‘One of the Most Interesting Chapters’: The Role of Co. Wexford in the Easter Rising of 1916

The Full Story?

When Seán Doyle donated some items concerning the Easter Rising to the National Museum, he did so, as he explained in a letter, because he felt that “the interesting part played by Wexford has been not hitherto adequately represented.” He was writing in 1934 and it seems that his efforts made little headway as, eighty-one years later, another Doyle thought it necessary to offer “a gentle rebuke” to those historians “who promote the view that the 1916 Rising was confined to Dublin” at the expense of Co. Wexford and the overlooked “significant event” of its own during that momentous week.[1]

Postcard celebrating three leaders of the Rising in Co. Wexford (Source: https://heritage.wicklowheritage.org/topics/wicklow_1916-_1923/wicklow-1916-commemoration-programme/wicklow_life_collections_1916/comdt_peter_paul_galligan/postcard_of_3_enniscorthy_volunteers)

‘Significant’ may be too strong a word. Nonetheless, while it is true that the county had nothing compared to the slaughter on Mount Street, the naval bombardment from the Liffey or the final holdout in the General Post Office (GPO), it does provide an alternative version of the Rising, or how Easter Week could have gone.

Certainly, at least one journalist, writing in the Irish Times at the end of April 1916, barely before the dust had settled and the embers cooled, believed that “when the full story of the rising at Enniscorthy comes to be written it will provide one of the most interesting chapters of the ill-fated rebellion of the Sinn Feiners.” While information was sketchy, it appeared that, at the start of Easter Week, the Irish Volunteers involved had not acted immediately, instead waiting for news of their compatriots in Dublin. When it was confirmed that the city was in rebel hands, the Wexford men swung into action, first seizing the business establishments of Enniscorthy, along with its railway station.

Scarawalsh Bridge, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford

Whether to blow up the town bridge was debated but declined. Instead:

They then attempted to blow up the bridge at Scarawalsh, which crosses the River Slaney on the main road between Wexford and Enniscorthy. Before doing so they behaved with cruelty to the old and respected blacksmith, named Carton, who, with his family, live in a house close to the bridge. Carton and his family were ordered to leave the house, and had to wander about homeless for two days and two nights.

The Cartons were not the only ones inconvenienced. Factory workers on the train out of Wexford had been held up at Enniscorthy Station and forced to walk back along the railway line. And a class war seemed to have been waged as well as a national one: “While the revolution lasted employers were held up by their own workpeople.” Such societal reversals was something that the Men of Property, in the aftermath, were taking rather personally:

The greatest indignation prevails amongst the business people of the town and district, and the hope is expressed on all sides that the rebels will be hunted out to a man…There is a general feeling that, if the spirit of revolution is not ruthlessly stamped out, the trade and business of Enniscorthy will be ruined.

For a failure the Rising had been, in Enniscorthy and elsewhere in the country, and it was the Volunteers who were now at the mercy of others. One hundred and thirty-three suspects had already been rounded up by the authorities in Co. Wexford alone, with more to come. That these prisoners were being sent abroad by steamer to an unknown destination showed how seriously the Powers-That-Be took this latest threat.[2]

Irish Volunteers being arrested outside the Athenaeum, Enniscorthy, on the 1st May 1916 (Source: https://www.ucc.ie/en/theirishrevolution/collections/the-story-of-1916/chapter-4-the-uprising-itself/the-rising-in-enniscorthy/)

By the time the Royal Commission met a month later, on the 27^th May 1916, at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, to investigate the recent rebellion, three hundred and seventy-five altogether had been arrested in Co. Wexford. Out of these, three hundred and nineteen were transported to Dublin for later deportation, with fifty-two discharged and a pair taken to hospital. The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), meanwhile, had seized a total of:

• 45 rifles
• 66 shotguns
• 8 pistols
• 6 revolvers
• 1 bomb
• 21 ½ stone of blasting powder
• 667 rounds of sporting ammunition
• 4,067 rounds of rifle and revolver ammunition
• A quantity of gelignite and other explosives

“A regular arsenal,” exclaimed Lord Hardinge as Chairman.[3]

Laying the Plans

W.J. Brennan-Whitmore

As Lord Hardinge grasped, the Volunteers in Wexford had been in complete earnest. So was the rebel leadership, which had had big plans for them. Given its position on the south-west coast of Ireland, the county was to serve two important tasks in the course of the Rising. Firstly, as explained by W.J. Brennan-Whitmore, they were to keep the line of communications open between the Irish Volunteer GHQ in Dublin and their units all the way to Cork. The second was more complicated, concerning Waterford city, “the really black spot” in Brennan-Whitmore’s (and the GHQ’s) view and a potential Achilles’ heel for their insurrection.

With its harbour, Waterford provided a natural entry point into Ireland, from which disembarking enemy reinforcements could quickly penetrate into the heartlands. Seizing the city outright did not seem feasible, considering the pro-Redmondite and anti-Republican sentiments there, so the next best counter-measure would be one of containment, with Volunteer guards positioned to the north of Waterford, and more on its western and eastern flanks.

Liam Mellows

Brennan-Whitmore was one of the two GHQ operatives sent to explain to the Wexford Volunteers their part in all this. Along with Liam Mellows, he met the officers at the house of one of them in the town of Enniscorthy, sometime before Easter Week. “None of those present were told of any specific date for a rising,” Brennan-Whitmore, “but all were cautioned of the very confidential nature of the discussions; nor was anything committed to writing for obvious reasons.”

As soon as orders were received from Dublin, the Wexford men would mobilise at Enniscorthy, so chosen for its central position in the county:

Here there was to be a redistribution of arms, necessitated by the fact that while some of the corps were reasonably well armed, considering the circumstances, others were very poorly armed. A commissariat was to be set up for the provisioning of the men in the field. As soon as this task was done the local police barracks was to be invested. Every effort was to be made to achieve a quick surrender and the arms and ammunition taken at once and distributed to the corps. Meanwhile small detachments were to be sent at once to take the police barracks in outlying localities.

