had deserted them. Well, no; the Party had deserted Ireland and the people had remained true.”

As with many Irish elections of this period, the exchanges could go beyond the verbal. IPP partisans tore down republican tricolours at one booth in Castlerea on polling day, the 14^th December, and stamped on them until driven off by Irish Volunteers; more Volunteers, armed with hurleys and ashplants, surrounded the polling booths in Roscommon town and had to be dispersed by the returning officer. Despite the RIC Inspector-General’s description of them as a ‘secret society’, the Volunteers remained a visible presence throughout the country, to the point of escorting the ballot boxes being taken to the Roscommon courthouse for counting in blatant defiance of the RIC constables on duty.

Boland later emerged from that same courthouse to be carried shoulder-high to his party’s headquarters in town, where speeches, bands, a torchlight procession and house illuminations marked his electoral triumph – a mighty 10,685 votes to Hayden’s pittance of 4,233. It was but one victory among many.[18]

Cartoon from the ‘Roscommon Herald’, 2nd November 1918. The caption reads: “The small Sinn Fein pulley having set the big wheel of the General Election in motion, Mr John Dillon’s Four Hundred Pounders are all dropping out of their seats…The Pasteboard Cromwell, Mr Lloyd George, weeps for his faithful henchmen.”

Landslide

Dillon had been bracing himself for the worst; even so, “the landslide is a good deal greater than I had expected from my reports, and I confess some of the results have surprised me very much,” he wrote to T.P. O’Connor in December after the votes had been tallied.

Cartoon from the ‘Roscommon Herald’, 21st December 1918. The caption reads: “Mr John Dillon, the Supreme Boss and War Lord of the late Irish Parliamentary Party, was downed at the polls in East Mayo on Saturday last. He is now anxiously seeking the shortest route to Holland, to join another War Lord in affliction [a reference to the exiled Kaiser], while his ex-Four Hundred Pounders rejoice at his departure, as they imagine that this may open another road for them at the old loaves and fishes.”

East Mayo had been a landslide of its own: 8,843 votes for Sinn Féin against Dillon’s 4,451 – fittingly, the new MP there was Éamon de Valera, a coup de grâce delivered by one party leader to the other. The winner had not even needed to be present, imprisoned as he was in Lincoln Jail. Out of 105 seats in Ireland, Sinn Féin now held 73, Unionists 26 (primarily in Ulster), leaving the once-mighty Irish Parliamentary Party with a paltry 5. Dillon had not yet entirely given up hope for a comeback, though he conceded to O’Connor “in any case after such a crushing defeat it would be no easy task.”[19]

Father Michael O’Flanagan

Actually, it was an impossibility and everyone but Dillon knew it. “We finished Redmond and everything he stood for, and whatever the future may hold for Ireland, Republicanism will always hold sway here,” wrote Nora Connolly, daughter of the 1916 martyr. She was writing sometime after, but one does not have to look very far for contemporary reports on the finality of the result. “The defeat of the Nationalist Party is crushing and final,” intoned the Irish Times, as little as that most conservative of newspapers must have liked it. “Sinn Féin has swept the board, but we do not know – does itself know? – what it intends to do with its victory.”[20]

Good questions: no less a prominent figure in the newly ascendant power than Father Michael O’Flanagan, one of its two vice-presidents, was heard to say that, since the people had voted Sinn Féin, “what we have to do now is to explain to them what Sinn Féin is.”[21]

In other words: what next?

Cartoon from the ‘Roscommon Herald’, 28th December 1918. The caption reads: “When Mr Lloyd George reads the long list of Sinn Fein victories he yells in amazement, ‘What will [US President Woodrow] Wilson say?’”

References

[1] Police reports from Dublin Castle records (National Library of Ireland – NLI), POS 8547 ; Blythe, Ernest (BMH / WS 939), p. 98

[2] ‘25 October – 17 November 1918’, Liam de Róiste Diaries Online, Cork City Council (Accessed on 15/05/2023), p. 71 ; O’Shiel, Kevin (BMH / WS 1770, Part 6), p. 41

[3] Irish Times, 12/11/1918

[4] Ibid, 13/11/1918

[5] Ibid, 14/11/1918

[6] Evening Herald, 14/11/1918

[7] Donnelly, Simon (BMH / WS 481), p. 11

[8] De Róiste, p. 71

[9] NLI, POS 8547

[10] O’Shiel, p. 45

[11] O’Hegarty, P. S. The Victory of Sinn Féin (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2010), p. 53 ; Evening Herald, 20/11/1018

[12] Comerford, Máire (ed. by Dully, Hilary) On Dangerous Ground: A Memoir of the Irish Revolution (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2021), p. 94

[13] MacEoin, Uinseann, Survivors (Dublin: Argenta Publications, 1980), p. 2

[14] Lyons, F.S.L. John Dillon: A Biography (Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1968), pp. 440-1

[15] Ibid, pp. 446-8, 450

[16] Bruton, John. ‘The 1918 Election and its Relevance to Modern Irish Politics’, An Irish Quarterly Review (Spring 2019, Volume 108, No. 429), pp. 94-5

[17] Curran, M. (BMH / WS 687, Section 1), p. 345 ; O’Brien, Conor Cruise. States of Ireland (London: Granada Publishing Limited, 1974), p. 104

[18] Fitzpatrick, David. Harry Boland’s Irish Revolution (Cork: Cork University Press, 2003), pp. 110-2

[19] Lyons, pp. 453-4

[20] MacEoin, p. 209 ; Irish Times, 30/12/1918

[21] O’Hegarty, p. 21

Bibliography

Newspapers

Evening Herald

Irish Times

Roscommon Herald (cartoons)

Books

Comerford, Máire (ed. by Dully, Hilary) On Dangerous Ground: A Memoir of the Irish Revolution (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2021)

Fitzpatrick, David. Harry Boland’s Irish Revolution (Cork: Cork University Press, 2003)

Lyons, F.S.L. John Dillon: A Biography (Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1968)

MacEoin, Uinseann, Survivors (Dublin: Argenta Publications, 1980)

O’Brien, Conor Cruise. States of Ireland (London: Granada Publishing Limited, 1974)

O’Hegarty, P.S. The Victory of Sinn Féin (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2010)

Bureau of Military History Statements

Blythe, Ernest, WS 939

Curran, M., WS 687

Donnelly, Simon, WS 481

O’Shiel, Kevin, WS 1770

National Library of Ireland Collections

Police Report from Dublin Castle Records

Online Source

Liam de Róiste Diaries

Article

Bruton, John. ‘The 1918 Election and its Relevance to Modern Irish Politics’, An Irish Quarterly Review (Spring 2019, Volume 108, No. 429)

On a Knife’s Edge: The Last By-Election between Sinn Féin and the Irish Parliamentary Party at East Cavan, June 1918

A contination of: When the Challenger Becomes the Challenged: Sinn Féin vs the Irish Parliamentary Party in the East Tyrone By-Election of April 1918

On the Retreat?

Kevin O’Shiel

By mid-1918, the struggle for hegemony within Irish Nationalism had reached a stalemate of sorts. Sinn Féin had looked unstoppable the year before, winning all of the four by-elections, only to be halted in its tracks when the Irish Parliamentary Party [IPP] pulled off a trio of wins in South Armagh, Waterford City and East Tyrone. Regarding the last in April 1918, “this is the third seat gained by the Nationalists [the IPP], which is in favour of an understanding with England,” read the Tyrone Courier, quoting from the French Echo de Paris. “These successes seem to indicate that the popularity of the Sinn Fein party is on the wane.”[1]

Was it? While Sinn Féin officially deplored any such defeatist suggestions, some amongst its ranks, such as Kevin O’Shiel, were inwardly fretting at what the recent flurry of losses could mean for the future of:

…the new evangel and it began to be thought that there might be something after all in what the Nationalist and English press were telling their readers, that the tide was definitely turning against the new movement and the new men with an ever increasing momentum, that the danger of rule by the “wild men” and the “gunmen” was passing away; the people were returning to political sanity, the hectic emotional fever, engendered by the post-Easter Rising executions, having spent itself.[2]

And all this over an election Sinn Féin should never have risked in the first place, in James McGuill’s opinion. At South Armagh, back in February 1918, he had overseen the party’s array of campaign cars as Director of Transport. Despite his efforts, Sinn Féin suffered its first setback, and since East Tyrone did not seem any more promising a prospect, McGuill intended to remain in Dundalk until a personal request from Michael Collins changed his mind. Arriving in Dungannon, McGuill found the situation to be even worse than he feared. Instead of motorcars, Sinn Féin often had to make do with ponies and traps for travelling around the constituency or as platforms from which to address the crowds; waiting, at one particularly awkward point, for the IPP speakers to be finished with the sole wagonette in town before theirs could use it.

Scotch Street, Dungannon, Co. Tyrone (source: National Library of Ireland, https://www.flickr.com/photos/nlireland/49524799151

McGuill was able to compensate somewhat with the theft of a few IPP-owned vehicles, and then tricking some Irish Party supporters into donating petrol for them. Such electoral lowballing was not enough to ward off the result McGuill had feared from the start, the implications of which he, like O’Shiel, found troubling:

This defeat in East Tyrone was rather serious from the Sinn Féin point of view coming so soon after the defeat in South Armagh. It was felt by some that the British would interpret those defeats as a weakening of the hold that Sinn Féin had on Irish public opinion.

Michael Collins

Compounding the pressure was how the British Government was finally starting to take notice of the growing threat in its Irish backyard. Collins’ arrest for a seditious speech on St Patrick’s Day in Derry was enough for the Irish Volunteers GHQ to make an exception to its usual prohibition against recognising Crown courts and allow him to accept the offer of bail and twelve months of good behaviour rather than serve a prison term. With the threat of conscription for Ireland looming on the horizon, Collins was considered too critical a figure, and at too critical a time, to be lost to a jail cell.

“The British Authorities did not then appreciate the importance of the man they so lightly let out of their hands!” McGuill wrote, amused at this narrow dodge.

McGuill himself was a busy man, meeting fellow officers in the Dundalk Volunteers to discuss plans for an opening move against the enemy establishment. As Adjutant, McGuill had taken notes on the police and British military barracks in the area. These were forwarded for approval to Dublin but the reply from GHQ expressed more interest in a raid being carried out on Ballyedmond Castle, Co. Down. This was considered doable by the Dundalk officers at a meeting on the 16^th May 1918; after it ended, just before midnight, McGuill was on his way home to bed when another man caught up with him to warn that the other officers had just been arrested by British soldiers.

So alerted, McGuill was able to avoid the troops sent for him. Over a hundred others from across the country, however, could not, detained as they were and then deported to English prisons for their alleged conspiring with Germany, the so-called ‘German Plot’.[3]

‘A Restless and Unsatisfactory Condition’

Sir Joseph Byrne (from the ‘Irish Independent’, 20nd December

It was, as far as Sir Joseph Byrne, the Inspector-General of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), was concerned, a measure long overdue, with results that were instantly appreciable. “The Sinn Feiners see that they were mistaken in their belief that the Government was afraid of them, and already an improvement is noticeable in their demeanour,” Byrne wrote to Dublin Castle in his monthly report for May 1918. “The revolutionists have become far less aggressive and defiant and the speeches at Sinn Fein meetings more cautious in their language than heretofore.”

However, Byrne did not delude himself into thinking that the change was anything deeper than surface-level:

They are still bitterly disloyal, and hostile to any form of British rule, and the new leaders when they are identified will have to be closely watched.

Meanwhile, “moderate Nationalists are reported to be pleased though afraid to say so openly.”

Moderation was currently a rare thing to find in Ireland: “Although outwardly peaceful from the point of view of prosperity and freedom from ordinary crime, the provinces remained during the Month of May in a restless and unsatisfactory condition.” This was despite there being much to commend: profits for farmers and tradesmen were good, as were wages, which was perhaps why industrial strikes had been few. Even tenant and landlord relations – that age-old apple of discord in Ireland – seemed amicable. Instead, “the restless condition of the country at present is due to political rather than agrarian causes, and is attributable mainly to fear of Conscription” which had finally come to pass, via the Military Service Act, to Ireland in April:

The general consternation…has been somewhat allayed by the Lord Lieutenant’s appeal for voluntary recruits, which many regard as an indication that the measure will not be proceeded with, and there was a large falling off in the number of anti-conscription meetings.

Nonetheless, “there is…no reason to assume any abatement of the spirit of opposition,” Byrne warned. As proof, Sinn Féin, despite the setback of the ‘German Plot’ arrests, appeared more vigorous than ever, gaining 43 more clubs by the end of May, to a total of 1,293 in Ireland. Its female auxiliary group, Cumann na mBan, had meanwhile jumped from 35 clubs to 80. As for the other group of interest:

The Irish Volunteer Force is managed so secretly that it is difficult to ascertain authentic particulars as to the details of the organization, but it may be assumed that most of the members of Sinn Fein Clubs of military age belong to it.

Irish Volunteers

Whatever its internal workings, publicly the Volunteers were on a downturn to judge from their number of drills and training sessions: 340 recorded in May, compared to the 507 the month before. The Inspector-General attributed this to the harsher, less lenient measures of the Government, with soldiers cooperating with the RIC in the dispersal of illegal gatherings and the arrests of offenders. “It is expected that the matter will shortly be well in hand,” Byrne wrote. Another encouraging sign was the increase in recruits for the Army and Navy: 1,079 during the four weeks before the 15^th May, 364 more than the four weeks preceding.

The message Byrne delivered to his superiors was thus a mixed one. Militarily, Ireland did not seem to be in any danger; given the deficiency in arms owned by the Irish Volunteers, an uprising, like the one that occurred two years before in Dublin, was unlikely. Politically, on the other hand, was quite a different picture, the country now fixed in a tumultuous state, and it was all thanks to Conscription.[4]

The Conscription Crisis

John Redmond

From the start, the Power-That-Be in Britain had been warned.

“I must tell you that the enforcement of conscription in Ireland is an impossibility,” John Redmond wrote in a letter to the Prime Minister, H.H. Asquith, in November 1915. In the event of such a move, “the Irish [Parliamentary] Party will be forced to oppose it as vigorously as possible at every stage.” Asquith’s successor was told the same thing, though David Lloyd George hinted at an offer of Home Rule in return for Conscription in December 1916. Not even the dangling of his life’s goal before him was enough to shift the IPP Chairman – “I told him we could never agree to conscription as a condition of Home Rule and that under any circumstances conscription was impossible in Ireland,” Redmond recorded in the minutes of their meeting – and instead it was the new Prime Minister who stepped aside, turning instead to a different topic.[5]

T.P. O’Connor

T.P. O’Connor found Lloyd George in a less emollient mood a month later as they dined together in London. Conscription once again found itself in the conversation and, when the Irish Member of Parliament (MP) repeated Redmond’s line of it being an impossibility, the other man pointed out that the English people, who were already sending their sons to the war, would be less than sympathetic to Ireland’s refusal. O’Connor argued that conscription would mean a hundred deaths in its enforcement alone, to be met with the retort that England would not care if the deaths amounted to ten thousand. And this was from a Prime Minster otherwise sympathetic to the Irish situation.[6]

Nonetheless, Ireland remained un-conscripted; nonetheless, the possibility alone was corrosive to the IPP’s support. The by-election of South Longford in May 1917, four months after O’Connor’s uncomfortable exchange with Lloyd George, was not the first Sinn Féin victory of the year but it confirmed just how far the tide of public opinion had turned against the party that had, for a generation, been the voice of national aspiration.

If in politics you are only as good as your current crisis, then this was one the IPP found itself unable to get away from. “The conscription menace is emphasised in every verse of doggerel, and fathers are warned that if the Sinn Fein candidate is not returned, every young man will be taken for the Army,” reported the Irish Times. “This threat seems to be having its desired effect” – as was proven to be the case on polling day. “Today a new chapter is opened with South Longford gone over to Sinn Féin,” went the same newspaper on the 11^th May. “How many seats could Mr Redmond count with entire confidence upon retaining similar attacks?”[7]

Sinn Féin activists during the South Longford by-election of May 1917

By the end of 1917, with all four of that year’s by-elections lost, the answer appeared to be ‘not many – at best.’ For all of Redmond’s defiance to British Prime Ministers on the subject, the fact was that, on this most crucial of topics, the Irish people evidently trusted the newcomer party more than the established one. His previous plea to the Chief Secretary of Ireland in December 1915, that “conscription gives a certain reality to the [revolutionary] movement [emphasis in text]” and that “were it to be killed dead, the movement would die down,” had gone unheeded.[8]

Whether it could have been as simple as that is debatable. After all, the Irish Times had listed other reasons behind Sinn Féin’s success, in South Longford and elsewhere: Home Rule’s delay, the unwelcome possibility of Partition and the sheer energy Sinn Féin displayed were all combining to “make very difficult the position of the Nationalist Party [IPP] in the next few weeks” and further. But there was no denying that, come April 1918, all other considerations had been eclipsed by that of Conscription – enough to bring bitter enemies to the same table, literally, at the Mansion House, Dublin, on the 18^th.[9]

The Mansion House, Dublin

‘A Veritable Miracle’

There, representatives of the two major parties met for the first time: John Dillon and Joe Devlin from the IPP, Éamon de Valera and Arthur Griffith for Sinn Féin, along with three Labour men and two other Nationalist MPs. After an anti-Conscription pledge was drawn up, in which the assembled men and their respective factions swore to “resist Conscription by the most effective means at our disposal”, a deputation was immediately sent to where the Catholic bishops of Ireland had been gathering on unrelated matters in Maynooth. The Princes of the Church were more than happy to lend their ecclesiastical support to the political cause, issuing a manifesto of their own later that night, declaring resistance against Conscription to be “consonant with the law of God.” Three days later, on the 21^st, meetings in almost every village and parish in Ireland were held for people to sign their names en masse to the Mansion House pledge.

The country had never been more in lockstep. If every cloud has a silver lining, then Conscription’s, or the fear of it, was how it performed “a veritable miracle in Nationalist Ireland,” so O’Shiel described with rhetorical flourish, “pulling together at one stroke all its discordant elements and binding them in one strong, and what proved, irrestible [sic] union against the grave threat.” Darrell Figgis, another Sinn Féin activist, struck a similarly heady note in his own reminiscences – “I am sure there never has been such concord in Ireland. Enemies forgot their enmities and hastened to be first in friendship” – while Tim Healy, MP and one of the Mansion House Conference attendees, rejoiced in a letter to his brother about how “there was nothing in [Daniel] O’Connell’s time to compare with Irish unanimity against Conscription.”[10]

For all these high-minded words, the lines between the parties involved could be papered over at most, but never erased. When the idea of an anti-Conscription summit had initially been mooted at Dublin Corporation, the Labour attendees believed that this was an attempt to ‘get the jump’ on Sinn Féin, considering how everyone else in the room were IPP partisans, and would only agree to the motion if Sinn Féin was also involved. Whether Sinn Féin would want to, however, was another question.

William O’Brien

“There appeared to be some considerable doubt as to whether they would or not,” wrote William O’Brien, one of the Labour men in question, “but finally they did. They feared they mightn’t favour the idea of working with the Irish Party.”[11]

Actually, many in Sinn Féin did not. When the Sinn Féin offices received the invitation to the Mansion House from Laurence O’Neill, the Lord Mayor of Dublin and the innovator of the idea, “shrewd were the glances cast at it, and long the discussions of its worth,” described Figgis (as one of Sinn Féin’s senior administrators, he would have been in a position to know). De Valera and Griffith, to which the letter had been addressed, were in favour of accepting “but it took the united effort of these two men to carry the proposal with the Executive Committee,” the concern being that Sinn Féin’s sense of self as the Irish government-in-waiting would be diluted by standing next to its hated rival.

(left to right) Arthur Griffith and Éamon de Valera, the President and one of the two Vice-Presidents of Sinn Féin respectively

De Valera even tried resorting to the suggestion that he and Griffith attend the Mansion House “as individuals, binding Sinn Fein in no way by their action,” an early display of the Long Fellow’s gift for creative ambiguity. Not that this impressed Figgis – “the suggestion was like a mathematical formula for which no practical correlative can be found – looking very real on paper, but equating with nothing real on fact” – even as he was supportive of de Valera’s stance, and cynical of the motives of the naysayers: “No doubt some of these considerations were moved by the desire for separate possession and power. Impure motives move obscurely in the sincerest of folk…Those impure motives moved more in some than in others” (as this text was published in 1927, its author may have had the bitterness over the Civil War more in mind).[12]

John Dillon, meanwhile, had tried talking himself out of the invite after receiving his own, believing that the ideal place to argue Ireland’s case remained in the debating-hall of Westminster – which would just happen to play into his party’s strengths, still possessing as it did the majority of Irish parliamentary seats. The suggestion from de Valera and Griffith to the Lord Mayor that the conference go ahead without Dillon was what probably pushed the IPP Chairman – Dillon had replaced the late John Redmond, who had died the previous month, in March – into accepting, lest his party be left out in the cold.

Laurence O’Neill, Lord Mayor of Dublin

“As I had summoned the conference,” O’Neill later explained, “I was in the chair and it took all the ingenuity I possessed to make a favourable start.” The national unanimity O’Shiel, Figgis and Healy took for granted had, in fact, been far from inevitable. Dillon, O’Neill observed in the Mansion House, was “solemn, and no doubt realised that the power of his party was diminishing, and that by attending the conference he was playing into the hands of Sinn Fein.”[13]

Of course, the IPP’s prestige had been declining for quite some time already; in attending, Dillon had had little choice when his prevarication failed. Plenty in Sinn Féin, likewise, felt pushed into acting against their party’s best interests. Nonetheless, “wise or unwise, the wish of the people left no alternative,” as Figgis baldly put it.[14]

Anti-Conscription rally

A Hollow Alliance

The RIC Inspector-General probably had his finger best on the political pulse. While the current furore over Conscription was enough to drive the two hitherto hostile factions, if not quite into each other’s arms, then at least to each other’s side, “the hollowness of the alliance is apparent in the refusal of either side to withdraw from the Election contest in East Cavan,” Byrne reported to Dublin Castle.[15]

Samuel Young

For, almost unnoticed beneath the clamour, the MP for the aforementioned area, Samuel Young, had died on the 18^th April, the same day as the Mansion House Conference. Having reached the venerable age of ninety-six years, Young had been the Methuselah, not just of the Irish Party but of the House of Commons as its oldest MP, a career defined more by its longevity than anything in particular – much like Young himself.

“Although he cannot be described as a great man,” the Freeman’s Journal admitted, “his life was a remarkable one,” the course of which had beheld:

…Five sovereigns on the British throne; he saw Belfast [his city of birth] grow from an thirty thousand people into a city of three hundred thousand; he saw the origin and growth of half a dozen movements in Ireland; he saw the happening of gigantic events in Europe and America; he saw the passing of legislation that transformed the face of this country and turned the Irish people from serfs into free men.

Young’s own contribution to history had been slight: a few public utterances in Westminster, two of the most notable being in regard to Home Rule, which, at least, was fitting enough, given his “deep convictions that Ireland under Home Rule would become a great, happy and contented country, and a strength to the Empire of which she forms a part…Ireland wants more of his kind” – so concluded the Freeman’s Journal in a heartfelt obituary.[16]

Whether Ireland felt the same was another matter, and what it wanted was about to be put to the test. Given the length of his public service, it would be seem somewhat perverse, if not outright cruel, that Young’s death would be regulated to practically a footnote in the other newspapers; nothing in his life, like the Thane of Cawdor, became him like the leaving of it. After twenty-six years of the same representative (Young having been continuously elected since 1892), East Cavan was due to decide on a new one, a contest which, for many, could not have come at a worst time: Nationalist Ireland looked set to tear itself apart all over again.

Archbishop William Walsh

No less an illustrious figure than the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr William Wash, confessed himself alarmed in a letter to O’Neill, on the 24^th April, at what he was reading in the papers about the prospect of yet another divisive by-election between the IPP and Sinn Féin. “If there is not perfect agreement on this point we are in for a hopeless situation,” warned His Eminence. “Can nothing be done? If nothing can be done to secure real unanimity, thousands who were heart and soul with the movement will have no option but to drop out.”[17]

It was a danger Edward Brady, the Justice of the Peace from Clones and the Chairman of the Urban District Council, also felt keenly in a letter of his own, published in the media on the 27^th April:

I earnestly appeal to the good sense and patriotism of the electors to see that in view of the present grave menace which overhangs our country, East Clare shall not endanger the national unity which now, thank God, exists. If a candidate acceptable to all Nationalists is not available better leave the vacancy untilled until the present danger is past.[18]

Some hope of that. On the same day that Brady’s plaintive plea was printed, the Nationality announced to the country that “Mr Arthur Griffith was unanimously selected at a Convention of Sinn Féin and the clergy of East Cavan on Sunday as candidate for the representation of that constituency” – as the newspaper in question was edited by none other than the candidate himself, this might as well have been an official press release from Sinn Féin. Unity or no unity, the gauntlet had just been thrown.[19]

Fait Accompli

Peadar Clancy

Given its aggressive attitude towards elections from the start, it was not surprising that Sinn Féin would refuse to be leashed when another such opportunity presented itself. “As the vacancies occur the same thing will happen everywhere throughout the country,” declared Peadar Clancy in a letter to his brother after the victory in South-Longford in May 1917, “until we have wiped out the Redmondites who had betrayed Ireland.” If to Clancy the democratic process was a weapon, then, for Griffith, it was simply good strategy. “There is no sort of propaganda and no way of educating the public to be compared with a contested election,” he told Eoin MacNeill when the latter was querying their expensive costs.[20]

Nonetheless, on this occasion, Griffith had every intention of staying out of this latest contest; that is, if we go by Figgis’ recounting of events. Backroom machinations were thus necessary to push the Sinn Féin founder, and currently one of its two vice-presidents, into the arena, even if it was against his will. Figgis, as the official in charge of the party administration, knew that the Sinn Féin branch in East Cavan had plumped for Griffith. Procedure was then for the name of the candidate to be placed before the Central Executive for approval.

But Figgis was also aware of the talks to put forward a neutral choice for East Cavan, which, he decided, would not do at all. Before boarding a train to Cashel, Co. Tipperary, Figgis sent a telegram to the party headquarters in Dublin, telling them to announce Griffith as Sinn Féin’s man for East Cavan. They were to do so in two days’ time, on Monday – notably, the Central Executive was due to meet the next day, on the Sunday, which Figgis was skipping in favour of Cashel – and a fact Figgis neglected to mention in his telegram, instead presenting Griffith’s selection as if it was already official policy.

Darrell Figgis

This lie of omission worked like a charm. By the time Figgis returned from Co. Tipperary on the Monday, the news was already in the press. Neither Griffith nor de Valera were thrilled with this development when Figgis met them in the party offices later that day, with Griffith going so far as to suggest that a statement be issued, pulling back from his nomination by clarifying that the Central Executive had not yet had the chance to consider it.

To this, Figgis, in a masterpiece of obfuscation:

…answered that this could be done, but it had to be remembered that the next day [Tuesday – 23^rd April] was the day of the National Strike against Conscription – when no papers would be published and when the entire nation would stand idle…No announcement could therefore be made before Wednesday. By that time the news would be belated, and the candidature of Arthur Griffith would have been confirmed by the relentless action of forty-eight hours.

“I suppose we will have to go through with it now,” Griffith replied after mulling over this latest twist, “and perhaps it is just as well” – at least, that was the general gist of what he said, as far as Figgis remembered.[21]

It’s a good story; perhaps a little too good – a biographer noted Figgis’ “tendency to exaggerate his own role” in his memoirs. In truth, Sinn Féin had everything to win by plunging ahead and little to gain by playacting at cooperation. Still, even afterwards, some gestures were attempted: at Ballaghaderreen, Co. Roscommon, de Valera and John Dillon shared a platform in early May, speaking together against Conscription, followed by a similar event in Derry, this one attended by Figgis and Joe Devlin, the MP for West Belfast.

“Neither meeting was exactly a success,” wrote Figgis, “and they were not repeated.”[22]

Anti-Conscription demonstration, 1918

Fundamental Differences

Of other types of meetings, there were aplenty; too many in Liam de Róiste’s view. “In Cavan the situation in some respects was comical,” the Cork-based Sinn Féin official wrote at the time in his diary, “there were what we may term Sinn Féin meetings, Party meetings, combined meetings, ‘neutral’ meetings, election meetings, anti-conscription meetings.” Similarly absurd was the IPP’s pretensions: “They shout unity, unity, unity, with no real understanding of what unity means except we know unity to them means following in every particular the leadings of Dillon, Devlin and a few others.”

Because, besides Conscription, what common ground could the two parties share?

Take Cavan as example. Griffith stands for the Sovereign Independence of Ireland, for the right of the Irish Nation to control its own destinies in every [underlined in text] sphere, for the repudiation of England’s right to rule, denial of the English Parliament by not going there, the presentation of Ireland’s claim to independence before the Peace Conference.

In contrast:

His opponent evidently stands for Home Rule of some kind, which denies the other things, for bargaining with the English Government, for friendship between Ireland and England in English terms, for gaining to Westminster, and denial of the presentation of Ireland’s claim at the Peace Conference. In Griffith the claim of Ireland is a nation’s claim: to his opponent “the Irish question” is one of domestic politics within the United Kingdom.

As such, “there can be no unity on such fundamental differences. It could be achieved only by one side or the other abandoning their fundamental principles” – which clearly was not going to happen.[23]

T.M. Healy

For the other side, not just its principles was at stake but its very existence. “If the Sinn Feiners win Cavan, they will carry everything,” wrote T.M. Healy to his brother in early May. Though long estranged from the IPP, Healy still prided himself on keeping his ear to the ground, predicting that, while “in Cavan both candidates expect to win…I think the odds are on the Sinn Feiner” – after all, “nearly all the priests are on Griffith’s side.” The only honourable course left for his former colleagues would be to do nothing: “Dillon’s Party had a great chance of reviving their influence by standing aside in the Cavan election and letting Griffith be returned unopposed.”[24]

The IPP clearly shared the same doubts about its chances of winning; however, simply conceding the field to its threatened replacement was a surrender too far. No sooner had the Irish Party selected its own candidate, John F. O’Hanlon, at the Bailieborough Town Hall in late April, then the man of the hour tried negotiating his own retreat: if Griffith was to withdraw and allow the Lord Mayor of Dublin, renowned as an honest broker, to run instead, then he too would remove himself. The all-too-brief unity of before could be restored. O’Hanlon gave Sinn Féin three day to accept this, otherwise he would, without another moment’s delay, be treading on the tail of Griffith’s coat.[25]

O’Hanlon’s emollient gesture and defiant words could barely mask his party’s sense of vulnerability. Whether Sinn Féin gave his offer a second’s thought is unlikely; O’Neill, in any case, had decided to stay above the fray lest he risk his reputation as a peacemaker and a ‘friend to all’. “Many of the Party people are calling for a ‘neutral’ man – as if there is any man a neutral in Irish politics,” de Róiste noted scornfully.[26]

Dragging It Out

From the start, the difference in behaviour between the two sides was marked. “Up to the time of writing [1^st May] the Nationalist Party nominee (Mr O’Hanlon) has not yet started his campaign,” wrote the Irish Times correspondent in Cootehill. Save Sinn Féin, which was campaigning hard, “there is really nothing to lead one to believe that a keenly-contested election is about to be fought in East Cavan.” It took almost two weeks before the same newspaper could report that “it is now nearly certain that a contest will take place in East Cavan,” with a number of flags fluttering from houses – tricolours for Sinn Féin, the gold harp against green for the IPP – as if to signify that the contest was now finally on.

“Canvassing is being carried on by both parties, each of which expresses itself confident of success,” read the Irish Times on the 11^th May. “Everything is quiet for so far, and it is hoped that this state of affairs will continue.” Earlier, it had noted how “from the demeanour of the electors one can only gather that all would be grateful if a contest could be averted.”[27]

Figgis experienced this voter fatigue first-hand, attributing it to “a horror in Ireland of political divisions” dating back to the Parnell Split. ‘Factionist’ was the most common insult and accusation thrown Sinn Féin’s way at the start of its East Cavan campaign, and while its activists were unlikely to care, the electorate did, at least on this occasion, to judge from what Figgis was seeing:

In places where a few weeks before an election meeting would have brought forth a great hosting and resolute enthusiasm, now but a few came, and these few were silent and perturbed. They would have come in throngs to an anti-conscription meeting, but to a political meeting they would not.

Simply put: “The people did not want to hear of rival policies.”[28]

Another complication was the delay of the writ by the Irish Parliamentary Party, presumably in the “hope that some chance would avert from them a blow that could not help but be…of fatal consequence.” It was not until the 7^th June, weeks after Young’s death and the announcement of his two potential successors, that the Irish Times could announce the issuing of the writ, which “has had the effect of reviving interest in the East Cavan election” – as if the event was otherwise in danger of being forgotten.[29]

“This made the election an extremely long drawn-out and protracted one,” Kevin O’Shiel wrote with a sigh.[30]

‘The German Plot’

Procrastinating did the IPP no favours in the end, in O’Shiel’s opinion; to the contrary, it left the field of battle wide open for Sinn Féin workers like him to work the constituency, “giving us plenty of time to found new clubs, perfect our machinery and spread the new gospel by personal contact, meetings and the circulation of leaflets and pamphlets.” O’Shiel’s role was that of election supervisor for Ballyjamesduff, and there he remained for the better part of six weeks, performing work, as his title would indicate, “of a general supervisory character, co-ordinating and directing the work of the voluntary helpers in the area.”[31]

In contrast to Figgis’ memories of finding gloomy crowds and apathetic voters, O’Shiel’s own were such that, even years later, when putting them to paper, he seemed unsure as to whether future generations would quite believe him:

It is hard now to given an impression in words of those monster demonstrations that were such a feature of Sinn Féin in those early days of its career. They were enormous. It looked as though the entire population of neighbouring counties, men, women and children, had poured into the town for the day…The enthusiasm and fervour were intense, the very atmosphere appeared to be charged with exhilaration and high emotion. I have never experienced anything like it since, nor never shall.[32]

But it was never just about an election, nor merely a contest to see who would sit in a particular parliamentary seat. The bigger picture intruded in on the night of the 17^th May, when O’Shiel was woken in his lodgings at Ballyjamesduff. Told that the hotel was surrounded by British soldiers and Crown policemen, O’Shiel hurriedly dressed and went downstairs to where the local RIC sergeant was parleying with the proprietor in the hall.

John O’Mahoney

O’Shiel was safe. The Sinn Féiner the authorities wanted, one of many accused of complicity in the ‘German Plot’, was John O’Mahoney. The Dubliner (and future TD) was stirred from his bed in turn and appraised of the situation, which he took in good humour, the whole business being conducted in a civilised manner by everyone. Over in Dublin, the Sinn Féin headquarters had already been warned of the incoming sweep and were debating the proper course of action. Should they escape? Or resist? A third option was finally agreed on: they would accept their arrests, with an eye on the rest of the country, which was bound to be startled into indignation on Sinn Féin’s behalf.

“Moreover, the effect of such arrests on the East Cavan election would be to raise the issue there beyond all doubt,” wrote Figgis. With that settled, the Sinn Féin leaders were left to await their arrests in their own way. Figgis decided to return home, and even had time to have his wife pack his bag and prepare a meal. He was settling down to eat when the sound of footsteps on the stairs outside alerted him to the police detectives who had, as forewarned, come to take him away for his latest spell in an English prison.[33]

Sinn Féin election leaflet for East Cavan, comparing the imprisoned Arthur Griffith (in prison garb) with John Dillon pledging his loyalty to a British official (source: https://www.adams.ie/Arthur-Griffith-and-the-East-Cavan-Elections-A-very-good-collection-of-leaflets-issued-in-support-of-Arthur-Griffith-s-candidature-for-the-East-Cavan-parliamentary-seat-1918-including-Griffith-is-Our?view=lot_detail

Playing the Long Game?

Sinn Féin could not have planned the whole thing better itself. “How foolish and myopic they were!” recalled O’Shiel. “Far from doing us harm, the arrests increased the ardour of our workers and brought us many more converts” – not to mention sympathy for the absent candidate, as Griffith had been among those detained.[34]

John Dillon

John Dillon was all too aware of the advantage the British Government had just handed his rival. “Between their conscription policy and this coup they have put Sinn Fein on top in Ireland for the moment,” he wrote to C.P. Scott on the 21^st May, four days after the mass arrests. Which is not to say the IPP Chairman was giving up the struggle but it did make his efforts at resuscitating his party’s ailing fortunes all the harder.

“To sum up my view of the situation in Ireland,” Dillon wrote in another letter, this one to T.P. O’Connor, on the 17^th June, as East Cavan finally neared its climax:

We must look forward to six months at least of military rule and severe coercion. Whether it will be possible for us under such a regime, and with the extended franchise, to hold such a number of seats as would make it possible to carry on the party is doubtful. But it is quite conceivable that in six months, if the government do not commit some fresh atrocity, Ireland may have sobered down so much that we shall emerge from [the general] election with say 40 seats.

David Lloyd George

“That would do very well,” he concluded with a curious mix of fatalism and optimism. Notably, Dillon was not envisioning an Ireland dominated by Sinn Féin – a failure of imagination that says much about why the Home Rule cause came up short – instead, the villain of his narrative was the British Government, specifically its Prime Minister, who Dillon saw as “playing a very deep game, a game which necessitates the encouragement of S.F. up to a point sufficient to kill the parliamentary party.” Compared to the “immense skill and superb audacity” of Lloyd George, Sinn Féin was little more than a pawn, “being utterly devoid of political sagacity, and overwhelmed with poetic fervour and wild, unregulated enthusiasm.” As such, it was playing “right into the hands of L.G. [Lloyd George]” as part of the Prime Minister’s quest to provoke a confrontation in Ireland and justify the application of armed force.

Dillon kept this sort of conspiracy theory to himself and his correspondence circle. Publicly, instead, he kept the focus on the policy differences between his party and the other, returning to three general themes in his speeches to hammer at the opposition:

• The Sinn Féin policy of an independent, sovereign republic could only lead to a war with Britain that would be inevitably and bloodily lost.
• Such a policy, combined as it would be with a total abstention from Westminster, would be “a policy of lunatics.”
• Also, not only would this policy mean the end of the unity achieved at the Mansion House Conference, it was alienating opinion in America just when Ireland needed it to secure its rights at the post-war Peace Conference.

All the same, Dillon knew his struggle remained an uphill one, with one factor after another conspiring to stop the IPP from going anywhere. If not for Conscription fears and now the ‘German Plot’ arrests, “we had S.F. absolutely beaten,” he told O’Connor.[35]

A Close Contest?

In that, the IPP Chairman and O’Shiel the Sinn Féin activist were in agreement, if on little else:

For the first two weeks there was great doubt as to the result of the election. In my view, had the election occurred within that period, Griffith might well have been beaten. And, most certainly, had there been no threat of Conscription and no arrests, he would have been beaten.[36]

Piaras Béaslaí

Cavan was, after all, a Northern county, and O’Shiel knew from his Tyrone background how conservative and hard to uproot from past loyalties such areas could be: South Armagh and East Tyrone were proof of that. “The majority of the Ulster Catholics were still untouched by the national movement, which had taken such a grip on the rest of Ireland,” commented another Sinn Féin official, Piaras Béaslaí, on that point in time.[37]

That there were 57 Sinn Féin clubs in Cavan, with 3,573 members, was a sign that the party was making inroads, but against that – as estimated by the RIC report for May 1918 – were the clubs and membership numbers of the United Irish League (42 and 5,962 respectively) and the Ancient Order of Hibernians (45 and 3,254), two grassroots organisations long affiliated with the IPP. Even when accounting for a probable shared membership between the pair, there were still grounds for thinking that (1) the Irish Party could win, as it had three times already that year, (2) either way, the result would be a close one.[38]

“It is believed that the election will be closely contested, and that the majority will be small,” read the Irish Times on the 7^th June:

Both sides express themselves confident of success. The Sinn Féin supporters assert that their man will win by an overwhelming majority, and, on the other hand, the Nationalists say that Mr. O’Hanlon will head the poll with a majority of from 500 to 600.[39]

By the 21^st, the day after polling, “the general opinion…was that Mr Griffith had won by a couple of hundred votes.”[40]

Ireland’s Answer

Liam de Róiste

Such reports were enough to soothe Liam de Róiste’s nerves a little, though he remained “somewhat impatient and a little nervous” as he recorded in his diary. So much hinged on East Cavan: if Sinn Féin won, the British state would be sent reeling; if not, then the cell doors on the imprisoned men were staying shut, probably for a very long time.[41]

Not that would be the end of things, if a gratifying exchange de Róiste had heard about was anything to go by. A priest at the same convent school in Kinsale, Co. Cork, de Róiste taught at was testing his pupils’ knowledge of Irish history. All had heard of the Battle of Clontarf, one of the few occasions Ireland could claim to have won. Similarly, everyone in the class knew who Éamon de Valera was when the padre asked about him.

They were not so certain when he followed up with which battle de Valera fought, but one small girl proved equal to the task:

Éamon de Valera, in the uniform of the Irish Volunteers

Girl: The Battle of Dublin, Father.

Priest: When was it fought?

Girl: Easter 1916, Father.

Priest: And who won?

Girl: It isn’t over yet, Father.

Priest: What! Is de Valera fighting yet?

Girl: Yes, Father.

Priest: Where is he fighting?

Girl: In jail, Father![42]

De Róiste was taking tea after his classes at the convent school when, at 6.40 pm, news of East Cavan reached him. Instead of the slim majority some had been predicting for Sinn Féin, Griffith, as it turned out, had won by 1,214 votes, his 3,785 to O’Hanlon’s 2,581. Yet another IPP stronghold had been stormed and in the supposedly impregnable North to boot. “That is better by a great deal than expected, better than the most optimistic estimate,” de Róiste wrote triumphantly. “There is Ireland’s answer to Lloyd George and his Plot. There is Ireland’s answer to ‘the Party’.”[43]

Cartoon from the ‘Roscommon Herald’, 15th June 11918. The caption read: “Mr. John Dillon, M.P., has endeavoured by his speeches to fill the ‘Slop’ Pail of Lloyd George to overflowing with his Fables and Fictious [sic] about the Sinn Fein leaders who have ousted him from popular favour. The dying U.I.L. [United Irish League, the IPP’s grassroots organisation] is endeavouring at the last moment to add a dirty bird from Cavan to the contents.”

“Arthur Griffith, Sinn Fein leader and deportee, was elected M.P. for East Cavan by a majority of 1,200 votes over the Nationalist [IPP] candidate,” went the RIC summary for the month. Despite the magnitude of the result, and its long-term implications, the Inspector General was primarily concerned about the immediate aftermath, mentioning that there were “some disturbances here and there, but on the whole it caused less excitement than previous Sinn Fein victories.” Likewise, the County Inspector report offered little comment, save that “all excitement has since died down.”[44]

But, of course, the excitement was only just beginning.

Cartoon from the ‘Roscommon Herald’ on the 29th June 1918. The caption reads: “With his fiction about a German ‘Plot,’ the Pasteboard Cromwell, Mr. Lloyd George, gasses poor, doddering John Dillon, while his Cavan Defeated lies at his feet. ‘Pasteboard’ fancies once more that the way is again clear for Irish Conscription.”

References

[1] Tyrone Courier, 12/04/1918

[2] O’Shiel, Kevin (BMH / WS 1770, Part 6), p. 9

[3] McGuill, James (BMH / WS 353), p. 46-9, 52-3

[4] Police reports from Dublin Castle records (National Library of Ireland – NLI), POS 8546

[5] Meleady, Dermot (ed.) John Redmond: Selected Letters and Memoranda, 1880-1918 (Newbridge, Co. Kildare: Merrion Press, 2018), pp. 211, 269

[6] Ibid, p. 270

[7] Irish Times, 08/05/1917, 11/05/1917

[8] Meleady, p. 212

[9] Irish Times, 11/05/1917

[10] O’Shiel, pp. 14-6 ; Figgis, Darrell. Recollections of the Irish War (London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1927]), p. 195 ; Healy, T.M. Letters and Leaders of My Day, Volume II (London: Thornton Butterworth Ltd, [1928]), p. 596

[11] O’Brien, William (as told to MacLysaght, Edward) Fourth the Banners Go (Dublin: The Three Candles Limited 1969), pp. 163-4

[12] Figgis, pp. 192-4

[13] Morrissey, Thomas J. Laurence O’Neill (1864-1943) Lord Mayor of Dublin (1917-1924) Patriot and Man of Peace (Dublin: Dublin City Council, 2014), p. 109

[14] Figgis, p. 193

[15] NLI, POS 8546

[16] Freeman’s Journal, 19/04/1918

[17] NLI, Laurence O’Neill Papers, MS 35,294/3/3

[18] Anglo-Celt, 27/04/1918

[19] Nationality, 27/04/1918

[20] McCarthy, Dan. Ireland’s Banner County: Clare from the Fall of Parnell to the Great War, 1890-1918 (Ennis: Saipan Press, 2002, p. 146 ; MacNeill, Eoin (ed. by Hughes, Brian) Eoin MacNeill: Memoir of a Revolutionary Scholar (2016: Irish Manuscripts Commission, Dublin), p. 94

[21] Figgis, pp. 202-5

[22] Ibid, p. 201 ; William, Murphy. ‘Figgis, Darrell’, Dictionary of Irish Biography (Accessed on 14/03/2023)

[23] ‘6 Feb – 17 May 1918’, Liam de Róiste Diaries Online, Cork City Council (Accessed on 01/08/2022), pp. 149, 152-3 [PDF pages]

[24] Healy, pp. 596-7

[25] Irish Times, 27/04/1918

[26] Morrissey, pp. 114-5 ; de Róiste, p. 150

[27] Irish Times, 01/05/1918, 11/05/1918

[28] Figgis, pp. 205-6

[29] Ibid, p. 206 ; Irish Times, 07/06/1918

[30] O’Shiel, p. 29

[31] Ibid, pp. 29-30

[32] Ibid, p. 32

[33] Ibid, pp. 35-6 ; Figgis, pp. 210-3

[34] O’Shiel, p. 37

[35] Lyons, F.S.L. John Dillon: A Biography (Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1968), pp. 439-41

[36] O’Shiel, p. 37

[37] Béaslaí, Piaras. Michael Collins and the Making of a New Ireland, Volume I (Dublin: Edmund Burke Publisher, 2008), p. 117

[38] NLI, POS 8546

[39] Irish Times, 07/06/1918

[40] Ibid, 21/06/1918

[41] ‘17 May – 13 July 1918’, Liam de Róiste Diaries Online, Cork City Council (Accessed on 01/08/2022), p. 44

[42] Ibid, p. 40

[43] Ibid, p. 45 ; election results in Irish Times, 22/06/1918

[44] NLI, POS 8546

Bibliography

Newspapers

Anglo-Celt

Freeman’s Journal

Irish Times

Nationality

Roscommon Herald (cartoons)

Tyrone Courier

Books

Béaslaí, Piaras. Michael Collins and the Making of a New Ireland (Dublin: Edmund Burke Publisher, 2008)

Figgis, Darrell. Recollections of the Irish War (London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1927)

Healy, T.M. Letters and Leaders of My Day, Volume II (London: Thornton Butterworth Ltd, [1928])

Lyons, F.S.L. John Dillon: A Biography (Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1968)

MacNeill, Eoin (ed. by Hughes, Brian) Eoin MacNeill: Memoir of a Revolutionary Scholar (2016: Irish Manuscripts Commission, Dublin)

McCarthy, Dan. Ireland’s Banner County: Clare from the Fall of Parnell to the Great War, 1890-1918 (Ennis, Co. Clare: Saipan Press, 2002)

Meleady, Dermot (ed.) John Redmond: Selected Letters and Memoranda, 1880-1918 (Newbridge, Co. Kildare: Merrion Press, 2018)

Morrissey, Thomas J. Laurence O’Neill (1864-1943) Lord Mayor of Dublin (1917-1924) Patriot and Man of Peace (Dublin: Dublin City Council, 2014)

O’Brien, William (as told to MacLysaght, Edward) Forth the Banners Go (Dublin: The Three Candles Limited, 1969)

Bureau of Military History Statements

McGuill, James, WS 353

O’Shiel, Kevin, WS 1770

National Library of Ireland Collections

Laurence O’Neill Papers

Police Report from Dublin Castle Records

Online Sources

Dictionary of Irish Biography

Liam de Róiste Diaries

When the Challenger Becomes the Challenged: Sinn Féin vs the Irish Parliamentary Party in the East Tyrone By-Election of April 1918

A continuation of: Toe to Toe: The South Armagh By-Election, February 1918

Live Free or Die Hard

Ireland entered 1918 as Sinn Fein’s to lose as the January report from the Inspector-General of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) made clear. The best that could be said, from the point of view of Dublin Castle, was that nothing indicated a rebellion like the one two years before; otherwise, ‘Sinn Feiners’ everywhere:

…were diligently organising their movement. Several public meetings were addressed by [Éamon] De Valera and other leaders, and there were numerous lectures and concerts throughout the Provinces which, as well as propagating Sinn Fein doctrines, are a fruitful source of revenue.