Once all this was done, the rebels would divide into two brigades. One was to go to Rosslare, another coastal village, in order to deny a British landing there. Since GHQ was well aware of how short of munitions the Volunteers were in general, “they were not to attempt a fight to the finish, but to retire when no longer able to maintain their positions effectively and to continue to harass the enemy in his progress inland,” as Brennan-Whitmore put it.

Irish Volunteers

The second brigade was to attempt a similar role at Waterford, specifically at New Ross, north of the city, allowing them to guard against British advances via the River Barrow. Again, these men were not expected to make a last stand if things went wrong; in such an event, they would fall back to regroup at Enniscorthy and possibly try again, this time going through neighbouring Co. Wicklow and into Kildare in order to threaten the Curragh. But, whatever happened, “it was repeatedly emphasised that anything like a prolonged fight was to be avoided at all cost, and manoeuvre and harassing tactics mainly resorted to.”

It was all very ambitious and Brennan-Whitmore had his doubts as to how realistic any of it could be, considering the untrained state of the Volunteers and their paucity in weapons. As it turned out, the Wexford men never had a chance to put theory into practice, and almost lost out on having any role at all, thanks to circumstances beyond their control – the story of the Rising in a nutshell.[4]

‘An Air of Indecision’

When it finally occurred, Easter Week became less the execution of finely-honed strategies and more an exercise in improvisation.

J.J. O’Connell, in the uniform of the Free State army during the Irish Civil War

The first sign of trouble that Peter Paul Galligan saw was when Captain J.J. ‘Ginger’ O’Connell appeared in Enniscorthy on the Good Friday of Holy Week, the 21^st April 1916. Galligan, as Vice-Commandant of the Enniscorthy Volunteer Battalion, was by then aware of the Rising planned in three days’ time, on Easter Sunday, a fact he had learnt from Seamus Doyle, the Battalion Adjutant. If Galligan had been surprised at this revelation, alarmed at its short notice or resentful at being informed by a colleague rather than from a superior, he gave no hint of it when it came to writing his reminiscences. A lecture the month before, in March, given by a visiting Patrick Pearse on Robert Emmet might have been a clue in itself: after all, what else was that ill-fated patriot known for besides rebellion?[5]

Patrick Pearse

Doyle himself was aware of the incipient insurrection through his contacts in the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), though he did not know the date until Pearse told him via a code he had left with him after the Robert Emmet talk. On the morning of Holy Thursday, Doyle received a message from Pearse ostensibly asking about some books available ‘on the 23^rd July next. Remember 3 months earlier.’ By the dating of the 23^rd July, and the ‘3 months earlier’ remark, Pearse was informing the other man that the day of action was to be the 23^rd April, Easter Sunday.[6]

What was less clear was everything else. At a staff meeting attended by Galligan, Doyle and another officer, O’Connell, according to Galligan’s recollection:

…told us that he had been appointed by the Vol. Executive to take charge of Wicklow, Wexford, Carlow and Kilkenny areas, but that he refused to take over the command and would take no part in the forthcoming rising and, further, that it would be our own responsibility whatever action we took.

If O’Connell gave a reason for this startling information, Galligan did not record it. He then left Enniscorthy and that was the end of his involvement as far as the Rising was concerned. Which is perhaps just as well; all he had accomplished in his short time was disarray:

As a result of O’Connell’s action we were left without instructions and could take no further action and on Easter Sunday there was an air of indecision prevailing amongst the officers owing to this lack of instruction.[7]

Seamus Doyle

Doyle was to tell the story a little differently, leaving out O’Connell for the most part, and instead it was a motorcyclist who arrived from Kilkenny “to state that as a result of the directive from GHQ that day they [the Volunteers] were not ‘rising’.” Doyle was sent by the other officers to Wexford town to discuss with their counterparts there, but “since they were also very confused about what to do,” that did not help matters.[8]

Coming to a Decision

Both Galligan and Doyle undertook journeys to Dublin to find out the facts for themselves. That they went separately and alone shows how ad hoc everything was becoming. Also indicative was that Doyle, when arriving at the Volunteer Headquarters on Dawson Street, did not bother asking Eoin MacNeill for clarification, despite the Chief of Staff being present. Instead he proceeded to the offices of the Irish Freedom newspaper in D’Olier Street to meet Seán Mac Diarmada, as one IRB initiate to another – Doyle clearly knew where the true power behind the revolution lay, or at least thought he did.

Seán Mac Diarmada

“He told me that MacNeill had consented to the Rising taking place on Easter Sunday,” in two days’ time. With this cleared up, “I travelled back to Enniscorthy that evening satisfied that everything was going well and sent this information around the other officers.”[9]

For his part, Galligan was told on the Sunday in Dublin by some acquaintances that the Rising was off for the foreseeable future. MacNeill’s countermanding order in the Irish Independent that same day confirmed it – or seemed to, as Galligan stayed in the area long enough to learn the next day that the big event was on after all.

Dublin was otherwise quiet and outwardly normal save for an overturned tramcar and a dead horse in O’Connell Street which Galligan passed on his way to the GPO. In the rebel base of operations, he reported to Pearse, along with Joe Plunkett and James Connolly. After some discussion amongst themselves, they assigned him back to his command in Enniscorthy. There, he and the rest of the Volunteers were:

…to hold the railway line to prevent [British] troops from coming through from Wexford as [Connolly] expected that they would be landed there. He said to reserve our ammunition and not to waste it on attacking barracks or such like. He instructed that I be supplied with a good bicycle.[10]

Peter Paul Galligan in a Volunteer uniform

Galligan cycled home on Easter Wednesday, the 26^th April, in time to give direction to an otherwise floundering battalion. The certainty of action that Doyle had brought back with him from his own trip evaporated with the publication of MacNeill’s countermanding order on the Sunday. Two contradictory messages from Pearse, the first cancelling the Rising, the next confirming it, only drove various Wexford officers to declare over the next three days their intent to do nothing. With Galligan’s return, however, came direct orders from Connolly and the rest of General Headquarters – and that finally settled the question.