As for these doctrines in question: “Our principle is Ireland free or a holocaust of blood and ashes,” Edward Dwyer told a crowd in Golden, Co. Tipperary, on the 27^th January, while dressed in the khaki-green uniform of the Irish Volunteers.

Irish Volunteers

Other Sinn Féin talking-points might not have been as bloodthirsty but were equally challenging to the status quo: demands for an Irish Republic, demands for Ireland to be represented at any peace conference at the end of the war in Europe, protestations that food was being exported from the country while it was needed at home, an insistence that the Irish Volunteers and only they were responsible for saving Ireland from conscription being imposed by Britain, along with general abuse of Britain – on the verge of losing the war in Europe, apparently – all “with a view to undermine authority and induce contempt for Government.”

Kevin O’Shiel

No one could deny that Sinn Féin at least possessed an argument to make. Its enemies, in contrast, were conspicuous in their silence. Unionism in the form of the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Orange Order was nowhere to be seen, while the various societies allied to the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) – the United Irish League and the Ancient Order of Hibernians, for example – had been completely inactive until the end of January, and they were only stirred into movement by the by-election in South Armagh in February 1918.[1]

Given how Sinn Féin had won all the four previous ones, one could be forgiven for assuming that this time would no different. Kevin O’Shiel certainly believed so, as did the other activists who had travelled to the constituency on behalf of Sinn Féin. Instead, as O’Shiel recalled:

We were dumb-founded at the news, as most of us, with the tradition of so many electoral victories behind us, were so certain of another that we were concerned merely with what the majority would be and were betting on the size of [the Sinn Féin candidate’s] majority.[2]

For the Irish Party had won, and at almost double the number of votes than Sinn Féin. Newspapers allied to the IPP, or at least sympathetic to its moderate approach, reacted like the blooming of desert flowers after an annual rain. The IPP’s “magnificent victory reveal the hollowness of the Sinn Fein boast that virtue has gone out of constitutional nationalism,” wrote the Freeman’s Journal. “Instead of the stampede amongst its opponents which Sinn Fein hoped to bring about, its chief anxiety at present is to prevent a stampede of its own ranks.”[3]

The Policy of the Gun?

Similarly, the Dundalk Democrat praised “the stout-hearted, hard-headed men of South Armagh” for delivering “more than a mere local victory. They have won a victory that marks the turning point of the mad revolt against unity and sanity in Irish politics.” Even the Unionist Armagh Guardian, as sour on Home Rulers and Redmondites as it was on Republicans and Fenians, took the chance at a little common ground between Green and Orange at the expense of a common foe:

Our Scotch descent makes Ulster Protestants a canny people who do not accept wild and illusionary schemes, and the South Armagh Nationalists from close association have become imbued with this healthy characteristic.[4]

Given their minority status in South Armagh, Unionists did not bother putting forward a candidate of their own. Most preferred to sit out the contest by abstaining, except for a third who was said to have settled for the IPP man, presumably believing Home Rule to be a lesser of evils next to ‘wild and illusionary’ Republicanism. This was seized on by the beaten faction as the cause of their defeat, the implication being that the Irish Party could not have won on its own and that a victory with Orange aid was morally worse than no victory at all.[5]

To O’Shiel, this excuse was “facile” as well being “quite untrue”; despite his Sinn Féin commitments, the Tyrone native prided himself on remaining clear-sighed on political matters, particularly those concerning his fellow Ulstermen. Instead, he identified two key characteristics of South Armagh that led to his party’s failure there: the ingrained conservatism of the Northern Nationalist, as distrustful as he was of “sovereign independence” and about:

…the physical force element in the new movement. He considered the Easter Rising an act of supreme folly and dreaded the country getting into the hands of the “wild men”, as he was wont to refer to the Volunteers, tempting their sons over to the insane Fenian policy of the gun.

Liam de Róiste

Thus the Irish Volunteers who had come in from elsewhere in the country like Dublin and Clare to parade about the place probably did as much harm as good. The second factor was the generational one. The “mature elderly men with property qualifications” may have rejected radicalism but their sons, on the whole, did not. They were indeed tempted by the ‘Fenian policy of the gun’, insane or otherwise. But, as the franchise at that point was limited to men of twenty-one years or over, youthful rebellion did not count – literally – for much at the polls.[6]

“The register was an old one and the franchise of the time was limited,” as Liam de Róiste, another Sinn Féin worker, put it.[7]

Accepting the Challenge

Not that this had prevented Sinn Féin from winning before. Regardless of the reasons, or excuses, Sinn Féin had come up short for the first time since 1916. “The Sinn Fein movement is apparently holding its own,” noted the RIC Inspector-General, “but it cannot be said to have made any appreciable progress during the Month [February 1918], and lack of enthusiasm is becoming marked.” Perhaps there was an element of wishful thinking in this, but, even so, the trauma of South Armagh was to linger.[8]

Michael Collins

“Unquestionably the result of that election was a serious setback for our policy,” Michael Collins told a journalist four years later, in 1922.[9]

All of which may have been rather an understatement; after all, Sinn Féin had still won four out of the five seats available so far. But so repugnant was the unfamiliar taste of defeat that there was a reluctance to risk it again. When East Tyrone beckoned as the latest constituency in need of a new Member of Parliament (MP):

Sinn Féin headquarters did not wish to fight the election as it was felt by the leaders in Dublin that contesting the seat would be a hopeless proposition…Belfast did not agree with headquarters in Dublin and asked permission to fight the election and stated that they did not require either money or help during the campaign.

This was according to James McGuill, who had been in South Armagh as Sinn Féin’s Director of Transport, the procurer and handler of its small fleet of motorcars. “In a moment of weakness it was agreed that the seat should be contested,” he concluded, with an indication of his own view on the matter. McGuill was writing this years afterwards, as part of his submission to the Bureau of Military History, but a contemporary source told much the same thing, except, here, the deciding voice was neither Dublin nor Belfast but closer to the ground.[10]

“The Standing Committee of Sinn Féin was opposed to contesting the seat,” wrote de Róiste in his diary entry for the 26^th March 1918, “but the local people desire the contest.” Like McGuill, de Róiste thought the decision a bad one: “The chances of success seem poor as the constituency has many Unionists.”[11]

Arthur Griffith

About 60,000 Unionists to be precise, wrote Arthur Griffith in the Nationality, compared to 82,000 Nationalists. That Griffith felt the need to inform his readers this and how the former demographic had met to “decide in private conclave” to support the Irish Party, “the apostles of dismemberment [Partition]”, as if to prepare them for failure, suggests he too did not have high hopes for East Tyrone; after all, Sinn Féin would have to secure the Green vote as a whole to counteract the Orange, and even the best of the previous victories in 1917 had not been that total.

And so it was, with the grimly determined air of an incumbent champion Sonny Liston rather than the hungry enthusiasm of an up-and-coming Cassius Clay, that the Nationality proclaimed: “The “Freeman’s Journal” challenges Sinn Fein to oppose [the IPP candidate]. Sinn Fein accepts the challenge.”[12]

Common Bonds

East Tyrone would make the third by-election of the year. A month after South Armagh, there had been Waterford City on the 29^th March 1918; “another crushing defeat for Sinn Féin,” remembered O’Shiel. But Sinn Féin had the consolidation of Waterford being something of a special case, politically speaking. “Unlike South Armagh, no one had any doubts as to its cause – the Redmond name in the Redmond stronghold.”[13]

Bridget Redmond

O’Shiel was not exaggerating. As late as 1966, future Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald was told, upon knocking on a door in the Ballybricken area for his Fine Gael candidate: “You need not worry, sir, we always vote Redmond in this house.” For over sixty years, a Redmond had held that constituency, whether as a British MP or an Irish TD, from John Redmond’s victory in 1891 to his daughter-in-law’s death in 1952. And the dynasty could have looked forward to many more years of dominance, to judge by how Bridget Redmond had won the year before with her highest ever first preference vote at 8,372, topping the poll and earning her the seat on the first count.[14]

Given the enduring links between this city and its first family, it was a brave man who stood for Sinn Féin in March 1918, upon the passing of John Redmond. Any hopes that the death of the former IPP Chairman would sever the relationship between the constituency and his name was rudely disabused by Dr Vincent White’s votes of 764 to the 1,242 won by Captain William Redmond, the son and now successor; beforehand, Dr White had been struck on the head while on his way to the polling station, while no less a figure than the President of Sinn Féin, Éamon de Valera, spent his first day on the Waterford campaign surrounded, manhandled and finally besieged for over an hour in his party’s headquarters by a Redmondite mob.[15]

William Redmond, in the uniform of the British Army

Such scenes would be commonplace throughout the by-election, enough for several of the Irish Volunteers to remember their time with the flying columns in the subsequent War of Independence with less dread. Captain Redmond certainly treated the whole affair as a battle in itself, perhaps fittingly for one who had campaigned in his British Army uniform. “We defeated our opponents in South Armagh. We have them snowed under in Waterford and we have them on the run,” he said to the cheers of an appreciative crowd when his victory was announced.[16]

So could it be third time lucky for the Irish Party? Running for his father’s seat in Waterford had meant for Captain Redmond relinquishing the one in East Tyrone, his since the general election of December 1910. That occasion had been a lot closer – only by 140 votes in a total poll of 6,526. Home Rule was on the horizon, prompting Redmond Jr. to reassure – or to try to – the local Unionists:

Not only would Home Rule for Ireland not do anything to dismember or disintegrate the Empire but on the other hand it would be a sure means of wielding together the many, self-governing communities into a common bond in sympathy and interest.

But other points were not for turning. “The Irish Party,” Captain Redmond had said in another speech in 1910, this one directed at the Nationalists whose votes he first and foremost needed, “would not allow in any shape or form the exclusion of Tyrone” by Partition.[17]

Disuniting the Country

Almost eight years had passed and while the country was now in a very different state, the certain question remained the same: how was Ireland to be governed in the future? As part of the United Kingdom, completely separate from it or somewhere in between?

John Dillon

Some were calling for an Irish Republic, John Dillon told a rally at Kingscourt, Co. Cavan, on March 1918. And yet when privately asked if they were truly in favour of one, they would say certainly not: ‘That is merely bluff for the purposes of frightening John Bull.’ But Britain is not so easily intimidated, Dillon warned, and one may find, as some poor fellows did two years ago – in an allusion to the executed 1916 leaders – that the bluff may be called and at very short notice.

If nothing else, the Irish Party was demonstrating it could still put on a show and draw in the numbers. Newly-elected as the IPP Chairman, in succession to the late John Redmond, Dillon and his retinue had first arrived at Enniskillen, with a carriage draped in green and gold driving them to its Urban Council, watched by a crowd estimated to be around 15,000 to 18,000. From there he went to Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan, and then to Kingscourt, despite a delay in the journey due to the shards of broken glass found strewn across the road half a mile out of Carrickmacross.

Obviously not everyone in the locality was a fan – but plenty were, to judge from the cheers Dillon received from the crowd at Kingscourt, complete with the waving of hats and flags. It was enough to convince Dillon, so he said once the applause finally died down, that all that talk of Ulster going over to Sinn Féin was very much mistaken.

On that particular subject, he had quite a bit to say. “I don’t want to say anything bitter or insulting, because my object is to unite the country,” Dillon said, to encouraging calls of ‘hear, hear.’ However, “these gentlemen say that no man is to be tolerated as a Nationalist who recognised British law in this country,” particularly the police courts, before which many Sinn Feiners were finding themselves. “I will put rather an amusing test: If you owe any money to a Sinn Feiner and don’t feel inclined to pay it, do you think he won’t recognise British law?” Dillon said, earning some laughter.

But while the IPP Chairman had plenty to say about the other side, he had little to contribute on his own. “It is impossible for me today to define accurately or in detail of the policy of the [Irish Parliamentary] Party,” he admitted, “until we have before us, as we shall in a very few days, the decision of the Convention” about to take place in Dublin, a meeting-of-minds between Nationalists and Unionists, sponsored by the British Government, in an attempt to salvage something out of long-delayed Home Rule. “Then we will lay before the people our policy.”

‘God Preserve Ireland’

Until then, Dillon could only offer further jabs at the “very peculiar people” in Sinn Féin:

They remind me sometimes of Lenin and Trotsky, who are now destroying Russia, and whose idea of liberty, we were told the other day in Dublin, is the only kind worth having. God preserve Ireland from that kind of liberty, because the principle of it is that every man is to be at liberty to rob his neighbour, and that anybody who chooses to commit murder wholesale may escape punishment. I say God preserve Ireland from such liberty.[18]

This speech had reached Eoin MacNeill by the time he made his own public appearance, on behalf of Sinn Féin, in Belleek, Co. Fermanagh. He had read it in the morning newspaper, MacNeill told the crowd:

Voice from the crowd: There is nothing new in it.

MacNeill: I beg your pardon, there is a good deal of new things in it.

Voice: He has been saying the same thing for thirty years.

MacNeill: I will answer him and leave you to say what you think.

Voice: He is not worth answering.

For the past decade, MacNeill said, he and the rest of the Irish language revival movement had been accused of undermining the IPP, when now it was no longer necessary to do what the Irish Party was doing to itself (“And badly, too,” added another member of the audience). The late John Redmond had proclaimed a few years ago the solving of the Irish question through Home Rule – who cares a rap for that now? Certainly not his successor, who dares not say as much as a word about it in public.

Eoin MacNeill on a public platform

What Dillon did talk about was uniting the country, or at least offering to; well, MacNeill was about to make an offer of his own:

If Mr Dillon declares that he stands with the majority of the people of Ireland for the rights of the Irish nation to be as free as any other nation, declares as we have done that the Irish people have the right to determine the form of government under which they live, publicly calls on the British Government to withdraw the threat of military force from Ireland…then I say I will welcome him to this platform with open arms.

“Until he does that we will certainly not join hands with him,” MacNeill finished, not that anyone could have found either scenario to be plausible. Notably, he did not use the word ‘Republic’ once in his speech; had his listeners noticed, they gave no sign of caring, to judge by the bouts of applause MacNeill received throughout. But, if Dillon had been hesitant in Kingscourt about the IPP’s current policy, MacNeill was similarly elusive about the game plan for his own party; he was just more confident in asserting that Sinn Féin had one.[19]

Put together and the two speeches at Kingscourt and Belleek reveal more about their respective sides than either might have liked. Dillon talked a good game but he, and the IPP in general, “did not actually challenge the desirability of the republican demand,” as historian Fergal McCluskey writes. At the same time, for all of MacNeill’s mock magnanimity, Sinn Féin was suffering “badly from the lack of practical policy, apart from the contesting of by-elections,” remembered Piaras Béaslaí, another activist for the party, since its endgame of creating a national assembly for Ireland was not going to happen until the next general election gave it the seats with which to do so.[20]

‘Players of the Orange Game’

Outwardly, at least, Sinn Féin kept up its bravado. Whether its predictions for itself were entirely convincing was another matter:

We are having a General Election in miniature in Ireland, and the results so far do not bear out the boast of the Sinn Feiners that they only wanted the opportunity of a General Election to “wipe out” the Irish Party.

The Dundalk Democrat wrote this in the aftermath of the Waterford city result, where the two to one majority vote for Captain Redmond, combined with the IPP’s South Armagh win, suddenly made Sinn Féin’s boasts sound a little hollow. With East Tyrone now looming:

Sinn Feiners cannot well back out of a contest since only a little while ago they declared that they would sweep the country at the next election…It would not do for a party that appeals to the “fighting spirit” to back down from a fight in Tyrone.

Coming from an IPP-aligned newspaper, one has to take such snide partisanship for what it is, as well as the accusation that Sinn Féin was “driving a wedge into a hitherto solid body of Nationalists who will probably never again come together as before.” Which was the standard accusation by the Irish Party against its new rival – as it had been for years on anyone threatening its hegemony. A more original line of attack was the Dundalk Democrat’s suggestion that “the hope of Sinn Fein is in the Unionists” – after all, the IPP and the Orange demographic of East Tyrone had long been at each other’s throats for control. Might it be “probable that some Unionists…be prevailed on to help the men who are helping them” in dividing the Green bloc?[21]

In this, the newspaper was reversing the Sinn Féin excuse for South Armagh. Whether the Unionists there had in fact voted for the Home Rulers they knew over the Republicans they did not is debatable; nonetheless, it was now a stock Sinn Féin soundbite. Countess Markievicz sarcastically asked, while campaigning in East Tyrone, whether the Unionists had become Home Rulers or the Irish Party were now pledging themselves to the Union.

Ulster Unionist crowd with a Union Jack (in Belfast)

WILL THE UNIONISTS VOTE? went a headline in another newspaper, the Ulster Herald, underlining their role as supposed kingmakers in East Tyrone. The answer, directly underneath, was apparently ‘no’:

It was announced on Wednesday night [27^th March 1918] that, at a meeting of E. Tyrone Unionist Association Executive…it was decided to recommend Unionists take no part in an election between Dillonite [IPP] and S.F. candidates.[22]

All the same, the anticipation of the Orange vote upsetting the applecart with a swing behind either of the Green parties lingered; if nothing else, it provided fuel to the suspicion that the other Nationalist faction was up to something no good and underhand. The Ulster Herald warned its readers of the “unholy alliance, such as now exists between the Irish Party and the Ulster Orangemen” – no guessing where that newspaper’s allegiance lay; meanwhile, Kevin O’Shiel’s attempts to address a congregation leaving its church at Clonoe on Sunday morning was thwarted by the parish priest who loudly abused O’Shiel and his fellow Sinn Féiners as ‘players of the Orange game’.[23]

The Candidates

Choosing the man for the IPP was done at a specially convened meeting of its East Tyrone Executive. Since the one other possible choice, John Skeffington, was announced to be withdrawing from consideration, as requested by Dillon, the field was clear for Thomas Harbison to be unanimously selected by those present. A solicitor in Cookstown and a member of the Tyrone County Council, Harbison made for a solid candidate. For its part, Sinn Féin initially announced Seán MacEntee (a future Fianna Fáil heavyweight) as its candidate; within a week’s time, however, Seán Milroy was running instead on behalf of that party.[24]

Seán Milroy speaking to a crowd, 1922 (source: https://ifiarchiveplayer.ie/for-the-treaty/

Unlike Harbison, Milroy could not claim a local connection. In O’Shiel’s view, the Dubliner had been pushed forward “because of his known moderate views”, for, despite fighting in the 1916 Rising and his long-time involvement in Sinn Féin (Arthur Griffith being a close personal friend), Milroy “was far from being a ‘wild man’ or advocate of physical force.” As O’Shiel had observed for himself in South Armagh how leery the typical Ulster Catholic was of anything that smacked of violent upheaval, this was a prudent move.[25]

Milroy would continue to be a voice for moderation, urging the Dáil four years later to accept the Treaty in a speech judged by some to be the best of the day. “Speaking with a deep sonorous voice, rolling his r’s and vigorously driving home his thrusts by the scornful finger,” Milroy practically transfixed some of the journalists in attendance. Another onlooker was to be less impressed at the performance: to Todd Andrews, Milroy was little more than “a middle-aged man with hunched shoulders, the face of a boozer with the voice of a corncrake” (although Andrews’ anti-Treaty stance may have coloured his perception).[26]

Considering the odds against Sinn Féin in East Tyrone, Milroy might have drawn the short straw in being its candidate. All the same, he gamely did his best, addressing a crowd from the window of the Commercial Hotel, Dungannon. In keeping with his moderate temperament, he made an appeal for discipline and good order to be the watchwords of the contest; a fierier Countess Markievicz, in contrast, addressed her audience as ‘fellow soldiers’ and ‘rebels’. She had arrived in Dungannon on the midnight train, along with Count and Countess Plunkett (parents of the 1916 signatory), to be met at the station by Milroy and around a hundred and fifty Irish Volunteers, who then led the Sinn Féin dignitaries to the Commercial Hotel in a public display of strength.

Countess Markievicz

Irish Volunteers had become a feature of elections wherever Sinn Féin was involved, with two hundred more coming into Dungannon from nearby Donaghmore and Clonoe for the party demonstration on the following day. An IPP counter-parade, in contrast, attracted only a score of participants, while a crowd of Unionists youths were kept from making trouble by the RIC constables on standby. Count Plunkett, however, did not let this day’s success go to his head, obliquely referring to the predicted odds as he told listeners in Dungannon that the current contest would make Ireland one step closer towards liberty – whether they won or not.[27]

A Tacitly Accepted Axiom

Violence was another characteristic of Irish politics and a long-time one at that, as anyone who remembered the ‘Baton Convention’ in 1909 or the Parnell Split of the 1890s could attest. Joe Devlin, Thomas Lundon, Richard Hazelton and T.P O’Connor thus could hardly have been surprised, however displeased, when the four Irish Party MPs were pelted with rotten eggs at Coalisland; Devlin, for one, seemed to treat it all as just another day at the office as he endeavoured:

…to make his voice heard above the din, appearing to be quite indifferent to the fierce volleys of rotten eggs – their stench was dreadful – that matted his hair and clothes, and also that of his colleagues in the brake.

Despite being Sinn Féin’s election supervisor for Coalisland, Kevin O’Shiel was most displeased at the sight of this, priding as he did on keeping his end of the election tidy and civilised. But there was only so much one could do in the North where “at that time it was an understood and tacitly accepted axiom of politics to break up your opponents’ meetings if you were able to do so.”[28]

Ulster was hardly atypical for this; the prior elections in Longford and Waterford city had been particularly tumultuous. Whether East Tyrone matched them in this depends on the source. “So far the contest is being conducted without any such violent exhibitions,” read the Ulster Herald, while Tyrone Constitution reported on the 29^th March “many exciting incidents, and several Nationalist [IPP] meetings have been interrupted and broken up by Sinn Feiners.”[29]

Sinn Féin poster on a carriage

The ‘breaking’ was not all one-sided. “Two supporters of Mr Milroy are alleged to have been attacked while driving along a road outside Dungannon by supporters of Mr Harbison,” read the Freeman’s Journal on the 4^th April, the last day before the polls closed. The pair suffered injuries, albeit slight ones; of more interest to the newspaper – unsurprisingly, given its status as the IPP’s main organ – were what the supporters of Mr Milroy were up to:

Sinn Fein “peace patrols” were in evidence on a scale even more formidable than in any other election…Armed with hurleys and sticks, they took up positons in the immediate vicinity of the polling booths, and large bodies of Sinn Feiners paraded the country roads.[30]

Given the heightened feelings in the air, it did not take much for petty provocations to escalate, even if only tangibly related to the election. In Castlederg, a crowd giving cheers for Germany and the Kaiser was set upon by loyal subjects of the King, the scuffle lasting a couple of minutes before the former group broke and fled, some taking refuge in the RIC barracks – much against their patriotic instincts, no doubt – while the rest ran out of town altogether.

WELL DONE, CASTLEDERG! – ROUT OF THE SINN FEINERS. – UNIONISTS CLEAR THE TOWN. – A GOOD SATURDAY NIGHT’S WORK went the headlines of the Tyrone Constitution. Another incident in the same town, this time between a British soldier and some ‘Sinn Feiners’, also earned the newspaper’s glowing approval: “As the Hun learned how the British Tommy can hit back, so did their Irish supporters. Three or four of them rapidly bit the dust before his well-aimed blows, and engaged in a study of astronomy for a few minutes, whilst the remainder, seeing the fate of their leaders, hesitated, with the result that the soldier walked away, apparently satisfied with his work.”[31]

‘There is no Quarrel so Bitter’

And yet the Ulster Herald believed that the by-election as a whole “was not characterised by any of the disgraceful scenes associated with the Waterford contest” – which may say more about Waterford than Tyrone. Or about expectations in the North.[32]

Or maybe it is all just a matter of perspective.

Dungannon Courthouse, George Street, where the election results were counted and read

TYRONE’S VERDICT read the headline for the Freeman’s Journal on the 5^th April, the day after the polls closed, when the results were read out on the steps of the Dungannon Courthouse:

Thomas Harbison (IPP) – 1,802

Seán Milroy (Sinn Féin) – 1,222

Thomas Harbison, from the ‘Freeman’s Journal’, 5th April 1918

The Irish Party had just won for the third time that year by 580 votes, not a bad result, on the face of it, for a party that had been floundering the year before. FLOWING TIDE OF VICTORY proclaimed the Freeman’s Journal. ANOTHER SMASHING DEFEAT FOR SINN FEIN. Another newspapers presented a more circumspect picture, with the Belfast Newsletter observing the disappointment of Harbison’s supporters. They had hoped to succeed by a larger majority, ideally two to one. The Nationality went for the other extreme, arguing that the result was really “a triumph for Sinn Féin” as it:

…demonstrated that nowhere in Ireland can the corrupt Parliamentary Party [note the withholding of ‘Irish’ from the name] hold a seat except by the aid and permission of the Ulster Unionist Council or the Irish Unionist Alliance.

The same excuse for South Armagh was being dusted off for an East Tyrone reappearance. It did not say much about the odds for a United Ireland when the mere association of an Orange vote for a Green candidate provoked such spleen and sectarian grievance-mongering from the organ edited by no less than Arthur Griffith:

Mr Devlin, conscious of the obligation he owes to Orange Ulster, thanked his saviours in Tyrone by playing to their bigoted instincts. He stigmatised the Catholics priests to the howling Union Jack mob as ‘subtle gentlemen’ who went around intimidating voters, and while the bigots cheered he lyingly [sic] attacked the Catholic schools. And for years this slanderer of Catholic priests imposed on thousands of Catholics in Ireland with his AOH [Ancient Order of Hibernians] in which he used the mask of religion to cloak the foulest political corruption.

In truth, Unionists had displayed little interest in the contest if the page-space in the Belfast Newsletter is anything to go by; more had been given to the fresh German offensive in Europe. After all:

From the Unionist point of view there is little difference between the Nationalist and the Sinn Feiner…The [Sinn Feiner] say plainly what they want, while the Dillonites [IPP] are ready to accept something less as an instalment. Both factions are the enemies of England and of Irish Unionists.[33]

Ulster Unionist postcard

Nonetheless, the charge of Orange collusion was a sensitive enough one for the IPP to confront through its mouthpieces. Deflection was the chosen strategy: the Dundalk Democrat accused Sinn Féin of “cooing softly before the Unionist dovecots”, seemingly more intent in warring against fellow Nationalists than Orangemen, while the Freeman’s Journal told of how “a prominent Belfast Sinn Feiner was arrested on a charge of attempting to impersonate a Unionist voter in the Caogh district”, a story that may best be described as ‘unusual’.[34]

Joe Devlin

Whatever the specifics, 1918 was now looking a lot less straightforward than it did at the start. “We beat them in South Armagh, we smashed them in Waterford, and we have routed them in gallant East Tyrone,” Devlin crowed to his followers. The authorities were not so triumphant. The monthly RIC report to Dublin Castle noted the twin wins in Waterford and Tyrone without comment, only that Sinn Féin, while “it cannot be said to have made very striking progress, the leaders and organisers displayed no lack of energy.”[35]

Neither party was leaving the Irish stage quite yet – the IPP had received its second wind and Sinn Féin was as intent in remaking Ireland in its image as before. All that was left to do was a fight to the finish, winner taking all, for, as the Dundalk Democrat sagely put it, “there is no quarrel so bitter as that between members of one household.”[36]

To be continued in: On a Knife’s Edge: The Last By-Election between Sinn Féin and the Irish Parliamentary Party at East Cavan, June 1918

References

[1] Police reports from Dublin Castle records (National Library of Ireland), POS 8545

[2] O’Shiel, Kevin (BMH / WS 1770, Part 6), p. 2

[3] Freeman’s Journal, 02/02/1918

[4] Armagh Guardian, 08/02/1918; Dundalk Democrat, 09/02/1918

[5] Unionist voting preferences in NLI, POS 8545

[6] O’Shiel, pp. 2-3

[7] De Róiste, Liam (BMH / WS 1698, Part II), p. 173

[8] NLI, POS 8545

[9] Talbot, Hayden (preface by De Búrca, Éamonn) Michael Collins’ Own Story (Dublin: Edmund Burke Publisher, 2012), p. 50

[10] McGuill, James (BMH / WS 353), p. 46

[11] ‘6 Feb – 17 May 1918’, Liam de Róiste Diaries Online, Cork City Council (Accessed on 01/08/2022)

[12] Nationality, 30/03/1918

[13] O’Shiel, p. 5

[14] McCarthy, Pat. The Redmonds and Waterford: A Political Dynasty, 1891-1952 (Dublin: Four Courts Press Ltd, 2018), pp. 14, 164-5

[15] Ibid, pp. 95, 97

[16] Ibid, p. 97

[17] Ibid, pp. 93-4

[18] Anglo-Celt, 23/03/1918

[19] Ulster Herald, 23/03/1918

[20] Béaslaí, Piaras. Michael Collins and the Making of a New Ireland, Volume I (Dublin: Edmund Burke Publisher, 2008), p. 117 ; McCluskey, Fergal. Fenians and Ribbonmen: The Development of Republican Politics in East Tyrone, 1898-1918 (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2011), p. 255

[21] Dundalk Democrat, 30/03/1918

[22] Ulster Herald, 30/03/1918

[23] Ibid, 06/04/1918 ; O’Shiel, p. 8

[24] Tyrone Constitution, 22/03/1918, 29/03/1918

[25] O’Shiel, pp. 2-3, 6

[26] De Burca, Padraig and Boyle, John F. Free State or Republic? (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2002), p. 19 ; Andrews, C.S., Dublin Made Me (Dublin and Cork: The Mercier Press, 1978), p. 206

[27] Ulster Herald, 30 March 1918

[28] O’Shiel, pp. 7-8

[29] Ulster Herald, 30 March 1918 ;  Tyrone Constitution, 29/03/1918

[30] Freeman’s Journal, 04/04/1918

[31] Tyrone Courier, 05/04/1918

[32] Ulster Herald, 06/04/1918

[33] Freeman’s Journal, 05/04/1918 ; Belfast Newsletter, 05/04/1918 ; Nationality, 13/04/1918

[34] Dundalk Democrat, 30/03/1918 ; Freeman’s Journal, 04/04/1918

[35] Freeman’s Journal, 05/04/1918 ; NLI, POS 8545

[36] Dundalk Democrat, 30/03/1918

Bibliography

Newspapers

Anglo-Celt

Armagh Guardian

Belfast Newsletter

Dundalk Democrat

Freeman’s Journal

Nationality

Tyrone Constitution

Ulster Herald

Books

Andrews, C.S. Dublin Made Me (Dublin and Cork: The Mercier Press, 1978)

Béaslaí, Piaras. Michael Collins and the Making of a New Ireland (Dublin: Edmund Burke Publisher, 2008)

De Burca, Padraig and Boyle, John F. Free State or Republic? (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2002)

McCarthy, Pat. The Redmonds and Waterford: A Political Dynasty, 1891-1952 (Dublin: Four Courts Press Ltd, 2018)

McCluskey, Fergal. Fenians and Ribbonmen: The Development of Republican Politics in East Tyrone, 1898-1918 (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2011)

Talbot, Hayden (preface by De Búrca, Éamonn) Michael Collins’ Own Story (Dublin: Edmund Burke Publisher, 2012)

Bureau of Military History Statements

De Róiste, Liam, WS 1698

McGuill, James, WS 353

O’Shiel, Kevin, WS 1770

National Library of Ireland Collection

Police Report from Dublin Castle Records

Online Source

‘6 Feb – 17 May 1918’, Liam de Róiste Diaries Online, Cork City Council (Accessed on 01/08/2022)

Toe to Toe: The South Armagh By-Election, February 1918

‘A Remarkable Career’

A piece of history, as well as a man, passed away on the 14^th January 1918 with the death of Dr Charles O’Neill in Coatbridge, Scotland. He had been one of the few remaining participants at the meeting in the home of Isaac Butt in 1873, when the movement for Home Rule was first launched: tantalising, enraging and inspiring Ireland with equal passion ever since.

It was a cause Dr O’Neill had thrown himself into unreservedly as the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Armagh, a seat won in 1909 and retained in both the general elections of 1910, thus earning him the merit of being elected thrice in the space of twelve months. Even so, he did not go so as far as to move there, instead dividing his time between his Scottish residence and his work at Westminster, the battlefield where the struggle for Home Rule was waged, particularly during the bare-knuckle years of 1912 to 1914. While never more than an adequate orator – his speaking style was politely described as “quiet, effective” – the quantity of his attendance was perhaps more important than its quality.

“No member of the Irish Party was more assiduous in his attendance at Westminster,” wrote the Freeman’s Journal in its obituary:

It was Dr O’Neill’s unvarying practice to leave London at midnight on Friday after the close of the week’s sitting of the House of Commons and leave Coatbridge again later on Sunday night in order to be in his place when the House resumed on Monday afternoon.[1]

Politics had been an interest of his since youth, but few could have expected much from the poor immigrant from Co. Antrim when he stepped off the boat on the Clyde. Even the Armagh Guardian, a newspaper with a Unionist outlook which would not have made it inherently sympathetic to a Nationalist politician, paid tribute to him as “a self-made man with a remarkable career.”

O’Neill had a humble start as a rural postman in Scotland, earning a little extra on the side by cobbling in his spare time and selling tea during his postal rounds. From there, he started a lodging-house in Coatbridge, before adding a pub and next a pawnbrokers to his property portfolio.

He then began to take an interest in public life, and once at a meeting someone sneered at his lack of education. He felt this keenly, and he became less in evidence in local affairs, when, having blossomed forth into a fully qualified doctor, he returned to public life.[2]

This included his duties for the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) as well as civic affairs at home, with O’Neill – now Dr O’Neill – holding positions of note in the Parish Council, the School Board and the Town Council of Coatbridge, along with some time as a magistrate. Two weeks before his death from cancer, he had addressed the Glasgow Teachers’ branch of the United Irish League on the subject of the new Scottish Education Bill in what was to be his swansong public appearance. Whether for Ireland or Scotland, Dr O’Neill had busied himself to the last.

“The deceased was of a kindly and generous disposition,” finished the Freeman’s Journal, “and will be greatly missed…by his colleagues in the Irish Party.”[3]

On the Ropes

As well he might, for the MP’s death had left his seat open to a by-election at a time when the IPP had ample cause to dread such occurrences, having failed at all four in the previous year. For a challenger had entered the political ring, in the form of a revitalised Sinn Féin party, and was wasting no time in pummelling the once undisputed champion of Irish Nationalism with one electoral defeat after another.

Cartoon upon the IPP defeat in North Roscommon, from the ‘Roscommon Herald’, 10th February 1917

The first had been North Roscommon in February 1917, followed by South Longford in May, and then, in quick succession, East Clare in July and Kilkenny City in August. Longford was especially brutal, for the previous Roscommon loss could have been written off as a fluke, “a result to be attributed rather to emotion than to conviction,” according to P.S. O’Hegarty, in his chronicle of Sinn Féin’s rise.

Come South Longford and the IPP:

…faced it in full confidence and with a machine in full working order. That was one of the vital elections in Irish history. If the Parliamentarians had won it, they might have preserved their organisation and their machine and kept Sinn Féin out of its heritage for some time yet; yet they lost it by thirty-seven votes, and got their death-blow.[4]

Stephen Gwynn

Even Stephen Gwynn, the MP for Galway City, agreed. The Longford result, as he saw it, “was a notice of dismissal to the Parliamentary Party.” Some others among the Irish Party went so far as to privately propose that their MPs should resign en masse and make way for the ascending new power. Though nothing came of that suggestion, the situation improved not one bit for the IPP over the course of the year, lurching from bad to worse, with four seats lost to Sinn Féin by the time 1917 drew to a close. And now, with the South Armagh seat open and vulnerable, Sinn Féin was readying to claim its first foothold in Ulster.[5]

“Sinn Féin must win this seat,” exhorted the Nationality, edited by none other than Arthur Griffith. In order to achieve this, the newspaper made an appeal for funds towards what it grandly called “one of the most critical elections in National History” which “must be fought with the Nation’s whole strength.” That Armagh stood to be lost in the event of Partition gave the challenge a particular edge. It was time, wrote one reader in a letter to the Nationality, “to help Ulster to take its stand with Leinster, Connaught, and Munster in the fight for Irish Freedom, and to repudiate the corrupt ‘bosses’ who have tried desperately to sell the country and to place Ulster under the heel of an intolerant ascendancy clique.”[6]

A cartoon mocking the IPP’s defeat in North Roscommon, from Roscommon Herald’, 10th February 1917

Fighting words, indeed. “We would say the Sinn Feiners are certainly daring in their tactics, but everyone knows that fact already,” noted the Armagh Guardian dryly.[7]

Opening Volleys

Whatever its woes and the daring of its opponents, the IPP appeared determined to fight hard for South Armagh. The weather on the 21^st January 1918, when the election campaign officially began, was wretched, with continuous downpours, but canvassers and speakers from both parties made the best of the dismissal day, putting on a series of rallies throughout the constituency.

Patrick McCartan

The Sinn Féin contender was a Dr Patrick McCartan but he was not currently present in Armagh, nor would he be if the authorities across the Atlantic had anything to do with it, detained as he was in a New York prison. That had not deterred his name from being one of the two put forward at the Sinn Féin conference in Whitecross, Co. Armagh, on the 20^th January. The second possibility, Dr McKee from Banbridge, quickly withdrew, leaving McCartan to campaign in spirit, if not in presence. After all, imprisonment had not stopped Joe McGuinness from being elected to his South Longford seat and, of course, Dr O’Neill had represented South Armagh all that time from his Scottish abode. An absentee MP would be nothing new for the constituency.

As for the Irish Party, it had not yet settled on its choice, though it was generally accepted that Patrick Donnelly, a solicitor from Newry, would be it. Donnelly certainly gave every impression of that as he took the lead in the IPP campaign. After paying tribute to the late Dr O’Neill, Donnelly launched into a cutting criticism of the opposition.

Patrick Donnelly, from the Freeman’s Journal, 1st Feb. 1918

For the first time, he said, the electorate of Ulster were to have Sinn Féiners, the disciples of disruption and dissension, in their midst. To be sure, they promised many things. Sinn Féin wanted an Irish Republic but was not so definite on how this lofty goal could be achieved. Ireland was to have an army and a navy, supposedly, but were the long-suffering tenant farmers of the county to pay for these martial luxuries?

The Irish taxpayer had been charged enough as it was. With the British Exchequer planning yet more financial burdens, how were these to be resisted if Sinn Féin refused to enter Parliament in accordance with its abstentionism stance? The likes of Éamon de Valera could tout their willingness to wait as long as fifty years for an Irish Republic but what was to happen to Ireland until then?

No, there was nothing sane or sensible in such policies, Donnelly declared:

And he doubted if [Sinn Féin] would have secured any support whatever but for the sympathy which was evoked following upon the executions in Dublin [after the 1916 Rising].

Donnelly expressed his hope that the contest would be a clean one. But if the Sinn Féiners intended to use force and intimidation to get their way, as he heard they had done in the by-elections of the previous year, then they would most assuredly be given a taste of their own methods, he warned, to the cries of “hear, hear” from his audience.[8]

Cold War

Donnelly was not speaking idly. With units of Irish Volunteers coming into Armagh from all over the country in support of Sinn Féin, violence indeed hung in the air. But Sinn Féin’s adherents would have disagreed with his assertion that the threat lay with them, for the IPP and its partisans proved just as willing to turn a political fight into a physical one.

“When the campaigning got under way it soon became apparent that fisticuffs were considered by some as more effective than arguments,” the captain of a Volunteer company from Louth commented dryly.[9]

Irish Volunteers squaring up

Others could attest to that. As C Company from Dublin pulled into Newry Station, its Volunteers looked outside the windows to see the large, angry crowd waiting for them. Forbidden to carry weapons other than sticks, the Dubliners were readying these for use on their first time on Northern ground when a female voice called out: “Up de Valera, the man they daren’t shoot.”

The scene was to stay with the company captain, Seamus Kavanagh, in the years to come:

It is hard to describe the effect that the woman’s voice and words had upon us; apart from the words and the personality referred to in them, her voice had the ring of defiance that electrified us.

Thus motivated, the Irish Volunteers formed up in fours as soon as they stepped from their carriages and advanced to meet the multitude head-on. The display was enough to overawe the throng, as the Dubliners, much to their own surprise, were able to march by without any trouble – for now.

Newtownhamilton, Co. Armagh (today)

C Company was barracked at the village of Newtownhamilton, inside an empty building – an old mill or warehouse – set aside for them. Accommodation was Spartan, with the men having to make do with sleeping on the floor. Still, the Volunteers busied themselves with their work, such as patrolling the village, changing in rotation at regular intervals, while careful to keep to one end of the streets, allowing the other to be held by members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), a Catholic fraternity, long allied to the IPP and with a formidable presence in the North as the newcomers were learning.

Not that Kavanagh was overly impressed. Already an experienced soldier, who had cut his teeth at Mount Street Bridge and Boland’s Bakery during the Easter Rising, Kavanagh regarded the opposition with a disdainful eye:

Discipline was very marked between the two parties; whereas we moved under a squad or section leader, we were silent and smoked only on his permission and then only while halted and “at ease”; they, although they kept some semblance of military formation, often shouted threatening phrases at us.

Kavanagh nursed a special contempt for the Hibernians’ commander, a small, distinctly unmilitary-looking man, who was in the habit of flourishing his stick over his head while delivering either of the only two orders he knew – “Quick march” and “Halt”.

What the Hibernians lacked in polish, however, they made up for in spirit. “Not one of them will leave Newtownhamilton alive,” shouted someone from the crowd across the street to the Volunteers. Nonetheless, the war inside the village remained a cold one, each band content to posture and eyeball the other.[10]

Newtownhamilton, Co. Armagh (old postcard)

Slow Starts

Martial manoeuvres aside, the McCartan campaigners had no illusions about the odds against them. The Rising of 1916 may have electrified the country as a whole into rejecting the parliamentary methods of the IPP in favour of the more confrontational style espoused by Sinn Féin and embodied in the Irish Volunteers but South Armagh remained thus far a revolutionary backwater. This was despite the best efforts of a handful of activists in the area who extolled the new faith while “the people generally were listening and perhaps sympathetic but did not yet give much evidence of excitement,” as John McCoy remembered.

A recent convert to Republicanism, McCoy had been inspired by the heroics of Easter Week. The same could not be said for the rest of his native province as McCoy was painfully aware:

The position in the districts I know in the North in 1917 showed a marked contrast in the matter of organising and recruiting for Sinn Féin and the Irish Volunteers to all districts in the South and West.

Things were so lethargic in his locality of South Armagh that “no particular notice was taken of it by the British Authorities” – perhaps the ultimate insult from a Fenian point of view.[11]

The by-election following Dr O’Neill’s passing offered a chance to shake up this sorry situation but McCoy, despite his newfound radical sympathies, was reluctant to respond when asked to assist in the Sinn Féin campaign. He was busy with his work as a land auctioneer and, besides, “I did not think that business and politics would mix successfully as far as I was concerned.”

That Sinn Féin had made its election base outside the contested constituency, instead choosing Dundalk, Co. Louth, was a measure of its own hesitancy. While the party and its Volunteer allies were already well-established in Dundalk, for South Armagh they would have to start from scratch.

Seán O’Mahony

Which they did, spearheaded by experienced campaigners from all over Ireland who had cut their teeth in the contests of the year before. When McCoy finally agreed to lend whatever aid he could, time permitting, he was asked by one of the newcomers, Seán O’Mahony – nicknamed ‘Big Séan’ on account of his size – who to approach first. “I told him to tackle my father who was not disposed to give up his allegiance to the Irish Parliamentary Party.”

And so:

I introduced Séan to my father as one of the men who fought for the Republic in Dublin in 1916, and my father told Séan that the British must have been rotten shots to miss such a large target.

By the end of their talk, “Seán succeeded so well that he made our house his Headquarters during the election,” McCoy recalled delightedly.[12]

‘Ill-Considered and Utopian’

Cardinal Michael Logue

The personal touch had its limits, however. The main hurdle for Sinn Féin was that it was a new phenomenon while the Armagh Nationalists were, by and large, an old-fashioned lot; few areas would have seen an elderly farmer argue his case by quoting from the 6^th century Prophecy of St Columcille at the Sinn Féin canvassers who had stopped by. Less medieval, but also set in his ways, was the man at the top of the spiritual pyramid as far as many in the constituency were concerned: Cardinal Michael Logue. Any doubt as to where the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland stood would have been dispelled by a pastoral letter to the churches in his Diocese of Armagh, read out the year before on the Sunday of the 25^th November.

“The pursuit of a dream which no man in his sober senses can hope to see realised,” His Eminence warned:

The establishment of an Irish Republic…would be ludicrous if it were not so mischievous and fraught with such danger, when cleverly used as an incentive to fire the imagination of an ardent, generous, patriotic people.