“It was decided by all to start operations on Thursday morning,” Doyle recalled.[11]

Takeover

While reviewing the recent events, Mr Montague Shearman caught what looked like a discrepancy on the part of County Inspector Sharpe, one of the RIC officials testifying to the Royal Commission. The membership of the rebel movement in Wexford, Sharpe had stated, numbered at the time of the insurrection three hundred and twenty-five.

Shearman: You say there were about 325 in the county, and that 600 men turned out?

Sharpe: Yes, two hundred of them armed.

Shearman: That is about double the estimated number?

Sharpe: Oh, yes, but they terrorised the whole of the inhabitants into joining them.[12]

Numbers are notoriously hard for historical sources to agree upon, and personal intentions prone to contesting interpretations. Galligan put the strength of the Enniscorthy Battalion, when it was done mobilising on Thursday morning at 2 am, to about a hundred Volunteers, while Doyle had it at a hundred and fifty, at least in terms of who was armed and reliable. But both men, in their respective accounts, agreed that no one needed to be coerced; if anything, there was too much motivation and not too little.

“Large numbers were presenting themselves to join us and the feeding of these men was one of our biggest problems,” wrote Galligan, while Doyle remembered being “besieged by men wanting to join. They became a problem to feed and billet.”[13]

Irish Volunteers

Another point of contention in the sources is how the Volunteers solved the aforementioned problem. County Inspector Sharpe’s report for the month of April has it that the rebels, after entering Enniscorthy, “commandeered provisions, motor cars, arms, Ammunition, etc. indiscriminately paying for nothing.” Galligan did not deny the taking of supplies from the town shops but that, as a mitigating factor:

A receipt was given in all cases for articles commandeered. It was admitted in all cases afterwards that there was no undue commandeering and no one was victimised on account of his political leaning.[14]

Another rebel officer, James Cullen, wrote in his own reminiscences of how “during the Rising the houses of nearly all the loyalists were visited by parties of Volunteers,” so the ‘no victimisation’ might not be entirely accurate. It should also be noted that Carton the blacksmith who was allegedly – according to a contemporary Irish Times report – cruelly evicted from his house near the bridge, along with his family, is not mentioned in either Volunteer or police accounts, casting the validity of that less-than-edifying episode into question.[15]

The only other ripple in the water was the small RIC force in Enniscorthy, centred in the police barracks, and consisting of six constables, a sergeant and a District Inspector. Grossly outnumbered, the policemen chose discretion as the better part of valour and withdrew to the safety of their barracks.[16]

RIC barracks on Abbey Street, Enniscorthy – building on the left (Source: https://wexfordcivilwararchaeology.com/2021/04/10/wexfords-civil-war-a-gazetteer-of-the-damaged-r-i-c-barracks-and-civic-buildings/)

Showing Fight

For one of them, however, the experience of Easter Thursday must have been harrowing enough, as described by a Volunteer:

At seven o’clock, Constable Grace was seen in Court St. Volunteer Mick Cahill was on duty at Mitchell’s corner, saw him crossing the road and fired at him, and only Grace took shelter in Pat Begley’s door in the corner, he would have got him. Constable Grace then made a run for the barracks…He was fired on again from the top of Castle Hill. There were a couple of Volunteers in the Convent of Msrcy [sic] field and, when he was just going into the barracks, one of them shot him in the leg. He was later brought to the hospital.[17]

A different version was provided by Father Patrick Murphy, a priest sympathetic to the uprising, in which Grace was hit and wounded while in bed, lying close to a window, rather than outside and actively participating. Another Volunteer, Thomas Sinnott, suggested that such violence was incidental rather than intentional; his commanding officer having previously told his charges “the police were not to be shot or fired at unless they themselves showed fight. He said it was against the British, we were,” and that Constable Grace had only been shot after opening fire first.

RIC policemen (Source: https://irishconstabulary.com/ric-equipment-carried-in-the-early-1900s-t3043.html)

After holing up in their barracks, the remaining RIC garrison continued to be a thorn in the side of the rebels, who had to risk coming under fire when crossing the town bridge. Otherwise, the fighting in Enniscorthy was negligible, as Sinnott later explained in his interview before the Military Pensions Board:

Q: Was Thursday the only day in which there was any firing in this Period?

A: I think that would be right. There would be an occasional shot.

Q: There was no fighting or an attempt to fight?

A: No. The general opinion was, if it lasted, that the RIC would have to surrender. They were without food, tobacco, etc. – we left them the water supply though we could have cut it off.

Q: Your orders were not to attack but to defend? You were really making every effort to confine attack to the military, and regard the police as a police force, but if they attempted to use force –?

A: We would also use force.[18]

Force proved unnecessary since the RIC stayed in their stronghold until the end. No effort was made by the Volunteers to storm the building and perhaps they did not need to; for practical purposes, the Crown police force had ceased to be relevant in Enniscorthy – and, so it seemed, British governance in general.

The Republic of Enniscorthy

After the months of planning, almost undone by the agonising uncertainty in the eleventh hour, the takeover of Enniscorthy had proved startlingly straightforward: the Volunteers simply marched into the town and made it their own. “The Tricolour was hoisted on Headquarters with due ceremony, a Guard of Honour under Paul Galligan,” Doyle recalled. He, meanwhile, “issued a proclamation, proclaimed the Republic, and calling on the people to support it and defend” – whether he was consciously following the model set by Pearse outside the GPO on the Monday is unstated.

The Athenæum on Castle Street, Enniscorthy, headquarters of the Irish Volunteers during the Rising (Source: https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/building-of-the-month/the-athenaeum-castle-street-enniscorthy-td-enniscorthy-county-wexford/)

Using the Athenaeum clubhouse as their aforementioned headquarters, the officers present delegated duties, although who was doing precisely what depends on who one asks. In Doyle’s telling:

Bob Brennan took over the command. He was the senior Brigade officer. I was appointed Adjutant. Paul Galligan was appointed operations officer. Bob Brennan also acted as quartermaster. Pat Kegan looked after the armaments and Michael de Lacey looked after supplies. Phil Murphy tool charge of recruits and R.F. King was in charge of scouting operations.[19]

Galligan has Doyle as the overall O/C instead of Brennan, though he did describe the latter as “one of the driving forces during the period” [as in, the War of Independence afterwards]. Seán Etchingham was in charge of recruits, not Phil Murphy, and Michael de Lacey’s use lay in his typewriter, typing up the various orders that were to be issued. “All of our officers and most of the men were in uniform,” Galligan added. County Inspector Sharpe would later pooh-pooh the rebels as “all ne’er no wells” who had joined only having “failed in everything else” but it is clear the Enniscorthy Volunteers took their role as soldiers of the newly-found Republic very seriously; accordingly, law and order was upheld in the town by the placing of guards on the banks, along with the confiscation of keys to all pubs.[20]

“During the four days of Republican rule not a single person was under the influence of drink,” Father Murphy noted approvingly.[21]

Enniscorthy market square (today)

Which was all very well, but there was still the rest of the county, and the country, to consider. Efforts were made to rouse the Volunteer units elsewhere in Co. Wexford, resulting in a mixed bag, as Galligan outlined:

A mobilisation order to mobilise his company was sent to Sean Kennedy at New Ross. He failed to do this and a second order was sent to him. Kennedy’s father met the man who carried the orders and told him that if he did not leave the town he would shoot him. New Ross never officially mobilised, but as far as I can remember a number of men reported to Enniscorthy. Ferns mobilised and sent in a full quota of men, small, of course. Wexford [town] also sent in some men.[22]

Regarding Wexford town, however, Thomas Doyle (no relation to Seamus, it seems) had nothing but scorn. Two men had been sent there on bicycles earlier in the week, on Easter Wednesday. The RIC were ready and waiting to arrest the pair as soon as they arrived. Worse almost followed. “All the loyalists turned out, which was nearly everyone in Wexford, to lynch them. Only for the police, they would have stormed the barracks,” he wrote. “We really only got one man from the Wexford Battalion. That was Wexford town for you in Easter Week!”[23]

Still, the Volunteers had enough men out in arms to attempt the primary strategy assigned to them by GHQ: the sabotage and harassment of enemy reinforcements. ‘Attempt’ proved the operative word: a mission to blow up a bridge on the railway line below Wexford town was foiled when the Volunteers so assigned were surprised by the RIC, with the loss of two taken prisoner. Another failure was the search for a trainload of ammunition from Waterford that the Volunteers heard – through friendly railway workers – was due for Arklow; despite looking through all stations between Wexford and Arklow, nothing of the sort was found. The Volunteers found smaller tasks more manageable, such as felling trees to block certain roads, and removing the railway line at various points through their control of Enniscorthy station.[24]

British soldiers guarding a train in Ireland, 1920 (Source: https://www.rte.ie/history/munitions-strike/2020/0415/1130693-the-1920-munitions-strike-an-unusual-kind-of-strike/

The Rebels of Today

The Rising was to last in Co. Wexford for four days altogether, from the belated start on Easter Thursday to its end on Monday, the 1^st May 1916. A contemporary report attributed its ceasing and deceasing to a 15-pounder gun, dubbed ‘Enniscorthy Emily’, that the British military were apparently able to transport, via an armoured train, close enough to Enniscorthy to be in range of Vinegar Hill, site of the famed 1798 battle. There, the Volunteers had gathered “with the intention probably of emulating the deeds of their ancestors, but the rebels of to-day are of different stuff,” wrote the Irish Times:

A hurried council of war was held, but the deliberations were brought to an abrupt conclusion when a well planted shell which the gunner of ‘Enniscorthy Emily’ discharged at the hill. The shell, which, it is stated, was a blank one, landed plump amongst the rebels, and exploded with a prodigious and terrifying noise. When the rebels recovered somewhat from the terror-inspiring sound, they hoisted white flags all over the hill, as many as forty flags being counted, and about 200 of the ‘brave’ insurgents bolted for the hills. The others laid down their arms unconditionally, and the military have ever since been busily engaged in rounding up the stragglers.

Robert Brennan in later years

“So began and ended the ‘war’ in the Enniscorthy district,” the newspaper concluded with a sniff and a sneer.[25]

Needless to say, at least one croppy was not going to lie down and take this. When it was time to pen his own version of events, Robert Brennan made a point of singling out “the fantastic account of this affair published at the time in the Irish Times and, later, repeated in every book I have seen on the Enniscorthy Rising,” determined as he was to set the record straight:

It is stated that the British advanced from Wexford under cover of an armoured train which had been christened “Enniscorthy Emily”, that the rebels, outfought in the town, retreated to Vinegar Hill where they finally surrendered. The fact was that the British did not enter the town until twelve hours subsequent to our decision to give up and that we never even heard of “Enniscorthy Emily”[26]

The truth was more prosaic: the Volunteers disbanded after it had been made clear to them that their insurrection was already over, without a single shot needed by either side. Peace moves had been tried before by Father McHenry, the administrator of the Enniscorthy Catholic parish – first, to the besieged policemen in their barracks on the 28^th April (Day Two), and then a second try the day after, this time to Seamus Doyle. On both occasions, the would-be peacemaker failed: the RIC garrison refused Father McHenry’s call to surrender, and his argument that the rebel cause was a hopeless one “made no impression on me” as Doyle described.[27]

Vinegar Hill, Co. Wexford (Source: https://www.tuatha.ie/vinegar-hill/

Well Satisfied?