After all, how else would this Republic be achieved except through the generosity of the European powers – a long shot at best – or “by hurling an unarmed people against an Empire which has five millions of men under arms, furnished with the most terrible engines of destruction which human ingenuity can devise”? With this considered, what else could the budding new movement in the land – discreetly unnamed in the pastoral but obvious enough in its identity – be but:

An agitation [which] has sprung up and is spreading among our people which, ill-considered and Utopian cannot fail, if preserved in, to entail present suffering, disorganisation and danger, and is sure to end in future disaster, defeat and collapse.[13]

The Cardinal had not softened his stance by the time of the by-election, two months later: when Éamon de Valera called by, Logue refused to receive him. A police report attributed Logue’s grip on his clergy as the reason the younger ones did not play an active role in the contest, the assumption being they would have done for Sinn Féin.[14]

Sinn Féin poster on a carriage

Another Vote for Easter Week?

Even if Cardinal Logue did not necessarily speak for all his congregation, one particular missionary for Sinn Féin, Darrell Figgis, was to learn of the gulf between his thinking and that of those he hoped to convert. Technically, the Charlemont Arms Hotel was outside the disputed area, the hotel being in Armagh City, which was more mid-county than south, but it was close enough to the action to be used as a base for Sinn Féiners north of the constituency in the same way Dundalk filled in for those southwards.

Charlemont Arms Hotel, Armagh

It also provided a suitable pulpit for Figgis to preach his side’s case, as one witness, Kevin O’Shiel, described, to:

A large number of farmers and countrymen, all rather elderly and appearing to be in the process of conversion of Redmond’s brand of constitutional nationalism to that of Griffith.

Seated at the head of a long table in the hotel sitting-room, Figgis fielded questions from an audience who:

…feared and distrusted the Volunteers and the fighting men, and abhorred the prospect of another rising. If they voted for Dr MacCartan [alternative spelling], a well-known Ulster figure whose name, for a generation, had been synonymous with extreme nationalism of the Fenian and physical force type…did that mean they would be voting for another Easter Week?

Darrell Figgis

Not at all, Figgis assured them. Physical force had served its purpose, which was to grab the attention of the country. The policy moving forwards was to be of the constitutional type, as envisioned by Arthur Griffith, building Ireland up into a self-sufficient nation before it took its place among the countries of the world. The Irish Volunteers remained, yes, but their purpose now was purely one of self-defence, particularly if conscription by Britain – a possibility detested and feared by all – was ever in danger of being imposed in Ireland.

In the light of the subsequent insurgency, this claim might seem a disingenuous one, but O’Shiel was to insist in his written reminiscences:

That presentment of the case for the new Sinn Féin was no deception on Figgis’ part – it was the belief held by us all, including the Volunteer chiefs themselves.

Charles Stewart Parnell

Figgis was swaying the audience to his creed – and then disaster struck for the sake of a long-dead icon. When the name of Charles Stewart Parnell was raised – “as, indeed, it inevitably is in any prolonged discussion amongst Irishmen,” as O’Shiel dryly put it – Figgis had a ready, if unwise, response in regard to the leader whose adultery had thrown Nationalist Ireland into turmoil: whatever a man does in his private life has surely no bearing on his public conduct.

As beliefs go, it was an enlightened one. In front of the devotedly Catholic old gents before Figgis – who, at 35 years of age, was from a different generation and had not, unlike them, lived through the Sturm und Drang of the Parnell era – it went down like a lead balloon. With this single answer, the preacher had lost his would-be congregation, as evidenced by the number who took their hats and then their leave, shuffling awkwardly away.[15]

A Lesser of Evils

Another demographic Sinn Féiners were unlikely to be overly familiar with were the Unionists of South Armagh, who approached the by-election with an entirely different criteria: which faction of their despised enemies could they tolerate winning – or prefer to lose the least? For, as far as the Armagh Guardian newspaper was concerned, any plague would preferably be on both their houses:

One political opponent is almost as bad as the other, for both have threatened that when they get into power they will, to use Mr John Redmond’s words, deal with Unionists with a strong hand. The only difference is that the Redmondite party say they have renounced their former demands of an Ireland separated from Great Britain, whilst the Sinn Feiners openly state they go for the same goal as Mr Redmond…formerly did – an Irish Republic by recourse to armed force if necessary.

Who, then, was the lesser of the two evils? And how would a vote for one best serve against the other? A Sinn Féin victory promised interesting consequences, for not only would it deny the IPP another parliamentary place, but the Nationalist agenda itself would be hobbled a little further in Westminster due to the Sinn Féin policy of abstentionism.

Ulster Unionist postcard

Furthermore:

It is also being argued in Ulster that by voting for the Sinn Feiners they are helping to reduce the power of the priesthood. Some Unionists hold the view that if the Sinn Feiners win the seat the [IPP] will be more than anxious to come to terms with the Unionist party as to Ulster, to make common front against the Republicans.

“Certainly there is something in this view,” wrote the Armagh Guardian, on the 25^th January 1918, with the air of a general surveying a battlefield while weighing up the most promising tactic. But counting against this strategy of Divide and Conquer were scruples: “Loyal Unionists are warned they will ally themselves with rebels if they vote for McCartan” – a hard thing to swallow for any good servant of the Crown.

Still, that Unionists had a choice at all in a previously safe seat for the IPP was a novelty. However, lest the unexpected potential to play kingmaker got to its readers’ heads, the Armagh Guardian warned against hasty judgement:

The Unionist vote…should not be used without consultation with the leaders of the party, and that their decision be followed. They will consider the situation from the Unionist standpoint and give wise counsel, knowing which will be best for the great cause at a critical time.[16]

By the time of its next edition a week later, on the 1^st February, the newspaper had decided that the best Nationalist to endure is none at all: vote for neither and let the enemy sort out its own squabbles. Hence the consternation when it learned that, instead of waiting for guidance as advised, some Armagh Unionists had gone ahead and nominated a candidate of their own. That Thomas Wakefield Richardson had had a change of heart almost immediately and withdrawn from the contest scarcely helped matters, for his name was still to appear on the ballot papers, potentially confusing some into wasting their choice on a candidate who was not even in the running anymore, and with other Unionists either settling for the IPP or not voting at all.

Ulster Unionist crowd with a Union Jack (in Belfast)

This splitting of the Unionist bloc could have been avoided if people had waited and:

The best had been made of the situation, and [if] all been advised to vote for the Unionist the strength of the three parties in the constituency would have been ascertained.

So much for that. As it was, the majority of Unionist electors looked set to put themselves in the Donnelly camp, not that the Armagh Guardian liked that any better:

Those who vote for him will say they have chosen the least of two evils, but under the circumstances the Unionists should support a Unionist candidate when he has come forward, and not have the discredit of becoming supporters of a party who will not given them any liberty or toleration.

In case its readers still did not get it: “Those who vote for Donnelly vote for Redmond and home rule.”[17]

The Political Position of the North

Ultimately, however, Unionist angst was a sideshow. The by-election had begun as and would remain a Green-on-Green feud, between the IPP and the Sinn Féin and their respective pitches to Nationalist Ireland. Canvassers for the latter who entered the constituency expecting an extension of their budding war with Britain were to be brutally disabused.

“The political position in the North at this time was Orangemen versus Hibernian,” bemoaned Laurence Nugent from Dublin. “Nationality or the freedom of the country was not considered.”

Speakers during the Armagh election: Seán Milroy for Sinn Fén (left) vs Joe Devlin (IPP, right), from ‘Irish Independent’, 27th January 1918

Also unsettling were the tribal politics that greeted them: “The AOH held sway, and they treated us as Orangemen.” Such was the local aversion to the outsiders that schoolchildren would not accept the pamphlets and leaflets offered by the Sinn Féiners, who resorted to leaving their literature on the roadside, underneath stones against the wind, in the hope of them being picked up and read later. An attempt at Southern-Northern dialogue at one house was concluded with a bucket of water thrown over Nugent and his companions.

And that was not the worst that could be hurled. Nugent saw one Sinn Féin speaker, J.K. O’Reilly, suffer the stones and sods from the men, women and children in an area otherwise known for its hospitality – and O’Reilly had not even had the chance to speak. Irish politics had long been of the rough-and-tumble sort, and Nugent had had his share of scrapes in the by-elections of the previous year, but “in Longford we were attacked only by the roughs of the town…here in South Armagh we were attacked by the population generally.”[18]

Joe Devlin

Nugent evidently was still troubled by the memories from the campaign when he wrote the above years later, in 1953, as part of his submission to the Bureau of Military History. He rather downplayed the politics at stake; contrary to his assertion that ‘the freedom of the country’ was not a matter of interest, a speech by Joe Devlin, MP for Belfast West, about how Ireland “must have the completest form of self-government that was ever given to any people…the same form of government as had been given to Canada, to Australia, to New Zealand,” shows that the IPP still hoped to keep its flagship policy of Home Rule alive.[19]

Contemporary accounts do corroborate the violence on display or the threat of it; such was the hostility of the crowd at one Sinn Féin rally that Dr Russell McNabb threatened to open fire with his gun if they did not back away. At Bessbrook, the aggression was limited to the verbal – at least initially. When Éamon de Valera was introduced on stage as the President of the Irish Republic, “What’s your policy?” was shouted at him. After de Valera replied that he would answer that soon, more heckles were cast his way – “What’s your nationality?”, “Go back to Spain” and “It’s not your flag, anyway”, the last being when de Valera pointed to the Red Hand on the banner above a pipe band and announced it as the flag of Ulster.

Éamon de Valera arriving at Crossmaglen, Co. Armagh, from the ‘Irish Independent’, 27th January 1918

De Valera pressed on. For McCartan to be elected would send a message across to America that no British censor could hide. McCartan stood for self-determination. Did the other side? The IPP had already displayed its incompetence and stupidity. No less a figure than Dr Edward O’Dwyer, the late Bishop of Limerick, had said as much to de Valera on the eve of last year’s East Clare by-election: “There will be no advance in Ireland until you sweep that rubbish out of the land.” When de Valera replied that the IPP would die out by itself, His Eminence had declared: “If you want to have a real Irish nation, such as you desire, you, first of all, must clean out the rubbish and build from a decent foundation.”

As for Unionists, they must make up for their minds whether they were to be a British garrison or fellow Irishmen. “If they are content to be a British garrison, we have only one thing to do, and that is not to try to conciliate them,” de Valera said. Unionists were a rock on the road and, as such, they must be stormed or, if necessary, blasted out of the path.

Countess Markievicz

Strong words, indeed; earlier at the demonstration, Countess Markievicz has declared that Sinn Féin would go on until the entire connection with England was cut with knife and sword and gun. Stronger actions followed; afterwards, “many scenes and encounters took place between the rival parties and the windows of the S.F. Committee Rooms were smashed,” reported the Armagh Guardian.[20]

Discipline and Élan

Given the numbers of men flowing into South Armagh, armed and ready on behalf of their respective parties, it was hardly surprising that blows would be thrown. The appearance of the Irish Volunteers in particular warranted the attention of journalistic pens. “A number of these were in a sort of uniform presumed to be that of the embryo Republic and carried pikes,” the Armagh Guardian wrote with an audible sniff. The newspaper would go further in its contempt, dismissing the “senseless parades of men in ill-fitting semi-military dress even when they carry tin pikes.”[21]

Irish Volunteers

Meanwhile, the Freeman’s Journal, despite its role as the IPP’s mouthpiece, managed to be a little more neutral in its description of the opposing faction:

Many of the Sinn Feiners wore the green uniform of the Volunteers, with Sam Browne belts to distinguish the officers. Others were in civilian clothes, with white armbands and shamrock-shaped paper backers in their hats bearing a portrait of their candidate.[22]

Writing to Dublin Castle for his monthly report on the state of the country, the RIC Inspector-General estimated the numbers of Irish Volunteers in South Armagh for the election to be six or seven hundred. Other than the military manoeuvres displayed, “they appear to have done nothing” and despite the equally militant presence of the AOH and other IPP heavies, “no collisions occurred.”[23]

This was not quite true, unless the Inspector-General meant ‘no collisions occurred’ in comparison to the other elections. In South Longford, for instance, one laneway in Longford town was dubbed ‘the Dardanelles’ due to the frequency and ferocity of stones and bottles flung. While South Armagh on polling day was “more like what one would expect in Petrograd or the Ukraine than in a peaceful Irish county,” the Freeman’s Journal still considered the behaviour of both Sinn Féin and Hibernian patrols to be “happily modelled on that of the famous Duke of York, who marched his men up hill and marched them down again.”[24]

Cat-and-mouse games were generally the order of the day, as the various groups shadowed each other, drawing up with clubs in hand at the sight of their rivals and otherwise making their presence known in response to the other’s but, as at Newtownhamilton, preferring the threat of violence rather than taking the step into the real thing. For the most part, anyway; later reminiscences preferred to dwell on the clash of arms that broke out. Since these tellers had been with Sinn Féin or the Irish Volunteers, a heroic light was cast accordingly on their side, a typical example being about a brawl in Crossmaglen: “The discipline and elan [sic] of the volunteers prevailed against an unorganised mob [of Hibernians] and they cleared the large square of the town.”[25]

Contemporary accounts could be more intrigued by the more standard electioneering methods in use. “Judging by the amount of election literature distributed in all parts of the constituency there is no shortage of paper in South Armagh,” noted the Evening Herald wryly. Alas, “it was not a musical election,” with the Hibernians chanting “Yah! Yah! Yah!” incessantly or singing The Bells are A-Ringing. The Sinn Féin camp, meanwhile, stuck to A Soldier’s Song.

Arthur Griffith (Sinn Féin, left) and P. Meehan (IPP, right)

The gulf between the Nationalist contingents appeared unbridgeable and not just in musical taste. When the polls were closed and the ballots taken in sealed boxes to the Newry Workhouse to await the morning’s count, certain Sinn Féiners, Darrell Figgis among them, insisted on keeping watch to prevent any nocturnal interference. This prompted the IPP to do the same and so eight politicians, four from each party, spent the night together, along with the four policemen assigned, in the room outside the one where the boxes were stored.[26]

What fun that must have been!

Dumb Founding

The Armagh Guardian believed that ‘borrowed’ votes from Unionists would be enough to push Donnelly over the finishing line for the IPP. The Ulster Gazette and Armagh Standard was not so sure: “The appearance of the Unionist candidate has caused perturbation in the Irish Party Camp, where it is believed that the deflection of several hundred Unionists may lead to the defeat of Mr Donnelly.” True, Richardson had withdrawn, but as his name remained on the ballot-papers, that still could lead to “the event of a three-cornered race” in which, according to the Irish Independent, “the chances of the Irish Party candidate would appear to be doubtful.”[27]

Crowds and police outside the Newry Workhouse as the votes were counted, from ‘Irish Independence’, 4th February 1918

Not so doubtful was Kevin O’Shiel, confident as he was of another Sinn Féin success, as were many of his fellow canvassers for that party. After all, they had had four electoral wins already. Hence their surprise – “dumb-founded” as O’Shiel put it – when the count was declared outside the Newry Workhouse on the 2^nd February 1918:[28]

Patrick Donnelly (Irish Parliamentary Party) – 2,324

Patrick McCartan (Sinn Féin) – 1,305

Richardson (Independent Unionist, retired) – 40

Michael Collins

“Taking the political events of 1918,” Michael Collins told journalist Hayden Talbot in 1922, “the most important incident was the South Armagh election.” Even years afterwards, the failure stung: “Unquestionably the result of that election was a serious setback for our policy.”[29]

The IPP had thus pulled off its first victory against a previously unstoppable Sinn Féin, and at almost double the votes at that. Cheering crowds accompanied the newly-minted MP for South Armagh to the Imperial Hotel, passing a line of Irish Volunteers as they did so. No trouble occurred then, nor did anyone interrupt Donnelly as he proclaimed the win as the greatest blow for Irish freedom for the last fifty years.

Patrick Donnelly MP, from ‘Irish Independent’, 4th February 1917

As well as that, Donnelly continued, the election was a message of conciliation to the British people, a sign that the Nationalists and Unionists of Ulster could work together and proof that the forces of disorder would not encroach into the North. That last point was the theme of the subsequent speeches at the Imperial Hotel: Canon Quinn of Camlough called for cheers for the “sane electors of South Armagh,” while Joe Devlin praised the win “for well-ordered government, for union, for toleration, for conciliation amongst all good men.”

A very different mood was to be found elsewhere in town, over at the Sinn Féin Committee Room. The result, announced de Valera, was only to be expected of a constituency with a heavy Unionist population. Since Unionists knew only Sinn Féin could beat Unionism, they had voted accordingly. Arthur Griffith blamed “a combination of the forces of English ascendancy and rotten place-hunters” while promising that the IPP would be vanquished for good in the general election in six months’ time. Countess Markievicz struck a similarly hopeful note, reminding her audience that only a battle had been lost, not the war.[30]

Photograph of Éamon de Valera addressing disappointed supporters after the election, from ‘Irish Independent’, 4th February 1918

All of which would be proved true enough. But, given the novelty of recent success, the Irish Party could perhaps be excused for revelling in the moment.

See also:

An Idolatry of Candidates: Count Plunkett and the North Roscommon By-Election of 1917

A Choice of Green: The South Longford By-Election, May 1917

Raising the Banner: The East Clare By-Election, July 1917

Ouroboros Eating Its Tail: The Irish Party against Sinn Féin in a New Ireland, 1917

References

[1] Freeman’s Journal, 15/01/1918

[2] Armagh Guardian, 18/01/1918

[3] Freeman’s Journal, 15/01/1918

[4] O’Hegarty, P.S. The Victory of Sinn Féin (Dublin: University College Dublin, 2015), p. 19

[5] Gwynn, Stephen. John Redmond’s Last Years (London: Edward Arnold, 1919), pp. 259-60

[6] Nationality, 19/01/1918, 26/01/1918

[7] Armagh Guardian, 25/01/1918

[8] Freeman’s Journal, 21/01/1918

[9] Grant, John (BMH / WS 658), p. 5

[10] Kavanagh, Seamus (BMH / WS 1053), pp. 15-7

[11] McCoy, John (BMH / WS 492), p. 21

[12] Ibid, pp. 23-4

[13] Irish Catholic, 01/12/1917 ; story of the St Columcille Prophecy from Nugent, Laurence (BMH / WS 907), pp. 135-6

[14] Police reports from Dublin Castle records (National Library of Ireland), POS 8545

[15] O’Shiel, Kevin (BMH / WS 1770, Part 5), pp. 143-6

[16] Armagh Guardian, 25/01/1918

[17] Ibid, 01/02/1918

[18] Nugent, pp. 134-6

[19] Armagh Guardian, 08/02/1918

[20] Ibid, 01/02/1918

[21] Ibid, 08/02/1918

[22] Freeman’s Journal, 02/02/1918

[23] NLI, POS 8545

[24] Clarke, Kathleen (edited by Litton, Helen) Revolutionary Woman (Dublin: The O’Brien Press, 2008), p. 144 ; Freeman’s Journal, 02/02/1918

[25] McGuill, James (BMH / WS 353), p. 31

[26] Evening Herald, 02/02/1918

[27] Armagh Guardian, 01/02/1918 ; Ulster Gazette and Armagh Standard, 02/02/1918 ; Irish Independent, 28/01/1918

[28] O’Shiel, Part VI, p. 2

[29] Talbot, Hayden (preface by De Búrca, Éamonn) Michael Collins’ Own Story (Dublin: Edmund Burke Publisher, 2012), p. 50

[30] Armagh Guardian, 08/02/1918

Bibliography

Newspapers

Armagh Guardian

Evening Herald

Freeman’s Journal

Irish Catholic

Irish Independent

Nationality

Ulster Gazette and Armagh Standard

Books

Clarke, Kathleen. Revolutionary Woman: 1878-1972, An Autobiography (Dublin: The O’Brien Press, 1991)

Gwynn, Stephen. John Redmond’s Last Years (London: Edward Arnold, 1919)

O’Hegarty, P.S. The Victory of Sinn Féin (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2015)

Talbot, Hayden (preface by De Búrca, Éamonn) Michael Collins’ Own Story (Dublin: Edmund Burke Publisher, 2012)

Bureau of Military History Statements

Grant, John, WS 658

Kavanagh, Seamus, WS 1053

McCoy, John, WS 492

McGuill, James, WS 353

Nugent, Laurence, WS 907

O’Shiel, Kevin, WS 1770

National Library of Ireland Collection

Police Report from Dublin Castle Records

 

The Worst of a Good Deal: The Irish Pact Election of June 1922 (Part II)

A continuation of: The Best of A Bad Job: The Irish Pact Election of June 1922 (Part I)

‘If All the People of Ireland But Ten Men…’

The fundamental thing to remember about the General Election of June 1922 is that it was a face-saving fraud and always intended to be, a parliamentary Potemkin Village rather than an honest attempt to uncover the public desire. After all, that was not really in doubt: people wanted the Anglo-Irish Treaty, or rather the peace it represented for Ireland after two and a half years of shootouts and slayings in its fields and streets as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) pitted itself against the might of the British Empire. It was the policy of the Fenians writ large, the reclamation of Irish nationhood by strength of arms and the backing of a loyal populace.

IRA men

And yet, by the start of 1922, if the IRA still had the weapons, then the support was less certain. With hindsight, “it may be that we were expecting too much from people who had suffered so greatly and who now felt that peace, even without full freedom, was what they really wanted,” wrote Liam Deasy in his memoirs. By then, Deasy was a sadder but wiser man, having lived through the collapse of the Republican cause in the Civil War and his own narrow escape from a firing-squad. At the time, however, Deasy was prepared to fight to the death for his ideals, as were the rest of the IRA bloc hostile to the Treaty, and popular will be damned.

Liam Deasy

“This should not be wondered at,” Deasy explained to his readers. “We were never unduly influenced by election results.”[1]

It was about sticking to one’s principles. “If all the people of Ireland but ten men voted that the nation go over to the Islamic faith, their decision would not bind the ten men,” wrote Aodh de Blácam in Poblacht Na h-Eireann – The Republic of Ireland, the newsletter for the anti-Treaty viewpoint, in May 1922. “If all Ireland but ten men voted that the Archbishop of Canterbury be head of Irish Christians, those ten men would yet owe that dignitary no allegiance.”[2]

Aodh de Blácam

Maybe not – but would these hypothetical ten men allow the rest of the nation to bind itself? Putting principles first could become elevating them above all else, even if it meant riding roughshod over others. While Deasy might not have considered his comrades to be overly susceptible to democracy, with de Blácam poo-pooing the very concept of majority rule, the power of a public vote was still recognised, enough for the need to thwart it.

“No election on the issue at present before the country to be held while the threat of war with England exists,” insisted Poblacht Na h-Eireann in April 1922.[3]

‘Without Prejudice to their Present Respective Positions’

Arthur Griffith

Unwritten was the reason why: because the Anti-Treatyites would lose, which would force the Treaty sticking point to breaking point and open warfare. Robert Brennan had been increasingly and uncomfortably aware of this nightmarish scenario ever since reading in a newspaper about the signing of the Treaty while in Berlin as an Irish envoy. He instantly returned to Dublin and chanced upon a jolly Arthur Griffith in the Mansion House. If Griffith assumed Brennan would be supportive of his decision to put his name to the Treaty, then Brennan wiped the smile off his face by telling him that he had made a terrible mistake. Even if the alternative was further war, said Brennan, then at least the revolutionary movement would have faced it as one body.

“The person who talks like that is a fool,” Griffith snapped. Nonetheless, the two men remained on friendly terms, an amiability not commonly shared in Ireland as divisions widened into an outright schism.[4]

While he never wavered in his opposition to anything short of an Irish Republic, Brennan grew impatient with his military allies, such as Liam Mellows and Ernie O’Malley, whom he viewed as naively unprepared, to the point of delusional, for conflict, even after their seizure of the Four Courts in April 1922 brought that grim possibility all the closer. And then Michael Collins and Éamon de Valera, each representing their own faction, were able to hammer out an electoral rapprochement on the 20^th May, signing what would become known as the Pact.

Robert Brennan

This came not a moment too soon for Brennan, a solution in the eleventh hour that promised both peace and the protection of the anti-Treaty presence in the Dáil, for candidates from the two sides were not to run against each other. Instead, they would be standing on the same platform, not as Anti-Treatyites, not as Pro-Treatyites, but as Sinn Féiners first and foremost, just like before.[5]

The situation could allow for no other option, as the opening clause in the agreement proclaimed:

The national position requires the entrusting of the Government of the country into the joint hands of those who had been the strength of the national situation during the last few years, without prejudice to their present respective positions.[6]

“When the Pact was unanimously adopted by the Dáil, the feeling of relief was profound because the shadow of civil war had been lifted,” was how Brennan described the mood. Which made the news that some were seeking to throw the toys out of the pram all the more shocking.

A young man of Brennan’s acquaintance – given the pseudonym of ‘Dan Smith’ in his reminiscences:

…came into my office [on O’Connell Street] with a sensational report. He had been present at a secret meeting of an Independent group that morning. Darrell Figgis, who was not a member of the group, had attended and made a speech urging the group to put forward candidates in opposition to the Sinn Féin panel of candidates at the election.

It was no secret that Figgis, a long-time Sinn Féin activist whose curriculum vitae included organising the Howth Gun-Running in 1914, had come down firmly on the side of the Treaty. Less clear was why he wanted to undermine the Pact but, whatever the motive, to Brennan, “this was treachery, because Figgis, as a member of the Sinn Féin Executive, was bound in honour to uphold the Pact.”

Darrell Figgis, hard at work

As proof of these machinations, ‘Smith’ gave Brennan a verbatim report of this meeting. Brennan wasted no time in getting to Suffolk Street, where he met with de Valera in the latter’s office, along with Erskine Childers and Austin Stack. The decision was made to publish the report in a special STOP PRESS edition of Poblacht Na h-Eireann, on the 30^th May 1922, under the dramatic headline TREACHERY TO THE PACT – THE PLOTTERS.[7]

Backroom Alliances

The ‘treachery’ in question had taken place at the close of a special session of the National Executive of the Irish Farmers Union (IFU) at 37 Upper Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin, on the 25^th May. Figgis’ choice of venue was unusual in that he was in no way connected to anything agricultural. He also admitted, after being introduced to the room, that his position was a delicate one since he was a member of the Sinn Féin Standing Committee, which had just signed off on the Pact five days ago. Anything Figgis did was to be understood as purely personal and in no way on behalf of anyone or anything else.

With that said, his view was that the Treaty, warts and all, represented the best chance the country had, particularly at developing industry and the economy. With that in mind, those with expertise at turning a profit should have an opportunity to contribute to the forthcoming government.

After all:

Ireland had a greater proportion of its population out of work than was the case in any other country. The figures were, roughly, 150,000 unemployed – who represented a population of 500,000 – which meant that one-eighth of their people were out of work and suffering from hunger. These problems should be solved by the business people of the country, and these people should get into Parliament.

Darrell Figgis

Which was not going to happen with any sort of Pact Election, rigged – ‘crooked’ to use Figgis’ word – as it was in favour of a forced equality between pro and anti-Treaty adherents that would do no more for national stability than before. Instead, the three groups currently excluded, representing Irish commercial, industrial and farming interests, should stand together on a common platform. The Dáil already had a pro-Treaty majority, though a slight one, and if reinforced by Independent delegates of the same opinion, it would strengthen the likelihood of the Treaty being implemented.

The boldness of this proposal made some attendees hesitant. A Mr Beamish from Cork expressed his view that, if Republican voters were to stick to Republican candidates, and Pro-Treatyites to likewise back their own, then there was not much room left for any third options. That was, after all, how the Pact had been designed to operate.

Not so, replied Figgis, as he thought it likely that seventy percent of the electorate would choose a non-Sinn Féin candidate before a Sinn Féin, or ‘Panel’, one. The strategy would only work if, say, farmers’ candidates refrained from standing in rural areas, and instead targeted Republican-held spots. In the Kildare-Wicklow area, for example, there were four anti-Treaty seats that were for the taking if planned accordingly. In places where neither the agricultural nor business communities were strong, by pooling their votes they could cut the ground from underneath the Anti-Treatyites.

Sir John Keaene

“The farmers want a farmers’ party,” said the IFU Chairman, Sir John Keane, as he seconded this strategy, “but that would not prevent us from working together.”

That appeared to be the consensus in the room. County Clare was raised as another case in point: its business element was small but what there was could lend its support to an agrarian nominee in the absence of an industrial one and push the vote accordingly in their mutual favour. In other counties, the reverse could be applied. Having been frozen out of the election before, there was now a chance for the farmers and businessmen to push their way in from the cold.

The country was tired of elections, Figgis remarked as the meeting drew to a close, the implication being that now was the time to get down to work.[8]

A Mystery Man

David Lloyd George

Perhaps it was understandable that Brennan and other Republicans would react so strongly to this democratic putsch. Figgis and his IFU audience had talked not just of putting forward their own candidates, alongside the Panel-approved ‘official’ ones, but in targeting anti-Treaty-held seats specifically. A more blatant violation of the neutrality the Pact was intended to uphold could scarcely be imagined, to the point that David Lloyd George wondered to his Privy Council if this precipitated a split between Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith, given the latter’s closeness with Figgis.[9]

The British Prime Minister was not alone in speculating. To Joseph Connolly, there was no way Figgis would have done what he did “without the full consent and approval of Griffith.”  Connolly was in New York at this time, representing the Irish Republic as Consul General, and so lacked a front-row seat to the drama at home, but he knew Figgis enough to dislike him, regarding the other man as “something of an interloper, a careerist or an opportunist.”

This was apparently a widely shared opinion in the Irish revolutionary movement, with Griffith a notable exception, and his friendship with Figgis was one Connolly struggled to understand. The implication Figgis’ behaviour had for Griffith’s own conduct was disturbing to Connolly: “It is not to me a pleasant recollection of Griffith, but what seems to be the clear facts of that move must be recorded.”[10]

Joseph Connolly

Not that much was clear about the whole affair, with undisputed facts hard to come by. Poblacht Na h-Eireann chose to treat Figgis as a rogue element, albeit one whose misdemeanour threatened a wider indictment if unchecked. As a Sinn Féin official, Figgis’ partisan actions had thrown the credibility of his fellow Pro-Treatyites into jeopardy. While his previous record of service to Ireland was well-known and respected, “Mr Figgis should be promptly disowned by his party.”[11]

The man in question was quick to defend himself via a letter to the press, published on the 31^st May, the day after Poblacht’s exposé. None of the Pact’s seven clauses forbade what he had said or done, Figgis wrote; indeed, Clause Four specifically stated that “every and any interest is free to contest the election with the Sinn Fein panel.” The only limitation was on pro and anti-Treaty candidates on the aforementioned Panel running against each other. Otherwise, all was as it should be. The liberties of the Irish people and their right to a free election, had been safeguarded, despite the efforts of some in the spirit of the old Irish Parliamentary Party who used to argue that any opposition to it was de facto treason against the national interest.

In case readers missed the historic allusion:

The issue is the same to-day, not because of the Pact, but because of the attempt to misuse the Pact. Let us remember that we have had no elections since 1918. Some of the present members of the Dail have never been voted upon by the people. The rest have not been voted upon since December, 1918. We are, therefore, almost as far from a genuine election as the Irish Party was.

All of which was anathema to what Sinn Féin stood for, in Figgis’ view. Sinn Féin, a name Figgis had worn as far back as when it was dangerous to do so, was “not a close political corporation. It is itself a composition of many different parties,” out of which the electorate would select whoever they deemed best:

That is the simple issue before us. The people of Ireland are free and responsible, and no one can restrict that freedom or diminish that responsibility.

Not even, Figgis added pointedly, the “artificial restriction of candidates.”[12]

A Tipperary Case Study

Dan Breen

Knowingly or not, acting alone or in concert, Figgis had thrust an awkward question into the spotlight: what was the general election for? For democracy and liberty, Figgis had argued, but others looked to different priorities. Given the current circumstances, unity and good government was paramount, Commandant-General Dan Breen told a convention of the Irish Farmers Party in Tipperary Courthouse, on the 5^th June 1922. To this effect, he asked them to withdrew their candidates, giving the outgoing Dáil representatives for North, Mid and South Tipperary a clear run and a chance to work together. The coming parliament would only last a short while anyway, before another election – and then the farmers of Tipperary could send their own to the Dáil.

That was good enough for the Farmers Party, and their two aspirants, Hassett and James Duggan, were stood down. Not so pliable was Daniel Morrissey, who held his ground on behalf of Labour, despite Breen’s appeal in a one-on-one talk to “close the ranks”, to which Morrissey had replied, as he explained to the Nenagh Guardian:

It is not Labour’s fault that the ranks were divided any more than it was Comdt.-Gen. Breen’s; neither am I sure with it being either of their faults if they are not now closed…There are many starving labourers in the country as well as others who may be excused if they fail to see that the “country was above all interests” to the members of the late Dáil.

Breen had a response of his own, written in a tone more of sorrow than anger for the pages of the same newspaper:

I interviewed a Mr Morrissey of Nenagh, but the arguments which moved the farmers of Tipperary failed to move him.

He was a worker, Breen declared, and would not have asked fellow workers to step aside in the election if he thought their interests would be at risk. As it was:

Our country is above all interests. On the declaration of the poll, I hope to see Tipperary stand on the National record where it has stood for the past four years.

It was a matter of politics, not personalities, and nowhere did either Breen or Morrissey behave with anything less than civility, in print or in person. Indeed, Morrissey spoke of being treated with “nothing but the greatest courtesy from Comdt.-Gen. Breen.” A letter from a Seamus Nolan, also published in the Nenagh Guardian, took on a harsher tone, however:

It is lamentable that Mr Morrissey was not more vocal in support of his countrymen when the fight [against Britain] was on: and that he now holds up for his own glorification the sacrifices made by genuine Labour men throughout the country. But it is doubtful if Mr Morrissey can claim to be the spokesman of Labour in Tipperary, having regard to certain incidents which occurred at the meeting which selected him.[13]

Daniel Morrissey

What occurrences were these, Nolan did not elaborate. Two years later, Breen was similarly snide in his autobiography, refusing to refer to Morrissey by name, only as “the Labour candidate” who “cared nothing about the idea of presenting a united front to the enemy. He was ambitious for power and insisted upon going forward.” This depiction jars sharply with the public exchange between the pair at the time, but then, Breen was writing in the aftermath of defeat, amidst the ashes of the Republic, a bitter and sullen man.[14]

The Surrender Business

Elsewhere in Ireland, other candidates not already on the Panel were made to feel like the poor relations at the feast. At Ennis Courthouse, Co. Clare, the three contenders selected as Labour, Farmers and Independent respectively withdrew within minutes of the deadline to do so, leaving the constituency wide open for the four Panel candidates, pro and anti-Treaty alike. With no other contenders, the seats would go to them by default.

Éamon de Valera

The cheers from the onlookers showed the popularity of this decision, and further applause greeted Éamon de Valera when he appeared on the Courthouse steps, the same ones he had stood on when elected in Clare for the very first time, back in 1917 – a parallel the Chief was not slow to draw. That election then had been a triumph for the dead, de Valera told his audience, just like he believed the present one was. After all, were they not here today because of the ideals for which others died?[15]

William O’Brien

Such lofty talk belied the darker goings-on beneath the surface of consensus. Patrick Hogan, the erstwhile Labour selection in Clare, had “got cold feet when it came to the point because of local pressure there from the people who wanted no election so that their nominees would be returned unopposed,” according to William O’Brien, a leading trade unionist in Dublin. O’Brien sent his Labour comrade letters and telegrams, urging him to be firm, along with an encouraging telephone call, but the strain proved too much for Hogan. Nor was Hogan’s case unique, for O’Brien, as did the other Labour aspirants, “got anonymous letters and protests continually” over their decision to stand.[16]

At least neither Hogan nor O’Brien suffered actual violence. Others were not so spared. That Denis J. Gorey, the Farmers Party selection for the Carlow-Kilkenny constituency, took a double-barrelled shotgun to bed on the 4^th June indicates something was already in the air when the sound of footsteps roused him to his feet in the middle of the night. Despite the insistence of the four uninvited callers at his front-door that they just wanted a chat, Gorey refused to come out.

When one reached inside his jacket, so Gorey told the Kilkenny People:

He was too slow, and I “got the drop” on him with my empty gun. I ordered them to stand back. They did. I asked were they going to speak or not, and the leader said, shaking his head, “Oh, if that’s the way you are going to get on” and looking disgusted at my manner the four turned about and walked away back through the yard without saying a word, evidently shocked at my idea of hospitality.

Gorey knew he did not have long to prepare before the next ‘social call’. Bereft of ammunition, he settled on the upstairs corridor as the best redoubt for a last stand with his sons, using knives and whatever else at hand if it came to it. Mrs Gorey was dispatched to summon help, for which her family was still waiting when the ‘visitors’ reappeared first.

IRA men

They were at least cordial enough to open with a call for the Gorey household to submit. However:

I wasn’t in the surrender business, and said so. I got three minutes or take the consequences. I chose the consequences, so the fight started, revolvers first. I advised going on, and the rifles began. One bullet about 18 inches over my head came through the window shutter, plaster, and out through the other window, covering me with broken glass and plaster. I again advised going on. A few more revolver shots and rifle fire at the back, and then silence. I understood I used some “language” by way of encouragement to help my visitors to fight. If so I apologise; I don’t like “language.”

James Lennon

Without anything stronger than bad words to throw back, the defenders of the Gorey Alamo had no choice but to endure the twenty minutes of fusillades before Mrs Gorey returned up the drive with an armed posse of their neighbours. The assailants pulled back, ending the siege that had, thankfully, not seen any casualties save the damage to the house. The four Panel candidates for the Carlow-Kilkenny constituency instantly decried the affair, with the two pro-Treaty men, W.T. Cosgrave and Gearóid O’Sullivan, presenting a united front of condemnation with the Anti-Treatyite pair, James Lennon and Eamonn Aylward.

Nowhere were the political leanings of the raiders explicitly stated in the Kilkenny People, but a defiant (and waspish) Gorey left little doubt as to his suspicions:

I am certainly for the Treaty, but if my country needs a fighter, old as I am, I guarantee that I will put in more real fighting in seven days than one of the anti-Treaty men could put in seven lifetimes.[17]

Other non-Panel nominees were not so much encouraged to step back as forced down. On the night of the 3^rd June, Godrey J. Greene also found his house surrounded. Unlike Gorey, he was able to shoot back; unlike Gorey, he submitted after a wounded arm made further resistance unfeasible and withdrew from the electoral contest in Waterford-East Tipperary. Elsewhere, nomination papers for Bernard Egan failed to reach Westport, Co. Mayo, in time for him to run on behalf of the Farmers Party in North-West Mayo when the courier was waylaid.

Those responsible were persistent: the night before, so it was reported, “two armed men called on Mr. Egan and unavailingly tried to persuade him to withdraw his candidature.”[18]

Colt Single Action Revolver .45 (circa 1920)

‘The Rule of .45’

But the worst treated was Darrell Figgis, when he suffered an invasion of his flat in Kildare Street, Dublin, just before midnight on the 12^th June. The three youths who barged in when Mrs Figgis answered the door told her husband they were acting under instruction; that said, two held him down on a chair while the third cut off a chunk of his beard. They would have moved on to his hair if Figgis had not persuaded the trio that they had fulfilled their orders enough.[19]

Robert Briscoe

Any doubts as to culpability was answered in the publication of Robert Briscoe’s recollections in 1958, in which the author treated his part in the assault as if it had been no more than a spirited lark. Figgis had been annoying him and his fellow Anti-Treatyites for quite some time, “strolling dapperly down O’Connell Street in smartly cut clothes, with his red hair gleaming like newly polished boots and a fine, red, square-cut beard that was his special pride.” Between his peacocking and high-profile partisanship, “it seemed proper to close his mouth.”[20]

But his was one mouth not to be closed. Speaking to the press after his ordeal, Figgis said:

…that he had nothing to say against the men in question…the offence lay not with these boys, but with the men who had charged them, and, finally, with the leaders of those who opposed the Treaty, unless they specifically repudiated this act and took measures to see that proper discipline was observed, and that other acts of a like sort did not occur in the future.[21]

Which was unlikely.

“We have the rule of .45,” Briscoe had overheard Seán Etchingham saying sardonically in response to someone questioning the procedures of the IRA Convention they were attending. Held at the Mansion House in March 1922, the event presented a study in contrasts: grim young warriors standing in the genteel reception room, beneath the crystal chandelier and surrounded by oil portraits, their shabby tweed coats militarised by Sam Browne belts and holsters containing .45 calibre service automatics. Dick Barrett was to brandish such a weapon at the manager of a bank Briscoe proceeded to use to launder bank notes robbed earlier as part of the ‘levy’ imposed by the anti-Treaty IRA Executive, by then headquartered in the Four Courts, which had likewise been occupied by force.[22]

Attendees as the IRA Convention of March 1922

Figgis, Gorey and Greene were but the latest victims of this ‘Might Makes Right’ mentality that showed no signs of abating. After all, the shadow of the gunman was what enabled the Anti-Treatyites to bring about the Pact Election and its shielding of a vote that otherwise would have cost them. “They feared that the Irish people would be stampeded by England’s threat of war into approving [the Treaty] against their real desires,” Briscoe explained.[23]

How fortunate, then, that the masses of Ireland had leaders who knew their wants better than they did.

A Bombshell (?) in Cork

Richard Mulcahy

Intimidatory incidents like Briscoe’s and Gorey’s aside, the anti-Treaty IRA held their hand. If the likes of Briscoe and his superiors truly wanted to sweep the board clean, then they had the guns and numbers to do so. That the general election was proceeding at all made Richard Mulcahy confident enough to drop by the O’Kelly residence in St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, with his wife Min in an open-topped car, and invite the other couple to accompany them in enjoying the afternoon sun. Seán T. O’Kelly was reluctant, until Mulcahy pointed out that for two brothers-in-law, each on opposite sides of the Treaty divide, to be seen together would send out a signal for how well the accord they had helped to broker was working.

Besides, he added, there was some business he wanted to go over. O’Kelly gave in and the four got on board, where:

Mulcahy then told me, in the presence of our wives, that Mick Collins had given much thought to the setting up of a coalition government. That he meant that it should consist of persons who would work harmoniously together.

Seán T. O’Kelly

For the Minister of Finance, Collins wanted O’Kelly and had tasked Mulcahy with relaying the offer. Far from flattered, O’Kelly was instead taken aback at Collins’ presumption that he would be the one unilaterally making all the selections. When he pointed out that the Republican Party Executive would surely expect a say, Mulcahy replied that Collins was insistent on the matter. But O’Kelly could be equally hard-nosed and the ride ended with the foursome having a distinctly non-political tea in the Malahide Hotel, after which they drove back.

That was the first and the last I heard of Michael Collins’ proposition that I should be Minister for Finance in the coalition government, which it was agreed under the Dáil Pact should have been set up if the Pact had been permitted to operate.[24]

O’Kelly seems to have kept this exchange to himself and preparations for the general election went ahead. Figgis’ attempt at gate-crashing had unsettled the Anti-Treatyites, but they nonetheless went through the motions of democracy, working together with the Pro-Treatyites in the printing of posters and other promotional material that listed the names of Panel candidates who the public were supposed to dutifully and unthinkingly put their pencils beside in the polling booth.

O’Kelly may have declined a place on any coalition, at least if offered by Collins, but the issue remained forefront in the minds of his colleagues. Harry Boland was frequently dispatched to ask Collins about how the setting up of their shared cabinet-to-be was faring, though to little avail:

Sometimes Boland would return and say Collins was too busy to see him. Sometimes he would meet Collins and report afterwards that Collins said he was faced with great difficulties and asked us to be patient.

Harry Boland

Getting a concrete answer out of Collins, even by a friend like Boland, was proving akin to pulling teeth. But then, Collins was under pressure, namely from his British partners, who regarded the Pact with alarm and suspicion. If Anti-Treatyites were to enter government in any shape or form, then what were the odds of the Treaty and its thorny terms being implemented? Very little, was the fear in Downing Street.

Collins had already refused one meeting in London, though Griffith went. What he said, O’Kelly did not know, but he presumed Griffith had told the British Ministers of his own dislike of the situation – that was hardly a secret. When Collins gave in to another summons, early in June, and travelled to the heart of the enemy Establishment:

We hated to see him go but we still believed he would stand up to the pressure of Lloyd George, [Winston] Churchill and their associates. We believed that if Michael Collins stood firmly by the Pact and all it implied and if he were assured that he had the united people of the old Movement behind him, backed up by a reunited army, all would yet be well.[25]

The problem was that all was not well; indeed, very far from it. “Thus was the Pact burst and repudiated by one of its two signatories,” O’Kelly wrote in conclusion of this chapter in his life’s story:

Thus also was the law of the land repudiated by the Minister who was to be the builder of the Coalition government. This, I believe, should be regarded as the real starting point of the civil war which followed soon after the bombshell was thrown by Michael Collins in Cork.[26]

The ‘bombshell’ in question was a speech made on the 14^th June, from a hotel window to a crowd standing patiently in the pouring rain. After thanking his fellow Corkonians for the magnificent welcome laid out for him, Collins announced that he was now speaking, not from a political script, but his own mind. On Friday, the 16^th, in two days’ time, they were to cast their votes. His advice, then, was for the citizens of Cork to choose the candidates they thought best.[27]

Michael Collins delivering a speech

“[Collins] had broken his own Pact,” wrote Ernie O’Malley, sharing in O’Kelly’s interpretation of what had happened.[28]

Polling Day

Both O’Kelly and O’Malley, of course, were writing from hindsight and possibly a need to extract their side from any liability in the conflict to come. As speeches go, Collins’ was not, on the face of it, a particularly dramatic one; certainly, he was not telling his audience not to vote for a Panel name. Adding to the ambiguity, or perhaps a sign that he feared he had said too much, he spoke the following day in Clonakility, as part of his tour of his South Cork constituency, this time urging listeners to put aside political views – which could only mean views on the Treaty – and vote for the current agreement in the spirit of unity as it was intended.

Tom Kelly

His last words to the electorate before polling day were thus a vouch for the Pact; in that regards, he was in tune with many others throughout the country who were also standing. In York Street, Dublin, Countess Markievicz and Alderman Charles Murphy shared a platform with Alderman Thomas Kelly and Dan MacCarthy, despite the anti and pro-Treaty stances of the latter and former respectively – a significant gesture in itself.

There was no question of the Treaty being an issue in this election, Markievicz said, that was something for consideration later. For now, they wanted law and order in Ireland, crops sown and work for the unemployed, for people to be content, with happy homes and better lives. They wanted unity to deal with the lingering question mark of North-East Ulster. Thus, she advised the electors to return the Panel candidates to their seats.[29]

Countess Markievicz

All of which was good, worthy stuff. That sense of consensus seemed to have trickled down to the public as a whole, at least to judge by the capital. “It would be hard to find a parallel to yesterday’s elections in Dublin,” reported the Irish Times on the 17^th June. “Owing to the Collins-de Valera pact here was a complete absence of that acute party feeling which used to impart bitterness and excitement into such contests.”

There were, however, exceptions. Counting the paper ballots in the National University on Merrion Square, Dublin, where six candidates were competing for its four constituency seats, was coming to an end when fourteen or fifteen men entered the room and held up its occupants at gunpoint. The ballot-boxes were then removed outside to a waiting motorcar.