What did make an impression was the news on Saturday morning of British forces moving towards them from Arklow. Galligan took personal charge of an advance guard of Volunteers posted in Ferns, the strategy being to delay the enemy there long enough for the rest to be ready in Enniscorthy. The RIC had vacated their barracks in Fens, allowing the rebels to occupy it, and to barricade the roads leading in and out of the town unmolested.[28]

Seán Etchingham

What came next was not the British attack but something quite unexpected: two RIC officials, a District Inspector and a sergeant, who had come under a flag of truce, bringing with them from Dublin a copy of Pearse’s order to surrender. Doyle had heard about this before, from a delegation of businessmen who had, like Father McHenry, been trying to broker a truce. The Enniscorthy O/C had not believed it then and did not believe it now, at least, not entirely. After consulting with the British commander in Wexford, Colonel French, it was agreed for Doyle and another officer, Seán Etchingham, to travel to Dublin under safe pass.

Once in the capital, the pair were escorted to Arbour Hill Prison, where Pearse was in his cell, lying on a mattress with his greatcoat as a blanket. “He rose quickly when the door was opened and came forward to meet us and shook hands with us,” Doyle wrote of their encounter. “He appeared to be physically exhausted but spiritually exultant.” Nonetheless, Pearse confirmed the surrender order, writing it out in a piece of paper upon Doyle’s request. He did not even know Wexford had been ‘out’, such was the speed of events and the Volunteers’ own tardiness, but he did not seem too dispirited, giving Doyle “the impression he was well satisfied with what had happened.”

The Wexford officers brought the written order back with them to Enniscorthy, allowing the rest, when called together, to see it for themselves. “The order was received with mixed opinions but finally it was decided to obey the order,” Doyle remembered. “We called in all our outposts and sentries and I read the order to the garrison. This was about midnight [on Sunday].” By 4 pm on Monday, the 1^st May, Colonel French entered Enniscorthy with his soldiers and accepted the surrender. If Wexford had entered the Rising late, it at least could claim the distinction of being the last to leave.[29]

The leaders of the Wexford Rising (Front row: Séamus Rafter, Robert Brennan, Séamus Doyle, Seán Etchingham. Back row: Una Brennan, Michael de Lacy, Eileen Hegarty)

A month later, County Inspector Sharpe was pleased to report to his superiors that “the County is at present peaceable except Enn. [Enniscorthy] District and a small portion of the Gorey District which adjoins Enn.” Seditious sentiments seemed limited to “the relatives and associates of the rebels”; in the other areas, Sharpe estimated that three-quarters of the people were hostile to the recent upheaval. “There are rumours of another rising at Whitsuntide but there is no indications [sic] in the County that it will take place.”[30]

Máire Comerford

Even those committed to carrying on the struggle against British rule could not have disagreed with this self-confident appraisal. When Máire Comerford tried rousing a crowd in Main Street, Gorey, with what she had heard about North King Street in Dublin (where fifteen men had been shot or bayoneted to death by Crown forces) at least one listener was outraged – at Comerford for criticising British troops rather than at the massacre. The rest of her audience rapidly dispersed, the shock of such disloyal talk evidently too much for them. Come the same time the following year, in 1917, and Wexford did not even bother with a commemoration for the Rising. Comerford only learnt about the one in Dublin from reading about it in the newspapers – when the ceremony was already over.[31]

Still, it was too soon for the British state to be relaxing its guard quite yet. “Hide the arms,” Pearse had whispered to Doyle and Etchingham in his prison cell when the wardens were out of earshot. “They will be wanted later.” Some Wexford Volunteers chose to do just that, like Thomas Sinnott and the two rifles he buried before his arrest for his part in the Rising. “They were afterwards resurrected,” as he put it.[32]

See also:

Dysfunction Junction: The Rising That Wasn’t in Co. Kerry, April 1916

Still Waters Running Deep: The Tragedy at Ballykissane Pier, April 1916

Defeat From The Jaws of Victory: The Easter Rising in Co. Louth, 1916 (Part I)

Victory From The Jaws of Defeat: The Easter Rising in Co. Louth, 1916 (Part II)

References

[1] Gannon, Darragh. Proclaiming a Republic: Ireland, 1916 and the National Collection (Newbridge, Co. Kildare: Irish Academic Press, 2016), p. 265 ; Doyle, Eamon, ‘Wexford 1916’, History Ireland, published in Issue 6 (November/December 2015) Letters, Volume 23

[2] Irish Times, 29/04/1916

[3] Ibid, 29/05/1916

[4] Brennan-Whitmore, W.J. Dublin Burning: The Easter Rising from Behind the Barricades (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2013), pp. 22-4

[5] Galligan, Peter Paul (BMH / WS 170), pp. 7-8

[6] Doyle, Seamus (BMH / WS 315), pp. 7-8

[7] Galligan, pp. 7-8

[8] Doyle, Seamus, pp. 8-9

[9] Ibid, pp. 9-10

[10] Galligan, p. 8

[11] Doyle, Seamus, pp. 10-2

[12] Irish Times, 29/05/1916

[13] Galligan, pp., 9-10 ; Doyle, Seamus, p. 12

[14] Police reports from Dublin Castle records (National Library of Ireland – NLI), POS 8540 ; Galligan, p. 10