“Good evening, gentlemen” said the last of the intruders before departing.[30]

Ernie O’Malley

It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision to do so, Ernie O’Malley later told in his memoirs. He was minding his own business in the Four Courts when Rory O’Connor invited him to pay a visit to the National University, being anxious, O’Connor said, to see if the votes had been evenly distributed between pro and anti-Treaty Panel candidates. Although O’Connor acknowledged the potential embarrassment if nothing was found to be amiss, neither he nor O’Malley was troubled much about the almost casual theft they were committing.

Inspecting the pilfered papers that evening, back in the Four Courts, the two IRA leaders learnt that O’Connor’s suspicions had not been groundless, as the total tally revealed:[31]

Professor Michael Hayes (Panel, pro-Treaty) – 529

Professor Eoin MacNeill (Panel, pro-Treaty) – 528

Professor William Stockley (Panel, anti-Treaty) – 528

Professor William Magennis (Independent) – 483

Dr Ada English

The remaining two contenders, both falling short of the required support, were Dr Ada English (anti-Treaty) and Professor Conway (Independent). Previously, the National University had been equally shared by two Pro-Treatyites and two Anti-Treatyites. Now, with Magennis ascendant, the balance had shifted to three against one. If the Pact had worked as intended, then English would have been returned to her seat, Magennis kept out with the other Independent and the status quo preserved.[32]

Adding to O’Malley’s sense of betrayal, since he could read the names and addresses of individual voters on their ballot papers, he realised that “the Republicans had voted for Panel candidates; a few of the [Free] Staters had, but the majority, including some of their outstanding men, had broken the Pact” by voting for everyone but Anti-Treatyites.[33]

The Main Political Result

As the last of the votes were tallied, the full scale of the Republican defeat became glaringly evident. Before, the twelve seats for Dublin City had been a ratio of seven to five, with Pro-Treatyites holding the narrow advantage. They retained their seven seats, but their anti-Treaty counterparts had been vanquished: one went to Labour and three to Independents, including Darrell Figgis, giving him the last laugh.

Only Seán T. O’Kelly kept the Republican flag flying in the city and even he had to wait until the fifth recount before securing his Mid-Dublin seat. O’Kelly took the reversal to his cause with good grace, seconding the vote of thanks by the Lord Mayor to the Returning Officer, and acknowledging that the process had been performed fairly and efficiently.

Alfie Byrne

The pro-Treaty Panel winners refrained from saying anything too controversial, besides Dan MacCarthy’s complaint about the shortage of polling booths and his hope that things would be improved next time. Alfie Byrne, a former Home Ruler who had reinvented himself as an Independent (the first step in what was to be a highly successful career), was less diplomatic, stating that his victory equated to one for the Treaty and a message to President Griffith to get on with implementing it.[34]

If so, then it was a very loud message. Breaking down the numbers, the Irish Times noted how:

The main political result at once leaps to the eye. In Dublin, 72,285 citizens voted for the Treaty and 10,929 voted against the Treaty. In other words, Dublin voted 7 to 1 in favour of the Treaty. In the County of Dublin, the figures are still more remarkable. The pro-Treaty candidates received 46,936 votes, while the Republican votes amounted to 4,819. The county voted 10 to 1 in favour of the Treaty.[35]

Proportional representative only rubbed salt into the Republican wound. Recently adopted for Irish elections, its novelty was enough for at least one newspaper to provide instructions: no longer was a single X before the name of choice enough – “in fact to use it would spoil the paper,” warned the Anglo-Celt – but instead a row of numbers, based on preference, with 1 for the most favoured candidate, 2 for the second preference and so on.

“The Proportional System may seem a little involved at first,” read the Anglo-Celt soothingly, “but by remembering the foregoing hints, all electors should be able to mark their papers correctly.”[36]

A (Mis)calculated Risk

In South Dublin at least, the electors had grasped the innovation sufficiently to show the anti-Treaty nominees could not even trust what preferences they did get:

The two Republican candidates, Madame Markievicz and Mr. Murphy, held between them 5,258 votes, and it seemed certain that one of the two would be returned. But when Mr. Murphy, at the third count, was declared defeated, the supporters of Mr. Murphy, instead of giving the second choice en bloc to Madame Markievicz, showed divided views.

Only 692, or a little more than half, gave a second choice for her, although she was the second Republican candidate, while 397 gave the next choice to Mr. Kelly, the pro-Treaty candidate. This, in effect, destroyed the chance of the return of a representative of the Republicans.[37]

Gearóid O’Sullivan

Elsewhere, each constituency told its own tale. Labour was the big winner in Carlow-Kilkenny, where Padraig Gaffney topped the poll at 10,875 votes, with W.T. Cosgrave (7,071), Denis Gorey (6,122) and Gearóid O’Sullivan (2,681) earning enough of the electoral goodwill of their own to merit the remaining three placements. Gorey had not endured the siege of his house for nothing, it seemed. The four were Treaty supporters, while both the anti-Treaty contenders, Eamonn Aylward (3,365) and James Lennon (1,113), had been side-lined due to the majority of Labour voters giving their second preferences to a Treaty candidate.[38]

Pact or no Pact, the electors knew their own minds.

In the constituency of North, Mid and South Tipperary, things had been tighter, with the Anti-Treatyites retaining half of the four seats on offer:

Seamus Burke (Panel, pro-Treaty) – 9,309

Daniel Morrissey (Labour) – 7,819

Joseph MacDonagh (Panel, anti-Treaty) – 5,962

Patrick Moloney (Panel, anti-Treaty) – 4,960

Seamus Burke

Showing that one could never take the public for granted, and perhaps a sign that the Pact still held meaning for some, Moloney owed his win to the transfer of second preferences from Burke, despite the two men being on opposite sides of the big debate. Trailing at the bottom was the anti-Treaty Patrick O’Byrne, whose pittance of 586 votes was noted with some nonplus. Also eliminated, and “an even greater surprise,” noted the Nenagh Guardian, “was the defeat of Dan Breen [in neighbouring Waterford-East Tipperary] who had been selected by both sides of the Pact and whose election was regarded as certain.”[39]

Clearly, then, very little was certain in the days to come. Exactly how Breen planned to square his support from both sides of the Treaty split upon election is an interesting conundrum: he presumably assumed that the contradiction would be rendered irrelevant and national divisions submerged beneath the wave of mutually reinforcing votes for Panel nominees, allowing former comrades to arise as one once more. That had been the aim behind the Pact in the first place, albeit one that had gone badly awry – at least for the Anti-Treatyites.

“They calculated that in this way they would have the same position in the new Dáil as in the old,” wrote Collins, doing his best not to overtly gloat. “But their calculations were upset by the people themselves.”[40]

Manufacturing War

The question, then, was: what next?

Pádraig Ó Fathaigh

The whole point of the Pact had been to remove the element of chance, rendering the process as a choreographed game of musical chairs in which everyone shuffled about, putting on a display of activity, before resuming the same seats as before. Confidence could reach the point of complacency: as election agent for the Anti-Treatyites in South Galway, Pádraig Ó Fathaigh had assumed the Pact would enfold as intended. News that fellow Sinn Féiners were forgoing this to lend a helping hand to the Labour campaign angered him; even so, he had found alarming the indifference of his two candidates, Liam Mellows and Frank Fahy:

Both refused to hold any meetings, to canvass or do anything to further their interests as candidates. I told them that the electors would become careless if they did not meet them, and would consider they were being made little of.[41]

It was advice to which the Anti-Treatyites should have paid heed. Instead of rubber-stamping the names before them, the contumacious masses actually took the election literally. Since the rules of the Pact had been so wilfully overturned, did that mean the next intended stage – the joining of the pro and anti-Treaty parties into one ruling body – was likewise to be pushed aside?

(Left to right) Harry Boland, Michael Collins and Éamon de Valera

So pondered the Irish Times:

The results of the elections, which are regarded everywhere as a Treaty triumph, are likely to change the plans of the Republican section. It is probable, says our Political Correspondent, that the Coalition Government provided for in the Collins-de Valera pact will not now function, and that the onus of administrating the Treaty will be left to Messrs. Griffith and Collins, who will have the benefits of an appreciable majority.

Rory O’Connor

Which assumed Republicans would be gracious losers. Judging by contemporary reactions, many did not see themselves as having lost at all. The election did not even warrant a mention at the IRA Convention, held in the Mansion House, a mere two days later on the 18^th June. Instead, the agenda was about whether to attack the remaining British troops in Dublin, thereby restarting the war and derailing the Treaty for good. There was no talk of ‘coalition’ then, nor of ‘mandate’ or ‘working majority’ which the attendees failed to form even amongst themselves. The Convention ended in a tantrum: denied another war, Rory O’Connor withdrew with a splinter group to the Four Courts and locked out the rest, creating a schism within a schism.[42] 

Even Anti-Treatyites who paid attention to the poll results did not seem fazed by their crushing defeat. While acknowledging that “the elections showed that the people favoured the Treaty and our party lost many seats,” Harry Boland still waited for “a call from Mick [Collins] as to the men on our side who would be required to fill the posts in the Cabinet, in accordance with the agreement.” Boland was writing this to a friend on the 13^th July 1922, a fortnight into the Civil War and less than a month before his death.[43]

‘The Funeral of Harry Boland’, by Jack B. Yeats

De Valera also nurtured fantasies of a world where the Pact had averted disaster. “Had Mick and Griffith died before they broke the pact,” he wrote on the 10^th September, “I believe the four of us – [Austin] Stack, Mulcahy, [Eoin] MacNeill and myself, could have worked the pact and beaten England by it.” Notably, there is no sense of responsibility on either Boland’s or de Valera’s part, both preferring to point fingers at others, whether the Pro-Treatyites or the British. Or both together. As it had been British artillery in Irish hands bombarding the Four Courts, it was obvious to Boland that the ongoing conflict was a “British manufactured war on the Republic.”[44]

Coming to Heel

Blaming the ancestral foe provided a useful balm in Republican reminiscences. “In the House of Commons on June 26^th [1922],” wrote Seán T. OKelly:

Lloyd George and Churchill in the course of speeches on the situation in Ireland insinuated that an ultimatum had been served on Collins. That nature of this ultimatum was not specified but it seems reasonable now to infer that Collins was ordered to have the Republican forces driven out of the Four Courts or that they, the British, would order their own forces to undertake this task.[45]

Despite this fluttering red flag and the shift of the domestic position in favour of the Pro-Treatyites, O’Kelly was dumbfounded when artillery shells began pounding the Four Courts. Assuming Collins was merely playacting to placate his British partners, O’Kelly tried contacting him, first by phone and then letter, to no avail. O’Kelly was in the Hammond Hotel, O’Connell Street, hoping against hope that the brink could be stepped back from, when word reached him that the Pro-Treatyites were now turning their attention – and their guns – to there as well.[46]

Free State artillery in Dublin during the Civil War

To O’Kelly, the only explanation for this shocking turn of events was that “the British by their threats had forced Collins to come to heel again.”[47]

He was not altogether wrong, as a letter had arrived from Downing Street, demanding immediate action against the Four Courts and all other armed holdouts. But Collins needed no prompting. As he saw it, the electoral majority had granted the Pro-Treatyites carte blanche to do what they will, Pact or no Pact – which may have been his intent from the start. Behind closed doors, Collins, Griffith and the rest of the Cabinet agreed to jump on the first casus belli that came their way. When this appeared in the form of General ‘Ginger’ O’Connell’s arrest in Dublin by Anti-Treatyites, the civilian and military leadership of the nascent Free State convened to ponder how long a war might take. About a week, maybe two, assured Gearoíd O’Sullivan as Adjutant-General.[48]

Free State troops attack the Four Courts, June 1922

It was a bad miscalculation, one of many in 1922. Both sides had grasped the Pact Election as an opportunity, ostensibly for peace, but mostly to wring whatever advantages they could. For the Anti-Treatyites: an election in name only in return for a deal; for the Pro-Treatyites, a deal in name only in return for an election. Naturally, when it all went belly-up, the whole ridiculous business became another slingshot in the ‘blame game’ exchange.

Piaras Béaslaí

“The Collins-de Valera Pact might have saved the nation, but the wiseacres again, agreeing to the Pact when they were weak, broke it when they thought they were strong,” O’Malley wrote to the press in August 1922. He was by then conducting a guerrilla war against the Free State and its supporters, such as Piaras Béaslaí who did not quite refute the charges of opportunism when he described how Collins and his cohorts had previously been “hampered by their small majority in the Dáil, and the absence of a clear mandate from the country on the Treaty issue, but the result of the General Election placed them in a strong position to assert their authority.”[49]

And assert they would. Two very different versions of the same event, but a word used by both is ‘strong’ and, at the end of the day, that was what really counted: not honour, not mandates, not brotherhood, not even pacts, but strength.

References

[1] Deasy, Liam. Brother Against Brother (Cork: Mercier Press, 1998), p. 43

[2] Poblacht Na h-Eireann – The Republic of Ireland, 25/05/1922

[3] Ibid, 27/04/1922

[4] Brennan, Robert (BMH / WS 799, Section III), pp. 162-4

[5] Ibid, pp. 175-6

[6] Irish Times, 22/05/1922

[7] Ibid, pp. 176-7

[8] Poblacht Na h-Eireann, 30/05/1922

[9] Jones, Thomas (edited by Middlemas, Keith) Whitehall Diary: Volume III, Ireland 1918-1925 (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 205

[10] Connolly, Joseph (edited by Gaughan, J. Anthony) Memoirs of Senator Joseph Connolly (1885-1961): A Founder of Modern Ireland (Dublin: Academic Press, 1996), pp. 227-8

[11] Poblacht Na h-Eireann, 01/06/1922

[12] Irish Times, 31/05/1922

[13] Nenagh Guardian, 10/06/1922

[14] Breen, Dan. My Fight for Irish Freedom (Tralee: Anvil Books, 1964), p. 168

[15] Nenagh Guardian, 10/06/1922

[16] O’Brien, William (as told to MacLysaght, Edward) Forth the Banners Go (Dublin: The Three Candles Limited, 1969), pp. 220-2

[17] Kilkenny People, 10/06/1922

[18] Irish Times, 07/06/1922

[19] Ibid, 13/06/1922

[20] Briscoe, Robert and Hatch, Alan. For the Life of Me (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1958), p. 158

[21] Irish Times, 13/06/1922

[22] Briscoe and Hatch, pp. 148, 156

[23] Ibid, pp. 160-1

[24] ‘How the Pact was Broken’, NLI, MS 27,702(6), pp. 2-4

[25] Ibid, pp. 5-7

[26] Ibid, p. 8

[27] Irish Times, 15/06/1922

[28] O’Malley, Ernie. The Singing Flame (Cork: Mercier Press, 2012), p. 105

[29] Irish Times, 16/06/1922

[30] Ibid, 17/06/1922

[31] O’Malley, pp. 105-6

[32] Irish Times, 17/06/1922

[33] O’Malley, p. 106

[34] Irish Times, 20/06/1922

[35] Ibid, 21/06/1922

[36] Anglo-Celt, 17/06/1922

[37] Irish Times, 21/06/1922

[38] Kilkenny People, 24/06/1922

[39] Nenagh Guardian, 24/06/1922

[40] Collins, Michael. The Path to Freedom (Cork: Mercier Press, 1996), p. 10

[41] Ó Faithaigh, Pádraig (edited by McMahon, Timothy G.) Pádraig Ó Fathaigh’s War of Independence: Recollections of a Galway Gaelic Leaguer (Cork: Cork University Press, 2000), p. 88

[42] O’Malley, The Singing Flame, p. 106

[43] Cronin, Sean. The McGarrity Papers (Tralee: Anvil Books, 1972), p. 120

[44] Ibid, pp. 120, 125

[45] ‘Civil War Begins’, NLI, MS 27,702(6), p. 1

[46] Ibid, p. 4

[47] Ibid, p. 2

[48] Blythe, Ernest (BMH / WS 939), pp. 147-8

[49] O’Malley, Ernie (edited by O’Malley, Cormac K.H. and Dolan, Anne, introduction by Lee, J.J.) ‘No Surrender Here!’ The Civil War Papers of Ernie O’Malley, 1922-1924 (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2007), p. 117 ; Béaslaí, Piaras. Michael Collins and the Making of a New Ireland, Volume II (Dublin: Edmund Burke Publisher, 2008), p. 262

Bibliography

Books

Béaslaí, Piaras. Michael Collins and the Making of a New Ireland (Dublin: Edmund Burke Publisher, 2008)

Breen, Dan. My Fight For Irish Freedom (Tralee: Anvil Books, 1964)

Briscoe, Robert and Hatch, Alan. For the Life of Me (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1958)

Collins, Michael. The Path to Freedom (Cork: Mercier Press, 1996)

Connolly, Joseph (edited by Gaughan, J. Anthony) Memoirs of Senator Joseph Connolly (1885-1961): A Founder of Modern Ireland (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1996)

Cronin, Sean. The McGarrity Papers (Tralee: Anvil Books, 1972)

Deasy, Liam. Brother Against Brother (Cork: Mercier Press, 1998)

Jones, Thomas (edited by Middlemas, Keith) Whitehall Diary: Volume III, Ireland 1918-1925 (London: Oxford University Press, 1971)

O’Brien, William (as told to MacLysaght, Edward) Forth the Banners Go (Dublin: The Three Candles Limited, 1969)

Ó Fathaigh, Pádraig (edited by McMahon, Timothy G.) Pádraig Ó Fathaigh’s War of Independence: Recollections of a Galway Gaelic Leaguer (Cork: Cork University Press, 2000)

O’Malley, Ernie (edited by O’Malley, Cormac K.H. and Dolan, Anne, introduction by Lee, J.J.) ‘No Surrender Here!’ The Civil War Papers of Ernie O’Malley, 1922-1924 (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2007)

O’Malley, Ernie. The Singing Flame (Cork: Mercier Press, 2012)

Newspapers

Anglo-Celt

Irish Times

Kilkenny People

Poblacht Na h-Eireann – The Republic of Ireland

Nenagh Guardian

Bureau of Military History Statements

Blythe, Ernest, WS 939

Brennan, Robert, WS 799

National Library of Ireland

Seán T. Ó Ceallaigh Papers

The Best of A Bad Job: The Irish Pact Election of June 1922 (Part I)

Breaking News

Unlike before, there were no armed guards at the entrances to the National University, Dublin, allowing anyone to walk in off the street to see the Dáil in action, on the 20^th May 1922. Not that many did and the few members of the public, who had gathered outside, passed the time by reading newspapers when not gazing indifferently up at the top-storey windows. Either politics had become old hat or people were losing faith in parliamentary procedures making a difference. After all, previous attempts had recently been made to resolve the deadlock in the country, only to end in miserable failure each time.

National Concert Hall, Dublin, formerly the National University which housed the Dáil in early 1922

A very different atmosphere was found inside the building. Delegates talked and mingled, their conversations punctuated by the odd burst of laughter as they waited in the long hall, beside the chamber where they were to formally meet. As one attendee observed:

A group of anti-Treaty deputies sitting on the broad staircase leading to the Science room, rows of them, all smiling as if they were having their photographs taken.

Liam Mellows

Liam Mellows struck a casual pose, his legs far apart and hands deep in the pockets of his riding-breeches, as he chatted with Richard Mulcahy. That the two enemies were so relaxed in each other’s company was proof enough that some novelty was in the air. In contrast, the President of Dáil Éireann, Arthur Griffith, sat silently, arms folded and head down, a frown creasing his face.

Showing more spark was his colleague Michael Collins, who moved between the partisans of the anti-Treaty side and his own, perfectly at ease as he posed questions and smiled at the replies. When Harry Boland flitted by, those he passed thought they could recognise Griffith’s handwriting on the sheet of paper he held, but Boland moved too quickly for them to be sure.

Boland’s appearance was taken as a signal that the Dáil was about to open and, by unspoken agreement, the assembled deputies streamed into the chamber and took their seats. As the Speaker, Eoin MacNeill, rose to begin, the light from the lower windows framed him from behind, almost like a halo.

Eoin MacNeill

He read out the document that Collins and Éamon de Valera, on behalf of the pro and anti-Treaty parties respectively, had just put their names to. It was an agreement that, for the upcoming general election, candidates would be put forward from a ‘National Coalition Panel’ consisting of both the opposing factions. Instead of competing against each other, Pro and Anti-Treatyites would run on the same platform, under the same Sinn Féin name and for the sake of the same ideal: unity.

There had been little enough of that as it was.

Griffith then stood up and, with a funereally air, moved that, on the basis of what they had just heard, the Dáil should thus call for such an election.

“Does that mean that the House approves of the agreement?” asked de Valera.

When Griffith answered that it did, de Valera was all smiles: “Then I have great pleasure in seconding the President’s motion.”

Éamon de Valera

As the deputies left the room, their business complete, Collins continued mingling with the opposition, calling out to Anti-Treatyites who, months before, had been his comrades-in-arms, then sworn foes, and now bosom buddies once again. De Valera was more circumspect as he quietly took his leave, looking younger than he had for a long time. Griffith had already departed, walking straight ahead without sparing as much as a glance for anyone, a hint that all was not well behind closed doors. It was left to Mulcahy to provide some sort of explanation, albeit a terse and indirect one, to the mystified journalists inquiring about the meaning of what they had just seen.

“It means that we have not adopted the solution suggested by the Irish Times,” he said cryptically.[1]

‘Wrangling Over a Corpse’

The newspaper in question certainly made its surprise known in its coverage of this latest twist in the Irish tale. What baffled its editorial was why the Pro-Treatyites had agreed to such a thing, since “a general election on the issue of the Treaty would have returned the Provisional Government to office with an overwhelming majority.”

Yet, despite their strong hand, “Mr Collins and Mr Griffith have consented to allow Republicans into the new Parliament in their present strength and to give them a virtual equality in the next Executive.” Adding to the confusion, with the promise of more to come, was how “the new Executive, which was to have enforced the Free State Constitution, will contain, by pre-arrangement, declared enemies of the Free State.”

Michael Collins (left) and Arthur Griffith (right)

And this was after Collins:

…declared a few days ago that, if the peace negotiations [between the pro and anti-Treaty sides] should fail, he would begin to enforce the law in the teeth of political resistance. The negotiations have succeeded and the resistance presumably has been turned into co-operation.

A co-operation, that is, with “the tyranny of the ‘gunmen’.” So much, then, for all the tough talk about the law and its enforcement. The only explanation the Irish Times could think of for this startling submissiveness was that both Collins and Griffith:

…are appalled by the state of Ireland, that they have asked the Republicans to combine with them in a great effort to restore order, and that an agreement is the price of such co-operation.

While the newspaper clearly did not overly care for this price, it announced itself – contrary to what Mulcahy might have assumed – prepared to make the best of the situation at hand:

In Heaven’s name, then, let the effort be made without further loss of time. The country is far advanced on the road to ruin, and, if matters do not improve quickly, the two parties in the proposed “Coalition” Executive will find themselves wrangling over a corpse.[2]

Hyperbole, this was not. Ireland had been dangerously in a state of disarray since December 1921, with the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which ended one war – with Britain – and opened another conflict – with itself.

IRA men patrolling Grafton Street, Dublin, 1922

Stampeded into War

Though the agreement had been ratified by the Dáil a month later, that did not mean it was accepted by all, particularly those in the Irish Republican Army (IRA) for whom anything less than a Republic was unacceptable – and this British-mandated Free State that the Treaty allowed fell very, very short in their eyes. When a sixteen-strong Executive was formed in March 1922 – consisting of men such as Liam Lynch, Rory O’Connor, Liam Mellows, Ernie O’Malley and others who already held senior posts in the IRA – its first act was to pledge fidelity solely to the Republic, with no room for the Treaty, the Free State, the Provisional Government – and possibly for democracy.

Attendees as the IRA Convention of March 1922

“A resolution to proclaim the elections which were to be held in Southern Ireland was discussed at a meeting” of the IRA Executive, recounted O’Malley in his memoirs:

The Treaty would be the issue of elections to be held in the twenty-six counties only…Unless England withdrew her threat of war no election should be held. There was a majority in favour of proclaiming the elections, but no decision was arrived at, as a unanimous vote would be needed to take such an important step.[3]

Ernie O’Malley

While a potentially catastrophic line had avoided being crossed, the possibility remained; after all, the Executive had not decided not to forbid a future general election. It was not so much the principle of one that the Executive opposed; just that, in such a contest, the anti-Treaty partisans would almost certainly come off the worst.

This risk was forefront in the minds of the five Republican representatives who met in the Mansion House, Dublin, at the start of May 1922, opposite another quintet from the pro-Treaty grouping, as part of the ten-person ‘Peace Committee’. Set up at the behest of the Dáil, the Committee was to explore potential avenues for a compromise – and the sooner the better, for while they sat and talked behind closed doors, contingency plans were being laid in preparation for the worst.

The IRA Executive had already claimed the Four Courts for its headquarters, around which snipers would be posted in the event of a war with the Free Staters. O’Malley went further in arranging for barrels of petrol and paraffin to be stored in the cellars in order to raze the Four Courts utterly should it fall into enemy hands. Elsewhere in the city, bridges were to be destroyed and street barricades raised to trap the enemy in place for counterattacks.[4]

Armed men and barricades in Dublin, 1922

A Let Down

Even if not all of the Peace Committee attendees were aware of these preparations, they must have anticipated the consequences if they failed. For the next three weeks, both halves did their best, often sitting long into the night. While all ten agreed on the benefits of a general election in breaking the deadlock, for the Anti-Treatyites it meant exposing themselves to the judgment of an unfriendly electorate.

Kathleen Clarke

“It would in effect be penalising them for their vote against the Treaty,” as how Kathleen Clarke, the Chairwoman of the Committee (and widow of the 1916 Signatory), put it. Which was fine by their pro-Treaty counterparts, who argued that the Dáil needed a solid working majority; not so much for Clarke and her colleagues, also desirous of a bloodless resolution but not at the cost of political hara-kiri.

A climb-down on the Anti-Treatyites’ part suddenly materialised when one of their five, Harry Boland, came back, uncharacteristically late from lunch, to inform the other five that they could go ahead and permit a general election, even if it meant writing off some of their seats.

“The Chief says we can agree,” Boland added, referring to de Valera.

This, Clarke and Liam Mellows refused to accept. When a conference of anti-Treaty politicos was held that night in their Suffolk Street offices to confirm, de Valera denied agreeing to any such thing, claiming a misunderstanding on Boland’s part, despite the other man’s heated protestations to the contrary. The stormy exchange dragged on even after the meeting closed, with the two men remaining behind in the room to argue it out while Clarke and another female deputy, Madge Clifford, waited in a taxi outside for Boland to accompany them.

Minutes ticked by. When Clarke went back inside and up the stairs, she heard through the door Boland and de Valera still speaking to – or, rather, shouting at – each other. “It’s alright, Chief, you let me down,” Boland said.

Harry Boland

Having reached the top of the landing, Clarke made a noise to alert the pair of her presence. Without another word, Boland finally took his leave and came down the stairs with Clarke, joining her and Clifford in the ride back to their respective accommodations. Of what had transpired between him and their political potentate, Boland said not a thing.

The next day, Clarke, Mellows and Boland sat across from Seán Mac Eoin, Pádraig Ó Malley and Séamus O’Dwyer, and repeated their line that, while a general election was permissible, anything that would benefit one side at the expense of the other – as in their own – was not. With a stand-off reached and nothing beyond, all that was left for the Peace Committee to do was admit its failure to the Dáil,

Still, the three weeks of talk were not a complete waste. A proposal for a Coalition Government, one consisting of members from both sides, had been drafted on the last day of the Committee and forwarded to the Dáil as the best that could be offered for the moment. Next up was the turn of Collins and de Valera, the standard-bearers of their respective parties, to sit down together in the hope of a breakthrough. The next Dáil session was due for the 20^th May 1922, during which the two leaders would announce their results – if there was anything worth showing, that is.[5]

Picking the Fruit

A crack in the impasse was hinted at when John Chartres called in at 91 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, the house of Seán T. O’Kelly, at 10 pm on the Friday of the 19^th May. Chartres had worked as a secretary for the Irish Plenipotentiaries who had negotiated the Treaty in London, while O’Kelly was TD for Dublin Mid, and though each had chosen different sides – Chartres for the Treaty, O’Kelly against – the pair remained friends.

90-1 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin

The news was not good, Chartres confided in O’Kelly, for while he was convinced of Collins’ desire for peace, he was also certain that his talks with de Valera would only result in more dashed hopes. To prevent this, he begged his host, in the course of the two or three hours they spent conversing, to step in:

He insisted also that now was the right moment. The atmosphere was propitious and action taken by us that same night, if we would agree to intervene, was sure of good fruit.

John Chartres

Midnight had long passed by the time Chartres took his leave. Seán O’Kelly continued talking, now with his wife, Mary Kate O’Kelly (née Ryan), who had been present, about what their guest had brought to his attention.  O’Kelly was sceptical as to the sincerity of the other side, who were sure to insist that the Treaty be included in any deal, with Mary Kate being more hopeful. Her sister, Min, after all, was married to Richard Mulcahy, giving her as much personal stake as anyone in the matter.

With sleep that night an impossibility, the couple decided that Mary Kate would use her connection and call Min that Saturday morning, before 8 am, and arrange a get-together between their husbands. When Richard Mulcahy, on the other end of the phone, suggested they meet in the government buildings, O’Kelly counter-proposed the more neutral territory of the Gaelic League on Ely Place. This was agreed, and when the pair met at 9 am:

I outlined to Mulcahy my plans for an agreed peace. They were only a rough outline but were on the lines of the pact that was agreed later that day. Mulcahy, after some criticism of some of the details of my proposals and making some suggestion of amendments here and there, said he believed the proposition I made would be acceptable to his side.

Would it be so to Collins, O’Kelly asked? The Corkman wore a variety of hats: Chairman of the Provisional Government, Minister for Finance and, perhaps most importantly, ‘the man who had won the war’. Obtaining his support was critical, which Mulcahy thought likely. To make sure, he offered to bring the man in question over so O’Kelly could hear for himself. He drove off in his car and returned to Ely Place, a speedy ten or fifteen minutes later, with Collins beside him.

Richard Mulcahy

After O’Kelly repeated what he and Mulcahy had gone over, Collins said he was willing to try but – in an echo of O’Kelly’s question about him – what were the chances of bringing de Valera on board? He and Collins were due to meet again at noon, the last such encounter before reporting to the Dáil. O’Kelly promised to talk to de Valera. In addition, he offered to attend the summit between the two leaders if he could, with the addition of Boland since he and Collins were still close.

O’Kelly found de Valera in the Republican Party offices in Suffolk Street, chairing a gathering of their colleagues in preparation for the Dáil session. De Valera had already informed them that the odds of any sort of breakthrough with Collins later that day was remote, but O’Kelly asked if he could announce something important:

I then told of my own meeting with Mulcahy and Collins that morning. I told the whole story and its beginning and end. I added my firm conviction that Collins and Mulcahy really wished for peace, an agreed election and later a coalition government.

Not all present were so trusting, but the notion at least was not dismissed out of hand. De Valera had to depart for his appointment with Collins, leaving O’Kelly to oversee the rest of the discussion. O’Kelly told them of his intent to join the pair in their talk and, after some questions, the others agreed to grant him carte blanche to do what he judged best.

(Left from right) Seán T. O’Kelly, his wife Mary Kate and Harry Boland

From Abuse To Agreement

Off O’Kelly went to the Mansion House, accompanied by Boland, where they met Mulcahy, who told them that so far no progress had been made between de Valera and Collins, and that was the way it looked to stay. Undeterred, O’Kelly entered the meeting-room, with Boland and Mulcahy in tow, to find the other two seated at a table.

The Mansion House, Dublin

How far had they gone in looking through the Peace Committee proposals, O’Kelly inquired?

“We haven’t got past the first b_____ line,” Collins replied, his language being saltier than O’Kelly’s, who primly censured the expletive in his memoirs.

Well, I suggested, let us now start with the last paragraph of that report and work backwards. I am going to act as the chairman. Thus, we five started. There was heated argument, there was abuse, which sometimes almost led to violence but after about three hours [of] argument the Pact was made and signed by the two leaders.

Laurence O’Neill

By then it was 4 pm. Lunch had been completely forgotten, as everyone suddenly and keenly realised. The Lord Mayor, Laurence O’Neill, came to their rescue with sandwiches and coffee, while his secretaries typed up copies of the Pact. They were late enough as it was, since the Dáil was supposed to open at 3 pm, and so both Collins and de Valera agreed to quickly convene their respective parties in private and secure their consensus before announcing anything.

O’Kelly accompanied his leader as:

De Valera made his report to the anti-Treaty deputies. After a good many questions had been asked and explanations given his report and the Pact he had signed was unanimously approved.

At the other end, however, things did not go so smoothly.

Seán T. O’Kelly

O’Kelly was in the council chamber of the National University in anticipation of the Dáil, when Boland appeared with the request from Collins to see him outside. There was a bump in the road, a doleful Collins told O’Kelly, in the form of Griffith, who was furious with what Collins had brought to him. Other pro-Treaty TDs such as Seán Milroy and Seán McGarry were in angry agreement with the President, and it looked as if the Pact would grind to a halt before it had even began.

O’Kelly was not impressed. “You are running away,” he told the other man:

Can’t you be a man of your word? You are the Boss. You have signed the Pact. You have the power to force it through. Go back and do so.

O’Kelly expected an enraged Collins, one who would curse and shout and match him, verbal blow by verbal blow. Instead, ‘the man who had won the war’ took the challenge on the chin, with a resigned – even mournful, O’Kelly thought – manner. He would go back and try again, he said.

O’Kelly lost track of time as he waited for Collins to return. When he did, it was to again admit defeat. Griffith was not to be moved. Could O’Kelly try instead? O’Kelly thought it a strange request under the circumstances but said that he would.

Arthur Griffith

When Griffith came out, he and O’Kelly met in one of the empty classrooms inside the University. They talked for about fifteen minutes, or rather O’Kelly did, as he pointed to the state of their country. Former comrades were at each other’s throats and internecine strife liable to erupt at any moment. Should Griffith bar the Pact from passing and the worst happened, then the blame would fall on his shoulders. If nothing else, the Pact would provide breathing space and maybe – who knows? – some sort of lasting solution would be found in the meantime.

O’Kelly was begging by the time Griffith relented. He would withdraw his opposition, he said, and was as good as his word when the Dáil finally opened and it was given to him as its president to formally propose that the deputies approve the deal. They did so, and the Pact became, as O’Kelly put it, the law of the land.[6]

As if it was as simple as that.

From Mick to Mr Collins

If not quite the father of the agreement, then Boland could claim at least to be its midwife. “I worked very hard to secure unity and am quite happy with the present situation,” he wrote in a letter on the 30^th May 1922. “The whole game is now in the hands of Mr Collins.”

(Left to right) Harry Boland, Michael Collins and Éamon de Valera in happier times

Which, as dear a friend as Collins was, did not leave Boland entirely at ease:

We shall see how he will act. I, for one, would like to think that he will direct all his actions towards the Republic. I cannot say that I doubt him; yet I am uneasy as to his intentions.[7]

Overlooked in these reluctant suspicions was Griffith. Holding up the Pact, even if only for a short while, was one of the few displays of power he managed for, despite his exalted role as President, Griffith was becoming an irrelevance, a totemic figure much honoured but barely consulted. “There were always a lot of men in and out to see him,” remembered his secretary, Elizabeth MacGinley, “but nothing of any importance was every discussed, at least when I was present.”

Even Collins’ visits were rare, and the only discussion of note between them that MacGinley witnessed was about the Pact:

Griffith was totally against it and I was present when he tried to prevail on Michael Collins to abandon the idea. But Collins had given his word and believed the arrangement wold be successful and would bring about a reconciliation between the parties. Therefore, in spite of his eloquent pleading Griffith failed to divert Collins from his purpose.[8]

It was not the first time the two leaders of the Free State differed on what direction they should take the country. According to Ernest Blythe, “Griffith seemed to me to have made up his mind at a comparatively early stage that the conflict was inevitable,” while Collins swung from pugnacious anger to diplomatic restraint.

As an example of these shifts in mood:

Once he came back after having been prevented from visiting Terence McSwiney’s grave in Cork, he appeared to be fully determined on drastic action, but within a few days he was in a different frame of mind.

If Collins blew hot and cold, then Griffith at least knew his own mind – his problem was, however, that he seldom expressed it. The only speech that Blythe remembered him delivering to the Cabinet was in March 1922, during the stand-off in Limerick between pro and anti-Treaty forces that was threatening to spill out into violence, only three months after the Treaty ratification.

IRA men in Limerick during the stand-off in early 1922

To Griffith, it was a moment of decision, the time for them to take responsibility as a government now that they were one. If there was to be a war, best get it over and done with, rather than let the country rot with lawlessness. Inwardly, Blythe agreed but kept his silence, aware that it would be the Corkman making the final call.

Liam Lynch

As Collins could not bear the thought of turning guns on his old comrades, he eagerly grasped the olive-branch proffered by Mulcahy, who vouched for Liam Lynch’s ability to mediate a climb-down for both sides in Limerick. Though Lynch was in the anti-Treaty camp, he was also desirous of an amicable solution. In that, Collins had much in common with him – more so, in any case, than he had with Griffith, who began to refer to his minister, with icy civility, as ‘Mr Collins’, rather than ‘Mick’ or ‘Collins’ like before.[9]

It is questionable whether Collins noticed the difference, considering how withdrawn Griffith had become. “His silences were the most expressive evidence” of his dissatisfaction, according to MacGinley. “I rarely heard him discuss the situation with anybody.”[10]

A Hair’s Breadth

Little wonder, then, that Griffith was increasingly isolated inside the government whose prerogatives he championed. The decision to go ahead with the Pact was a particularly painful moment for him. Several others among the pro and anti-Treaty deputies, seated together, had chosen in its favour before the vote came round the table for the President’s turn.

As he waited, Blythe could not help but notice the state Griffith was in:

He worked nervously with his neck-tie in silence. He took off his glasses and wiped them, and I noticed that his hand was shaking so that he could hardly hold them. He put on his glasses, fiddled with his tie again; again he took off his glasses and wiped them, the whole thing occupying, it seemed to me, three of our minutes while dead silence reigned round the table.

Ernest Blythe

In that brief, but excruciating, amount of time, Griffith held the balance of power in the room. Had he said no, the Pact would be dead in the water and the Cabinet split – not that, in Blythe’s opinion, many would be too upset, considering the reservations about the Pact by many, even those who had already consented.

As it was, Griffith sealed the deal with a simple “I agree” and that was that.[11]

Before reconciling itself to the outcome, the Irish Times may have been speaking for itself when it declared how “the Irish people have run the whole gamut of astonishment and disillusionment in recent months.” Griffith’s about-turn, in particular, was worthy of note:

On Friday last Mr Griffith announced that the issue of the Treaty, the whole Treaty, and nothing but the Treaty, would be submitted to free elections in June. Within twenty-four hours the new agreement, to which Mr Griffith assents, was given to the world, and the word ‘Treaty’ is not mentioned once.

Far from resolving the controversy that had been blighting Ireland, this new-fangled Pact seemed set only in making it worse: “The Free State Party has given everything to the Republicans, including things which it had no title to give. What have the Republicans given in return?”

IRA men

The answer was simple: peace. And yet where were the guarantees of even that?

Will the Freemasons’ Hall, the Four Courts and other public and private buildings in Dublin be restored immediately to their proper uses? Will the Republican forces in the South combine to suppress the raids and bank robberies which are destroying the country’s trade?

To this:

The text of the agreement offers no clue. We cannot believe, however, that the bargain is so one-sided as it seems to be. Mr Griffith, a man of strong and consistent principles, can have made his strange volte face only under the pressure of some truly compelling argument.[12]

Griffith would not have disagreed, at least about the ‘pressure’ part. Feeling that the choice had been less a case of ‘compelling’ and more one forced on him, he made no secret of his dislike, either of the Pact or of the Chairman to his own government, being “within a hair’s breadth of breaking with Collins,” in Blythe’s opinion – as though the country needed a further split. If the stress of it all had been enough to drive Boland and de Valera into a shouting match, then pro-Treaty partnerships were likewise straining at the seams.[13]

Anti-Treaty cartoon, lampooning Griffith and Collins

Sneaking Through a Verdict

Collins himself would come to regard the whole episode as something of an old shame if his subsequent explanation is something to go by. “An agreement was reached between Mr. de Valera and myself for which I have been severely criticised,” he admitted in his public writings:

It was said that I gave away too much, that I went too far to meet them, that I had exceeded my powers in making a pact which, to some extent, interfered with the people’s right to make a free and full choice at the elections.[14]

Michael Collins

On that particular point, he offered no rebuttal. When interviewing Collins some months later, in the midst of the Civil War, the journalist Hayden Talbot noted the reticence of his subject against expressing any sort of personal opinion on the Pact, preferring to stick to the dry facts and nothing further.[15]

To even a devoted follower of Collins, “perhaps all that can be said in [the Pact’s] favour was that it was an attempt to make the best of a bad job, a last desperate effort to find a way out in face of the threat of civil war,” wrote Piaras Béaslaí:

Without it, in view of the attitude of the armed [anti-Treaty] Irregulars, it would have been impossible to hold a free election. The opponents of the Treaty, in fact, used the threat of the guns to secure a representation which they could not have obtained on the free vote of the people.

Despite his own success in the election-to-come, voted to the seat of Kerry-Limerick West, Béaslaí claimed that, if not for the fact he was out of the country at the time, he “would not have consented to being put on the panel, as I disproved of the ‘pact’ on principle.”[16]

Piaras Béaslaí

But, if Collins was genuine to a fault in his desire for peace, and sentimental towards wayward comrades-in-arms like Lynch and Boland at the expense of offending current allies, he also had a calculating side, in Blythe’s view: “Collins, in entering the Pact, was undoubtedly actuated mainly, if not entirely, by a desire to get some sort of a popular verdict over the Treaty.”

For the Irish Times was quite correct in guessing that any gains from the Pact were not limited to one side – in the long run, anyway. Previously, Collins had tried to arrange with de Valera a plebiscite on the basis that:

Collins knew such a plebiscite would show an overwhelming majority for the Treaty and should justify any action that might have to be taken if the recalcitrant armed forces continued along the path they had been taking.

While de Valera had rejected the idea of a plebiscite, Collins was sure that a general election, Pact or otherwise, would be the next best thing: “Collins felt that even under the Pact a test of popular opinion could be obtained.”[17]

A very jolly Michael Collins

And now Collins was about to have one. As for what would happen next, well, who could say…?

To be continued in: The Worst of a Good Deal: The Irish Pact Election of June 1922 (Part II)

References

[1] Poblacht Na h-Eireann – The Republic of Ireland, 25/05/1922

[2] Irish Times, 23/05/1922

[3] O’Malley, Ernie. The Singing Flame (Cork: Mercier Press, 2012), pp. 86-7

[4] Ibid, pp. 95, 103

[5] Clarke, Kathleen (edited by Litton, Helen) Revolutionary Woman (Dublin: The O’Brien Press, 2008), pp. 265-7

[6] National Library of Ireland (NLI), Seán T. Ó Ceallaigh Papers, MS 27,702(6), ‘The Pact – Law of the Land’, pp. 1-9

[7] Cronin, Sean. The McGarrity Papers (Tralee: Anvil Books, 1972), p. 118

[8] MacGinley, Elizabeth (BMH / WS 860), pp. 9-10

[9] Blythe, Ernest (BMH / WS 939), pp. 142-5

[10] MacGinley, p. 10

[11] Blythe, p. 144

[12] Irish Times, 22/05/1922

[13] Blythe, p. 144

[14] Collins, Michael. The Path to Freedom (Cork: Mercier Press, 1996), p. 10

[15] Talbot, Hayden (introduction by de Búrca, Éamonn) Michael Collins’ Own Story – Told to Hayden Talbot (Dublin: Edmund Burke Publisher, 2012), p. 185

[16] Béaslaí, Piaras. Michael Collins and the Making of a New Ireland, Volume II (Dublin: Edmund Burke Publisher, 2008), pp. 258-9

[17] Blythe, pp. 145-6

Bibliography

Books

Béaslaí, Piaras. Michael Collins and the Making of a New Ireland (Dublin: Edmund Burke Publisher, 2008)

Clarke, Kathleen (edited by Litton, Helen) Revolutionary Woman (Dublin: The O’Brien Press, 2008)

Collins, Michael. The Path to Freedom (Cork: Mercier Press, 1996)

Cronin, Sean. The McGarrity Papers (Tralee: Anvil Books, 1972)

O’Malley, Ernie. The Singing Flame (Cork: Mercier Press, 2012)

Talbot, Hayden (introduction by de Búrca, Éamonn) Michael Collins’ Own Story – Told to Hayden Talbot (Dublin: Edmund Burke Publisher, 2012)

Newspapers

Irish Times

Poblacht Na h-Eireann – The Republic of Ireland

Bureau of Military History Statements

Blythe, Ernest, WS 939

MacGinley, Elizabeth, WS 860

National Library of Ireland

Seán T. Ó Ceallaigh Papers

Raising the Banner: The East Clare By-Election, July 1917

A Time of Great Moment

William Redmond

Change was in the air, of a very great sort indeed, in East Clare as the by-election there opened on the 10^th June 1917. Its previous Member of Parliament (MP), Major William Redmond, had fallen in battle three days earlier, another name on the causality list from the Western Front in France. And while he was both mourned and celebrated as a gallant soldier who did his duty as he saw it, politics stops for no man and a vacancy waited to be filled. Not just for a Parliamentary seat, though that would be contested hotly enough, but for the soul of Ireland, as confused and rudderless as it was.

Since the days of Daniel O’Connell and Charles Stewart Parnell, the Nationalist tactics of choice had been of the constitutional kind. Self-rule for Ireland was to be achieved in the debating chamber of Westminster, through its elected representatives in the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) and, for a while, it had looked as if that would succeed, with independence, or at least a measure of it, achieved by way of Home Rule.

But that seemed far less certain now. The time had come for the electorate of East Clare to consider exactly where it stood, as the Clare Champion proclaimed to its readers in a masterpiece of overblown prose:

We know that in the past Clare had been called upon in times of great moment to decide in matters destined to change the entire future of our history, and we know that as if by special inspiration our people were made the chosen instrument of a power which struck telling blows for progress and National freedom.

So taken was the newspaper with the responsibility thrust on its namesake county that it sounded as if its writer was about to pass out from giddiness:

Is it simply a repetition of history – remarkable in itself to all outward appearances, but signifying nothing beyond the mere element of chance that thrusts on the people of East Clare a responsibility of supreme National importance just now, or is there behind it all something more than we mere mortals can gauge.

On that weighty query, who could say? A more grounded one, the Clare Champion continued, was how “to-day it is not alone a question of policy, but of aim.” The constitutional policy of old would now have to contend with a brash new challenger in the form of Sinn Féin, with each side representing two competing visions for Ireland: Home Rule within the British Empire versus a complete severance in the form of an Irish Republic.

Home Rule poster

“We are assured,” the newspaper wrote, “that the dream of an Irish Republic is a fantastic chimera and unrealistic dream. Perhaps so,” it conceded, before adding, with a note of defiance, “but we think nothing should be shut out.”[1]

The Rising That Wasn’t

Such grand talk aside, Clare had been something of a revolutionary backwater lately, as shown by how the Easter Rising of the previous year caught the rebels-in-waiting there largely by surprise. The Irish Volunteers and those of them sworn into the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) had been aware that something was in the works, especially as communiques came from Dublin, via Limerick, in March and April 1916, but vague enough were the details for them to assume that any insurrection would wait until June or July to happen.

Irish Volunteers

It was not until Holy Saturday, the 22^nd April, that Joseph Barrett, captain of the Ballyea Company, received word to have his men ready on the following Sunday. He followed through on his order and about thirty Ballyea men assembled with their weapons and equipment, along with twenty-four hours’ worth of rations. In addition to fighting when necessary, they were to gather enough carts and horses to bring in an expected shipment of guns due to be landed on their side of the Shannon – an assignment for which Barrett did not anticipate much in the way of difficulty.

And so they waited…and waited, and waited some more at the allocated site until the day passed into Easter Monday and Barrett, for want of further instructions and with the promised weapons nowhere in sight, dismissed his charges. It was not until he reached Ennis that he learnt about the countermanding order, published in the Irish Independent, cancelling the insurrection.

The countermanding order, as published

Barrett was cooling his heels in the Old Ground Hotel, owned by his aunt, when a Head Constable of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), with whom he was friendly despite their differencing politics, entered and told him of the battle being waged in Dublin even as they spoke. “Go home, you, and stay at home,” the policeman warned.

Barrett did not go home. Instead, he contacted the other wannabe rebel officers, only to learn that they were as much in the dark as him. By the following day:

On Tuesday, I heard from some source that the Volunteers were out not only in Dublin, Galway and Wexford, and, in the absence of any instructions from Limerick, I was in a quandary as to what action I should take. Eventually, I and the other officers of my Company decided to do nothing in the absence of orders.[2]

At Whitemount, where some other Volunteers had mustered, a teacher dropped by to pass on instructions from their absent commander, Tomás Ó Loughlin, to attack the nearby RIC barracks. Believing that any such orders from Ó Loughlin would have been delivered in person, the Volunteers not only refused but came to the conclusion that the messenger was treacherously trying to lure them into a trap. The hapless teacher had his house fired on, though luckily no one inside was hurt.[3]

Such was the confusion and disarray in Clare during Ireland’s fateful week.

Irish Volunteers

The absence of activity at least saved the Clare Volunteers from the mass arrests made by the authorities in other areas. While a handful of leaders such as the Brennan brothers were deported to England, the bulk of the organisation remained intact. Things remained quiet until the following spring, when the Irish Volunteers began to organise anew. Fresh recruits were not found wanting, much to Barrett’s delight, as companies swelled to double their size.[4]

A Stronghold Shaken

Another Clare man who missed his chance to be part of the big event was Hugh Hehir. Despite his enrolment in the Dublin Volunteers, he was holidaying for Easter in his native Clare, unaware of any conspiracy, an ignorance he attributed to his lack of contact with the rebel leadership. After hearing of the fighting in Dublin, Hehir had hurried back to the city, only to be detained on arrival by British forces.

Irish prisoners in Frongoch Camp

Later interned in Frongoch Camp, he was not released until August 1916. Without a job, having been fired from his old one in the civil service, Hehir returned to his home county to find Clare in a very different state than before:

Up to 1916 that County was a Redmondite stronghold, but after the executions this feeling changed over and men, who had previously followed the Irish Party, were beginning to lean towards Sinn Féin.

Hehir was to claim credit for the setting up of one of the first Sinn Féin clubs in Clare, shortly after the party’s election win for South Longford in May 1917. In this he worked in tandem with his parish priest, Father James Clancy, who lent his support in an address to a meeting of thirty or forty young men that Hehir had helped set up.

Peadar Clancy

Upon word of William Redmond’s death, an informal gathering of local Republicans was held. With the idea of replicating the South Longford result, it was decided to put forward Peadar Clancy, one of the Rising combatants still in prison, and a Clare man to boot, as their man for the now vacant parliamentary seat.

It was to put a more official seal of approval on the choice of candidate that a larger convention was held on the 13^th June, in the Old Ground Hotel. But this second event proved a good deal less harmonious than before as, according to Hehir:

A great many names were put forward, including Dr [Richard] Hayes of Limerick, Arthur Griffith, Eoin MacNeill, and Peadar Clancy, and even my own name was mentioned.

Seán Milroy

Also in attendance was Seán Milroy, on behalf of the Sinn Féin Executive in Dublin, the only contact the Clare grassroots seemed to have had with the central body. Whether Milroy expressed a preference was not recorded by Hehir. Perhaps the question was overly sensitive for the Dublin leadership to weigh in on too strongly.[5]

Of Shirkers and Fighting Men

Indeed, the convention was soon teetering on the edge of “pandemonium”, according to another participant, Art O’Donnell. Local pride rose to the fore when it was suggested that a Clare man should be run for the Clare seat. The name of an otherwise ignote Michael Duggan was mentioned on the virtue of his residence in Scariff but this possibility failed to merit a seconder and so withered on the vine.

When Arthur Griffith was proposed, Austin Brennan – brother to the commander of the Clare Volunteers – denounced him for having “shirked the Rising.” Clare had no need for such shirkers, only fighting men, added Brennan.

Arthur Griffith

An example of such a martial type was provided by the next speaker, Father Alfred Moloney, who, after calling for order in an increasingly fractious debate, proclaimed that: “Clare can have its fighting man and that man is [Éamon] de Valera”:

He was the man who made the Notts and Derbys [the Sherwood Foresters, recruited from Nottingham and Derbyshire] bite the dust in the streets of Dublin, he was the last man to surrender in 1916, you are all acquainted with these facts and I now formally propose him as our candidate for Clare.[6]

Michael Brennan

A third account, albeit partly a second-hand one, is provided by Michael Brennan. He and his brother Paddy were hiding out in Dublin after their escape from prison, when they received word that a meeting in Ennis of local Sinn Féin members and Irish Volunteers had asked Michael to stand. Even absent, the Brennan brothers held a lot of clout in their home county, with Paddy as O/C of the Clare Volunteers and Michael the Adjutant.

The latter was thus a natural choice, but he declined, writing to another sibling, Austin, still in Clare, to press for de Valera instead:

[Austin] replied that he was doing so against strong opposition as all the old people and nearly all the clergy wanted [Eoin] MacNeill. Later, he informed us that when the convention was held in Ennis the majority was clearly in support of MacNeill.

Which presented a problem before things had even begun. As Chief of Staff of the Irish Volunteers, MacNeill had on paper the perfect résumé. But his countermanding order on Easter Sunday, which had thrown the Rising into confusion, and in Clare to a complete halt, damned him as another ‘shirker’ in the eyes of many.

[Austin] secured an adjournment and, after private discussions, he announced that if [Eoin] MacNeill were selected, the Volunteers wouldn’t accept him because of his action in the Rising, but would run de Valera as the Volunteer candidate.

Catching the balance between the political, in the form of Sinn Féin, and the military aspects that the Irish Volunteers represented, was a delicate process, one which the revolutionary movement would never entirely achieve, with disastrous consequences for the country five years to come. For now, however, in Clare, “this settled the question and eventually de Valera was agreed to unanimously,” Brennan concluded.[7]

The anointing of the Clare candidate – a first step in what was to be an incomparable political career – was clearly a story in which everyone had their own take. Whatever the differences, Hehir’s, O’Donnell’s and Brennan’s versions agree in presenting the decision as one that occurred on a local level, rather than the Sinn Féin grassroots relying on guidance from their parent party.

Eoin MacNeill

Also notable was how Griffith and MacNeill had been in the consideration before unceremoniously dropped. The former was no less than President of Sinn Féin, and both were recognised figures across the country, but neither could claim a part in the Rising, and this alone disqualified them, even against a relatively unknown de Valera, who nonetheless had emerged from Easter Week with a military record.

And that alone made all the difference, even though the oddity of the winner’s name raised a few eyebrows when the convention attendees left to announce the results. “There were all kinds of attempts made to pronounce it,” admitted one, “and some unkind comments were made about the people who were responsible for selecting the man who bore such a name.”[8]

‘A Vigorous Canvass’

In contrast, the Irish Party managed to pick its own aspirant with the minimum of fuss when, on the 16^th June 1917, a group of local IPP worthies gathered at a hotel in Limerick and, after some discussion, agreed to support one of their number, Patrick Lynch, in running for the East Clare vacancy. An accomplished barrister, the 51-year-old Lynch had served as junior counsel for William Redmond during the latter’s original election to the seat, back in 1893, and so was a deserving choice for the torch to be passed on to, as the others seemed to agree.

“The meeting was a very harmonious one,” wrote the Irish Times, “and Mr Lynch, who is a native of the County Clare, is personally very popular, left by the evening train to Ennis to arrange for a canvass of the division.”

There was no time to waste, for:

Already the Sinn Féin party have instituted a vigorous canvass, and, as political organisation on the other side, owing to the long interval since there has been a contested election – twenty-two years – become rather lax, they will have a certain advantage in the early start.

All was not lost as “there are indications, however, that Mr Lynch’s candidature will be pressed forward from now on with whole-hearted earnestness.”[9]

But, behind closed doors, the upper echelons of the party Lynch was now to represent wished to have nothing to do with the contest. The two electoral defeats earlier in the year – North Roscommon in January, South Longford in May – had left the leadership skittish of a third.

“I am strongly against the Party identifying itself with Lynch’s candidature in East Clare,” John Dillon wrote to the IPP Chairman on the 21^st June 1917.

John Redmond replied a day later with a simple: “I agree about East Clare.”

John Redmond (left), with John Dillon (right)

Writing as the secretary of the Party offices on Sackville (now O’Connell) Street, Dublin, Annie O’Brien took a different view. “We have information from a number of sources concerning East Clare, and so far everything seems to justify one in confidently expecting Mr Lynch to win the seat,” she reported to Redmond on the 19^th June 1917. This was optimism of a sort that even a faithful follower like her had not been expecting. “There seems to be a surprising unanimity of opinion about it.”

In support of this opinion, she quoted a Sinn Féiner in that “Lynch is a strong candidate – he had defended one half of the murderers in Clare and is related to the other half,” in reference to his prior legal work with the Land League.[10]

It was the sort of credentials that would go down well in East Clare, an area where, in the opinion of another contemporary, “’extreme’ men had always been numerous.”[11]

These were all points to be considered for, even after two by-election victories, Sinn Féin could ill-afford to take a third for granted:

The fact that the late Willie Redmond had been one of the most popular members of the Party and that the candidate, Lynch, belonged to a powerful local family, possessing an intricate network of cousins throughout the constituency, gave our people great concern.

So remembered Kevin O’Shiel, a Tyrone-born barrister who had canvassed for Sinn Féin before in South Longford. To be defeated in East Clare “would be, obviously, a very serious reverse.”[12]

Cartoon from the pro-Sinn Féin newspaper, ‘The Roscommon Herald’, 28th June 1917, depicting John Redmond (left) and Patrick Lynch (right)

A State of Feeling

It was a scenario that Joseph Bryce, the Inspector General of the RIC, was also pondering in his monthly report for June. “The election in East Clare will no doubt affect the future of the situation,” he wrote to his employers in Dublin Castle. “Should the Constitutional candidate be successful it is possible that the Sinn Fein movement…may receive a check.”

This, however, would not necessarily pacify Ireland, for Sinn Féin, thwarted politically, “may eventually divide into two parties, one moderate and the other extreme.”

Sinn Féin election poster for East Clare, with Éamon de Valera in uniform and in the dock, and Patrick Lynch in barrister’s robes and wig

While the RIC “have not detected any preparations for an immediate armed rising, nor is there reason to believe that the disaffected are sufficiently armed and equipped for such an undertaking,” the increasingly truculent mood of the Sinn Féiners, expressed through rebellious songs and speeches, the wearing of Volunteer uniforms and the flaunting of tricolours:

Disclose a disloyal and rebellious state of feeling that will render the task of the Police in keeping order extremely difficult.

A Sinn Féin win in East Clare could only worsen things further, Bryce predicted, for “in the event of De Valera, the rebel leader, being elected….it is not unreasonable to expect that the revolutionary party will acquire an increased influence and become more aggressive,” perhaps to the point of deciding “to precipitate disturbances in the country.”

With Morton’s Fork before them, Bryce submitted to his superiors that, whichever way East Clare turned, the legal power conferred on the RIC in its defence against sedition be extended and enforced. If there was a war coming, the Inspector-General wanted his colleagues to have as many weapons as they could at their disposal.[13]

Royal Irish Constabulary

The Contest Begins

Acutely aware of the stakes involved, both for themselves and the country as a whole, the two sides threw themselves into the fray. When de Valera arrived in Ennis on the Saturday night of the 23^rd June 1917, “so many republican flags were displayed in the process from Ennis station to the Old Ground Hotel,” remembered one of his entourage, “that it appeared to us who were marching at the rere [sic] as if the road was one great blaze with the falling sunshine on the orange of the banners.”[14]

Éamon de Valera, speaking while surrounded by a crowd

Taking inspiration from the said tricolours, de Valera declared that he stood for the Sinn Féin flag, not the Union Jack. The election, he said, was not just a contest between him and Lynch, but one of principle – was Ireland to be a free country or, as his opponent would have it, a mere province?

‘Murderer’, he had been called. It was a term he denied but, if the Irish people judged it a fitting one, he would hang his head accordingly. For it was time for the electors to show their feelings, and de Valera appealed to them to support with their vote the principle in which the men of Easter Week had risked, and for some laid down, their lives.[15]

“The meeting went off very well and de Valera spoke very well and carried the crowd with him,” remembered Dan MacCarthy, who had been sent ahead to East Clare to organise the Sinn Féin efforts. Being an unknown quality, and a political neophyte to boot, de Valera had been a cause of some trepidation to MacCarthy as he set up the welcoming crowd at the station. MacCarthy was now committed to the success of a man who:

…had never addressed public meetings before, and knowing that he would be what I might term the professor type used to lecturing class indoors, I felt that he had not got the voice required for outdoor public speaking.

This worried me very much because I felt that if de Valera was to get the crowd on his side he would have to introduce fiery speech and bring home his points in a loud voice.

When the two met for the first time in Ennis, just before the candidate was due to take the stage, de Valera had assured the campaign manager that he would try his best. Watching his candidate at work was enough to soothe MacCarthy’s fears as he “then felt convinced that we were going to win and I told him so.”[16]

Pleading the Past

Lynch, meanwhile, had his own case to make, which he did in Tulla on the 24^th June, the day after de Valera’s debut. This election was undoubtedly one of the most important in Ireland since 1828, he said, with a reference his audience was sure to catch, for that was when the great Daniel O’Connell had been elevated as an MP – and for Clare, no less.

Charles Parnell

Indeed, this was perhaps even the most important election for over a century. Was the country to abandon the cause long pursued by Charles Stewart Parnell, Michael Davitt and John Redmond? Were they ashamed of what it had already accomplished, such as the Land League policy? Would Ireland surrender all representation in Parliament – which was what Sinn Féin would amount to – and leave itself open to taxation without appeal?

Were they to be taken away now from the path of patriotism at the mere suggestion of people to whom he would give credit for at least meaning well, but whose views, and purposes, and objects he would not place on this question on a par with those of Parnell and Davitt?

That bit received cheers, and Lynch might have taken hope from this, and by the enthusiasm of his audience in general, that he and the Irish Party stood a fighting chance. As Lynch’s citation of famous names indicated, the Parliamentary movement could boast a proud heritage to fall back on.[17]

But would the past be enough to win the present and secure the future?

Lynch could at least count on the support of Ennis Urban Council who, at a special meeting, unanimously passed a resolution in his favour, and calling on the electorate to do likewise in what was described – echoing Lynch’s words in Tulla – as:

One of the most serious contests they had ever had. It was a question of constitutionalism versus revolutionary methods, and surely in the terrible conflict they were going through, that the world had entered upon, this was no time for preaching revolutionary ideas.

Thus spoke the worthies of Ennis. By conflict, they meant the trenches and foxholes of France or the straits of the Dardanelles, but a turmoil closer to home was demonstrated later that evening in Ennis, when a group of young men, identified as de Valera supporters, came in rough contact with a cordon of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). The Sinn Féiners broke through and made it to O’Connell Street, only to be stopped by a baton charge from police reinforcements, injuring several participants and dispersing the crowd in short order.[18]

Four days later, on the 28^th June, the O’Connell Monument in Ennis became the centre of a territorial dispute, when Sinn Féiners pulled down the crêpe there in mourning for William Redmond and draped the column with a tricoloured flag. Retaliation was struck later that day when a party of IPP partisans tore down the enemy colours in turn and replaced them with crêpe as before.

“A scuffle ensued between supporters of each party, but no damage was done,” reported the Irish Times.[19]

‘Hang de Valera on the Sour Apple Tree’

There had already been a murder attempt in the election when, on the 24^th July, a group of Sinn Féiners were stopped near Broadford, while on the road from Limerick to Clare, by a heap of boulders. As the party disembarked from their car to move the obstacles, rifle-shots were fired from the cover of a nearby grove. The bullets – fifteen in all, it was estimated – whizzed past the men, with one piercing the door of the driver’s seat and another hitting a petrol can, but otherwise causing no harm beyond a fright.[20]

Even before, no one in East Clare could have been naïve to the possibility – nay, probability – of violence. Irish elections had long been tempestuous affairs, and the Longford one the month before was especially marked. While waiting in Limerick for the train to Ennis, Kevin O’Shiel caught a glimpse of the challenges ahead of him as a Sinn Féin canvasser.

Kevin O’Shiel

The wives and dependants of men serving in the British Army, the so-called ‘separation women’, had gathered at the station to cheer on the IPP adherents. As they waited for their own train ride, they sung British military songs such as ‘It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary’ and ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’, along with the classic ‘God Save the King’ and, more ominously, ‘Hang de Valera on the Sour Apple Tree’.

The last was given a hearty repeat at the sight of any Sinn Féiners. O’Shiel felt relief at his plain choice of dress, without the usual tricolour badges or ribbons that marked one of his ideological persuasion. Otherwise, he feared, “it would unquestionably have led to a much closer intimacy between me and those fair ladies than I would have cared for.”

Joseph McGrath

O’Shiel arrived in one piece to Ennis to find a town as sharply divided as the rest of Ireland. The Old Ground Hotel served as the Sinn Féin headquarters, and there he met de Valera for the first time, along with other prominent faces in their shared cause, such as Countess Markievicz, Harry Boland and Darrell Figgis. Of particular interest to O’Shiel were Dan MacCarthy and Joe McGrath, the pair he accredited with pulling off the past successes in North Roscommon and South Longford.

Life in the hotel was not exactly comfortable, packed as it was with campaigners, forcing them to share beds – sometimes three or four together – when not making do with the lounge chairs and sofas, or even the floor. Despite such trials and tribulations, morale could not have been better.

“Nothing could damp down the atmosphere of enthusiasm that prevailed,” wrote O’Shiel, “everybody seeming to be animated by a terrific and wholly altruistic purpose.”

Old Ground Hotel, Ennis (today)

Outside, however, was a different tale. Ennis was solidly pro-IPP and fiercely anti-Sinn Fein, and the Old Ground Hotel stood as a citadel in an enemy town, a reminder to de Valera, O’Shiel and rest of their compatriots that the struggle for the county, and the country as a whole, had not yet been decided.[21]

Out About Town

O’Shiel experienced that fact for himself one evening, as he and a group of fellow Sinn Féin canvassers, including the famed Countess Markievicz, were taking a respite in the sitting-room of the Old Ground Hotel. Upon hearing of a pro-Lynch rally in O’Connell Square:

Madame Markievicz was quite excited by the news, and thought it would be a splendid idea for some of us to sally forth and hear what they had to say.

Kevin O’Shiel and another man – who goes unnamed in O’Shiel’s account – in the lounge accepted her invitation, and the three set out, accompanied by the Countess’ fat little dog, adorned, like its owner, in the Republican emblazonry of green, white and orange. Her interest, it seems, was as much to win hearts and minds as to size up the competition, according to O’Shiel:

Madame believed intensely in the fundamental goodness of human nature – that is to say, in the best human nature, which, as everybody knows, is Irish human nature!

These decent Claremen on the other side were Irishmen, the same as ourselves, and Madame was convinced that they had only to receive the message of the new evangel when the scales of darkness would fall from their eyes and they would behold the light and turn from their schism.

The trio joined the crowd that had gathered around the platform set up for the occasion, from where a succession of IPP spokesmen addressed the square. O’Shiel was conscious of the unfriendly glances he and the other two were receiving, marked out as they were as interlopers by their tricoloured heraldry, but, for now, the focus was on the stage and any violence restricted to the language coming down from it, as the latest Demosthenes-to-be harangued the opposition, in an impressive baritone, as “factionists”, “German agents” and “betrayers of Ireland’s cause.”

Countess Markievicz

While this went down well with most of the audience, to judge from the responding applause, it was too much for one listener:

Madame could not stay quiet for long under such a diatribe and was soon making sharp comments to us on his statements, showing how wrong or inaccurate they were. She possessed a clear, penetrating voice that carried quite a bit from her.

Soon, to O’Shiel’s dismay, he and the other pair found themselves the target of shaken fists, angry eyes and insults like “gaol-birds”, “killers” and “cut-throats.” Curses escalated into shoving, with Markievicz’s dog sent scampering off in a panic and her hat yanked off her head. Her cry to return what she had worn in Easter Week failed to calm their assailants down – unsurprisingly so – and relief only came when a squad of RIC constables pushed through to surround the three Sinn Féiners in a protective circle.

Royal Irish Constabulary

With batons bared, the policemen edged towards a nearby lane, remaining in a line at the narrow entrance to seal the trio off from the angry mob, who raged on the other side but otherwise made no effort to break through. When these passions had sufficiently cooled, the three Sinn Féiners were able to return to their hotel, escorted by the constables, to Markievicz’s disgust at having to rely on a police force that many in Sinn Féin regarded as agents of British rule:

She resented their presence, and more so, their protection, a resentment which, I can truly say, I certainly did not share!

O’Shiel thanked the RIC for the narrow escape, while Markievicz remained surly to their rescuers. When one of the policemen provided the Countess with her rescued hat, it was an inadvertent rubbing of salt on to the wound.[22]

Moving Heaven and Hell

The passing of June into July saw a surge of rallies from both sides. Lynch’s campaign was reinforced by the arrival of half a dozen Nationalist MPs into East Clare, “the first indication that Mr Lynch has the official support of the Irish Parliamentary Party,” observed the Irish Times, something previously conspicuous in its absence:

Hitherto he has depended mainly on his intimates and relatives, of whom he had many in the district, but family ties would not be sufficient to counter the activities of Sinn Féin.

The question before Clare, Lynch said at one such rally in Feakle, was between naked revolution or the constitutional way. The previous two by-elections of the year had not been sufficient to supply an answer: North Roscommon was won not for Sinn Féin, but out of sympathy for Count Plunkett’s loss of a son, executed after Easter Week. South Longford was won not for Sinn Féin, but on behalf of the men in English prisons. Only here and now, in East Clare, would the decision be made on how Ireland was to proceed.

Sharing the platform in Feakle was the Very Rev. Canon Hayes, who put the case for the status quo in forceful, even apocalyptical, terms. Sinn Féin, he said, was a policy of socialism, bloodshed and anarchy. It may have won over the young and the naïve, those who had no knowledge of civic affairs or record in public service, but if this new movement was to have it way, then there would be nothing left in Ireland save disunity and secret sects:

The Church had spoken and had pointed out the perils to all of them. One of the sins that called to Heaven for vengeance was murder, and who was audacious enough to tell him there was not murder in Dublin during Easter Week? Dublin ran with the blood of innocent victims, and he noted that the man who had come to Clare for the votes of the Clare people adopted Easter Week as his policy.

To Canon Hayes, that was damning enough. His last words to his audience was for them to reclaim their religion and their country from the spiritual danger Sinn Féin posed.[23]

Not every churchman was so aligned, however. “We are faced here with desperate opposition,” wrote the Vice-Chairman of Ennis Urban District Council to the IPP leadership, on the 4^th July. Problems included how “the Bishop and a section of the clergy are arranged against us, and the junior clergy in particular are moving heaven and hell to get De Valera elected.”[24]

Father Michael O’Flanagan, one of Sinn Féin’s most prominent clerical advocates

Elsewhere in the constituency, de Valera enjoyed a hearty welcome in Scariff, being carried in a chair through the street while escorted by a two thousand-strong procession, past houses outside of which tricolours had been hung. There had been attempts, de Valera said when he mounted the stage, to paint his followers as an unruly mob when, really, they could not be more orderly.

There was, after all, no country more law-abiding than Ireland – when the law was legitimate, that is. The fact that the Irish Party was still in existence, instead of being swept away a long time ago, was due to the innate loyalty of the Irish people; a people who, if organised and united, could never be ruled by Britain. The IPP knew this truth but preferred to stick its head in the sand like an ostrich, while Sinn Féin wanted to proclaim it to the world. Sinn Féin wanted Ireland for the Irish, free of any foreign power. Sinn Féin wanted a free and independent Republic.

Éamon de Valera delivering a speech

“As far as one can see, Mr De Valera has taken over the leadership of his party,” read the Irish Times with more prescience than it knew, “and how far some of his colleagues will follow is being watched with interest here.”

Volunteering for the Revolution

Certainly, de Valera was no backroom leader, being present all over the constituency at the expense of a moment’s rest. If enthusiasm alone was the deciding factor, then the Irish Times believed that de Valera would win hands-down. He had other factors on his side. As he returned from another successful rally, this time at Gort, he was presented with a cigarette case by women from Cumann na mBan. As he gave his thanks, de Valera urged the women, and anyone else in earshot, to provide financial support to the Irish Volunteers.[25]

Cumann na mBan

For the Volunteers and Sinn Féin were two groups joined at the hip, with companies of the former standing guard at the latter’s meetings, hurling sticks in hand. If the Irish Volunteers were the army, then de Valera was their general as he went about East Clare in olive-green khaki, adorned with a Sam Browne belt and sword-strap – minus the sword – while escorted all the while by a bodyguard of Volunteers, many of whom also in uniform to provide a suitably martial impression.

Such display was not just for show. On polling day, the 10^th July, O’Shiel was handing out pamphlets with Arthur Griffith when a brawl broke out nearby. O’Shiel had forgotten the cause by the time he penned his life’s story but the rest of the incident would stay with him:

Soon a wild, milling mob swelled into the narrow hall of the town hall, and I was sure we were going to be “done for”. However, with the help of other supporters, we managed to slam the large door against them, until the streets were cleared and we were rescued – this time, not by the RIC, but by a detachment of the Irish Volunteers.[26]

If the fire of the Rising had burnt itself out by the end of Easter Week, then embers could still be seen, hot and glowing, amidst the ash, with sparks that some were determined to feed into a roaring blaze again.

Having played a part, albeit at a distance, in de Valera’s selection, Michael and Paddy Brennan returned to Clare. What with the general amnesty for political prisoners, there was less danger of arrest for the moment, and now was the time to take advantage while the lull lasted – not that it would do so for long if the Brennan brothers had anything to do with it.

Irish Volunteers

The Clare Volunteers had by then been established as their own brigade, and Michael, as Adjutant, took charge of their end of the election. With rumours of an impending assassination attempt on de Valera, and in light of the shots already fired in Clare, Michael ensured that the roads the candidate was to take had been supervised by Irish Volunteers the night before.[27]

Making Plans and Making Enemies

Paddy Brennan, meanwhile, was fermenting more long-term plans: to put the Clare Volunteers on a war-footing while escalating tensions with the British state. “We felt the people were ripe for an ‘offensive’ attitude and that we might manage to give them a lead,” was how Michael put it. In this, Paddy neglected to ask their superiors in Dublin for permission since:

He was pretty certain it wouldn’t be approved, but on the other hand, he thought if it worked, GHQ would accept it and issue it as their own policy. (This was in fact what happened a few weeks later).”[28]

The Crown authorities, for their part, were not naïve to the trouble brewing underneath their feet. The gun was becoming the law of the land, as Inspector-General Bryce reported how two men around Corofin had stopped another on his way to the polling station, with a warning not to vote for Lynch and a revolver drawn to punctuate the point.

Not that the violence was one-sided, and Bryce included in his report how the Sinn Féin motorists near Broadford had been sniped at while removing a heap of boulders on the road. The Inspector-General was under the impression that de Valera had been among the ambushed party, though it is hard to imagine that detail being omitted from the other contemporary accounts if true.

Either way, “it is manifest that the Irish Parliamentary party has lost its dominating power in the country and is making no serious effort to regain it.”

Sinn Féin postcard

The causes, Bryce believed, included the failure to secure Irish self-rule after the Rising. Old stalwarts who had been casting votes in Parnell’s name and then for Redmond’s were beginning to think that Home Rule in its present proposal could do with a little more expansion, while the younger generation of Nationalists were already converts to the Sinn Féin faith.

Considering the seditious utterances at Sinn Féin rallies, the drilling of the Irish Volunteers and the hostility shown to the RIC:

Political unrest has undoubtedly spread to a serious extent, and although except in the event of invasion or a landing of arms, no immediate rising is probable, it is essential that a strong military garrison should be maintained in the country to guard against possible eventualities.[29]

For now, the Irish Volunteers enjoyed their free rein, to the extent of escorting the ballot boxes being brought in from all over the constituency to Ennis Courthouse. The High Sheriff drew the line at allowing Volunteers to spend the night inside the building with the votes, and so parties of them patrolled outside. Such was the heightened atmosphere, and the suspicion that the other side would try something untoward, that the guard was changed every three hours to keep the men sharp.

When a light was spotted in the upper-storey room where the boxes were being kept, word was quickly sent to the Old Ground Hotel to alert the Volunteer command there. As it turned out, the offending light was merely a reflection in the window from another building across the square.[30]

De Valera, meanwhile, had banned the consumption of drink among his followers for the night, with the added step of shutting down the hotel saloon. “The men who were in the bar that night and who were ordered out, never forgave him,” according to one witness. It was an early glimpse into de Valera’s abilities to exercise command and make enemies.[31]

Countdown

Michael Collins

When it came to counting the votes on the 11^th July 1917, Thomas Pugh was one of the two representatives for de Valera inside the Ennis Courthouse, to which each candidate was entitled. When Michael Collins had asked the week before about their chances, Pugh had left him flabbergasted with the prediction of a win by two thousand votes.

Whatever his confidence, Pugh was not one to take chances. His time as a guest of His Majesty for his part in the Rising had taught him how best to hoodwink the Frongoch wardens. The Courthouse reminded Pugh of a prison, with its high walls keeping the masses at bay, and so it was fitting in a way when he reverted to type. A ticket with a mark for Lynch would be redone in de Valera’s favour, secretly of course, save to an amused Collins who was standing behind Pugh.

“You are a bally ruffian,” Collins said by way of compliment.

When the results were tallied up and the victor known, Pugh scribbled it on the inside of a cigarette case and tossed it out of the window, to be rewarded with a cheer from outside when it was found.[32]

Ennis Courthouse

The High Sheriff made the public verdict official when he read it out to the crowds before the Courthouse:

Éamon de Valera: 5,010

Patrick Lynch: 2,035

One hundred and twenty votes were left over, having been spoiled but, with a majority of 2,975, the winner scarcely missed them.

“What shall I say to you?” said de Valera after the cheers from his followers finally died down. The initial applause had taken several minutes, with flags waved and hats cast in the air, and then a second lengthy burst when the hero of the hour appeared on the Courthouse steps. “I say you are men of Clare. You are just as brave and as true to Ireland as your great ancestors who fought and conquered at Clontarf with Brian Boru.”

Eamon de Valera speaking on the steps of Ennis Courthouse

Anyone wondering as to whether the country truly desired independence could be left in no doubt now, he continued. Questions about Easter Week and the principles underlying the rebellion had been answered. He thanked the men of Clare, as well as the women, for their assistance, the latter having always been seen in Ireland as equals, not servants. De Valera finished by asking for three cheers for the Irish Republic, which was answered with gusto, followed by a rendition of A Soldier’s Song, the anthem of the new movement.[33]

The Changing of the Guard

Sinn Féin postcard

It was a staggering win by Sinn Féin, even to those who had strived for it. “To say that Dev’s more than two to one majority came to the country as a great surprise is putting it very mildly indeed,” recalled Kevin O’Shiel. “True, as his campaign got into its stride, it became pretty clear that he would carry the day, but no one expected such a landslide in his favour.”

As he left Ennis on the train to Dublin, O’Shiel was treated to the view of bonfires being lit on every hill and mountain he passed, and the jubilant people who danced and sang around them. “The whole nation appeared to be en fete as though it had won a great victory in war.”[34]

‘As though in war’, indeed. As some like Inspector-General Bryce feared, while others such as the Brennan brothers hoped, the country was edging ever closer to the real thing. When the Sinn Féin devotees withdrew from the Ennis Courthouse to the Old Ground Hotel, the procession became a parade, with de Valera taking the salute as Irish Volunteers marched past in their companies, the newly-minted MP acting more like a victorious general than a democratic representative.[35]

One soldier had taken the place of another, but de Valera’s militant creed was very different to the constitutional philosophy of the late William Redmond and his Irish Parliamentary Party. It was a truth recognised from the start, such as when, as the election began, a parish priest, Father John Scanlon, declared that a Sinn Féin win in East Clare would be worth ten thousand speeches in Parliament.[36]

In time, this assumption would be put to the test. Change was in the Irish air, of a very great sort indeed, though for better or for worse, well, that remained to be seen.

See also:

An Idolatry of Candidates: Count Plunkett and the North Roscommon By-Election of 1917

A Choice of Green: The South Longford By-Election, May 1917

Ouroboros Eating Its Tail: The Irish Party against Sinn Féin in a New Ireland, 1917

References

[1] Clare Champion, 16/06/1917

[2] Barrett, Joseph (BMH / WS 1324), pp. 9-11

[3] Connolly, Seamus (BMH / WS 976), p. 7

[4] Barrett, pp. 11-2

[5] Hehir, Hugh (BMH / WS 683), pp. 7-9

[6] O’Donnell, Art (BMH / WS 1322), p. 24

[7] Brennan, Michael (BMH / WS 1068), p. 22

[8] Murnane, Seán (BMH / WS 1048), p. 5

[9] Irish Times, 18/06/1917 ; biographical information from Irish Press, 10/12/1947

[10] Meleady, Dermot (ed.) John Redmond: Selected Letters and Memoranda, 1880-1918 (Newbridge, Co. Kildare: Merrion Press, 2018), p. 279

[11] Gwynn, Stephen. John Redmond’s Last Years (London: Edward Arnold, 1919), p. 268

[12] O’Shiel, Kevin (BMH / WS 1770, Part 5), p. 58

[13] Police reports from Dublin Castle records (National Library of Ireland), POS 8544

[14] Nugent, Laurence (BMH / WS 907), p. 107

[15] Irish Times, 25/06/1917

[16] MacCarthy, Dan (BMH / WS 722), pp. 16-7

[17] Irish Times, 25/06/1917

[18] Ibid, 26/06/1917

[19] Ibid, 30/06/1917

[20] Ibid

[21] O’Shiel, pp. 59-62

[22] Ibid, pp. 62-4

[23] Irish Times, 02/07/1917

[24] Meleady, p. 279

[25] Irish Times, 02/07/1917

[26] O’Shiel, pp. 64-5

[27] Brennan, pp. 22-3

[28] Ibid, pp. 23-4

[29] POS 8544

[30] O’Donnell, p. 26

[31] Nugent, p. 110

[32] Pugh, Thomas (BMH / WS 397), pp. 26-7

[33] Clare Champion, 14/07/1917

[34] O’Shiel, pp. 66-7

[35] Clare Champion, 14/07/1917

[36] Ibid, 16/06/1917

Bibliography

Newspapers

Clare Champion

Irish Press

Irish Times

Books

Gwynn, Stephen. John Redmond’s Last Years (London: Edward Arnold, 1919)

Meleady, Dermot (ed.) John Redmond: Selected Letters and Memoranda, 1880-1918 (Newbridge, Co. Kildare: Merrion Press, 2018)

Bureau of Military History Statements

Barrett, Joseph, WS 1324

Brennan. Michael, WS 1068

Connolly, Seamus, WS 976

Hehir, Hugh, WS 683

MacCarthy, Dan, WS 722

Murnane, Seán, WS 1048

Nugent, Laurence, WS 907

O’Donnell, Art, WS 1322

O’Shiel, Kevin, WS 1770

Pugh, Thomas, WS 397

National Library of Ireland Collection

Police Report from Dublin Castle Records

Ouroboros Eating Its Tail: The Irish Party against Sinn Féin in a New Ireland, 1917

Memories of Mountjoy

‘The prisoner’

Seán Milroy, governor of Mountoy Prison, was surprised at the sight of the latest inmate – a stout, elderly man – brought before him in his office. “Something very bad was wrong with him evidently,” Milroy noted. “He was extremely restless, moving his arms about in a jerky, spasmodic fashion, and rolling his eyes in an awful way.”

The prisoner’s name, when Milroy asked the warden in attendance, was John Redmond, who had been proving to be a bother, pacing up and down his cell while shouting slogans like: “Poor little Belgium! Charters of liberty! The Allies! The Empire! The Huns!”

As if to demonstrate, Redmond grew even more agitated in front of Milroy, yelling out: “Disgruntled cranks! Factionists! German gold!” and words to that effect.

This behaviour worsened as the warden tried calming him, and Milroy rang the bell on his desk for assistance. It was then that the ‘governor’ woke up from his daydream, his role-reversing fantasy of himself in the position of authority, with his political opponents humbled before him, and not, as he really was, a prisoner in Mountjoy.[1]

Seán Milroy

At least Milroy – a “well-known Sinn Feiner”, according to a contemporary newspaper report – could take solace in that he was nearing the end of his three-month sentence, from June to September 1915, for “having used language likely to discourage recruiting for His Majesty’s Army” in a public speech. He did not record his time behind bars, spent in the company of like-minded prisoners such as Seán Mac Diarmada and Liam Mellows, until two years later, in 1917, by which time the country was in a very different state, indeed.[2]

Nationalist Ireland had turned on itself, like Ouroboros with its tail in its mouth, one end consuming the other. It was now no longer necessary to imagine the degradation of Redmond, on whose shoulders the hopes of Irish self-rule had once rested. The mere sight of him as he left Trinity College, Dublin, in mid-1917, incited boos from the small crowd outside the front gate.

Ouroboros

The jeers grew louder, as the hecklers followed Redmond up Westmoreland Street, prompting some civic-minded passers-by to form a protective ring around the beleaguered politician. Even so, it was only after he hurried inside the first building to hand for refuge that the danger could be said to have passed.

“I am quite sure that if any of the mob had offered physical violence to Redmond,” remembered one witness, “I would have joined in.” To sixteen-year-old Todd Andrews and many others in Sinn Féin, Redmond was “the epitome of politicians in general, and all politicians were regarded as low, dirty and treacherous.”[3]

Divine Law

T.P. O’Connor

It was not for want of trying on Redmond’s part. On the 7^th March 1917, he and rest of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) tried to break the impasse over Home Rule, its long-cherished project, when T.P. O’Connor, as Member of Parliament (MP) for Liverpool Scotland, introduced a motion in the House of Commons, calling on that august assembly “without further delay to confer upon Ireland the free institutions long promised.”[4]

David Lloyd George declined. Or rather, the Prime Minister declared that Home Rule was there for the parts of Ireland which wanted it. But, in regards to the remainder, those who were Irishmen in name while being, as he put it, “as alien in blood, in religious faith, in traditions, in outlook from the rest of Ireland as the inhabitants of Fife and Aberdeen” – no, Home Rule was not something he would force on them.

These ‘alien’ exceptions were the Unionists, who had shifted from opposing Home Rule in its entirety to demanding that various counties be given the option of remaining outside the jurisdiction of any new Dublin parliament, answerable only to the one at Westminster, just as before. As these Unionists were concentrated largely in Ulster, such allowances would amount in practice to the exclusion of those six counties in the north-east corner of the island.

Perfect from the Ulster Unionists’ point of view but political suicide for Redmond should this Partition happen on his watch. Unfortunately for the Irish Party, such passions were beyond the ability of Englishmen to relate to.

Ulster Unionist postcard

“We often cut up counties in England without engaging in civil war,” Harold Spender, a pro-Home Rule journalist, wrote to Redmond on the 29^th March 1917. “There is no divine law against moving a county landmark.”[5]

Divine law or not, that even a sympathetic individual like Spender could be so obtuse did not bode well for the IPP’s chances of rallying enough support to halt Partition. Yet all its MPs could do was try their best.

(Not) Answering the Irish Question

David Lloyd George

When T.P. O’Connor dined with Lloyd George on the 22^nd January 1917, his lobbying made little headway. To O’Connor’s dismay, the Prime Minister appeared to have spared Home Rule little thought beforehand, being content with Partition as the only credible solution. He was more interested in the possibility of conscription for Ireland in order to solve the need for manpower on the Western Front, a policy which O’Connor was keen to stress as a debacle in the making.

While Lloyd George continuously reassured O’Connor, over the course of their meal together, of his desire to remain on tight terms with his Irish allies, his actions were to fall short of his words, especially if they risked offending the Ulster Unionist presence in Parliament.[6]

Not that Redmond could afford to give up. “I hope you will read this as it is from a friend,” wrote his brother, William, to the Prime Minister, on the 4^th March 1917, three days before their showdown in Westminster. The MP for East Clare began with an attempt to rekindle warm memories: “When you entered the House I was then an old member. We fought many battles on the same side.”

As the letter went on, a slight edge of pleading crept in:

I do not want anything from you but this – to settle the Irish question – you are strong enough. Give the Ulster men proportional and full representation and they cannot complain.

William Redmond ended with a stark warning: “If there is no settlement there will be nothing but disaster all round for all.”[7]

“There is nothing I would like better to be the instrument for settling the Irish question,” Lloyd George wrote back two days later, on the 6^th March. After all, as he pointed out: “I was elected to the House purely as a Home Rule candidate…and I have voted steadily for Home Rule ever since.”

Which was true enough. But he clearly did not feel the same urgency as William Redmond, nor thought the matter as simple to solve as the other man seemed to: “But you know just as well as I do what the difficulty is in settling the Irish question, and if any man can show me a way out of that I should indeed be happy.”[8]

In other words: my hands are tied, so too bad.

Miracles and the Lack of

William Redmond

Appropriately enough, after his efforts in private had been exhausted, it was William Redmond who publicly made the case before Parliament for immediate and unconditional Home Rule. He looked every bit his fifty-five years, much of which had been spent in the service of his country.

“Major Redmond’s hair is white now, and he has lost much of his boyish air,” wrote one observer. “The war has deeply lined his face, and his eyes are more deeply set than in his political swashbuckling days.”[9]

Dressed in khaki, as befitting his rank of major in the British Army, he had stood to second T.P. O’Connor’s motion on the 7^th March. To Stephen Gwynn, the MP for Galway City, “that debate will always be remembered by those who heard it for one speech” and that was William Redmond’s.[10]

At a length of half an hour, his piece was a relatively short one by the standards of the chamber. In place of the quantity of words, however, William Redmond made up for in quality. Dark and bitter mistakes had been made in the past, and not all on one side, he conceded, but there was no point in brooding on the past.

Edward Carson

Instead, he appealed directly to Edward Carson to meet with his Nationalist opposites – for the sake of the future and for the Irishmen who were, even now, fighting and dying together in the same trenches – so they could come to some arrangement on the basis of self-government for their shared island.

If safeguards were what the Ulster Unionists wanted, then Redmond promised to go to any lengths necessary to reassure them, even if that included – he suggested tantalisingly – the acceptance of a Prime Minister from Ulster to head the first Irish Government.[11]

While there were other speeches that day, William Redmond’s was the one that counted as far as many were concerned. O’Connor could hear the heavy breathing of his fellow MPs seated around him, while others who watched from the gallery – so he was told afterwards – were so overcome with emotion that they wept and sobbed unabashedly.[12]

Stephen Gwynn

Gwynn was similarly awed. “It was a speech, in short, that made one believe in impossibilities,” as he put it, “but in Parliament no miracles happen.”[13]

When it was clear to the chamber that Lloyd George was no closer than before in supporting an all-Ireland settlement, with Ulster included, John Redmond rose to deliver the piece de resistance of the day. The Prime Minister, he declared, had brought Ireland face to face with revolution. From now on, the country would have to be governed with an unsheathed sword and, as such, it was pointless to continue the debate.

And, with that, reported the Irish Times:

The Nationalists cheered to the echo as their leader left his seat and stalked majestically down the gangway, and along the floor of the House. They followed him, shouting and jeering as they went, while members looked on with serious faces.[14]

If nothing else, the Irish Party still knew how to make an exit. Not that it made any real difference.

Joe Devlin

When O’Connor and Joe Devlin, the MP for West Belfast, met Lloyd George later in the month, on the 28^th March, time had done nothing to change the Prime Minister’s mind. “LG says that the Orangemen still insist on the 6 counties and was hopeless of getting them to move from that position,” O’Connor reported to John Redmond. “We told him he ought to deny them; he says he could not.”[15]

Despite the uphill struggle they faced, O’Connor still kept the faith. “If [Lloyd George] persists in his whole 6-county proposal,” he told Redmond on the 1^st April 1917, “he will fail ignominiously for we can tear such a proposal to tatters in the House of Commons.”[16]

Perhaps, but Ireland was no longer waiting to give its representatives that chance.

‘A More Reasonable Outlook’

William Redmond’s celebrated performance in Parliament turned out to be his swansong. “We deeply regret to learn that Major William H.K. Redmond, MP, of the Royal Irish Regiment,” reported the Irish Times on the 11^th June 1917, three months later, “was killed in action on the 7^th inst. in the brilliant and successful attack on the Ridge of Messines.”[17]

Aftermath of the Battle of Messines

The uniform William Redmond had worn while in the House of Commons had been no pose. Nor was his plea for reconciliation between Nationalist and Unionist Ireland anything less than sincere. That Irish soldiers from the two traditions could fight together in the same trenches was proof enough, to him, that a better, happier future was possible together.

True, differences remained – William Redmond was not so naïve as to think otherwise. “The soldier in France who was a home ruler at home probably remains so,” he admitted, writing publicly in May 1917. “The Ulster soldier who disapproved of home rule probably does so still”:

But the meeting of men of diverse opinions in the field has undoubtedly created an atmosphere of friendliness which must make it easier to adjust differences and which should induce a more reasonable outlook upon things at home.[18]

When William Redmond returned to his regiment in France, in time for the push towards a German strongpoint near Messines, his main fear was that he would be held back from the Front on account of his age.