[15] Cullen, James (BMH / WS 1343), p. 6 ; Irish Times, 29/04/1916 (Carton’s eviction)

[16] Irish Times, 29/05/1916 (makeup of police force)

[17] Doyle, Thomas (BMH / WS 1041), p. 22

[18] Murphy, Patrick (BMH / WS 1216), p. 4 ; Military Service Pensions Collection, ‘Sinnott, Thomas D.’ (WMSP34REF24701), pp. 24-5

[19] Doyle, Seamus, pp. 12-13

[20] Galligan, pp. 10, 12 ; Irish Times, 29/05/1916

[21] Murphy, p. 4

[22] Galligan, p. 11

[23] Doyle, Thomas, p. 20

[24] Galligan, pp. 10-1

[25] Irish Times, 29/04/1916

[26] Brennan, Robert (BMH / WS 779 – Part I), p. 147

[27] Irish Times, 29/05/1916 ; Doyle, Seamus, p. 13

[28] Galligan, p. 12

[29] Doyle, pp. 14-6

[30] NLI, POS 8541

[31] Comerford, Máire (ed. by Dully, Hilary) On Dangerous Ground: A Memoir of the Irish Revolution (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2021), pp. 60, 64-5

[32] Doyle, p. 15 ; Sinnott, p. 26

Bibliography

Newspaper

Irish Times

Books

Brennan-Whitmore, W.J. Dublin Burning: The Easter Rising from Behind the Barricades (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2013)

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

Gannon, Darragh. Proclaiming a Republic: Ireland, 1916 and the National Collection (Newbridge, Co. Kildare: Irish Academic Press, 2016)

Bureau of Military History Statements

Brennan, Robert, WS 779

Cullen, James, WS 1343

Doyle, Seamus, WS 315

Doyle, Thomas, WS 1041

Galligan, Peter Paul, WS 170

Murphy, Patrick, WS 1216

Military Service Pensions Collection

Sinnott, Thomas D., WMSP34REF24701

Magazine

Doyle, Eamon, ‘Wexford 1916’, History Ireland, published in Issue 6 (November/December 2015) Letters, Volume 23

National Library of Ireland Collection

Police Report from Dublin Castle Records

If the Germans Came: Germany’s Connection and Influence on the Easter Rising of 1916

Once a Traitor

Kaiser Wilhelm II

It was hard work, being Military Governor of Cork on behalf of His Imperial Majesty, the Kaiser, enough for the Baron von Kartoffel to offer his wife, Anna, “a hundred thousand apologies and regrets” for not writing to her sooner. All the same, he felt he could congratulate himself at the end of his first week in Ireland, sometime in 1918, on a job well done – so far.[1]

Shocked by the slum conditions he beheld in Cork, the Baron wasted no time in remedying this appalling social blight: the inmates of the local lunatic asylum were discreetly gassed to death – painlessly so, he assured his darling wife – during the night and their bodies cremated at dawn. With this clean sweep done, the slum population was escorted by soldiers into the now-empty and freshly-cleaned asylum for their new, improved abode. There, they would be taught to contribute to society: the women as housewives, with trades for the men, all under the firm but fair supervision of their new Teutonic overlords.

“No drink will be procurable,” Baron von Kartoffel told Anna:

…and the people will be virtual prisoners until they become useful members of the community. The incurably bad cases and the aged persons are a problem, but – there is always the lethal chamber to fall back on.[2]

Either that or exile. The latter was now the fate of the Sinn Feiners, those Irishmen who had helped facilitate German mastery over the island. A delegation from the Sinn Féin party – the name, von Kartoffel believed, being Irish for ‘Up with Germany’ – had come to their new Military Governor in the drawing-room of the mansion chosen for his residence. Though a serious man, as befitting the representative of a Kultur renowned for efficiency, keeping a straight face while listening to the speeches delivered to him, one after another, some in English and others in Irish, proved a challenge for the Baron.

“The chief thing that struck me was the assurance of the fellows,” he related to Anna. “They seemed to think – such was their assurance – that they would be invited to form a sort of council or governing body – a medium, in short, for the lavish expenditure of German gold.”

Quite the contrary. Von Kartoffel watched the dropping jaws of these wretches as he informed them that he had no particular desire or need of their assistance. For those services already rendered, the Sinn Feiners were to be shipped over to the Fatherland and from there to the Baltic shores, where small holdings had been allotted to them for their new lives.

“I have the honour to wish you a safe journey,” the Baron finished, “and, before we part, I call for three cheers for the Kaiser. Hoch!”

So much for gratitude but, as von Kartoffel assured his wife:

My Anna, we could do nothing else with these men. “Once a traitor, always a traitor.” We could never have trusted them. They would have been no more loyal to us than they were to England or, I would rather say, to their own countrymen.

Still, the otherwise implacable viceroy of the new regime in Cork had to spare some pity for the hapless Sinn Feiners, if only a shred: “They little know what is before them.”[3]

German army soldiers

Good Policy?

Obviously, there was no German Military Governor in Cork in 1918, no Baron von Kartoffel gassing inconvenient asylum residents or dispatching Fifth Columnists to a miserable exile. Ireland finished the year as much a part of the United Kingdom as it had been at the start of the Great War, a war by which Germany, far from emerging as the conquering victor, had been ruined.

Mary Carbery

The above is a work of fiction of the speculative, what-if kind, “a flight of fancy” in the words of the Irish Times. Those assuming that its author (anonymous at the time, later revealed to be the writer Mary Carbery) was inspired by the 1916 Proclamation’s reference to the rebels’ ‘gallant allies in Europe’ would be mistaken. Although not published until 1917, as The Germans in Cork, the text had been serialised earlier, in 1916, under the title If the Germans Came, with one review appearing in the Irish Times on the 25^th March 1916, almost exactly a month before the Easter Rising began.