British soldiers in the trenches

“He felt absolutely miserable at the prospect of being kept behind,” remembered an army chaplain for the Royal Irish Fusiliers. “He had used every influence with General [William Bernard] Hickie to get over the top with the men”:

He spoke in the most feeling manner of what awaited the poor fellows, and longed to share their sufferings and their fate.

In that regard, he was to have his wish. When permission was given for him to join the firing-line, he informed a fellow Irish officer “with real delight and boyishness in his voice”, to the other man’s wonder: “I have never seen anyone so pleased as he was.”[19]

William Redmond’s grave in Locre, Belgium

‘Tired Out’

For his older brother, it was a particularly wounding blow. “The loss of him meant to John Redmond a loss of personal efficiency,” wrote Gwynn. “Sorrow gave a strong grip to depression on a brooding mind which had always a proneness to melancholy.” For William had been more than a sibling to John, but a counsellor too, and perhaps the sole one:

He had who temperamentally shared his own point of view. Willie Redmond was the only man who could break through his brother’s constitutional reserve and could force him into discussion. In the months that were to come such a man was badly needed.[20]

John Redmond’s melancholia-prone mind had already been brooding for quite some time. “Redmond is very depressed,” wrote T.P. O’Connor to John Dillon, on the 18^th May 1916. “He seems to be tired out and sick of the whole position and has again and again referred to the possibility of his retiring from politics.”[21]

William Redmond (left), John Redmond (right) and the latter’s son, William (right)

Dillon, for his part, did not bother so much with sympathy. “It is touch and go whether we can save the movement and keep the Party in existence,” the MP for East Mayo admitted to O’Connor on the 19^th August 1916. “A great deal depends on the extent to which the Chairman realises the position and on what his intentions as to the future are.” That “on these points I am to a large extent in the dark” did not bode well for saving their life’s work.[22]

A month later, on the 26^th September 1916, Dillon was even more frank to O’Connor: “Enthusiasm and trust in Redmond and the Party is dead [underlined in original text] so far as the mass of the people is concerned.”

A speech Redmond made in Waterford, in October 1916, promising a tougher line in the future, gave the Constitutional cause fresh drive, as even the habitually glum Dillon agreed. To him, the speech was “all that could be desired, and it will do an incalculable amount of good. It has already had an immense effect on the country.”

There would no further negotiations with the British Government, Redmond had declared, only a demand for the release of those interned since the Easter Rising, a call for General Maxwell – his work long done in suppressing sedition – to be withdrawn from the country, and a firm resistance to any possibility of conscription in Ireland.

John Redmond delivering a speech

After months of political deadlock, with their elected representatives appearing no more than hostages to fate, this bold new stance, in Dillon’s opinion, “took the country by surprise, and produced a great wave of reaction in favour of his leadership and of the Party. If that attitude is resolutely adhered to the country will come all right.”[23]

Dead Cat Bounce

If, if, if…

The great wave of reaction had receded by the start of 1917, leaving the Party as stranded as a beached whale. A by-election drubbing in North Roscommon in February – the first of the wins to Sinn Féin that year – was enough to plunge Redmond into a crisis of faith.

Cartoon upon the IPP defeat in North Roscommon, from the ‘Roscommon Herald’, 10th February 1917

In a letter intended for the Party followers, Redmond acknowledged the fork on the road to which they had come. If North Roscommon was an abnormality, “a freak election, due to…momentary passion” over how the winner, Count Plunkett, had had a son executed after the Rising, then that was all well and good. But, on the other hand, should the result represent “a change of principle of policy on the part of a considerable mass of the Irish people,” then the entire future of the Constitutional cause, the raison d’être of the Irish Parliamentary Party, had just been questioned…and found wanting.

If so, then Redmond was prepared to give way graciously: “Let the Irish people replace us, by all means, by other and, I hope, better men if they so choose.”[24]

Another mocking cartoon from the ‘Roscommon Herald’, 10th February 1917

Thankfully for his colleagues, whose careers were hanging in the balance, Redmond was persuaded against publishing the letter. But not even a close confidant like William Redmond was immune to defeatism, as he privately urged his brother that they and all their MPs step down to make room for younger men.

Having recovered from his earlier bout of weakness, John Redmond held firm but, shortly afterwards, there was the second by-election rout of the year, this time for South Longford in May 1917. It had been a hard-fought contest, and a razor-thin difference in votes at the end, but a loss was a loss, and one sorely felt.

It was, in Gwynn’s view, “a notice of dismissal to the Parliamentary Party” on the part of the Irish people. This was not merely hindsight speaking, for shortly after South Longford, a second suggestion was made that the Party MPs resign their seats en masse and allow the country to decide on the choice before it: the constitutional way or…the other way.

Cartoon depiction of John Redmond, ‘Roscommon Herald’, 21st May 1917

Again, Redmond was adamantly against such a step down, as Gwynn described: “He said that it would be a lack of courage: that one or two defeats should not turn us from our course.”[25]

That is, if their course could still be taken. No outlet had argued harder for the IPP candidate than the Longford Leader. In the wake of bitter rejection, however, the newspaper could predict only one end for its political patrons:

It cannot be doubted that in a few years Ireland will have recovered from the present fitful fever, and see the error of its present course, but in the meantime the Irish National Party and programme will be probably a thing of the past, and the people will have only the empty husks of Sinn Féin left.[26]

John Dillon

That such a probability had come about at all was a source of shocked wonder to the Longford Leader, but it did not pretend to see any other. Neither did the IPP itself, not even at its top. “[John Redmond] does not seem to me to realise the situation any more than he did in the winter of 1915-1916,” Dillon wrote cuttingly to T.P O’Connor in November 1917. Come a general election, he predicted, and then “there will be nothing left in Ireland except Republican separatists and Ulster loyalists,” with the IPP confined to history.[27]

He got that right.

Return to Ireland

For some, the day that the IPP was a thing of the past could not come soon enough. When John Redmond warned Westminster that revolution was a-stir in Ireland, he had not been indulging in hyperbole, the proof of which was on full display in Dublin on the Monday morning of the 18^th June 1917.

“It was apparent to most citizens when they came within the heart of the city for their day’s business that there was something unusual astir,” wrote the Irish Times, adding sniffily: “The main streets were occupied by people who were not usually abroad at 10 a.m.”

Crowds watching in Wesmoreland Row as the prisoners march through Dublin

Marching from Westmoreland Station and up Great Brunswick Street came a procession of young men and women, who made their Sinn Féin sympathies clear with the tricoloured flags they waved, the songs they sung, and the group of men in their midst: the one hundred and twenty or so rebel POWs taken during the Easter Rising, newly released from English captivity by a general amnesty.

Onwards over O’Connell Bridge, they crossed into Sackville (now O’Connell) Street, the place in which it had all began, and where the sight of the still-ruined General Post Office and other bullet-scarred buildings was enough to inspire a fresh burst of enthusiasm in the crowd. A squad of policemen shadowed the parade, carefully keeping their distance, but no incident occurred as the freed men continued on to Gardiner’s Row, inside Fleming’s Hotel for breakfast and a long-anticipated rest.

Seán O’Mahony

As they ate, one of their number, Seán O’Mahony, stepped out to address the adoring young acolytes waiting on the street. This, he told them, was far from the end of what had begun on the Easter Week of 1916, over a year ago but still fresh in Irish memories. He affirmed they were still fighting for the same tricoloured flag under which they had done so already in the Rising, for they believed in actions, not words, and would soon resume the great work that had already begun.

After their rest, the released men resumed their march to the offices in Exchequer Street of the National Aid Association, set up to help alleviate their financial needs, and then to the Mansion House, followed all the way by the multitudes. Such was the press of bodies and the heat that one of the former prisoners fainted.

The day’s display complete, the men went their separate ways, at least for now. Some hurried to catch the evening trains back to their homes in the country, while others continued to be the centres of attention as the celebrations continued in Dublin. “Whenever a released Sinn Feiner, or anyone remotely suspected of being one, was observed, cheers were often raised,” reported the Irish Times.

Group photograph of some of the released prisoners

With their close-cropped hair and conservatively-trimmed beards, it was hard to tell who was who among the freed men. Eoin MacNeill was known to be present, as was W.T. Cosgrave, along with Count Plunkett and Joe McGuinness, the two MPs elected earlier that year on behalf of Sinn Féin for North Roscommon and South Longford respectively.

Worthy names, all, but the most notable one was Éamon de Valera, he who had been in command at Boland’s Mill and now continued to be so over his comrades, as demonstrated earlier that day at Kingstown [now Dun Laoghaire] Pier, when they had first lined up on the boat-deck before crossing the gangway in formation, two by two, on de Valera’s order.

His authority continued to be felt throughout the day. “There appeared to be an arrangement amongst the prisoners not to express their opinions publicly in regard to their treatment in prison,” noted the Irish Times. When asked about that, the men merely said that any official statement was to come from de Valera.[28]

Choices and Omens

It was a name that would soon be on everyone’s lips, for the parliamentary seat of East Clare now lay open with William Redmond’s death, and Sinn Féin was determined to capitalise on its previous two electoral wins by adding a third. The lesson of South Longford was that Joe McGuinness had succeeded, not despite his penal status, but because of it, for Easter Week conferred nobility on a man like nothing else in the eyes of the Irish public.

Sinn Féin poster for Longford, 1917, depicting Joe McGuinness as a prisoner

The choice of another prisoner to contest East Clare was thus essential. Arthur Griffith had been making the case to the Central Election Committee for Eoin MacNeill, Chief of Staff of the Irish Volunteers. But, in that, the President of Sinn Féin stood alone. MacNeill’s fateful attempt to cancel the Rising before it could begin, with his countermanding order on Easter Sunday, was too well remembered.[29]

“I want you to see to it that our people know of his treachery to us,” Tom Clarke had instructed his wife, Kathleen, during their final time together in Kilmainhaim Jail while awaiting his execution. “He must never be allowed back into the National life of the country.”[30]

The countermanding order on Easter Sunday, 1916, as issued by Eoin MacNeill

Not all shared this unforgiving view, but none of the Election Committee besides Griffith were about to risk such a controversial choice. De Valera seemed a far safer bet, being already regarded as the leader of the Irish POWs while they were held in Lewes Prison. But, as he and the others had not yet been released, it was unknown if he would accept the nomination if offered. The decision was thus deferred to a later date, and the Sinn Féin activists already sent to East Clare would just have to work without a name in the meantime.[31]

Not that this presented too much of a problem for Dan MacCarthy, the mastermind behind the previous electoral win. If South Longford had been a battlefield in more than the political sense, with riots, stone-throwing and beatings throughout the campaign, then the next constituency was a pleasant surprise to MacCarthy: “I found the people generally more sympathetic than in Longford and I felt that this was a good omen for our cause.”

Éamon de Valera

The speech he gave at Berefield Church, after the priest introduced him from the altar to the congregation, allowed him to gauge the public mood, which appeared to be a positive one. As for the identity of the man on whose behalf MacCarthy was in Clare: “Various rumours went round as far as we were concerned. One time we heard it was Peadar Clancy [another 1916 participant], and the next Eoin MacNeill, and finally it transpired to be de Valera.”[32]

Roads to Take or Not to Take

The decision was not an easy one to make, not least because de Valera had been wrestling with it himself even as he took his first step back on Irish soil. Politics was a field utterly new to him, and one he regarded with some trepidation. When news had reached the Lewes inmates in April 1917 that one of their number, Joe McGuinness, was being nominated to run in the South Longford contest, de Valera was among those against any such forays in the electoral sphere.

Instead, the “safest course for us and in the long run the wisest is to continue as soldiers,” he wrote to a friend on the outside. “The Irish Volunteers…must be kept a permanent force at the country’s back…and we must allow nothing to make us forget it.”[33]

Irish Volunteers

Victory in South Longford made de Valera and many of the others in Lewes revaluate their standoffishness where non-military methods were concerned. After all, the main issue for de Valera, as he explained in a letter to a friend, was not that politics was wrong, but that it was a gamble. “I for one would have to be almost certain of success before I would risk such a stake,” he wrote [underlined in original text].[34]

Success seemed much more likely now, with two by-election wins under Sinn Féin’s belt, but de Valera was still weighing the options by the time of the general release. Patrick McCartan, a long-time Republican activist, found him in a pensive mood on board the ship taking the former prisoners to Dublin.

Patrick McCartan

“Mr de Valera had already been selected to contest County Clare in the Republican interest. He said he knew nothing about politics and did not like them,” McCartan wrote later. “He believed he could do the best work for Ireland by confining his attention to the organisation of the Irish Volunteers.” Having canvassed in South Longford, McCartan had a more contemporary view of the public mood in Ireland and counselled de Valera to wait and see it for himself before committing.[35]

The enthusiastic reception in Dublin was evidently enough for de Valera, and he decided without further ado to stand for East Clare. There were still finishing touches to be done: as de Valera was not actually a member of the party he was to represent, a session of the O’Rahilly Cumann was quickly convened in Pembroke, Dublin, to wave him in.[36]

Even with that settled, another problem reared its head: the MacNeill one. While some wanted him kept away from East Clare, if not drummed out of the movement altogether, de Valera made it clear that the other man’s presence on the campaign was a condition of his own running. In the teeth of opposition, de Valera had his way, and not for the last time, in what was to be an extraordinary career.[37]

Countess Markievicz

Still, resentments simmered. De Valera and MacNeill were seated together on the train to Ennis, along with a number of other Sinn Féin activists, when Countess Markievicz entered. Sighting MacNeill, she gave him a piece of her mind, prompting the harried man to take his leave for another carriage. He was brought back by de Valera, who was having none of such unseemly displays.

“There must be no recriminations,” he told the others sternly. That brought a measure of calm to the journey, if not quite peace, for the MacNeill controversy, and what it meant for Sinn Féin as a whole, would linger on for the better part of the year.[38]

Kathleen Clarke’s War

Kathleen Clarke

For Kathleen Clarke, these gestures of solidary towards a man she considered the worst sort of blackguard was one more reason to be troubled by the direction the revolutionary movement, for which her husband had laid down his life, was taking. “When I heard that de Valera had insisted on MacNeill accompanying him to Clare, it confirmed my fears” about what she considered “the demoralising influence of elections.”[39]

Participating in the British parliamentary system was a contentious practice in Ireland. First Charles Parnell, followed by John Redmond, had made it the centre-piece of their drive for Irish self-rule, but true-blue Republicans like Kathleen and Tom Clarke regarded playing the enemy’s game with suspicion, even hostility.

“I would rather lose an election than resort to tricks to win it,” Tom Clarke had told Seán Mac Diarmada nine years earlier, in 1908. After acting as campaign organiser for Sinn Féin’s unsuccessful foray in the North Leitrim by-election, Mac Diarmada had returned to Dublin to merrily recount the cut and thrust of the contest to his friend.

Tom Clarke

Tom had listened to him in sombre silence before bringing the other man back down to earth. “Our cause is too sacred to be sullied with electioneering tricks,” he had scolded. A chastened Mac Diarmada promised to never again besmirch their cause like so.[40]

Eleven years later, and Sinn Féin was trying again, except with far grander ambitions than a single seat, and packing the clout to succeed this time, much to Kathleen Clarke’s dismay. To her, the only way forward was with the gun. All else was a distraction in her mind, but it appeared that now, with efforts now diverted into electioneering, “we might say goodbye to any more fighting.”[41]

And that simply would not do.

She made an exception for South Longford in May 1917 – Joe McGuinness was an Easter Rising alumni, after all – and after rallying some of the other women bereaved by the Rising, such as Áine Ceannt and Margaret Pearse, Clarke threw herself into this new battle. And a battle it could be in a literal sense. While driving back into Longford town after a rally, her car and those of the others in the group were met with a hail of missiles from IPP partisans.

The Count and Countess Plunkett, seated in a car during the South Longford election of 1917

Being at the head of the convoy, along with the Count and Countess Plunkett, Clarke’s vehicle bore the brunt of the deluge. The Countess suffered a bloody nose from a thrown bottle, while Clarke just about escaped worse, thanks to the hard hat she was wearing, when a rock struck her head. “The only injury done was to my feelings,” she recalled. “I was mad enough to want to throw stones back at them.”

This was not an isolated incident. The lane the Sinn Féiners had to take to the hotel that served as their headquarters was dubbed ‘the Dardanelles’ because, as Clarke put it, “every time we passed it stones and bottles came flying out at us.”[42]

Laying the Cards on the Table

Despite the success at South Longford, Clarke remained dissatisfied, one of the many reasons being her antipathy towards those who were reaping most of the gains, however undeservedly. “After the Rising the press, alluding to it, called it a Sinn Féin Rising. This was not correct; the organisation then called Sinn Féin was not a revolutionary one, and it had been very nearly defunct.”[43]

Such misnaming conveyed instant benefits to some: “The fact that the Rising was now being called a Sinn Féin rising gave Arthur Griffith his chance, one he was quick to seize.” This despite how “the Sinn Féin which grew out of the Rising was a totally different one from that which had been in existence before the Rising.”[44]

If Griffith was suspect, then MacNeill was contemptible. Assuming de Valera had simply not been informed of his responsibility for the countermand, Clarke decided to enlighten him with an invitation to her house in Dundrum, Dublin, for both him and MacNeill, on the 28^th July 1917. When they arrived, Clarke was ready with her case for the prosecution:

I told him of the instructions I had received from Tom in Kilmainhaim Jail, that MacNeill must not be permitted to come back into the National life of the country again, for if he was he would in a crisis again act treacherously. I had promised to carry out these instructions if I could.

The sole reason she was hesitating to do just that, she explained, was because of his arrest following the Rising, which bestowed on him a credibility she could not touch. Having said that, she continued:

Circumstances might still tie my hands, and I might not be able to carry out my promise to my husband, but the story of his treachery would not die with me, that I would write it and leave it as documentary proof against him.

And, with that, the interview mercifully drew to an end, Clarke having laid down the gauntlet to MacNeill. De Valera had listened attentively throughout while keeping – the consummate politician already – his thoughts to himself.[45]

Sacred Principle?

Eoin MacNeill

Clarke would have been even less thrilled if she knew how close her béte noire had become with the rising star of Sinn Féin. Since their release from Lewes Prison, the two men had been conversing a good deal, and MacNeilll was pleased to learn that the other’s worldview was broadly in line with his own. For the likes of Clarke, it was the Republic or nothing, while MacNeill had only scorn for those “obsessed with the notion that some sort of sacred principle underlay the Republican ideal.”[46]

MacNeill took a more libertarian view. For him, “real freedom consisted in the power to do your own things in your own way and not in any paper definition or a constitutional formula.”[47]

He was careful not to appear too broad-minded, however. When asked for his opinion on which independence policy to pursue, he was as happy as anyone to declare in favour of a Republic, though more out of pragmatism than any deep-seated commitment, as he put it:

It was a matter of comparative indifference for the time what form this independence ought to take so far as I knew there was no practical prospect of setting up an Irish monarchy, and the alternative was an Irish Republic.

In private discussions with de Valera, shortly before the pair set off for East Clare, MacNeill came to believe that the other man “was no more than I was myself, a doctrinaire republican.” Nonetheless, de Valera could appreciate the emotional value of a bold approach, and “urged on me…that the demand for an Irish Republic would present a stronger appeal to the electorate and the public than anything else less definite.”[48]

And so, on that agreed basis, “we fought the Clare Election as Republicans without any qualifications” and won by a steep majority.[49]

Éamon de Valera (in uniform), speaking before Ennis Courthouse during the East Clare election, 1917

Winning the Argument

That by-election, and the subsequent one for Kilkenny City a month later, in August 1917, put MacNeill in the front-line for the struggle for Ireland’s soul. He was assisted in this by Dan MacCarthy, the Sinn Féin Director of Elections, who, having honed his craft in South Longford and East Clare, knew how to run a tight ship. “His method was very thorough and efficient,” MacNeill noted approvingly:

All of us who were understood to be engaged in the work were supplied, each one, with his own programme for the day, handed to him that morning or the evening before. He was told who was to accompany him, to what places he was to go, and what particular person he was to interview.

Under MacCarthy’s direction, MacNeill was dispatched to court “the hard chaws, old unionists and stiff supporters of the Parliamentary Party”, perhaps because, as a former college professor, he would present a reassuringly respectable emissary, as well as one who could handle himself in a debate. When a local worthy in Kilkenny posed to him if it was honourable for one who had already sworn an oath of allegiance to the British monarch to support an Irish Republic, MacNeill asked if he had MPs or army officers in mind.

Both, was the reply.

Thinking quickly on his feet, MacNeill took each point in turn. With regard to the first, he drew on the case of the 1689 rebellion, when James II had been overthrown in favour of the current line of succession, so what worth was an oath there? As for the second, he simply, but effectively, pointed to the example of George Washington.

“I had the best of the argument but,” MacNeill conceded, “I do not think I got the vote.”[50]

W.T. Cosgrave addressing a crowd in Kilkenny, 1917

Not that it mattered too much, as Sinn Féin won the seat by another landslide. That made four straight defeats for the once-almighty IPP. Flushed with success and warmed by the camaraderie of the campaign-trail, Sinn Féin enjoyed its halcyon days, which were to make for some bittersweet memories when MacNeill looked back on them.

“The spirit of good order and good humour that animated the whole body of adherents of Sinn Féin at that time,” he wrote, “offers a strange contrast to what was experienced after 1921.”[51]

Conflict…

Arthur Griffith

Schism almost came early. If Clarke and MacNeill each represented the principled and the pragmatic wings in Sinn Féin, then it was a tenuous balance, one which threatened to tip over from disagreements behind closed doors to an open split. This had almost occurred earlier in the year, in April 1917, at the Mansion House, Dublin, during the ‘Plunkett Convention’, when Griffith and Count George Plunkett shared the stage – to almost ruinous effect.

The latter, who had had one son executed after the Rising and with another two in prison, “was impatient of temperate men or means.” If Plunkett blew hot, then Griffith, in contrast:

Sat there like a sphinx, square and solid, like a man of granite, lacking charm – physically or mentality. Griffith had a mind of ice that could freeze Irish histrionic champagne solid. He was the one cold fact in a sea of fantasy.

Count Plunkett

Which earned him few friends, particularly among the Irish Volunteers, many of whom “disliked and scorned him.” Proof of such feelings soon manifested on the platform in the form of Plunkett’s undisguised anger at the other man, and only a disruption in the audience – when Volunteers on standby manhandled journalists scribbling away in their notebooks, thinking them to be police detectives – gave enough of a break in the proceedings for a truce between Griffith and Plunkett for the rest of the event.[52]

But it seemed only a matter of time before another confrontation and maybe not one that could be so easily dispelled. If the ideal of the Republic was what held the movement together, it could also, conversely, tear it asunder, and Griffith was reluctant to move in too dramatic a direction, lest the ‘middle ground’ of Irish opinion be alienated just when Sinn Féin was poised to win it over.[53]

With that in mind, Sinn Féin activists in the East Clare election were warned to avoid mentioning the Republic to prospective voters…that is, until their candidate publicly declared for such a goal. The listeners roared their approval at de Valera’s words to the extent that “it was a considerable time before he could resume his speech,” recalled one witness, who was aware of what certain others in the party really thought:

The Sinn Féin members of the election committee were very annoyed, but they were not prepared to come to grips with de Valera, and, if his action was commented upon at a committee which followed the public were not aware of any disagreement.[54]

Another insider present in East Clare, the trade unionist William O’Brien, noted how:

In the course of the election campaign, there was a very sharp division between the speakers. De Valera proclaimed his objective to be the Republic, stating that personally that was the only objective he could stand for. Griffith, Milroy and others took the point of view of the old Sinn Féin organisation.[55]

And yet, despite such differences, de Valera and Griffith seemed to get along on a personal level, far better, in any case, than the latter did with the likes of Count Plunkett or Kathleen Clarke. De Valera, Griffith confided to friends during the course of the Clare election, was to be the future leader of Sinn Féin. As well as being younger, Griffith said in another talk, de Valera was a soldier – no small virtue in the current times – and had, in his opinion, all the makings of a statesman.[56]

The best of friends? Arthur (left) and Éamon de Valera (right)

Which gave some hope for an amiable resolution that would allow Sinn Féin to move forward – that is, if nothing too disastrous struck in the meantime.

That something almost occurred over Kilkenny, with MacNeill as the trigger, when a by-election was announced upon the death of its MP, Pat O’Brien, in July 1917. Despite the lingering controversy over his countermanding order, MacNeill enjoyed a measure of support in Sinn Féin’s grassroots, such as in the Kilkenny Club which wrote to the Dublin headquarters in favour of nominating him to run.

When the Central Executive replied that it would prefer W.T. Cosgrave, whose CV as a Rising combatant and former prisoner made him a more comfortable choice, “we received an indignant reply that they were not to be dictated to by Dublin and they were sending a deputation to Mr MacNeill asking him to stand.”

…And Resolution

Tommy Dillon

So remembered Tommy Dillon. As son-in-law to Count Plunkett, Dillon was able to sit in on Executive meetings and so understood the strength of feeling to be found there. While he had nothing personal against MacNeill, certainly not to the extent that Clarke did, he was aware of how “the leaders of the anti-MacNeill group were…influential and the possibility of factions arising could not be ignored” should the question be pushed too far.

It was with this danger in mind that Dillon hurriedly cycled to Jury’s Hotel in Dublin, shortly after the last testy message from Kilkenny, to head off the threatened deputation. Upon reaching the hotel, he was told that the Kilkenny visitors had already left and so he rode on to where he guessed they had gone: the house in Rathfarnham where MacNeill was residing:

When I arrived at the house, a taxi stood in the front grounds.  I asked for [MacNeill] and was told that he was engaged. James [MacNeill’s brother], however, brought him out to me and when I told him the object of my visit he said that the Kilkenny deputation was with him, that he understood the situation and that he was about to refuse their invitation.

MacNeill made no mention in his memoirs of this deputation or of Dillon’s last minute intervention. It is possible to suspect, if one were to be cynical, that MacNeill may not have been ‘about to refuse’ like he said, which Dillon did him the favour of believing. Sinn Féin was able to proceed smoothly in Kilkenny, with Cosgrave on its ticket, to score another unambiguous win.[57]

But it could not be ‘touch and go’ for the movement indefinitely, and the upcoming Sinn Féin Árd Fheis, set for October 1917 at the Mansion House, Dublin, seemed the best opportunity to finally bury the hatchet over who ordered what for Easter Week. Which was what some dreaded. A few days beforehand, Countess Markievicz visited Kathleen Clarke’s house in Dundrum to ask her to oppose MacNeill should he be nominated for the new Executive.

Having been ‘advised’ – as she put it – by some against such an act, Clarke declined, while warning the Countess that if she was to lead the anti-MacNeill charge herself, she would do so alone. Never one to be deterred by the odds, Markievicz waited for the Árd Fheis to open and then “stood up and attacked [MacNeill] on the question of the secret countermanding orders.”

To Clarke’s dismay:

Her attack got such a bitterly hostile reception that despite my decision not to support her, I got up and did so. It seemed to me that the meeting was so hostile to her for attacking MacNeill that if there had been rotten eggs or anything else handy they would have been flung at her.[58]

The moderates had their way, and MacNeill was duly voted to the Executive. Sinn Féin had come a long way since its conception in 1905, to the extent that one of the delegates, Áine Ceannt – widow of the 1916 martyr – wondered out loud if the proceedings should be classed as the first Árd Fehis of a totally new organisation. All the same, it was decided to stick with it being the sixth such event for a continuous Sinn Féin – why bring in unnecessary complications, after all?[59]

The Mansion House, Dublin, the venue for the Sinn Féin Árd Fheis of October 1917

Unconvention

For things were complicated enough as they were. The Sinn Féin delegate for South Mayo, Patrick Moylett, had attended a secret meeting of the Irish Volunteers on the evening before the Árd Fheis. Handed to him was a list of names who were to have his vote when proposed for election to the Sinn Féin Executive.

An indignant Moylett replied:

…that if I were to act on his instruction I would be defranchising [sic] the people who sent me and not doing my duty to them. I objected to the fact that in a democratic institution I should be told how I was to vote.[60]

Sinn Féin and the Irish Volunteers were two groups normally in lockstep but, even so, not without moments of disjunction. When the time came the next day for the Executive election at the Árd Fheis, a number of delegates interrupted to announce how they had been canvassed beforehand with such lists, their disapproval of this chicanery made publicly clear.

“I wish to associate myself strongly with what has just been said by the previous speakers,” de Valera said, simultaneously supportive while keen to avoid fingers being pointed at a time of supposed unity. “Those who are responsible had probably the very best motives in view, but when we are beginning – as we are – a new Ireland, it will not be necessary to resort to such methods in future.”

Éamon de Valera

“The sense of the convention is strongly condemnatory of any attempt to run tickets,” added Griffith as president. “If that system were allowed to go on, it would destroy the movement in a few years.”[61]

With that said, the election went ahead, resulting in the appointment of the twenty-four members of the new Executive, along with  a change of presidency in the form of de Valera, by unanimous consent when the two other contenders, Griffith and Count Plunkett, as per a prior agreement between them, had the good grace – and political nous – to step back.

In doing so, “a split between the extremists and the moderate section was narrowly averted,” wrote the police report for October. Which was one more worry for the Inspector-General, Joseph Bryce, to give to his employers in Dublin Castle:

The state of political unrest…continued without abatement during the Month, and a marked advance in organization was made by the seditious Sinn Fein movement.

If the Sinn Féin of old under Griffith had been of the moderate persuasion, then now “the majority of Sinn Fein leaders owe their present prominence to active participation in the late rising” with the same zealotry carried over. De Valera was a case in point: from being an obscure teacher, he was now instructing an audience in Co. Clare, with the air of a general marshalling his troops, to ready themselves for an opportune moment to strike again.

Irish Volunteers

Other speeches from Sinn Féin figures were of a similar calibre and, in light of such blatant calls to sedition, Bryce warned:

It is obvious that several are prepared to plunge the country into another rebellion should a favourable opportunity occur, and that the whole movement must be regarded as a serious menace to the state.

And yet, at the same time, “the majority of the adherents of Sinn Fein are believed to be averse to physical force.” For all the talk of war and rebellion repeated, “it will be noticed that drilling activity [of the Irish Volunteers] is so far confined to the S.W. area.”[62]

Alpha to Omega, Omega to Alpha

This ambiguity over violence was reflected in the Árd Fheis when Father O’Meehan, as one of the delegates, proposed an amendment to the Sinn Féin constitution: that the words “means available”, in regards to obtaining Irish freedom, were to be followed by “deemed legitimate and effective.”

By ‘legitimate’ I mean not according to British rule in Ireland, but according to well-established etheral [?] and Christian principles. Our enemies would, for instance, be glad to say that assassination comes under this, and it is in order to prevent them saying that that I move this addendum.

In case such talk smacked too much of Redmondite ways, “I did not use the word ‘Constitutional’ because that has a bad flavour,” the priest added, earning himself a round of applause.

Sinn Féin postcard

The proposed change was ultimately withdrawn. Opposing it had been Cathal Brugha, one of the more militant Republicans in the hall. Nothing in their constitution as it stood would lend itself to the interpretation that so concerned Father O’Meehan, Brugha insisted. In any case, the point was moot, as “we do not intend to meet English rule by assassination,” he said firmly.[63]

As for a second Rising, that possibility, when raised, was met with laughter.[64]

Éamon de Valera (left) with Cathal Brugha (right), 1922

If constitutional flavours left a sour taste, and with the other end of the spectrum still too strong to stomach, how then was Sinn Féin to proceed? Father Gaynor hoped to answer this when he next rose to speak. “I have come here as a delegate with the sympathy of the men from Clare to move that we do not set up a political organisation,” he said, “and we have come here in the hope that we will find something better to do.”

Instead of following in the footsteps of the Irish Parliamentary Party with another political machine, Gaynor urged, the convention must establish nothing less than a ruling body with a mandate for the whole country. In doing so:

We should make the position straight by showing that we do not want a Sinn Féin party versus the Irish Party, but a Provisional Government versus Dublin Castle and the British Government.

Which was rather putting the cart before the horse, as many of the other attendees in the hall pointed out. For all the lofty proclamations of nationhood and the Republic, there still remained the gritty task of earning the right to speak for Ireland.

Sinn Féin postcard

“This organisation is a national organisation in the broadest sense of the term but, all the same, it cannot be regarded as a constituent assembly,” de Valera pointed out. “Surely we have got beyond the stage where politics should be regarded as roguery and politicians as rogues.”

Others would have disagreed. But, while the likes of young Todd Andrews, as he watched John Redmond being hounded in the streets, may have dismissed politicians as a low and dirty breed, Sinn Féin was nonetheless nearing the point where, in beating the system, you become the system.[65]

Sinn Féin postcard

References

[1] Milroy, Seán. Memories of Mountjoy (Dublin: Maunsel & Co. Ltd., 1917), pp. 88-9

[2] Irish Times, 23/05/1915, 26/06/1915

[3] Andrews, C.S. Dublin Made Me (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2001), pp. 104-6

[4] Gwynn, Stephen. John Redmond’s Last Years (London: Edward Arnold, 1919), p. 249

[5] Meleady, Dermot (ed.) John Redmond: Selected Letters and Memoranda, 1880-1918 (Newbridge, Co. Kildare: Merrion Press, 2018), p. 272

[6] Ibid, pp. 270-1

[7] Ibid, p. 271

[8] Ibid, pp. 271-2

[9] Denman, Terence. A Lonely Grave: The Life and Death of William Redmond (Blackrock, Co. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1995), p. 112

[10] Gwynn, p. 249

[11] Irish Times, 08/03/1917

[12] Denman, p. 111

[13] Gwynn, p. 255

[14] Irish Times, 08/03/1917

[15] Meleady, pp. 272-3

[16] Ibid, p. 273

[17] Ibid, 11/07/1917

[18] Denman, p. 114

[19] Ibid, p. 118

[20] Gwynn, p. 266

[21] Meleady, p. 240

[22] Ibid, p. 267

[23] Ibid, p. 268

[24] Meleady, pp. 275-6

[25] Gwynn, pp. 259-60

[26] Longford Leader, 12/05/1917

[27] Lyons, F.S.L. John Dillon: A Biography (Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1968), pp. 425-6

[28] Irish Times, 19/06/1917

[29] O’Brien, William (BMH / WS 1766), p. 134

[30] Clarke, Kathleen (edited by Litton, Helen) Revolutionary Woman (Dublin: The O’Brien Press, 2008), p. 137

[31] O’Brien, p. 134

[32] MacCarthy, Dan (BMH / WS 722), p. 16

[33] McCullagh, David. De Valera, Volume 1: Rise, 1882-1932 (Dublin: Gill Books, 2017), p. 112

[34] Ibid, p. 113

[35] McCartan, Patrick. With De Valera in America (Dublin: Fitzpatrick Ltd., 1932), p. 9

[36] Nugent, Laurence (BMH / WS 907), p. 106

[37] Dore, Eamon T. (BHM / WS 392), p. 10

[38] Nugent, p. 106

[39] Clarke, p. 188

[40] Ibid, p. 55

[41] Ibid, p. 188

[42] Ibid, pp. 186-7

[43] Ibid, p. 178

[44] Ibid, p. 193

[45] Ibid, pp. 190-1

[46] MacNeill, Eoin (ed. by Hughes, Brian) Eoin MacNeill: Memoir of a Revolutionary Scholar (2016: Irish Manuscripts Commission, Dublin), p. 90

[47] Ibid, p. 97

[48] Ibid, p. 90

[49] Ibid, p. 91

[50] Ibid, pp. 91-2

[51] Ibid, p. 91

[52] Good, Joe. Enchanted by Dreams: The Journal of a Revolutionary (Dingle, Co. Kerry: Brandon Books Publishers, 1996), pp. 107-8

[53] O’Brien, pp. 99-100

[54] Nugent, p. 107

[55] O’Brien, pp. 135-6

[56] De Róiste, Liam (BMH / WS 1698), Part II, p. 171 ; MacCarthy, p. 20

[57] Dillon, Tommy, ‘Birth of the new Sinn Féin and the Ard Fheis 1917’, Capuchin Annual 1967, pp. 396-7

[58] Clarke, pp. 193-4

[59] Ceannt, Áine (BMH / WS 264), p. 54

[60] Moylett, Patrick (BMH / WS 767), pp. 13-4

[61] Report of the proceedings of the Sinn Fein Convention held in the Round Room Mansion House, Dublin on Thursday and Friday 25th and 26th October 1917, Arthur Warren Samuels Collection, Trinity College Library, Dublin, https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/home/index.php?DRIS_ID=SamuelsBox1_027 (Accessed 14/08/2019), pp. 29-30

[62] Police reports from Dublin Castle records, National Library of Ireland, POS 8544

[63] Report of the proceedings of the Sinn Fein Convention, pp. 18-9

[64] O’Hegarty, P.S. A History of Ireland Under the Union (London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1952), p. 719

[65] Report of the proceedings of the Sinn Fein Convention, pp. 22-3

Bibliography

Books

Andrews, C.S. Dublin Made Me (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2001)

Clarke, Kathleen (edited by Litton, Helen) Revolutionary Woman (Dublin: The O’Brien Press, 2008)

Denman, Terence. A Lonely Grave: The Life and Death of William Redmond (Blackrock, Co. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1995)

Good, Joe. Enchanted by Dreams: The Journal of a Revolutionary (Dingle, Co. Kerry: Brandon Books Publishers, 1996)

Gwynn, Stephen. John Redmond’s Last Years (London: Edward Arnold, 1919)

Lyons, F.S.L. John Dillon: A Biography (Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1968)

MacNeill, Eoin (ed. by Hughes, Brian) Eoin MacNeill: Memoir of a Revolutionary Scholar (2016: Irish Manuscripts Commission, Dublin)

McCartan, Patrick. With De Valera in America (Dublin: Fitzpatrick Limited, 1932)

McCullagh, David. De Valera, Volume 1: Rise, 1882-1932 (Dublin: Gill Books, 2017)

Meleady, Dermot (ed.) John Redmond: Selected Letters and Memoranda, 1880-1918 (Newbridge, Co. Kildare: Merrion Press, 2018)

Milroy, Seán. Memories of Mountjoy (Dublin: Maunsel & Co. Ltd., 1917)

O’Hegarty, P.S. A History of Ireland Under the Union (London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1952)

Newspapers

Irish Times

Longford Leader

Bureau of Military History Statements

Ceannt, Áine, WS 264

De Róiste, Liam, WS 1698

Dore, Eamon T., WS 392

MacCarthy, Dan, WS 722

Moylett, Patrick, WS 767

Nugent, Laurence, WS 907

O’Brien, William, WS 1766

Article

Dillon, Tommy, ‘Birth of the new Sinn Féin and the Ard Fheis 1917’, Capuchin Annual 1967

Trinity College Dublin Collection

Report of the proceedings of the Sinn Fein Convention held in the Round Room Mansion House, Dublin on Thursday and Friday 25th and 26th October 1917, Arthur Warren Samuels Collection, https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/home/index.php?DRIS_ID=SamuelsBox1_027 (Accessed 14/08/2019)

National Library of Ireland Collection

Police Report from Dublin Castle Records

A Choice of Green: The South Longford By-Election, May 1917

Vote for McGuinness who is a true Irishman,

Because he loved Eireann and fought in her cause,

And prove to the Party and prove to the world,

That Ireland is sick of her English-made laws.[1]

(Sinn Féin election song)

The Changing of the Guard

It was not the first time that the death of John Phillips had been reported, having been erroneously done so twice before the 2^nd April 1917, when the long-standing Member of Parliament (MP) for South Longford, who had been in poor health for some time, breathed his last at the age of seventy-seven. It was the end of an era in more ways than one.

Longford Leader, 7th April 1917

“During his long career he was one of the staunchest Nationalists in Co. Longford, and in his earlier days he was one of the most vigorous,” reported the Longford Leader. Phillips had been a leading Fenian in the county before choosing, like so many of his revolutionary colleagues, to throw his support behind the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell, as a constitutional alternative when the physical force methods of the Fenians appeared to be going nowhere.

Charles Parnell

During the Parnell Split of 1890, Phillips remained loyal to his leader. It was a choice that placed him in the political minority, a characteristic decision, considering how, throughout the years, Phillips proved willing to put himself at odds with others, as alluded to gently in his obituary:

At times he might have differed from some of the local national leaders, yet there was never at any time one who was not prepared to acknowledge the honest and well meaning intentions of Mr Phillips.

The voters evidently agreed as they elected Phillips, first to the Chairmanship of Longford County Council in 1902, and then as their MP in 1907, a role he held until his demise. It had been an eventful life and a worthy career, but power abhors a vacuum and the question now was who would replace him.

And a fraught question it was, for the upcoming by-election would take place in a very different environment to when Phillips entered the political stage. For one, the electoral franchise had been expanded, ensuring that it now “embraces all classes in the community, and from the highest to the lowest, every man on the voters list will be entitled to cast his vote for the man of his choice.”

This was a heady responsibility indeed and, deeming itself duty-bound to offer a few words of advice, the Longford Leader urged for a spirit of inclusivity:

Let every man whoever he may be, be heard at the coming election with respect and without any stifling of free speech. Let the electors be given an opportunity of hearing to the full the pros and cons of the different arguments put forth by each side…If the electors follow these lines we are quite confident that the election will not be a curse but a blessing to this part of Ireland.[2]

Noble words, but confidence was one thing the newspaper and its political patrons in the Irish Party were lacking. Times had changed and, more than that, the electoral franchise had shifted with it, as the once-almighty IPP found itself under threat from a new and hungry challenger.

“It is announced in Longford that Mr. John MacNeill, who is at present in penal servitude, will be put forward as Sinn Fein candidate for the vacancy,” read the Irish Times, printing in italics the name the IPP least wanted to hear.[3]

‘An Issue Clear and Unequivocal’

None were more conscious of the looming threat to the Irish Party’s hegemony – and, indeed, its survival – than its Chairman.

John Redmond

“The remarkable and unexpected result of the election in North Roscommon has created a situation in which I feel it my duty to address you in a spirit of grave seriousness and of complete candour,” John Redmond wrote on the 21^st February 1917 in what was intended as a letter to the press, to be read by the Party faithful, still reeling from the shocking defeat eighteen days ago on the 3^rd February, when Count George Plunkett scored a victory at the aforementioned by-election.[4]

And a crushing victory it was, with the dark horse candidate trouncing his IPP opponent by 3,022 votes to 1,708, more than twice as much. As if to rub salt into the wound, Plunkett had promptly declared his intent to abstain from taking his seat in Westminster, an antithesis to the strategy the Irish Party had long pursued towards its Home Rule goal since Parnell. This announcement of the Count’s had come as a surprise to many in his constituency, as their new MP had said little during his campaign, having not even been present in Roscommon until two days before polling.

Anti-IPP cartoon, in the wake of its Roscommon defeat, from the Roscommon Herald, 10th February 1917

He had been in England for the most part, exiled there by the British authorities on suspicion of his role in the Easter Rising, ten months ago. Such punishment had been mild compared to that of his son’s, Joseph Plunkett, executed by firing squad, and it was seemingly as much due to empathy for a father’s loss as anything political that the Count succeeded like he did.[5]

Which raised a question Redmond felt compelled to ask.

“If the North Roscommon election may be regarded as a freak election, due to a wave of emotion or sympathy or momentary passion,” he wrote, “then it may be disregarded, and the Irish people can repair the damage it has already done to the Home Rule movement. If, however –” and it was a big ‘if’ – “it is an indication of a change of principle and policy on the part of a considerable mass of the Irish people, then an issue clear and unequivocal, supreme and vital, has been raised.”

Anti-IPP cartoon from the Roscommon Herald, 10th February 1917

On the Defence

What followed in the letter was a brief rumination on recent history, from the start of the Home Rule movement in 1873 to its recent acceptance by Westminster in 1914. With the promised gains of a self-governing Ireland, free from the diktats of Dublin Castle:

It is nonsense to speak of such an Act as this as worthless. Its enactment by a large majority of British representatives has been the crowning triumph of forty years of patient labour.

True, Home Rule hung in suspension, not yet in effect, but only, Redmond assured his readers, until the end of the current war in Europe. And yes, there remained the ‘Ulster question’, with truculent Unionists threatening partition, but Redmond was confident that this would be “quite capable of solution without either coercion or exclusion.”

Anti-Home Rule postcard

What otherwise was the alternative? If physical force methods were to take the place of constitutional ones, and withdrawal from Westminster adopted in support of complete separation, the consequences would be:

Apart from inevitable anarchy in Ireland itself, not merely the hopeless alienation of every friend of Ireland in every British party, but leaving the settlement of every Irish question…in the hands of Irish Unionist members in the Imperial Parliament.

Whether the electorate cared about such details, however, was yet to be answered. Redmond was honest enough to admit the central weakness of his party, namely that it had been around for so long, with the resulting “monotony of being served for 20, 25, 30, 35 or 40 years by the same men in Parliament.”

If so, Redmond was prepared to make capitulation into a point of principle, as he closed his letter with the following proclamation: “Let the Irish people replace us, by all means, by other and, I hope, better men, if they so choose.”[6]

It was probably because of this depressing note on which it ended, reminiscent of a disgraced Roman about to enter a warm bath and open his veins, that three of Redmond’s colleagues – John Dillon, Joe Devlin and T.P. O’Connor – met to dissuade their leader from publishing the missive. Redmond could wallow in all the gloom and doom he liked, but the Irish Party was not yet done and its adherents, as was to be shown in South Longford, remained ready to slug it out to the bitter end with the Sinn Féin challenger.[7]

Teething Troubles

Arthur Griffith

Flush with success following the Roscommon breakthrough, the victors were nonetheless going through their own bout of second-guessing each other. As president, Arthur Griffith, had summoned the Sinn Féin Executive, co-opting a few more members, but “no one seemed to know what to do,” recalled Michael Lennon, one of the new Executive inductees. “Sinn Féin had three or four hundred pounds in the bank but organisation there was none.” Instead, “things political were somewhat chaotic just now.”

Compounding problems was the same man who had achieved their first victory. While Plunkett was happy to use the Sinn Féin name for his Roscommon campaign, he evidently did not consider himself beholden to the party, as he was soon busy setting up a network of his own, as Lennon described:

Count Plunkett and his friends were organising a Liberty League with Liberty Clubs, but this was being done without any reference to Sinn Féin or to Mr. Griffith, then probably the best-known man out of gaol.

Griffith had the brand recognition but not the political muscle, nor did his powerbase: “It is now abundantly clear that at this stage the founder of the Sinn Féin movement had a large but scattered following.”

Arthur Griffith’s treatise for Irish indepedence

Worse, the ardent republicans who were flocking to the Sinn Féin banner had little time for the Sinn Féin president. His proposed model for Irish self-rule, a ‘dual-monarchy’ akin to the Austria-Hungarian one, married to a return of the 1782 Constitution between Westminster and Ireland, ensued that he was seen as only another compromiser in their eyes, and they did not bother hiding how they regarded:

…Mr. Griffith with unconcealed contempt and aversion, referring to him and his friends as the “1782 Hungarians,” a clownish witticism at the expense of a policy which, at least, ensured a practical method of securing Ireland’s recognition as a sovereign state from England.

Even though some time had passed when he put pen to paper, Lennon burned with the injustice of it all.[8]

The Plunkett Convention

Still, the two leaders were able to keep their growing rivalry out of public view – that is, until the 19^th April 1917, when delegates from the various Sinn Féin branches throughout the country – accompanied by representatives from the Irish Volunteers, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Cumann na mBan and the Labour Party – gathered inside the Mansion House, Dublin. The large clerical presence was also noted, as were, according to the Irish Independent, “many ladies and gentlemen well-known in literary and artistic circles.”[9]

The Mansion House, Dublin

They had all come in response to an open invitation by Plunkett, who, fittingly enough, presided over the assembly as the Chair. He was soon to make clear just how seriously he took his authority.

“The meeting was like all political meetings of Irishmen,” wrote Lennon witheringly:

In the early stages there were pious utterances about freedom and the martyred dead, all present cheering and standing. Then, after the platitudes had been exchanged, sleeves were tucked up.[10]

Count Plunkett

Onstage, in full view of the attendees, Count Plunkett locked horns with Griffith. The main point of contention was how and in what shape the new movement was to proceed, with the latter favouring an alliance of like-minded groups under the umbrella-name of Sinn Féin, against the Count’s preference to start anew in the form of his Liberty Clubs.

On the question of abstentionism, Plunkett was adamant – on no account would they send any more Irish representatives to Westminster, a point on which Griffith was apparently less dogmatic, to judge from his silence over it. As the tensions mounted, Griffith took Plunkett aside – and then announced to a shocked audience that the other man had denied him permission to speak.[11] 

“Callous and Disdainful”

Lennon could not but cringe as he remembered how:

There was something of a scene, dozens rushing to the platform and everyone saying that the leaders must unite…The scene was most discouraging, and I think the delegates who had come from the country were rather disappointed at the obvious division among prominent people in Dublin.[12]

Father Michael O’Flanagan

With the movement teetering on a split barely after its inception, Father Michael O’Flanagan stepped in. The priest had played a leading role in Plunkett’s election in Roscommon, where he had distinguished himself as a speaker and organiser. Such talents had earned him the respect of everyone involved, making him ideally suited to play the role of peacemaker. After a quiet word between him and Griffith, it was agreed that a committee be formed, consisting of supporters of both Griffith’s and Plunkett’s, including delegates from the Labour movement.

With this ‘Mansion House Committee’ serving as a venue for both factions to each have their say, Sinn Féin would continue organising about the country, as did Plunkett’s Liberty Clubs. It was not an ideal solution, more akin to papering over the cracks than filling them in, but it allowed the convention to end in a reasonably dignified manner.

Besides, there was still the common enemy to focus on. Before the convention drew to a close, Griffith read out an extract from a letter by Sir Francis Vane, who had exposed the murder of civilians by British soldiers during Easter Week. Vane met with Redmond in the House of Commons on the 2^nd May 1916, before the executions of the Rising leaders took place. Redmond, Vane believed, could have used his influence to save their lives, and yet did not. Instead, his manner, Vane wrote, had been “callous and disdainful.”

Sir Francis Vane

Griffith let that sink in. “This man,” he said, twisting the knife, “should be smashed.”[13]

The Most Important Thing

Afterwards, Griffith and a few others withdrew to the front drawing-room of 6 Harcourt Street, where Sinn Féin had its offices. Father O’Flanagan was reading out a poem he had written for use at the Longford election when the door was thrown open and a pair of men strode in, one strongly-built, the other frail and sickly. It was Michael Collins and Rory O’Connor, two of the strident young republicans from Count Plunkett’s hard-line faction. As was to be typical of him, Collins took the lead in speaking.

The Sinn Féin offices at 6 Harcourt Street, Dublin

“I want to know what ticket is this Longford election being fought on,” he demanded as soon as he caught sight of Griffith, seated in the middle of the room. Griffith was unperturbed as he smoked his cigarette, but whatever answer he gave – Lennon could not remember the specifics – only infuriated Collins.

“If you don’t fight the election on the Republican ticket,” he thundered, “you will alienate all the young men.”

Lennon, for one, was taken by surprise:

This was likewise the first time I heard anyone urge the adoption of Republicanism in its open form as part of our political creed. Mr. Griffith remained silent and composed. Mr [Pierce] McCann suddenly intervened by asking: “Isn’t the most important thing to win the election?”

Collins treated this as the foulest of heresies. The Roscommon election had been conducted under the Republican flag, he railed, and so the same must be done in Longford. Having played the diplomat before, Father O’Flanagan tried again:

He said that although the tricolour was used at Roscommon, the idea of an independent Republic was not emphasised to the electors, and that the people had voted rather for the father of a son who had been executed.

Michael Collins

With neither side giving away, the argument cooled somewhat, enough for Collins, his piece thus said, to withdraw with a wordless O’Connor to a nearby table, where they counted out the donations from the Convention. But the question was not yet settled, with neither Collins nor Plunkett appearing the type to let it drop.

“It was difficult to work in harmony,” Lennon wrote with feeling.[14]

Choosing

Among the many remaining matters to resolve, the most pertinent for Sinn Féin was who was to be its candidate in South Longford – or, indeed, if there was to be one at all. The Irish Times had first announced Eoin MacNeill, the imprisoned Chief of Staff of the Irish Volunteers, but his controversial decision to cancel the 1916 Rising at the last minute, leading to a clash of orders and general confusion, made him too controversial a choice within the revolutionary movement.

William O’Brien

At a meeting with Count Plunkett, Michael Collins, Rory O’Connor and the trade unionist William O’Brien, Griffith proposed J.J. O’Kelly, the writer and editor, better known by his pen-name ‘Sceilg’. South Longford would be a harder nut to crack than North Roscommon, Griffith warned, being an IPP bastion as well as a generous contributor of recruits to the British Army. O’Kelly’s role as editor to the Catholic Bulletin, a journal sympathetic to their cause, should at least be a start in countering these disadvantages.[15]

The others disagreed, preferring that a prisoner from the Rising should be their man, and so they settled on Joe McGuinness, a man otherwise unknown to the public. The decision made, Sinn Féin moved swiftly, and the Irish Times reported on how, less than a week after John Phillips’ death:

At a conference of Sinn Fein representatives in Longford on Saturday [7^th April], Mr. Joseph McGuinness, a draper in Dublin, who is now undergoing three years’ imprisonment in connection with last year’s rebellion in Dublin, was selected as their candidate in South Longford.[16]

However, it seemed that the said representatives had neglected to inform McGuinness of his nomination before making it public. A couple of days later, the selection committee was called together again with the news that the inmates in Lewes Prison, England, where McGuinness was housed, had decided that none of them would stand in any election.

Joe McGuinness

Objections

As O’Brien recalled: “We were very disconcerted at this announcement.” Their grand scheme to dethrone the IPP and revise the game-plan for Irish freedom looked in danger of being stopped in its tracks. In response, the committee sent an emissary over to Lewes to contact McGuinness through the prison chaplain:

Michael Staines was selected for this job and it was subsequently learned that the statement was correct but when our message reached McGuinness the matter was re-discussed and it was decided to leave each prisoner free to accept or reject any invitation he might receive to contest a parliamentary constituency, and so we went ahead with McGuinness as candidate.[17]

Further details on the controversy were provided in later years by Dan MacCarthy, a 1916 participant who had been sent out to Longford to help manage the Sinn Féin campaign, setting up base in the Longford Arms Hotel. Initial impressions were not encouraging – they had no funds and little in the way of organisation but, after forming an election committee of his own, including the candidate’s brother, Frank, and his niece, and hiring a few cars, they were able to drive through the area, setting up further committees of supporters as they did so to help shoulder the workload.

The Longford Arms Hotel today

In a taste of the ferocity to come, they were attacked in Longford town after returning from a meeting by a crowd consisting mostly of women. There was no love lost between Sinn Féin and the dependents of Irishmen serving abroad in the British Army, or ‘separation women’ as these wives were dubbed, and a member of MacCarthy’s party needed stitches after being struck on the head with a bottle.

Secrets Kept

Dan MacCarthy

At least Sinn Féin had the advantage of having the one candidate to promote. The Irish Party, on the other hand, wasted precious time vacillating between three prospective names. “I think that this was responsible for our eventual success,” MacCarthy mused.

He was hard at work when Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith arrived unexpectedly to see him, bringing the unwelcome news that a letter had come in from McGuinness, demanding that his name be withdrawn:

Collins and Griffith added that they had not mentioned this to anybody in Dublin and that I was the first to know of it. I said: “What are you going to do?” and they said they were going on with it for the reason that a man in gaol could not know what the position was like outside.

Still, it was not a secret that could be kept forever. MacCarthy, acutely aware of the damage this sort of publicity could do, suggested that they find themselves a printer they could rely on to keep quiet. As they did not know of any in Longford, MacCarthy decided that they should go outside the county, to Roscommon, and meet Jaspar Tully, a local bigwig who owned, among other things, a printing press for his newspaper, the Roscommon Herald.

Tully was not the most obvious of allies, for he had run as the third candidate in the North Roscommon election against Plunkett but, while he was not of Sinn Féin, he loathed the IPP, and that was enough. MacCarthy, Collins and Griffith wrote up a handbill, explaining the Sinn Féin position should McGuinness’ decline become public knowledge, and had 50,000 copies printed in Roscommon in readiness.

MacCarthy’s instinct for who to trust had proved correct:

The secrets of this handbill was well kept by Jaspar Tully and his two printers. Although they worked all night on it and knew precisely what its contents were, they disclosed nothing.

As it turned out, the handbill was not needed. MacCarthy learnt that the Lewes prisoners had had a rethink and, while the majority remained convinced that parliamentary procedure was not for them, a significant minority decided to trust their comrades at liberty – significant enough, in any case, for McGuinness to keep his name on the ballot and allow Sinn Féin to proceed with its campaign. MacCarthy and his colleagues could breathe a sigh of relief.[18]

Sinn Féin election poster, showing Joe McGuinness

‘A Most Deplorable Tangle’

The Irish Party, meanwhile, were showing themselves to be far less adroit at hiding their disarray. Redmond was suffering from eczema – an apt metaphor for the state of his party – when he received a letter from John Dillon, the MP for East Mayo. Writing on the 12^th April, Dillon warned him that “the Longford election is a most deplorable tangle.”

And no wonder, given that they had yet to decide on the most important question: “All our reports go to show that if we could concentrate on one candidate we could beat Sinn Fein by an overwhelming majority.”

Joseph Mary Flood (in the robes of a barrister)

Instead of one contender to rally behind, the Parliamentary Party was split between three competing ones: Patrick McKenna, Joseph Mary Flood and Hugh Garrahan.

Meanwhile, “the Sinn Feiners are pouring into the constituency and are extremely active, and we of course can do nothing.” For Dillon, the whole mess “most forcibly illustrates the absolute necessity of constructing without delay some more effective machinery for selecting Party candidates.”[19]

Which was an extraordinary statement. Dillon was speaking as if he and his Chairman were complete greenhorns entering politics for the first time. The Longford Leader bemoaned the “lassitude and indifference which has led to the decline of the Irish National Organization” in the county. Had the IPP adherents listened to the advice of J.P. Farrell, the MP for North Longford – not to mention the newspaper’s proprietor – and held a national convention to settle the question of the candidacy, it could have:

…defied any ring or caucus or enemy to defeat them. Now they are faced with not one but many different claimants between whom it is impossible to say who will be the successful one.

If the matter was not solved, and soon, the Longford Leader warned, then the election might very well result in a Sinn Féin win. If so:

It will be further evidence for use by our enemies of the destruction of the Constitutional Movement and the substitution of rebellion as the National policy. And yet we do not believe that any sane Irishman, and least of all the South Longford Irishmen, are in favour of such a mad course.[20]

Not that the Irish Party could take such sanity for granted. Acutely aware of the growing peril, its leaders scrambled for a solution. On the 13^th April, Dillon wrote to Redmond about a talk he had had with Joe Devlin, their MP for Belfast West: “We discussed your suggestion about getting the three candidates to meet.”

Dillon was also wondered whether it would be worthwhile to send someone to meet the Most Rev. Dr Joseph Hoare, the Bishop of Ardagh, though the lukewarm Church support received so far enraged Dillon. “The blame of defeat of the constitutional cause will lie on to the Bishops and priests who split the Nationalist vote,” he fumed.

A Decision Made

Patrick McKenna

It says much about the level of lethargy the IPP had sunk to that it was not until the 21^st April, more than a week since his last letter, that Dillon could inform Redmond that McKenna, Flood and Garrahan had agreed to stand down and leave the selection process in the Chairman’s hands.[21]

Four days later, Redmond was able to write to Dr Hoare that McKenna had been picked to run as the IPP’s sole candidate. In contrast to Dillon’s choice words about workshy clergy, Redmond took care to thank the Bishop profusely

I need scarcely say how grateful I am to your Lordship for your action in this matter…another added to the many services which you have given to the Irish Cause, and the Party and the Movement will be forever grateful.

The Bishop of Ardagh was similarly appreciative in his own letter the day after: “We will all now obey your ruling, and strive for Mr. McKenna. I hope we shall reverse the decision of Roscommon.”

Conscious of the fragility of both Redmond and the party he led, Dr Hoare added: “I hope you will soon be restored to perfect health, and that your policy and Party will remain, after the Physical Force had been tried and found wanting.”[22]

Dr Joseph Hoare, Bishop of Ardagh

The Bishop added his public backing to the private support on the 4^th May, when he signed McKenna’s papers inside the Longford courthouse. Elsewhere in South Longford that day, at Lanesborough and Ballymahon, some men who were putting up posters for McKenna were pelted with stones and bottles by a crowd and their work torn down.

Tricoloured ‘rebel’ flags could be seen flying from trees, windows and chimneys all over the contested constituency, save for the town of Longford. But even there held no sanctuary for the IPP, as one of its supporters, John Joseph Dempsey, was put in critical condition from a blow to the head, delivered in public on the main street.[23]

Sinn Féin postcard

Escalation

Despite such incidents, the Irish Times believed that the election so far had been “rather tame.” That changed with the arrival, on the 5^th May, of four MPs: John Dillon and Joe Devlin for the IPP, as well as Count Plunkett and Laurence Ginnell on behalf of Sinn Féin, at the same time and at the same station. Rival crowds had gathered to greet their respective champions but, despite some confusion on the platform, the two factions were able to withdraw to their separate hotels in an orderly manner.

This lull did not last long. Later that day, as speeches were being delivered in front of the hotel that served as the IPP headquarters, a pair of motor cars drove towards the audience, the tricolours fluttering from the vehicles marking their occupants as Sinn Féiners. The crowd parted to allow through the first car, possibly out of chivalrous deference to its female passengers, but the second vehicle was mobbed as it tried to follow, with the loss of one of its tricolours, torn away before the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) could intervene and prevent worse.

Men of the Royal Irish Constabulary

By the next day, the 6^th May, the Irish Times had found that:

Longford was crowded with partisans, who seem to have flocked to their separate standards from all parts of Ireland…The flags of the rival parties are displayed at every turn, and incessant party cries become grating to the ear. Nothing is being left undone by either side to further its prospects.

The newspaper judged Sinn Féin to be the superior in terms of organisation, with more speakers at hand than needed and a fleet of motor cars at their disposal. But the IPP appeared to be making some overdue headway, particularly in Longford town, where Dillon and Devlin were due to speak.

A procession of their supporters were preparing to set off for the rally when a line of cars, bedecked with green, orange and white flags, drove into view. As before, a rush was made by the crowd to seize the offending tricolours, and a melee ensued as the passengers fought back. Sticks were wielded and stones thrown, until the RIC again came to the rescue and forced a passage through the press of bodies for the vehicles to motor past.

Order had been restored – until, that is, the IPP procession, en route to hear Dillon and Devlin, again encountered the same Sinn Féin convoy, and another scrum unfolded in the street.[24]

Choices

Kevin O’Shiel

“The opposition was particularly strong in Longford town,” remembered Kevin O’Shiel, a Tyrone-born solicitor and Sinn Féin activist. “Indeed, it was quite dangerous for any of us to go through the streets sporting our colours.” There, and in the other towns of the county, the IPP could finally flex its muscles again, with rallies that “were larger and more enthusiastic than ours, all colourful with Union Jacks and flags.”[25]

At one such event, on the 7^th May, Dillon took the stage in the market square of Longford town to make the case for the constitutional movement. The issue was now clear, he said. In North Roscommon, there had been no such clarity. The electors there had voted for Count Plunkett out of sympathy for the hardships the old gentleman had endured by the loss of his son and his own exile. No political case had been made by the Count’s supporters, not even a warning that he would refuse to take his seat at Westminster.

John Dillon

But now, in contrast, South Longford was faced with a clear choice: to continue the pursuit of Home Rule, and the connection with Great Britain that it entailed, or abandon that in favour of complete separation in the form of an Irish Republic.

The latter policy was nothing novel. Others had previously tried to force it on Parnell, heaping on him the exact same abuse now levelled at Redmond: he was a traitor, he was a sell-out, a tool of British imperialism and so on. Yet, as history showed, the alternative to the slow-but-steady approach produced only disaster:

If the constitutional party were driven from the battle, and the counties were to adopt the program of Sinn Fein and the Republican Party, it could only have one result in the long run – an insurrection far more widespread and bloody than the rising of last year, followed by a long period of helplessness and brutal Orange ascendancy, such as followed 1798 and 1848.

Contrary to what was being said in regards to the Rising, the Irish Party had not been negligent, continued Dillon. There were thirty men now alive thanks to the efforts their MPs had made in saving them from a firing-squad. While sixty others languished in penal servitude, there would have been over three hundred in such a plight, including the prisoners freed from Frongoch five months ago, had it not been for the IPP:

The party did not look for gratitude, nor expect it, for their action in these matters, but solid facts could not be dislodged by lies, no matter how violently their opponents screamed.

Joe Devlin was up next. Echoing his colleague, the MP for Belfast West posed his audience two stark choices: the Constitutional movement or armed rebellion, with no halfway house possible. The former had brought Ireland to the brink of self-rule through bloodless means. Were they to cast that aside in favour of a violent gamble for an impossible end? Ireland had had enough of war, Devlin said. It wanted peace.[26]

Joe Devlin

Joe Devlin

At least one foe in the crowd was impressed. “Joe was an extremely eloquent speaker with an extraordinary emotional ring in his penetrating tenor voice,” Kevin O’Shiel recalled, “which his sharp Belfast accent accentuated, particularly to southerner ears.”

The Ulsterman was also willing to role his sleeves up in a fight. Reaching into his bag of oratorical tricks, he waved a large green banner, adorned with the national symbol of a harp in gold, declaring:

Here is the good old green flag of Ireland, the flag that many a heroic Irishman died under; the flag of Wolfe Tone, of Robert Emmet, of Thomas Davis; aye, and the flag of the great Charles Stewart Parnell.

As his audience applauded, Devlin moved in for the rhetorical kill:

Look at it, men and women, it has no yellow streak in it, nor no white streak. What was good enough for Emmet, Davis and Parnell is good enough for us. Long may it fly over Ireland![27]

Devlin clearly did not intend to leave the ‘green card’ entirely for the challenger’s use. He and Dillon departed from Longford on the following day, the 8^th May, the latter needed for his parliamentary duties in Westminster. He was confident enough to write to Redmond, proclaiming how:

Our visit to Longford was a very great success [emphasis in text]. So far as the town and rural district of Longford goes, we are in full possession. Our organizers are very confident of a good majority.

Nonetheless, he signed off on a jarringly worrisome note: “If in the face of that we are beaten, I do not see how you can hope to hold the Party in existence.” The use of ‘you’ as the pronoun hinted at how Dillon, a consummate politician, was already shifting any future blame on to someone else.[28]

Fighting Flags

Devlin was not the only IPP speaker to distinguish himself with turns of phrase and a willingness to make an issue out of flags. “Rally to the old flag,” the MP for North Longford, J.P. Farrell, urged his listeners. “Ours is the old green flag of Ireland, with the harp without the crown on it. There is no white in our flag, nor no yellow streak.”

Another slingshot of his was: “Don’t be mad enough to swallow this harum scarum, indigestible mess of pottage called Sinn Féin. You will be bound soon after to have a very sick stomach, and jolly well serve you right.”[29]

J.P. Farell, MP

Another Member of Parliament – Tommy Lundon of East Limerick, O’Shiel thought, though he was not sure by the time he put pen to paper for his memoirs – went further when he proclaimed how the tricoloured flags the opposition were so fond of waving had, upon inspection, revealed themselves to have been made in Manchester.

“There’s Sinn Féin principles for you,” he crowed.[30]

The other side, meanwhile, were giving as good as they got. When a number of Irish Party MPs and their supporters arrived in Longford by train, they were met at the station by a crowd of children carrying Union Jacks.

To their excruciating embarrassment, in an election where the definition of Irishness was as much at stake as a parliamentary seat, the newcomers had to march through town accompanied by a host of the worst possible colours to have in Ireland at that time. The culprit was a Sinn Féin partisan who had bought the Union Jacks in bulk and handed them out to whatever children he could find, the young recipients being delighted at the new toy to wave.

“The Sinn Féin election committee was not responsible, but the IPP did not know that and they were very angry,” according to one Sinn Féin canvasser, Laurence Nugent. It was a low trick but Nugent was unsympathetic. “But why should they [be]? It was their emblem. They had deserted all others.”

Sinn Féin postcard

It was a point Nugent was more than happy to press. When John T. Donovan, the MP for West Wicklow, was on a platform speaking, Nugent called out from the crowd, asking whether Donovan would admit that Redmond had sent him a telegram on the Easter Week of the year before, with orders to call out the National Volunteers to assist the British Army in putting down the Rising.

When a flummoxed Donovan made no reply, not even a denial, there were shouts of ‘Then it’s true’ from the onlookers. Nugent could walk away with the feeling of a job well done.[31]

‘Clean Manhood and Womanhood’

Laurence Ginnell

The scab of 1916 was further picked at by Laurence Ginnell, the maverick MP for North Westmeath who had thrown himself into the new movement. Speaking at Newtownforbes – an audacious choice of venue, considering that it was McKenna’s hometown – on the same day as Dillon and Devlin, the 8^th May, Ginnell repeated the allegation that the IPP representatives had cheered in the House of Commons upon hearing of the executions of Rising rebels.

While not saying anything quite as inflammatory, his partner, Count Plunkett, likewise wrapped himself in the mantle of Easter Week. “I would not be here today,” he told his listeners. “If I thought the people of South Longford had anything of the slave in them. To prove they are not slaves, let them go and vote for the man who faced death for them.”

Countess Plunkett

Other Sinn Féin speakers there included his wife, Countess Plunkett, and Kathleen Clarke, widow of the 1916 martyr. They returned to Longford town in a convoy of thirty, tricolour-decked cars, cheered at different points along the way – that is, until they reached the main street, where a different sort of welcome had gathered. ‘Separation women’, armed with sticks, rushed the cars, singling out the one with the Count and Countess Plunkett, and Ginnell, on board, while pelting the Sinn Féiners with stones, one of which struck the Countess in the mouth, while their chauffeur was badly beaten.

Throughout South Longford, the RIC found itself frequently called upon to step in and prevent such brawls from escalating. Other notable victims of the violence raging through the constituency were the visiting Chairman of the Roscommon Town Commissioners, and Daniel Garrahan, uncle to one of the original IPP candidates, who was held up in his trap and pony, and assaulted.[32]

“Party fighting for their lives with porter and stones,” Ginnell wrote to his wife in a telegram. But he was undeterred. “Clean manhood and womanhood will prevail.”

Sinn Féin election poster, depicting McKenna’s ‘separation women’ supporters as drunken and deranged

Ginnell received a telegram of his own from the Sinn Féin election committee, on the 8^th May, warning him that an attack had been planned for when he left his accommodation. “In the circumstances we would suggest that it might be best not to leave the hotel this evening.”[33]

Not all encounters were violent. Patrick McCartan, a Sinn Féin canvassers, was able to observe a range of reactions:

Some of them were friendly. Some of them just told you bluntly that they were going to vote for McKenna. I remember a woman who was a staunch supporter of McKenna. Her husband was not in, but she knew McKenna and McKenna was a decent man, and they were going to vote for him and that was all about it.

Nonetheless, McCartan and the woman were able to part on good terms. As they shook hands, he asked her to pray for the freedom of Ireland. “God’s sake!” she exclaimed. “Ye may be right after all!”[34]

Patrick McCartan

‘A Powerful Hold’

Amidst the noise and turmoil, the loyalties of two distinct demographics could be seen.

At the forefront of pro-McKenna crowds were the ‘separation women’. Their choice of Union Jacks for flags to wave was probably not appreciated by the Irish Party, but there was no doubting the women’s zest. An Australian soldier on leave found himself the centre of attention from a harem of admiring females, one of whom threw her arms around his neck and called: “May God mind and keep you. It’s you who are the real and true men.”[35]

Children with both tricolours and a Union Jack during the Longford election

On the other side, the young men of the constituency were standing with Sinn Féin, prompting the Irish Times to marvel at how:

The more closely one gets in touch with the situation in South Longford the more one is convinced that Sinn Féin has a powerful hold on the youth of the country. Whether the real import of its doctrine is understood is not clear. Indeed, the youthful mind is not inclined to bother about ascertaining it.

If every Longford youth had a vote, so the Irish Times believed, then Sinn Féin would win without a doubt. The generation divide had even entered family households, where it was reported that sons were refusing to help with farm work, and daughters striking on domestic duties, without first a promise from their fathers to cast a vote for McGuinness.

Sinn Féin postcard

In some families, however, such bolshiness was not necessary, as Sinn Féin activists skilfully played on the fear of conscription, with warnings that every young man in the country would be called up for the British Army unless their candidate was elected. “This threat seems to be having its desired effect in remote rural districts, where farmers, apprehensive for their sons, will vote for Mr McGuinness.”

Not that the fight was finished. Thankfully for the Irish Party, sniffed the Irish Times, “youthful fervour does not count for much at the polling booths.”

Sinn Féin activists during the Longford election

Assisted by veteran campaigners, including MPs, the Parliamentary Party was working hard to make up for the slow start and the other side’s zeal, and could already claim the majority of votes in Longford town. The question now was whether this would be enough to offset the rural votes, the bulk of which were earmarked for McGuinness as shown by the number of tricolours festooning the branches of trees.[36]

South Longford was on a knife-edge, poised to tilt either way for McKenna or McGuinness – just the time for a dramatic intervention in the form of not one, but two, letters from the country’s highest spiritual authorities.

Episcopal Intervention

The first was an ecumenical piece, signed by eighteen Catholic bishops and three Protestant prelates. Topping the list of signatures was Cardinal Michael Logue, Primate of All Ireland, with Archbishop William Walsh of Dublin, Primate of Ireland, directly following, in a reflection of their place in the hierarchy of the Irish Catholic Church.

Cardinal Michael Logue (standing) with other Catholic clergy

“Fellow countrymen,” the letter began:

As there has been no organised effort to elicit the expressions of Irish opinion regarding the dismemberment of our country, and it may be said that the authoritative voice of the Nation has not yet been heard on this question, which is one of supreme importance.

The dismemberment in question meant the proposed Partition of Ulster, specifically the six counties in the North-East corner with prominent Unionist populations, from the rest of Ireland. In the absence of any such organised efforts, the Princes of the Catholic Church and their Protestant allies moved to fill the leadership vacuum:

Our requisition needs no urging. An appeal to the Nationalist conscience on the question of Ireland’s dismemberment should meet with one answer, and one answer alone. To Irishmen of every creed and class and party, the very thought of our country partitioned and torn as a new Poland must be one of heart-rending sorrow. [37]

No reference was made to any particular political group. Yet no reader could have thought it anything but a criticism of the Irish Party, on whose watch in Westminster this Polandification was threatening to happen. Archbishop Walsh went further with a letter of his own, published in conjunction with that of his fellow clergymen:

Dear Sir,

The question may, perhaps, be asked, why a number of us, Irish Bishops, Catholic and Protestant, have thought it worth our while to sign a protest against the partition of Ireland. Has not that miserable policy, condemned as it has been by the unanimous voice of Nationalist Ireland been removed, months ago, from the sphere of practical politics?

Nothing of the kind. Anyone who thinks that partition, whether in its naked deformity, or under the transparent mask of “county opinion,” does not hold a leading place in the practical policies of to-day, is simply living in a fool’s paradise.

As a final sting, Dr Walsh added in a postscript:

I am fairly satisfied that the mischief has already been done, and that the country is practically sold.[38]

Practically sold? Again, no names were cited, but they did not have to be, and the Fourth Estate quickly picked up the cue. “The venerated Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Walsh, has sent out a trumpet call against the treachery that the so-called Irish Party are planning against Ireland,” thundered the Midland Reporter.

Dr William Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin

Those newspapers allied to John Redmond scrambled to respond, with the Freeman’s Journal taking the time to deny in a lengthy rebuttal the accusation that its patrons had ever thought of being acquiescent to a national carve-up. Which was only further proof of guilt, according to the Northern Whig: “As is evident from the troubled and rather incoherent comments of their official organ, the Redmondite leadership were as ready to partition now as they were last June.”[39]

‘Between Two Devils and the Deep Sea’

While most other news outlets did not venture quite that far, they were still in full agreement: Archbishop Walsh was the hero of the hour, Partition was a dead issue, and so was Home Rule if it fell short of anything but an intact Ireland. If His Grace was the instrument of this reversal, then the Irish Independent had been his mouthpiece in its publication of his letter.

T.P. O’Connor

The hostility of the newspaper was well-known to the IPP leadership. “Between the Sinn Fein, the anti-exclusionists of Ulster, and the Independent,” complained Dillon in a letter to T.P. O’Connor on the 19^th August 1916, “we are between two devils and the deep sea [emphasis in text].”[40]

He and his colleagues might have brooded on the bitter irony of how the spectre of Partition was being used as a rod to beat them with; after all, they had lobbied as best they could in Westminster to prevent such a possibility. “Do settle the Irish question – you are strong enough,” Willie Redmond, brother of John, had urged the Prime Minister in a letter on the 4^th March 1917:

Give the Ulster men proportional and full representation and they cannot complain. If there is no settlement there will be nothing but disaster all round for all.[41]

David Llyod George

But David Lloyd George could not be budged into overriding the Orange veto. “There is nothing I would like better to be the instrument for settling the Irish question,” he told Willie silkily, two days later. “But you know just as well as I do what the difficulty is in settling the Irish question.”[42]

And that was that. Two months later, Nationalist Ireland was closing ranks against its former standard bearer, leaving the Irish Parliamentary Party out in the cold, while its challenger swooped in for the kill. A printing press in Athlone was used to publish the Archbishop’s damning words in pamphlet form, while Sinn Féin activists gleefully bought up every newspaper copy they could find with the letter, some bringing bundles of them from as far as Dublin, ready to be handed out in Longford on the morning of the 9^th May – polling day.[43]

Electoral pamphlet with Archbishop Walsh’s letter, issued by Sinn Féin

Final Judgement

The Irish Party could at least take solace in how it had not been completely deserted by the ecclesiastical powers, as Bishop Hoare entered the Longford Courthouse to cast his vote for McKenna. Cheers greeted His Grace’s arrival, though that might have been deference for a man of the cloth rather than support for his political stance, as there was further acclaim when a man called for applause for Archbishop Walsh.

As the polls closed at 8 pm, spokesmen for Sinn Féin anticipated a win by three hundred votes. More demurely, those for the IPP predicted a small minority for McKenna.[44]

In private, Dan MacCarthy had discussed the probabilities with Griffith. Whether a victory or loss, MacCarthy estimated it would be by a margin of twenty votes. Either way, it was going to be close.[45]

On the 10^th May, MacCarthy watched as the ballots were collected inside the Courthouse to be counted by the Sub-Sheriff’s men. The one assigned to McKenna’s papers started by separating them into bundles of fifties but, when that seemed inadequate to the sheer volume before him, he switched to the system the McGuinness counter was using and piled them by their hundreds.

The high turnout was testament to the passions the election had inspired in South Longford. The hundred-strong batches of ballot papers for each candidate were piled criss-crossing each other, allowing for the Sub-Sheriff to make reasonable progress in counting. But not quickly enough for the IPP representative, who passed a slip of paper through the window before the Sub-Sheriff could declare his findings.

The paper read: McKenna has won.[46]

Kevin O’Shiel was among the crowds outside. When the Sinn Féin supporters saw the note:

We were dumbfounded, our misery being aggravated by the wild roars of the triumphant Partyites and their wilder “Separation Allowance” women who danced with joy as they waved Union Jacks and green flags.

O’Shiel was in particular dismay. After all, having bet ten pounds – a hefty amount back then – on McGuinness succeeding, he now looked to be leaving Longford a good deal poorer than when he had entered.[47]

Lost and Found

Inside the Courthouse, however, one of the Sinn Féin tallymen, Joe McGrath, was protesting that the count did not match the total poll. Seeing a glimmer of hope, MacCarthy demanded that the process be gone through again.[48]

Among those present was Charles Wyse-Power, a solicitor who had come to Longford on behalf of Sinn Féin in case the IPP tried declaring McGuinness’ candidacy invalid on the grounds of him being a convicted felon. Seeing their supporters, including Griffith, standing mournfully outside on the other side of the street, McGrath urged Wyse-Power to go and announce the decision for a recount, as much to reassure their side as anything.[49]

Wyse-Power did so. Calling for silence, he announced that a bundle of the votes had been overlooked and, as such, a recount was in order. Seeing that he might not be soon short a tenner after all, O’Shiel could only hope for the best:

A drowning man hangs on to a straw, they say, and we certainly (myself in particular) held with desperation on to the straw Charles had flung us.[50]

As it turned out, as MacCarthy described:

The mistake was then discovered that one of the bundles originally counting as 100 votes contained 150. Having discovered this, it tallied with the total poll, giving McGuinness a majority of 37.[51]

Frank McGuinness, standing in for his imprisoned brother, unfurled a tricolour from a window of the courthouse, shouting out that Ireland’s flag had won, to the cheers of his supporters and some flag-waving of their own. For all the jubilations, it had been a painfully close call. “I don’t think that McGuinness would have won that election had it not been for the letter of Archbishop Walsh,” said a relieved O’Shiel.[52]

MacCarthy was not so sure. The letter had come too late in the election to change anyone’s minds, he believed, which would already been made up by the time Sinn Féin workers were pushing printed copies of the Archbishop’s words into people’s hands on polling day. In his opinion, the delay of the IPP in selecting a sole candidate had been its losing factor.[53]

Sinn Féin poster on a carriage, 1918

On that, he and the Longford Leader were in agreement. For even after McKenna had been chosen over Flood and Garrahan, the newspaper bemoaned:

The selected Nationalist Candidate had a great deal of uphill work to face, even while the other two candidates had withdrawn. As against the Party candidate the Sinn Feiner had a whole fortnight in which to over run the constituency and they did so in great style.

It was a moxie that even an avowed enemy like the Longford Leader was forced to admire:

For two consecutive Sundays they had the ear of the people at all the masses in all the chapels, and no one who knows how hard it is to get an Irishman to change his view once he has made his mind up but must admit that this was a serious handicap.[54]

But perhaps the explanation is as simple as the one offered by Joseph Good, a Sinn Féin activist: “This victory can be attributed to Joe McGrath’s genius for mathematics.”[55]

Joe McGrath (far left), seated next to Michael Collins

‘A Confusion of Factions’

Up, Longford, and strike a blow for the land unconquered still,

Your fathers fought their ruthless foe on many a plain and hill.

Their blood runs red in your Irish veins,

You are the sons of Granuaile.

So show your pride in the men who died,

And vote for the man in gaol.[56]

(Sinn Féin election song, South Longford, 1917)

Regardless of the whys and whats, a win was a win. The RIC on standby were drawing up between the two groups of partisans to prevent a repeat of the violence but that proved unnecessary. When McGuinness proposed a vote of thanks for the Sub-Sheriff and his team, the request was seconded by McKenna, who took his defeat with good grace, saying that, sink or swim, he would stand with his old party and old flag. That his defeat had been so close, he said, showed that the fire lit in North Roscommon had dwindled already to a mere flicker.

Anti-Redmond cartoon from the Roscommon Herald, 12th May 1917

The Sinn Féiners, naturally, did not see things that way. The man of the moment, McGuinness, was absent, as much a guest of His Majesty in Lewes as ever, but others were there to inform the tricolour-bearing crowd, after they had returned to the Sinn Féin campaign headquarters in town, what that day’s result meant.

For Griffith, this had been the greatest victory ever won for Ireland at the polls, and in the teeth of stern opposition at that. Cynics had scoffed that Sinn Féin won North Roscommon only by concealing its aims – well, there could be doubting what such aims were now, Griffith declared.

Count Plunkett predicted that this was but the beginning, with more elections to follow that would sweep the IPP away. Privately, he and Griffith continued to loathe each other, and their struggle for the soul of Sinn Fein had not yet ended but, in the warm afterglow of success, they could put aside mutual acrimony – for now.

Anti-Redmond cartoon from the Roscommon Herald, 21st May 1917

Elsewhere in the country, the results were nervously anticipated. When a placard was shown from a window of the Sinn Féin offices in Westmoreland Street, Dublin, the audience that had gathered there broke into applause. More crowds greeted the returning Sinn Féin contingents at Broadstone Station with waved tricolours, which were promptly seized by killjoy policemen, who dispersed the procession before it could begin.

Not to be deterred, a flag with the letters ‘I.R.’, as in ‘Irish Republic’, was flown above the hall of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in North Frederick Street. If Sinn Féin had shied away from running on an explicitly Republican policy, at least for now, then there were some who knew exactly what they wanted.

Anti-Redmond cartoon from the Roscommon Herald, 28th May 1917

“Up McGuinness!” cried a party of students as they paraded through Cork, waving tricolours, while a counter-demonstration of ‘separation women’ dogged them, singing ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ and ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’, in between cheers for the Munster Fusiliers and other Irish regiments their menfolk were serving in.[57]

In Lewes Prison, whatever doubts the captive Irishmen had had about the value of contesting elections were forgotten as their excitement at the news almost brimmed over into a riot. McGuinness was hoisted onto a table in a prison hall to make a speech, the building ringing with the accompanying cheers. It was only with difficulty that the wardens were able to put their charges back in their cells.[58]

Anti-Redmond cartoon from the Roscommon Herald, 5th June 1917

More muted was the reaction in Belfast, where the chief interest among Unionists was the impact the result would have on the Home Rule proposals, due to be submitted to Westminster in the following week. The odds of such a measure succeeding now looked as shaky as the IPP itself. If Archbishop Walsh’s intervention had hardened Nationalist Ireland against Partition, it equally made Protestant Ulster even more sure not to be beneath any new parliament in Dublin.

Indeed, Ireland looked more uncertain a place than ever. “The country is a confusion of factions,” read the Daily Telegraph. “A unanimous Nationalist demand, which could be faced, and which could be dealt with through an accredited leadership, no longer exists.” The old order may have been as dead as O’Leary in the grave, but what would come next had yet to be seen.[59]

See also:

An Idolatry of Candidates: Count Plunkett and the North Roscommon By-Election of 1917

Raising the Banner: The East Clare By-Election, July 1917

Ouroboros Eating Its Tail: The Irish Party against Sinn Féin in a New Ireland, 1917

References

[1] Doherty, Bryan (BMH / WS 1292), p. 5

[2] Longford Leader, 07/04/1917

[3] Irish Times, 04/04/1917

[4] Meleady, Dermot (ed.) John Redmond: Selected Letters and Memoranda, 1880-1918 (Newbridge, Co. Kildare: Merrion Press, 2018), p. 274

[5] Roscommon Herald, 10/02/1017

[6] Meleady, pp. 275-6

[7] Ibid, p. 274

[8] Lennon, Michael, ‘Looking Backward. Glimpses into Later History’, J.J. O’Connell Papers, National Library of Ireland (NLI) MS 22,117(1)

[9] Irish Independent, 20/04/1917

[10] Lennon

[11] Freeman’s Journal, 20/04/1917

[12] Lennon

[13] Irish Independent, 20/04/1917

[14] Lennon

[15] O’Brien, William (BMH / WS 1766), pp. 105-6

[16] Irish Times, 10/04/1917

[17] O’Brien, pp. 106-7

[18] MacCarthy, Dan (BMH / WS 722), pp. 12-4

[19] Meleady, p. 277

[20] Longford Leader, 14/04/1917

[21] Meleady, p. 277

[22] Ibid, p. 278

[23] Irish Times, 05/05/1917

[24] Ibid, 07/05/1917

[25] O’Shiel, Kevin (BMH / WS 1770, Part 5), pp. 40-1

[26] Irish Times, 07/05/1917

[27] O’Shiel, p. 41

[28] Meleady, p. 278

[29] Irish Times, 07/05/1917

[30] O’Shiel, pp. 41-2

[31] Nugent, Laurence (BMH / WS 907), pp. 98-9

[32] Irish Independent, 07/05/1917

[33] Ginnell, Alice (BMH / WS 982), p. 17

[34] McCartan, Patrick (BMH / WS 766), pp. 63-4

[35] Irish Times, 07/05/1917

[36] Ibid, 08/05/1917

[37] Irish Independent, 08/05/1917

[38] Ibid, 09/05/1917

[39] Ibid, 10/05/1917

[40] Meleady, p. 267

[41] Ibid, p. 271

[42] Ibid, pp. 271-2

[43] McCormack, Michael (BMH / WS 1503), p. 9 ; Nugent, p. 100

[44] Irish Times, 09/05/1917

[45] MacCarthy, p. 14

[46] Ibid, p. 15

[47] O’Shiel, pp. 42-3

[48] MacCarthy, p. 15

[49] Wyse-Power, Charles (BMH / WS 420), p. 14

[50] O’Shiel, p. 43

[51] MacCarthy, p. 15

[52] Irish Times, 11/10/1917 ‘ O’Shiel, p. 44

[53] MacCarthy, pp. 13-4

[54] Longford Leader, 12/05/1917

[55] Good, Joseph (BMH / WS 388), p. 31

[56] Doherty, p. 5

[57] Irish Times, 11/10/1917

[58] Shouldice, John (BMH / WS 679), p. 13

[59] Irish Times, 11/05/1917

Bibliography

Newspapers

Irish Independent

Irish Times

Longford Leader

Roscommon Herald

Book

Meleady, Dermot (ed.) John Redmond: Selected Letters and Memoranda, 1880-1918 (Newbridge, Co. Kildare: Merrion Press, 2018)

Bureau of Military History Statements

Doherty, Bryan, WS 1292

Ginnell, Alice, WS 982

Good, Joseph, WS 388

MacCarthy, Dan, WS 722

McCartan, Patrick, WS 766

McCormack, Michal, WS 1503

Nugent, Laurence, WS 907

O’Brien, William, WS 1766

O’Shiel, Kevin, WS 1770

Shouldice, John, WS 679

Wyse-Power, Charles, WS 420

National Library of Ireland Collection

J.J. O’Connell Papers

An Idolatry of Candidates: Count Plunkett and the North Roscommon By-Election of 1917

Elijah approached the people and said, “How long will you not decide between two choices? If the Lord is the true God, follow him, but if Baal is the true God, follow him!” (1 Kings 18:21)

James J. O’Kelly

‘The Election of the Snows,’ they were to call it in North Roscommon and with good reason. A heavy blizzard had broken out on the Thursday night of the 25^th January 1917, accompanied by a strong wind that resulted in snowdrifts of up to ten to twelve feet in places. The snowfall continued all through Friday and showed no signs of abating by Saturday. Nowhere was the snow any less than two feet in depth except for the few spots that the wind had managed to blow clear.[1]

As abominable as it was, the weather was not enough to deter the armies of canvassers who had descended on Roscommon. Three rival candidates standing in a by-election for a prize too good, with stakes too high for any hesitancy or half-measures.

The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) had sent sixteen of its Members of Parliament (MPs) and forty organisers – as estimated by a local newspaper[2] – to assist its candidate, Thomas J. Devine. That some of these Party partisans hailed from the opposite ends of the country such as Dublin, Belfast and Cork showed the extent of the support that the heirs of Charles Stewart Parnell could still muster.

For almost thirty years, the late James J. O’Kelly had had his constituency in North Roscommon since his initial election as its MP in 1880. The former Fenian-turned-politician had been thirty-five then, a tender age in Westminster terms, but one that belied his personal qualities. “His firm tread and erect carriage told at once that he was a trained soldier, and his flashing blue eyes, deeply-set below a broad, high forehead,” wrote a panegyrical obituary, “told friend and foe alike that here was a man who must be reckoned with.”[3]

He had stood by Parnell during the ‘Divorce Crisis’ of 1890, a minority position which he had paid for when he lost his seat in 1892 to an anti-Parnellite rival. He regained it three years later and, from then on, he was returned unopposed to the North Roscommon constituency until his death.

Those had been the glory days of the IPP, when it had few rivals but itself, but times had changed, the country had moved on, and the party’s dominance was no longer assured. Usurpers and opportunists were sizing up their chances, and O’Kelly’s death on the 22^nd December 1916 was just the opening they needed.

Like the Thane of Cawdor, nothing in O’Kelly’s career, as lengthy and impressive as it was, became him like the leaving of it, as the resulting by-election was to have monumental consequences for the rest of the country.

Boyle, Co. Roscommon, in the blizzard of 1947

Jasper Tully

As the only one of the three candidates to be truly an Independent, Jasper Tully compensated for the lack of party machinery behind him with sheer chutzpah and friendly media coverage. While the IPP workers were working hard to cover every inch of the constituency, Tully announced himself already done and confident of success.[4]

His self-assurance was shared by the Roscommon Herald at least. The newspaper followed his campaign extensively and generously, as well it might, considering how Tully was its editor and proprietor.[5]

The third candidate was not faring too well. That is, if one were to take the Herald at face value. Count George Plunkett was cutting it fine with his arrival in North Roscommon from Dublin on the 1^st February, just two days before polling. His first meeting:

…was very small, and the Count proved to be such a wretched speaker that the people who came to hear him walked off in disgust.[6]

The Count proceeded to Boyle, where his efforts were only a little more successful. His main advocate, Father Michael O’Flanagan, was:

…vigorously groaned, and when he turned on some of the old women who were taunting him, was soon proved to be no march for them with the tongue, and he had to retire crest-fallen.[7]

The truth was, the Herald said, that Count Plunkett was a nice old man but hardly suitable material to represent North Roscommon in Westminster. He had been a Tory all his life, to such an extent that his son, Joseph Mary Plunkett – one of those brave patriots executed ten months earlier – had been unable to live under the same roof as his father and moved out.

Cartoon of Count Plunkett, 1922

The Herald was to spare the Count no mercy in its denunciations, introducing him to its readership under a headline that managed to weld his name and his lack of Roscommon roots into a single jibe: A COUNT BUT NOT A COUNT-Y MAN.