Even then, the affinity of some in Ireland for Britain’s current enemy was noted by the newspaper, which hoped that the work would be educational as well as entertaining:

The first thing of which this article should convince the foolish minority in Ireland is that, if Germany should capture Ireland, she would keep it, use it, and drain it for Germany, and for Germany alone. Ireland would be one of the richest prizes of a German conquest.

In case the author, and the reviewer, were not making themselves clear:

Many delusions have led Irishmen astray in the course of history, and some of them have been noble and romantic delusions. The delusion that the Germans would establish a Sinn Fein Government in Ireland is as crass as it is anti-Irish; it has no redeeming quality.[4]

Some thought otherwise. To Joseph Mary Plunkett and Patrick Pearse, such a course of action, far from delusional, “would obviously be good policy.” What’s more, the new, independent Ireland was to be headed by a German prince, specifically Prince Joachim of Prussia, the sixth and youngest son of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who Plunkett had met the year before, in 1915. While this might strike current readers as a touch outlandish – “the idea of a republican monarchy is by contemporary standards a contradiction in terms” as historian Ronan McGreevy puts it – a German monarch over Ireland would have allowed for certain advantages, as explained by Desmond Fitzgerald, who had been privy to this conversation between Plunkett and Pearse in the General Post Office (GPO) during the Easter Week of 1916.

Prince Joachim of Prussia, the King of Ireland who never was

‘The Best Interest of the Country’

Other than ensuring a political bond with the ascendant power in Europe, there were the cultural considerations as well:

It would mean that a movement for de-anglicisation would flow from the head of state downwards, for what was English would be foreign to the head of the state. Such a ruler would necessarily favour the Irish language, for it would be impossible to make the country German-speaking, while it would be against his own interests to foster English.

Desmond Fitzgerald

To Fitzgerald, this exchange was but one of his experiences from the Easter Rising that he recorded for posterity, later published posthumously in the Irish Times in April 1966 (Fitzgerald having died in 1947). Nonetheless, it was the part that drew the most attention, prompting a response from Ernest Blythe. “Two or three people have told me that they were rather startled” by what Fitzgerald had revealed, Blythe wrote in a letter of his own to the newspaper. For his own part, “although I had known nothing about how the leaders talked in the General Post Office,” Blythe was unsurprised by Fitzgerald’s anecdote, as he had been part of quite a similar conversation in January 1915.

Having just been appointed by the Irish Volunteers Executive to be one of its three full-time organisers, Blythe was attending a briefing conference, along with the other two, Liam Mellows and Ginger O’Connell. Pearse and Plunkett were in attendance, as were Thomas MacDonagh and Bulmer Hobson, on behalf of the Executive. Pearse had to leave sometime in the afternoon and so was not there when Plunkett took the discussion in an unexpected direction – unexpected to Blythe, in any case, but perhaps not one that would have surprised Pearse:

Plunkett threw out the suggestion that in certain circumstances the best interest of the country would be served by making a German Catholic prince king of Ireland.

Patrick Pearse, Kingmaker of Ireland?

“No objection was offered to the idea by any of those present” – to the contrary, the idea was obviously a familiar one to the other headquarters’ staff in attendance. The arguments made for this were similar to what Fitzgerald would later hear in the GPO: any foreign sovereign would find it in his best interests to promote Irish as the language of his court, and by extension the country, German being impractical in the long run and English by then damaged goods.

As a dedicated Gaelic Leaguer, who “had recently spent a year labouring in the Gaeltacht”, Blythe found this proposal an appealing one, though not anything more than “a bit of a pleasant theorising.” By the time he picked up a copy of the Irish Times more than half a century later, he had mostly forgotten it, until Fitzgerald’s printed reminiscences prompted Blythe to not only remember that day, but to consider its discourse in a new light:

Desmond Fitzgerald’s disclosure…inclines me to think that in putting the idea of an Irish kingdom before a group of newly-appointed organisers in January, 1915, Joseph Plunkett and Thomas MacDonagh were aiming to have us prepared to pass the word down the line should the occasion arise.

After all:

If the idea had not been often discussed and generally approved between January, 1915, and Easter Week, 1916, it is hardly likely that it would have arisen in conversation between Desmond Fitzgerald and any of the leaders in the Post Office.[5]

Ernest Blythe

As there was no German-headed kingdom in Ireland any more than a Baron von Kartoffel, this speculation on Blythe’s part will have to remain no more than just that. Certainly, none of the Rising’s leaders left documents referring to anything of the sort. But evidence does exist that points to German aid being more integral to the Easter Rising than commonly thought today. While the story of the Aud and its ill-fated venture to ship rifles over in time for Easter Week is well-known, less so is the assumption of some of the rebels, or at least a select few, that German troops would be coming as well.

Tom Clarke

Tom Clarke was among those believing so; at least five thousand of them, he told Patrick McCartan when the latter came to Dublin from Monaghan on Holy Thursday. With less than a week to go before the big event, and with foreign reinforcements supposedly on their way, Clarke “was all enthusiastic about how thorough the Germans were and that they would do things in a big way,” McCartan later recalled. Meanwhile, Donal O’Hannigan, the Volunteer organiser assigned to Dundalk, was to liberate German prisoners from their internment camp in Oldcastle while leading his Volunteers through Meath to Dublin. Some of the freed men would be artillery specialists, so Pearse had told O’Hannigan as part of his instructions for Easter Week, and as the rebels were expecting artillery pieces from Germany, such men should come in handy for using them.[6]

The Irish Brigade

John Devoy

Clarke at least had known from the start that German intervention was on the agenda, having been informed by his fellow Fenian, John Devoy, of a meeting Clan-na-Gael had had in New York with the German ambassador, Count von Bernstorff, and several of his embassy staff. War between Germany and Britain had just begun (which would date the meeting to August 1914 or shortly after) and, with some in Ireland aiming to turn the latter’s difficulty into their country’s opportunity, the rebels-to-be sought from Germany what they otherwise lacked, namely arms and capable officers.