The rest of the Herald’s article gave a brief, derisive summary of the subject’s life so far:

The Count is a venerable old man, nearly seventy years of age, with a long flowing white beard. His father was a builder in Rathmines, and he got his title from Pope Leo the Thirteenth. His son was one of the sixteen shot in the Rebellion.

The Count, who was a Government official, was ordered to reside in England by Sir John Maxwell, but the Count has repeatedly declared in the Press that he had nothing to do with the Rebellion.[8]

It was typical of Tully, for whom the best defence was always attack. His world, in the words of one local historian, was a “welter of animosities, hatreds and personal obsessions.”[9] But then, what else could be expected from a man who, upon the death of his wife, redirected her mail with “Not known at this address. Try Hell”?[10]

Charles Stewart Parnell

His personal temperament notwithstanding, Tully had long been a fixture on the midlands political scene. He had begun as an ally of Parnell, for whom he had worked as an organiser in the Land League. The two men had even shared a prison sentence together in Kilmainham Gaol, which had not stopped Tully from siding with Parnell’s opponents in the 1890 ‘Divorce Crisis’, and it was on an anti-Parnellite platform that he was elected MP for Leitrim South from 1892 to 1906.

Never one to stay out of trouble, he was prosecuted in 1886 for printing an intimidatory article in his Herald. He walked when the jury disagreed on the verdict but, by the following year, he was again in court on more charges of intimidation, and yet again in 1900 when he was finally convicted, and received six months of hard labour – his second spell in jail – for publishing an article inciting people to threaten farmers.

Time and prison did nothing to mellow his temperament. He sabotaged his chances for re-election on an IPP basis in 1905, when he brought a court action to overturn the results of the county and district elections, which had not gone his way. As part of the suit, he accused the successful Party candidates of – among other things – bribery, voter fraud and conspiracy to murder (!).

That the court awarded him damages came at the expense of his bridges with his colleagues being well and truly burned. One of those he had accused was Thomas J. Devine, giving the 1917 North Roscommon by-election the feel of the latest round in a long-running feud.[11]

Thomas J. Devine

Compared to Tully’s Trump-esque behaviour and the near absence of the Count, the IPP seemed a model of demure efficiency. The nomination procedure on the 23^rd January saw the attendance of a sizeable crowd in Boyle, with the encouraging addition of a number of clergymen.

John J. Hayden, the MP for South Roscommon, announced to the delegates the “unanimous selection” in private of Devine as their chosen candidate. Devine had merited the selection on the basis of his impressive curriculum vitae, having been a county councillor, the Chairman of the Executive of the IPP and the County Vice-President of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.

Attendees who had been hoping to have an actual say in the choosing process were to be disappointed. The Irish Party had never been a particularly open organisation and it was not about to change.

Hayden next had the task of outlining to the convention attendees the party agenda. With considerable understatement, he told them that “a great many things had occurred since the beginning of the war which must obtain their most careful consideration.”

The first point to consider was an agricultural one: the breaking up of hitherto uncultivated land, with a warning against landowners who tried to tempt tenants into tilling their soil without any intention of selling of them. Having spearheaded one of the great triumphs of Irish politics in the form of the Land War and the resultant improvements for tenant farmers, the Party was loathe to risk such hard-worn gains.

The second point, and the other legacy to safeguard, was “the great question of National Self-Government,” namely Home Rule.

John Redmond

After many years of toil in the debating-hall of Westminster, John Redmond and his cohorts had at last succeeded in passing the Bill for Home Rule into law. Many had been sneering throughout the long wait, doubting it would ever come about.

But these cynics and scoffers had been proven wrong. Home Rule was no longer a domestic concern but an international question, with the attention of not only Irish and British statesmen but those from around the world. There was to be an Imperial Conference next month in London, and here Ireland would be one of the issues on the table for discussion.

Should that question come up, how could Ireland best safeguard her interests? Was it by having one constituency represented one way and another in another way; was it by men responsible only to themselves, or was  it by having a strong, disciplined, united party of proved and tried Nationalists representing each and every part of Ireland?[12]

It was a simple, if transparent, tactic: an appeal to unity in the pursuit of a common goal. The question remained, however, as to whether it would be enough.

The Irish Nation League

The opposition, meanwhile, was far from idle themselves. Four days before the IPP Convention, Laurence Ginnell, the Independent MP for North Westmeath, and Father O’Flanagan, the curate for Rossna, had opened the Plunkett campaign with a meeting of their own in Castlerea on the 19^th January.[13] The two men quickly became the backbone of the Plunkett campaign, with Ginnell contributing his considerable experience in politics, much of which had been spent in defiance of the establishment, whether Britain’s or the Irish Party’s.

Laurence Ginnell

He had been a member of the latter until 1909, when he had resigned over his colleagues’ overly casual attitudes towards party funds. A demand at a closed-doors session to see a statement of finances resulted in him being locked out of the room; in return, he stood as an Independent in North Westmeath the following year and – with sweet vindication – defeated the IPP choice by a large margin.

The Party responded by passing a resolution “excluding all factionists,” although it is unlikely that the target of their ire cared much. Likewise, Ginnell’s win as a lone wolf did not seriously challenge the IPP’s hegemony over the country’s politics.[14]

A rebel ever in search of a cause – one historian described him as an “unpopular and a lonely figure” at Westminster but one whose courage and sincerity was never in doubt[15] – Ginnell found two in the wake of the Easter Rising: post hoc support for the rebellion, and a rekindling of his ire towards former colleagues. As a speaker at an anti-Partition rally in Belfast on the 18^th July 1916, he accused the IPP of “trying to throw dust in the people’s eyes” in its alleged consent towards “the proposal for the destruction of Ireland.”

The danger of Partition was an obvious matter of concern in the Ulster counties, and in Derry the Anti-Partition League was formed in July, becoming the Irish Nation League a month later. Its stated intent was to be “thoroughly democratic” and, of particular importance, free from the influence of the IPP.[16]

Originating as a Northern phenomenon, the League achieved some success in the rest of the country, holding its first Dublin meeting on the 10^th September in Phoenix Park. A large crowd listened as resolution after resolution was adopted, calling for the immediate release of political prisoners, conscription to be resisted, and full and complete self-government for the country without division. All Irish Party MPs were to resign their seats and make way for fresh elections.

‘A Nation Once Again’ was sung at the end, and a stream of young men left the Park to march along the Quays, singing rebel songs and waving tricolours. Two branches of the League were swiftly formed in Dublin, one each for the North and South sides, followed by another in Limerick. Having found a receptive audience for its message, the League seemed poised to seriously challenge the IPP as the mouthpiece of the country.[17]

Publication by the Irish Nation League

Laurence Ginnell

As one of its founding members, Ginnell provided his services to the League when he could, such as speaking at a Limerick rally at the beginning of October.[18] His work as an MP was similarly eventful, being suspended several times from the House of Common, one of them being in July for refusing to withdraw his accusations towards the military authorities of a number of misdeeds during the Easter Rising, namely bombarding the Cumann-na-mBan headquarters and mistreating its nurses.

He later apologised and regained access to the Commons on the 17^th October. His contrition did not last long, and the Irish Times noted later in the month that he was “beginning to reassert himself, and his questions are once again becoming as difficult, not to say offensive, as of old.”[19]

As if all this was not enough, Ginnell was also busy visiting the barracks in England where the prisoners from the Easter Rising were kept. He brought the inmates cigarettes and papers, and left with their forbidden letters smuggled on his person.[20]

Copy of a speech made by Laurence Ginnell in Westminster concerning the Rising

What had him barred from any further visits was his telling the prisoners that they were martyrs for Ireland. Ginnell resorted to signing the prison visitors’ book with the Irish equivalent of his name, ‘Labras MacFingail.’ Convicted of obtaining admission under false pretences, Ginnell was given the choice of either a fine or three weeks’ imprisonment. Possibly inspired by the example of the prisoners, a defiant Ginnell opted for jail.[21]

A day after his conviction was upheld on the 10^th October, a meeting by the Irish Nation League in Dublin broke up amongst scenes of chaos, the ostensible point of contention being who should take the chair for the occasion. The one who eventually gained the chair took the opportunity to denounce the leaders of the League as undemocratic and acting against the interests of the country. The ill-fated meeting was adjourned for an indefinite period. The Freeman’s Journal reported this in gloating terms; unsurprisingly so, given that it was a mouthpiece for the IPP.[22]

Kevin O’Shiel, a Tyrone-born barrister, authored The Rise of the Irish Nation League, to help explain the new organisation. The booklet ended with a call for “sincere patriots [to] join it in their thousands,” with a promise that “there is a place in its ranks for every good Irish man and every good Irish girl,” but said good Irishmen and girls suddenly did not seem so inclined to accept the invitation.[23]

The Dublin branches struggled on as best they could, but the League ultimately gained little support in the city or elsewhere in the country outside of its Ulster origins. O’Shiel retrospectively attributed its difficulties to its attempts to “give constitutionalism a final chance” when constitutionalism had had its day: “We in the Nation League were speaking a political language that had become archaic in six months, and we were talking that archaic tongue in an atmosphere that was changing rapidly even while we spoke.”[24]

Factional disputes and disagreements on the best course of action furthered sapped morale. After such a promising start, the League was about to grind to a halt. It is thus unsurprising that Ginnell and the rest of the League should turn their energies to a fresh battleground in North Roscommon.

Laurence Ginnell

Ginnell was initially unsure on which one candidate to support. He received a letter from Tully on the 12^th January 1917, saying he had been pressed to stand in North Roscommon (that he had needed much pressing is unlikely), and with request for his help. As Tully had been one of his few supporters in his 1910 election to North Westmeath, this was not an appeal he could easily ignore.

The next day, Alice Ginnell travelled to Oxford, to where the Count had been deported after the Rising. She asked him if he too had been approached to stand in the North Roscommon by-election and, if so, had he agreed. The answer was ‘yes’ to both.

Still undecided, Ginnell left London for Ireland on the 17^th. When he arrived in Boyle on the night train, two motorcars were waiting for him, one from Tully and the other from Father Michael O’Flanagan.

Ginnell chose to go in Tully’s but then had a “very unsatisfactory interview” with his old ally. In a petty display of power, Tully had Ginnell refused admittance to a hotel that the candidate owned, forcing the MP to stay the night in a private house. A second interview two days later went no better. In her reminisces, Alice Ginnell gives no reason for the suddenly strained relationship between the two men, saying only that her husband was extremely upset at being unable to repay his former friend for his past services.[25]

Whatever the cause, Ginnell now committed himself to the Count. He would soon display his prowess as a campaigner, walking ten miles through the cutting weather from Boyle to Elphin to address a crowd there. In contrast, a group of young pro-Plunkettites left Roscommon town by motorcar in an attempt to clear a path with shovels, but were forced to turn back. Experience took no second place to youth, it seemed.[26]

Laurence Ginnell (left) with Count Plunkett (right), Roscommon, 1917

Father Michael O’Flanagan

Tully did not waste time mourning the loss of his friendship with Ginnell. When the Roscommon Herald announced Plunkett’s candidacy, it did so almost in passing:

The Count is standing for North Roscommon as the nominee of the recently formed place-hunting Irish Nation League, which is usually called the “League of the Seven Attorneys,” as it is run by seven Attorneys in the North of Ireland who were disappointed in getting places from the last Government.[27]

(The use of the sobriquet ‘League of the Seven Attorneys’ to mock the Irish Nation League – due to the abundance of attorneys and barristers like O’Shiel in its ranks – was not original to the Herald. O’Shiel attributed an otherwise obscure Donegal-based newspaper for the nickname, which was quickly taken up by others.[28])

Father Michael O’Flanagan

Significantly, Sinn Féin was nowhere mentioned. At the time it was less of a coherent entity and more, as O’Shiel described, the “extremely variegated and anti-Irish Party Nationalism.” Instead, O’Shiel was in no doubt that the Plunkett campaign originated from Father O’Flanagan: “That remarkable, brilliant and most eloquent young man.”[29]

O’Flanagan’s energy and indefatigability made him almost a one-man movement, inspiring the Irish Times – which was far from sympathetic to the Plunkett cause in general – to describe him in almost Biblical terms:

For twelve days and nights he was up and down the constituency, going like a whirlwind and talking in impassioned language to the people at every village and street corner and cross-roads where he could get people to listen to him.[30]

Having delivered the burial service at the iconic public funeral for Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa in 1915, O’Flanagan was an experienced performer. He was shrewd enough to base his message in North Roscommon on the then overriding concern to all: the fear that conscription into the British Army for its war in Europe would be imposed on Ireland.

Conscription, so O’Flanagan said, would have been implemented already had it not been for the Rising. As one of the Count’s sons had been executed and another two imprisoned for their roles in that rebellion, ergo, a vote for the Count was a blow against conscription.

How one would lead to the other was not explained in any great detail. After all, conscription was still an issue and it was not as if Plunkett was proposing another uprising. But then, few political messages have suffered from oversimplification.

Anti-conscription cartoon

Whatever his deficiencies as an analyst, O’Flanagan more than made up for them with his gift for imagery. It was easier for the young men, so he told his rapt audiences, to carry their father to the polls to vote for Plunkett than it would be for them to serve as conscripts in France. The potential of youth to make a difference and the bridging of generations for a worthy cause were favoured themes of O’Flanagan’s, to which he would return.[31]

The padre was also unafraid to get down into the mire with an opponent. He responded at one meeting to Tully’s printed mockeries with some fighting words of his own. Tully, he said, did not love his country. Tully had always been a trimmer and was not fit to clean the Count’s shoes (cheers). As for the Count, he did not get his title from England but from the Pope (more cheers). O’Flanagan appealed to every man, woman and child in the parish to assist Count Plunkett, a cultured Irish Catholic, and thus honour the memory of the dead who died for Ireland (cheers again) – a clear reference to those of Easter Week. The Plunkett campaign was finding that a connection to the Rising was a political boon that its rivals could not hope to duplicate.[32]

Father O’Flanagan with audience

The Freeman’s Journal

The nominations for the three candidates in Boyle on the 26^th January made the three-way nature of the contest official. The Freeman’s Journal stressed the unanimous selection of Devine at the IPP convention and praised him as a “man of proved record in the National fight,” by which he meant the Home Rule movement.

For Tully, the paper had nothing but scorn, pointing out that he could have put himself forward at the same convention like the others but he did not: “Probably because he knew he would not be selected.” His running as an Independent, therefore, could “only be regarded as a wanton attempt to divide the constitutional forces in the consistency.”

For Plunkett, the Freeman showed a certain grudging respect, acknowledging that his candidacy was a “direct challenge to the policy of the Irish Party, and is, therefore, an issue clear and well-defined.” Unlike Tully’s Roscommon Herald, the Freeman refrained from a direct attack on the Count, at least at first.

Instead, it waxed lyrically about the record of the late James J. O’Kelly: “one of the old Fenian Guard who had kept fully the spirit of Ireland alive in the darkest and most evil days” until his conversion to “the great policy of constitutionalism which Parnell had undertaken.”

O’Kelly had proceeded to traverse the length and width of Roscommon. He had done so before as a revolutionary, drawing converts to the Fenian cause, but upon his metanoia, he made instead followers to the path of parliamentarism. This was a course which would, no doubt, settle for good the pressing question of Irish self-rule. The candidacy of Count Plunkett was a divergence from this course, one that could only set back the gains made already.

The Freeman made a plea for consistency: “The men who were represented so faithfully and so long by James O’Kelly will not consent to be represented by anyone except a man who will honestly and loyally follow in his footsteps”  – a man like Devine, in other words.

John Redmond addressing a meeting

In contrast to such a heritage, Plunkett did not seem to represent much. Until his deportation to England for the Rising – something the newspaper informed its readers he seemed to have had no sympathy for – he had been a Government official, making him an unlikely Sinn Feiner. Attempting to strike a tone of judicious concern, the Freeman concluded:

It is certainly much to be hoped that the doubt which now exists will be cleared up without delay, for, in the present circumstances, the Count would appear to stand for nothing and nobody but himself.[33]

So what *did* Plunkett stand for? By himself, very little, as readily admitted by many of his supporters in the years afterwards, with one remarking that “we youngsters…did not care what the Count did so long as he was elected.”[34] Another thought at the time that the Count did not need a political platform of his own, as simply being the father of an Easter Rising martyr would be sufficient.[35]

And there lay the secret of Plunkett’s appeal. In dismissing him as an empty vessel, the Freeman and other critics were entirely missing the point. The candidate was not intended to be himself but as a cup for others to pour into.

Election badge

John Hayden

The IPP’s adherents would attempt further to hammer away at Count Plunkett’s radical credentials. The Freeman’s Journal scorned Tully’s campaign tactics as abusive and crude – “in thoroughly characteristic fashion” for him – but the IPP, when push came to shove, proved to be not so above it all, after all.

John Hayden, the South Roscommon MP, told a rally in Boyle that he had in his pocket a letter:

…written by Count Plunkett saying he was in total ignorance of what was taking place [during the Rising], and that he spent Easter Week taking charge and looking after the property of the Government in the Dublin Museum of which he had charge. He apologies for the conduct of his sons in that affair, because, he says, they were mere boys.

Plunkett’s policy was not in keeping with the rebels of Easter Week and thus not in line with that of Sinn Féin. What then was his policy? As for Tully, he stood only for himself, and without a party or wider movement behind him, what could he hope to achieve alone?

Hayden closed his speech with an exhortation to “stand by the policy of Parnell and James O’Kelly, to stand by a united and disciplined Irish Party…and thus show that no policy of any sort or kind, whether it be Sinn Fein, Irish Nation League or Tullyism will be tolerated in opposition to a pledge-bound Irish Party.” Such language spoke much about the mindset of the IPP and how it still saw itself as the only viable option for the nationalist vote.[36]

The Roscommon Messenger sided with Devine. While it had not previously covered the election in any great detail, its edition for the 3^rd February – timed for the day of the vote – made its allegiance explicit with a list of reasons to support the candidate:

• He was the unanimous choice of the IPP Convention, or the “Convention of the people,” as the newspaper phrased it.
• He supported the constitutional movement of Parnell, Michael Davitt and James O’Kelly, “which had proven effective for the winning of every reform demanded by the Irish Party.”

Repeating much of what the IPP machine had already said, the Messenger dismissed Tully as representing no party and no politics. Plunkett had been drawing “a Government salary for looking after old fossils, bones and stuffed birds in the Dublin Museum.” He would find North Roscommon, the paper warned, a tougher prospect to deal with than his dead birds and antiquarian knick-knacks.[37]

Another local newspaper, the Roscommon Journal, was not so obliging, and took a gloating pleasure in recording the mishaps of F.E. Meehan. The MP for North Leitrim was speaking on behalf of Devine in Loughglynn when he was challenged to answer one question.

When Meehan consented to do so, he was asked: “How many recruitment speeches did you make on recruiting platforms?”

“Oh, that has nothing to do with the election,” Meehan replied.

“Oh, yes, it has,” said his challenger from the crowd. With the looming threat of conscription, anything to do with the British Army was now treated as the mark of Cain. When Meehan declined to answer any further, his audience, according to the Journal with a frisson of schadenfreude, “melted away from him and he was left a bird alone in the snow.”[38]

Tullyism

The Roscommon Journal had already decided to align itself with Tully. It joined the Herald in its generous coverage of the man, including the number of notable endorsements he had earned, such as Father Monaghan. The priest appealed to the voters of Fairymount district to support the Independent candidate, citing his previous record of fighting against high taxation while on Roscommon County Council.

The Boyle Town Commissioners also came out in support, describing Tully, who happened to be their chairman, as a “devoted and worthy man…one whose effort has been to improve the condition of the country, and of the people amongst whom he lives.” Tully may not have had a party or policy to call his own but he did at least know how to use his local contacts.[39]

He decided to make up for lost canvassing time by addressing two large meetings, one after another, in Boyle on the 27^th January. The first was an open-air event in the town centre, notable mainly for the arrival of a small band of disrupters from Sligo who were quickly driven away. Tully and his listeners then withdrew inside a hall for his second hearing.

Boyle, Co. Roscommon, in the blizzard of 1947

Never short of bravado, he told his listeners that his canvassing was already done (not that he had been doing too much of it to begin with). Everybody in the constituency knew him and everything that could be said for or against him. The IPP had sent sixteen MPs and forty organisers against him, but where were they now? All snowed under, unable to do anything but warm their toes at hotel fires. Just as Napoleon could fight everything but the snow, so was the sixteen horse power MP machine of John Redmond helpless against the elements.

An unwise heckler felt the edge of Tully’s tongue: “I hope, Mr Rafferty, you will try to restrain yourself. You are now trying to pose as a Sinn Feiner, while your brother is out in the trenches fighting for England.”

To general laughter, he proceeded to taunt the “little sham of Sinn Feiners” in the Plunkett camp, painting a lurid picture of them kissing and hugging the Sherwood Foresters who had pacified the country after the Rising. “These twopenny, halfpenny, tin-whistlers were great fighters now with their mouths,” he sneered.[40]

Contrary to what they may have heard, Tully told his audience, the Count had not been put forward by Sinn Féin. After all, Sinn Féin did not believe in Parliamentary elections, and if a real Sinn Féiner was to be elected, he would not sit, so why would one be running in the first place? That left just him, a local boy, the only one who could hope to do a particle of good for North Roscommon.

Seconding Tully on the platform was M.J. Judge. As a member of the Irish Volunteers (one of the very few to support a candidate other than Plunkett), that alone gave him some weight.  Judge quickly picked up Tully’s thread: it was not Sinn Féin but the ‘League of the Seven Attorneys’ who were behind the Plunkett campaign. Each of these said attorneys was only interested in obtaining an easy job in the government, and would use Roscommon as a bargaining chip towards this.

Tully announced himself happy to step down in favour of a “real Sinn Feiner” but not for a man who, before becoming a government servant, was:

…always known in Dublin as an amiable old Whig. He is now a very feeble old man, and a delicate man. It is really the Dublin people who should take him up for Parliament, if he is anxious for a seat, but I do not believe he knows anything about North Roscommon except seeing it on the map.[41]

Tully cited Eoin MacNeill as an example of a ‘real Sinn Feiner” for whom he would be willing to move aside. As the imprisoned Chief of Staff to the Irish Volunteers was unlikely to be in Roscommon anytime soon, Tully could happily make such empty promises.[42]

Sinn Féin

It was notable that Tully made the point of criticising those purporting to be of Sinn Féin rather than the party itself, an indication in itself of the direction in the public mood. The first time the name of Sinn Féin was raised in connection with the election was the report by the Roscommon Herald in the first week of January 1917 about rumours in local Sinn Féin circles of running someone for the election.

While this possible candidate remained anonymous, the paper did drop hints as to his identity:

The gentleman’s name is one of the most important – if not the most important of the leaders of the Irish Volunteer movement. He is now undergoing penal servitude in England as a result of trial and sentence by courtmartial in Dublin.[43]

Although this gentleman’s name would never be confirmed, the clues would point towards it being Eoin MacNeill. There was also a mention of efforts to entice Dr Michael Davitt, son and namesake of the famed Land League founder, to stand but other than his refusal upon his mother’s objections, no further details were given.

The following week’s edition of the Herald told of how a “Mr O’Doherty of Dublin” had been in Boyle and other parts of North Roscommon, bearing a petition to invite Count Plunkett to stand in the constituency for Sinn Féin.

Despite the novelty of Sinn Féin running for a parliament whose authority it repudiated, interest in the petition was mostly limited to its possible short-term consequences. There was fear that the petition would bring down the wrath of the authorities in the form of wholesale arrests. Sympathisers of Sinn Féin argued instead that it would assist in freeing the prisoners from the Rising.[44]

Seamus and Kitty O’Doherty

The “Mr. O’Doherty of Dublin” was Seamus O’Doherty, actually from Derry. He would become the director of elections for Count Plunkett, at least in name, for Father O’Flanagan seems to have been that in effect. Indeed, the priest and O’Doherty wrote the Count’s election address in the latter’s house, according to his wife, Kitty.

Seamus had first obtained from the Count assurance that he stood on the platform of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. Given that the Count had lost a son on account of the Rising, with two others imprisoned over it, he was hardly going to refute their efforts.

It is unknown if O’Doherty took the time to inform Plunkett of his role as acting head of the reorganised Supreme Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), the Count himself having been sworn into the IRB a few weeks before the Rising. Despite O’Doherty’s status, the rest of the Council did not approve of his forays into electoral politics and refused the Plunkett campaign access to their funds. Regardless of this setback, O’Doherty was still able to contact IRB cells in Roscommon and persuade them to assist him in the election.[45]

‘Sceilg’

J.J. O’Kelly ‘Sceilg’

The journalist J.J. O’Kelly (also known by his penname ‘Sceilg’) gave his own account of the baby steps of the Plunkett-Sinn Féin campaign. He had spoken at a Sinn Féin conference in North Roscommon, organised by – who else? – Father O’Flanagan. The name of Dr Michael Davitt had been put forward and approved by the majority of those present. O’Kelly had returned to his office in O’Connell Street, Dublin, where he was followed by O’Flanagan. Davitt had declined the offer, so O’Flanagan proposed another candidate.

As editor of the Catholic Bulletin, an officer in the Gaelic League and a participant in the Irish National Aid and Volunteer Dependants’ Fund, O’Kelly was a man of some influence. But it was the priest – according to O’Kelly – who decided on Plunkett as their replacement.[46]

O’Kelly knew the Count already, both having served on the committee for the Society of the Preservation of the Irish Language, and had visited his Dublin house many times in the past.[47] O’Kelly wrote that same evening to his old friend in Oxford with the offer to stand (a letter from O’Kelly discussing the matter would date this to early January[48]).

This would clash somewhat with Kitty O’Doherty’s version, in which it was her husband who did the bulk of the preliminary work. Whoever was responsible, Sinn Féin now had their man.

That Sinn Féin would become synonymous with the Plunkett campaign was surprising to many. There was, after all, not much to Sinn Féin at the time. As a party, it was “practically non-existent,” in the opinion of one Plunkettite canvasser, to the point of it not being mentioned in any of the campaign speeches.[49]

Kevin O’Shiel

O’Shiel, took a similarly dim view of Sinn Féin, describing it as being defined less by what it was and more by what it was not: “the then extremely variegated and anti-Irish Party Nationalism.”

Nonetheless, according to O’Doherty, his petition was able to attract the signatures of “hundreds of prominent people.” This may be something of an exaggeration, given how newspapers like the Freeman’s Journal and the Roscommon Herald – both usually so attuned to potential threats to their respective candidates – failed to mention the petition in anything more than passing terms.[50]

Regardless, the petition was enough to kick-start the Plunkettite drive. It made no mention of the Rising – somewhat surprisingly, given its ex post facto popularity – or any specific Sinn Féin policies, preferring instead to keep things simple:

We declare our adhesion to the doctrine of Ireland a Nation which has been handed down to us by our fathers. We believe that the Irish Nation has as much right to freedom as any other nation. The fact that the Great Powers at present warring on the continent of Europe have again and again appealed to this principle of Nationality is clear proof of its potential moral power.

We believe that at the present moment Ireland has a magnificent chance of reaching the goal of freedom by merely insisting on her National claims and making them known throughout the world. In this way we can secure a hearing before the Nations when they assemble at the end of the war to re-build civilisation upon its new basis.[51]

It was, in O’Shiel’s unromantic opinion, an “innocuous enough if pathetically hopeful statement, and, as a declaration of policy, extremely vague and shadowy.”[52]

An issue that the petition neglected to touch upon was that of abstentionism. It was a keystone to Sinn Féin’s policy but not one that the rest of the Count’s supporters – the majority of them, in O’Shiel’s estimation – were willing to accept, at least not yet. Plunkett himself had said nothing on the issue, but then, he had said nothing about anything beyond agreeing to stand. Not that anyone seemed overly concerned with clarifying the matter with him. It was a question best left unasked in the meantime for the sake of everyone getting along.

O’Shiel travelled to Roscommon on the 31^st January, more on behalf of the Irish Nation League than Sinn Féin. He reached Boyle after an extremely cold and uncomfortable journey, and stayed in the only hotel that was open to a Plunkettite (lodgings, as well as newspapers, could be used as weapons of politics). The next day, he travelled by motorcar to Carrick-on-Shannon, where the Count was due to come by train from Dublin.

This journey was as arduous as the one before, the driver having to occasionally dig a way through the snowdrifts on the road with a shovel. Despite the conditions, O’Shiel was impressed to see the number of people also making their way to the station. Some of these fellow travellers were wearing the newly fashionable colours of green, white and orange in buttonholes, or carrying flags of the same tricolour.

O’Shiel arrived to join the large and enthusiastic crowd that greeted Count Plunkett as he stepped off the train, accompanied by one of his daughters, Seamus O’Doherty and two priests. The crowd was largely a youthful one, which surprised O’Shiel, accustomed as he was to the predominance of the middle-aged and elderly in political meetings. Young women as well as lads were in attendance, an oddity for the times, and indicative of the new feeling that was sweeping the country.[53]

The Young

Many of these young attendees were more than just passive observers. Groups of them paraded the streets on a nightly basis, singing such rousing doggerel such as:

Hurrah for Plunkett,

Ring out the slogan call.

The Count’s our man,

He leads the van for Ireland over all.[54]

Even the disagreeable weather could be utilised as another campaign tool, with the omnipresent snowfall providing a canvass for campaign slogans to be traced then filled in with ash. This created such a stark impression that passers-by could not help but read such exhortations like:

Don’t vote for Tully,

Or you will sully

The name and fame of the men who died,

For Tully’s mixture is not a fixture,

And so is Tom Devine’s.[55]

For many patriotically-minded youths, the election was a welcome relief from the listlessness around them. Roscommon had been entirely unprepared for the Rising, and when nothing of note had happened during Easter Week, the county seemed doomed to remain a revolutionary backwater.

Twenty-two year old Patrick Mullooly was sitting by the fire with some friends when someone came in to tell them that Father O’Flanagan was in the local hall at Kiltrustan. They went there to find a guest speaker regaling the audience with tales of the fighting during Easter Week.

When the newcomer was done, O’Flanagan leapt on stage to point at the Banner of St Patrick hanging on the wall. The priest pointed at the rallying cry on the foot of the flag – “Freedom comes from God’s right hand and needs a godly train and righteous men must make our land a Nation Once Again” – and said in a near-shout: “If you do not believe in those words, tear down that banner of St Patrick and trample on it!”

Nothing could have been better calculated to bring about the desired response. As Mullooly remembered it:

This evoked tremendous enthusiasm, everyone springing to their feet and cheering loudly and as the young men went home over the hills that night, you could hear their defiant cheers echoing from hill to hill.[56]

What made such efforts so notable – besides anyone choosing to stay outdoors after dark in such temperatures at all – was that most of these young men would not be able to contribute a vote and women of any age not all. Universal suffrage would not come into effect in Ireland until the following year in the 1918 general election.

Yet still they turned out to help at almost every opportunity. Father O’Flanagan and O’Shiel in particular had reason to be grateful when their motorcar was stuck in a windscreen-high snowdrift and soon dug out by a group of young men at hand from the local Irish Volunteers.[57]

The Irish Volunteers

The role played by the Volunteers was another innovation, though there had been doubt that they would be involved at all. The trade unionist William O’Brien was discussing the state of the country with Arthur Griffith when the subject of the ongoing by-election came up. O’Brien remembered how a vacancy had occurred in the West Cork constituency, near the end of the previous year. The Volunteers there had opposed the running of a Republican candidate, resulting in a win by the IPP. In light of that example, O’Brien told Griffith that he doubted that the Volunteers would be any more accommodating in North Roscommon.[58]

He would be proved wrong. Young men from the Irish Volunteers became a familiar sight during the election. They canvassed voters, collected funds and stood on guard at meetings, not to mention the simple but essential task of shovelling snow off the roads, lest potential voters be blocked from their civic right.

It was not all for the sake of democracy. Electioneering duties also provided a convenient cover for organising the Volunteers in areas that had up to then been neglected. One Volunteer from Longford would remember such work as very much an ad hoc, albeit productive, one, with him travelling through North Roscommon with others in motorcars, arranging meetings and setting up impromptu units whenever they had the chance.[59]

Another worker, Seán Leavy, only joined the Volunteers when he began assisting in the Plunkett campaign. He was inducted in with a minimal of fuss, with no oaths taken or ceremony stood on, just a membership card provided and the duty of organising a company in Leavy’s home parish of Scramogue, Roscommon.

Leavy not only succeeded in Scramogue but helped set up similar companies in Strokestown, Cloonfree, Carnistra, Curraghroe, Tarmonbarry, Kilbrustan and Northyard, as well as smaller units in Slatta, Kilglass and Rooskey. The companies were initially small but they would provide bases from which to work on in the near future.[60]

There is no indication that there was any central leadership in the Volunteers directing operations. Members joined in, as individuals or in groups, as the mood took them, and the mood was a heady one indeed.

The experiences of Michael Staines were not untypical. Freshly released from Frognoch Camp for his part in the Rising, Staines obtained a position in the National Aid Association. As part of this, he toured the country to investigate claims for assistance from the dependants of those killed on the Easter Week, while taking the opportunity to help reorganise Volunteer companies as he found them.

Michael Staines

On the suggestion of his friend, Seamus O’Doherty (he of the petition), he dropped by Roscommon to assist in the Plunkett campaign, one of his roles being to meet Michael Judge. Judge was one of the few Volunteers not to side with the Plunkett, instead sharing a platform with his chosen candidate, Jaspar Tully. Staines was tasked with persuading Judge to withdraw from helping Tully any further but such efforts floundered when the other man failed to arrive for their agreed appointment.

He had more success convincing some others, upon a brief return to Dublin, to come and assist in Roscommon. Staines was to be one of the two pro-Plunkett workers in the village of Frenchpark on polling day, the other being a certain Michael Collins. It was the first time the two of them met, making the election, amongst other things, a valuable time to make acquaintances and establish contacts.[61]

The Results

Then fire from the Lord came down and burned the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the ground around the altar. It also dried up the water in the ditch. When all the people saw this, they fell down to the ground, crying. (1 Kings 18:38-39)

The tallying of the votes began at 10 am on the Saturday of the 3^rd February, to be finished by noon and announced to a waiting crowd. Attendance was a heroic feat in itself. Fences along the public roads and through fields were smothered under blankets of snow, and any landmarks that could have provided direction had been covered from sight. On a number of occasions, intrepid travellers who had attempted to bypass the blocked roads by striking out over the fields were almost swallowed up by snow-obscured drains.[62]

Despite such inclement conditions, supporters of both Devine and Plunkett announced themselves confident of success. Tully was more restrained for once, merely expressing the opinion that he had done “very well.” The Freeman’s Journal had already identified the contest as between Devine and the Count, relegating Tully to the status of an irrelevance. On both accounts, the IPP organ would prove prescient.[63]

When it came to deciding the contest, it turned out that the results, as they were read out that Monday, were not even close:

Count George Plunkett – 3,022

Thomas J. Devine – 1,708

Jaspar Tully – 687

It was not so much a win and a loss as a triumph by one and crushing defeats for the others. None could have been more surprised than the winner. For all the fighting talk, no one in the Plunkett camp – other than the irrepressible Father O’Flanagan – had really thought they had a chance of actually winning.[64]

Count Plunkett

The victor began by proposing a vote of thanks to the election officials for carrying out their duties in a most admirable manner. He was equally gracious to his two opponents, towards which he held no ill will. The election had tested the integrity of Irish democracy. After all, a Dubliner had just been elected by Roscommon men – perfect evidence of the firmness, fairness and justice of the proceedings. As for North Roscommon, if it had been sleeping before, it was awake now at last.

With considerable emotion, the beaten Devine spoke next. He seconded the vote of thanks to the officials. The other candidates and he were on the best of terms, and it was his wish that no bitterness remained. While otherwise a fair loser, Devine did express his view that his side had been handicapped but declined to elaborate.

In keeping with his past conduct, Tully gave the most verbose speech out of the three. Despite finding himself at the bottom of the poll, he professed to be delighted at the result as it meant the defeat of the Party machine, his votes totalling with the Count’s as the voice of North Roscommon defying the IPP.

It is doubtful that Plunkett really needed Tully’s share of the votes in order to send such a message. It might also be marvelled at the ease in which Tully switched from Plunkett as the target of his insults to the stricken IPP, mocking John Redmond, as “weak” and “wretched.”

The Roscommon Herald followed the direction of its owner. Two cartoons printed side by side caricatured the IPP’s mishaps, the first showing the IPP in the form of a crocodile arriving at Roscommon with a Union Jack waving in its tail, the other with the Party as a whimpering dog being given the boot.[65]

Plaque on the wall of Boyle Courthouse in commemoration on the election, reading: “In this Courthouse on February 3rd 1917, George Noble Count Plunkett was elected Sinn Fein M.P. for North Roscommon. His election was the first step in breaking the parliamentary links with England.”

The Post-Mortem by the Irish Times

The Irish Times identified the victor’s success as being due to a combination of conscription fears, which Father O’Flanagan had relentlessly played on, and the appeal to people’s sentiments concerning the Rising, which Plunkett undoubtedly had a claim to by his family’s involvement alone.

In contrast, the once-mighty, now flaccid election machine of the IPP could barely compete, particularly when compared to the impassioned speeches and tireless work done by Father O’Flanagan. But he was not the only man of the cloth swayed to new ways, with the Irish Times noting the “curious change in the attitude of the younger clergy.”

While the IPP convention where Devine was nominated had been attended by a large number of priests, these tended to be mature in years. Their younger colleagues, on the other hand, were notable by their absence. Father O’Flanagan’s entry into the Plunkett campaign – at least openly so, for it is clear that the curate was there from the start – was followed by several other clerics of similar age. From there, said the Irish Times with the benefit of hindsight, “it merely became a question of Count Plunkett’s majority.”

In the event of a general election, the Irish Times predicted that the IPP would be “swept out of three-fourths of their seats in rural Ireland.” The newspaper could scarcely hide its horror at such a possibility but felt compelled to state it all the same.[66]

The sign of things to come: Count Plunkett (second from the right) with Éamon de Valera (centre) and Arthur Griffith (far left)

The Post-Mortem by Father O’Flanagan

While at polar opposite ends politically, Father O’Flanagan’s pen-portrait of the election was broadly in agreement with the Irish Times’. Writing a month afterwards in an article for the Catholic Bulletin (no doubt with the encouragement of its editor, J.J. O’Kelly), O’Flanagan told of meeting a six year-old boy as the former was walking down the empty streets of Strokestown one morning. As the priest passed by, the boy looked up from where he was playing in the snow and called out: “Up Plunkett!”

When O’Flanagan asked what the other was doing, the lad replied: “Making graves.”

Pointing to the two little mounds he had made in the snow, he explained: “That’s Tully and that’s Devine.”

When O’Flanagan pointed out that both of those two names were still alive, the boy clarified: “No, but we’re pretending they’re dead,” before turning to resume in his play.[67]

Illustration from the Catholic Bulletin

Another anecdote concerned the elderly. One octogenarian refused to avail of the motorcar provided by the Plunkettites to take him to the polling booth. Instead, he waited for a vehicle from the Devine camp as he felt entitled to a trip at the IPP’s expense. As he left the booth, having completed his democratic duty, the old timer finally gave vent with a cheer for Plunkett (and was left to walk back home).[68]

To O’Flanagan, the secret behind the North Roscommon win was a simple but profound one: “The enthusiasm of the young was wonderful, but the enthusiasm of the old was more wonderful still.”[69]

Count George Plunkett

Perhaps the final word should go the Inspector-General of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Trained to follow the happenings throughout the country, the policeman eschewed the lengthy analysis of the Irish Times and the folksy myth-making of Father O’Flanagan. Instead, he kept his report to Dublin Castle short and crisp:

It is reported that Count Plunkett’s supporters appeared to work much harder than those of the other candidates, but one of the principal features of the election is that many persons, including a number of priests, who had not hitherto shown Sinn Fein sympathies, identified themselves on this occasion with the Sinn Feiners.[70]

At the end of the day, the diverse collection of renegades, radicals and revolutionaries who rallied behind the Plunkett banner had wanted to win more than their opponents. In addition, they had been able to convert the ordinary mass of voters to their brand of nationalism, one that seemed fresher and more appetising than the stale, Home Rule-flavoured kind peddled by the Irish Party for so – for too? – long.

There could only have been one result. But, as wonderful as it might have been, the question was now what the victor would do with it. As for the groups who had trudged through the snow on his behalf – Sinn Féin, the Irish Nation League, the Irish Volunteers, even the IRB – the Count had given no indication as to where he stood with any of them.

Did he share their beliefs or follow their ideals? Did he agree with one in particular over the others? Was this win to be a once-off, a protest vote and nothing more? The first of more to come? Did the new MP have a plan or was he just taking things as they came?

All that was known for sure was that Count George Plunkett had lost a son in the Rising and beaten the Irish Party. For now, in the giddy aftermath of the Election of the Snows, that was enough.

For now.

See also:

A Choice of Green: The South Longford By-Election, May 1917

Raising the Banner: The East Clare By-Election, July 1917

Ouroboros Eating Its Tail: The Irish Party against Sinn Féin in a New Ireland, 1917

References

[1] Roscommon Messenger, 03/02/1917

[2] Ibid

[3] Freeman’s Journal, 23/12/1916

[4] Roscommon Herald, 03/02/1917

[5] Legg, Marie-Louise, ‘Tully, Jasper Joseph’ (1858-1938) Dictionary of Irish Biography (Royal Irish Academy, general editor McGuire, James)

[6] Herald, 03/02/1917

[7] Ibid

[8] Ibid, 27/01/1917

[9] Wheatley, Michael. Nationalism and the Irish Party: Provincial Ireland 1910-1916 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 99

[10] Oram, Hugh (09/06/2005) ‘An Irishman’s Diary’, The Irish Times (Accessed 15/11/2016)

[11] Wheatley, p. 99 ; Legg, ‘Tully, Jasper Joseph’

[12] Freeman’s Journal, 23/01/1917

[13] Ibid

[14] Ginnell, Alice (BMH / WS 982) pp. 7-8

[15] Dempsey, Pauric J. and Boylan, Shaun, ‘Ginnell, Laurence’ (1852-1923) Dictionary of Irish Biography

[16] Irish Times, 18/07/1916 ; 04/08/1916

[17] Ibid, 11/09/1916 ; O’Shiel, Kevin. The Rise of the Irish Nation League (Omagh: Irish Nation League, [1916]), p. 7

[18] Irish Times, 02/10/1916

[19] Ibid, 28/07/1916, 21/10/1916, 27/10/1916

[20] Kennedy, Sean (BMH / WS 885) pp. 11-2

[21] Irish Times, 11/10/1916

[22] Ibid, 12/10/1916

[23] O’Shiel. The Rise of the Irish Nation League, p. 8

[24] O’Shiel, Kevin (BMH / WS 1770 – Part IV) pp. 144-5

[25] Ginnell, pp. 7, 15-6

[26] Roscommon Journal, 03/02/1916

[27] Herald, 03/02/1917

[28] O’Shiel, Part IV pp. 139-40

[29] Ibid, Part V p. 6

[30] Irish Times, 08/02/1917

[31] Ibid

[32] Freeman’s Journal, 29/01/1917

[33] Ibid, 27/01/1917

[34] Mullooly, Patrick (BMH / WS 1086), p. 16

[35] O’Brien, William (BMH / WS 1776), p. 90

[36] FJ, 29/01/1917

[37] RM, 03/02/1917

[38] RJ, 03/02/1917

[39] Ibid

[40] RJ, 03/02/1917

[41] RH, 27/01/1917

[42] RJ, 03/02/1917

[43] Herald, 06/01/1917

[44] Ibid, 13/01/1917

[45] O’Doherty, Kitty (BMH / WS 355), pp. 35, 36-7 ; Feely, James (BMH / WS 997), p. 3

[46] Carroll, Denis. They Have Fooled You Again: Michael O’Flanagan (1876-1942) Priest, Republican, Social Critic (Blackrock, Co. Dublin: Columba Press, 1993), p. 54

[47] O’Kelly, J.J. (Sceilg) (BMH / WS 384), p. 16

[48] Count Plunkett Papers (National Library of Ireland), MS 11,379/12/3

[49] Staines, Michael (BMH / WS 994), p. 3

[50] O’Shiel, Part V, pp. 5, 8

[51] Ibid, p. 8

[52] Ibid

[53] Ibid, pp. 12-13

[54] Mullooly, p. 16

[55] Ryan, Michael Joseph (BMH / WS 633), p. 4

[56] Mullooly, pp. 3-4

[57] O’Shiel, Part V, p. 21

[58] O’Brien, pp. 88-9

[59] Ryan, p. 4

[60] Leavy, Seán (BMH / WS 954), p. 2

[61] Staines, pp. 2-4

[62] RM, 03/02/1917

[63] FJ, 05/02/1917

[64] Plunkett Dillon, Geraldine (edited by O Brolchain, Honor) In the Blood: A Memoir of the Plunkett family, the 1916 Rising, and the War of Independence (Dublin: A. & A. Farmar Ltd, 2006), p. 255

[65] RH, 10/02/1917

[66] IT, 08/02/1917

[67] O’Callaghan, Michéal. For Ireland and Freedom: Roscommon’s Contribution to the Fight for Independence (Cork: Mercier Press, 2012), pp. 27-28

[68] Ibid, p. 29

[69] Ibid

[70] Police reports from Dublin Castle records (National Library of Ireland), POS 8543

Bibliography

Books

Carroll, Denis. They Have Fooled You Again: Michael O’Flanagan (1876-1942) Priest, Republican, Social Critic (Blackrock, Co. Dublin: Columba Press, 1993)

O’Callaghan, Michéal. For Ireland and Freedom: Roscommon’s Contribution to the Fight for Independence (Cork: Mercier Press, 2012)

Plunkett Dillon, Geraldine (edited by O Brolchain, Honor) In the Blood: A Memoir of the Plunkett family, the 1916 Rising, and the War of Independence (Dublin: A. & A. Farmar Ltd, 2006)

Wheatley, Michael. Nationalism and the Irish Party: Provincial Ireland 1910-1916 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)

Dictionary of Irish Biography (Royal Irish Academy, general editor McGuire, James)

Dempsey, Pauric J. and Boylan, Shaun, ‘Ginnell, Laurence’

Legg, Marie-Louise, ‘Tully, Jasper Joseph’

Newspapers

Freeman’s Journal

Irish Times

Roscommon Herald

Roscommon Journal

Roscommon Messenger

Bureau of Military History Statements

Feely, James, WS 997

Ginnell, Alice, WS 982

Kennedy, Sean, WS 885

Mullooly, Patrick, WS 1086

O’Brien, William, WS 1776

O’Doherty, Kitty, WS 355

O’Kelly, J.J. (Sceilg), WS 384

O’Shiel, Kevin, WS 1770

Ryan, Michael Joseph, WS 633

Staines, Michael, WS 994

Booklet

O’Shiel, Kevin. The Rise of the Irish Nation League (Omagh: Irish Nation League, [1916])

National Library of Ireland Collections

Count Plunkett Papers

Police Report from Dublin Castle Records