“We wanted no money. We needed military help only,” Devoy wrote in his memoirs about what he and the other Irishmen told the Germans. “This was stated with clearness and emphasis.”

Count von Bernstorff, German Ambassador t the United States

Though von Bernstorff gave his Irish guests no assurances, whatever he passed on to his government was received warmly enough, for Clan-na-Gael soon sent another of its own, John Kenny, to Berlin, via Switzerland and then Naples, for the purposes of receiving a special passport from the German embassy for the final step to Berlin. After delivering a message from Clan-na-Gael to no less an illustrious figure than Prince von Beulow, a former German chancellor, Kenny passed through Dublin on the way back to America, where he updated Clarke on this new alliance for the Irish cause.[7]

The idea that the insurrection in Ireland would be accompanied by outside help was thus present early on. The entente begun in New York was sealed more officially with the formation of the Irish Brigade in Germany, consisting of Irish POWs from the British Army, and supplied by the German Imperial Government. Despite the Irish Brigade being a joint venture, that it was an Irish one first and foremost was emphasised at the start of the Treaty outlining everyone’s rights and duties.

Members of the Irish Brigade posing in uniform

“The object of the Irish Brigade shall be to fight solely in the cause of Ireland, and under no circumstances shall it be employed or directed to any German end,” went Article 2. Furthermore, all food and equipment provided by the host country would be “free gifts to aid the cause of Irish independence” (Article 4); otherwise, Brigade members were purely volunteers, with “no pay or monetary reward of any kind to be given.” The distinction between ‘gift’ and ‘reward’ was not dwelt upon, nor how the defeat, or at least inconveniencing, of Germany’s current enemy could amount to anything other than a ‘German end’.

Contorted logic and mental gymnastics aside, Article 6 had the clearest expression of what the Irish and German parties hoped to achieve together:

The Imperial German Government undertakes, in certain circumstances, to send the Irish Brigade to Ireland with efficient military support and with an ample supply of arms and ammunition to equip the Irish National Volunteers in Ireland.

As for these ‘certain circumstances’:

In the event of a German naval victory affording the means of reaching the coast of Ireland, the Imperial German Government pledges itself to dispatch the Irish Brigade and a supporting body of German officers and men in German transports, to attempt a landing on the Irish coast.

Should all of this go according to plan (Article 10):

In the event of the Irish Brigade landing in Ireland, and military operations in the country resulting in the overthrow of British Authority and the erection of a native Irish Government, the Imperial German Government will give the Irish Government so established its fullest moral support, and both by public recognition and by general goodwill will contribute with all sincerity to the establishment of an independent government in Ireland.[8]

The nature of this native Irish Government, such as whether as a monarchy or not, would presumably be worked out post-victory. Otherwise, the details as presented above match what Devoy had been hoping for when he first approached von Bernstorff and what Clarke was eagerly anticipating in the days leading up to the Rising.

Baron Wilhelm von Stumm

The Treaty was signed on the 28^th December 1914. Earlier in the year, Roger Casement – sent from Ireland on the budding uprising’s behalf – had discussed the state of the British war machine with Baron Wilhelm von Stumm. When the subject of the enemy fleet came up, the Director of the Political Department at the German Foreign Office could only laugh, dismissing it as “a laughing stock.” Though the Royal Navy would prove in the course of the conflict to be anything but a joke, the odds of a maritime assault being launched against British territory – in this case, Ireland – was clearly seen then as credible enough.[9]

Intention of Goodwill

Joseph Mary Plunkett

By January 1915, only a month after the Treaty’s signing, Casement would be scribbling in his diary of his dillusionment and how he had “practically abandoned the idea of the Irish Brigade.” But then, Casement was a highly-strung individual at the best of times; Devoy lamented how “very emotional and as trustful as a child” he was, whose tendency to act unilaterally, instead of consulting with the rest of his Irish colleagues, “created many difficulties and embarrassments for us.” When Joseph Plunkett met Casement later in Germany, in mid-1915, the latter still believed, as he stressed to the former, that the Irish Volunteers were “utterly incapable of putting up a fight and that a German invasion force was their only hope,” according to Plunkett’s sister, Geraldine.[10]

Geraldine Plunkett

Obviously, the rest of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) leadership did not consider themselves so dependent on foreign assistance; their uprising was to go ahead with or without it. “The Military Council had never, from the start, made their plans on a German invasion,” Geraldine related, “and Casement’s obsessions about it never seemed reasonable.” Which is not to say the IRB forgot the idea or abandoned their hopes for it, as Clarke’s effusions to McCartan or Pearse’s instructions to O’Hannigan show. As for Plunkett, he presumably had Casement’s words in mind when he drew up a rough draft for an armed campaign, titled ‘Rough Survey and Remarks on Coastline and Maritime Counties of Ireland’.[11]

As the name suggests, the likelihood of a naval landing was part of the considerations, with various counties rated on the promise of their coastlines:

• “Dublin – Good landing outside Dublin Bay on the south side between Kingstown and Bray at Killiney Bay.”
• “Kerry – “Very fine harbours and islands.”
• “Cork – There are many good harbours around the coast.”
• “Galway – Strategically Galway is an important point to an invader who had any control of the Sea.”
• “Mayo – The coastline is very similar to that of Galway with numerous excellent bays, harbours and inlets.”

The last two areas warranted a detailed analysis of their own:

A German force landed anywhere on the coast of Galway or Mayo accompanied by Evidence of its intention of Goodwill to Ireland would find the whole countryside well disposed in spirit and often actively helpful.

After all, “Killala Bay [Co. Mayo] has already served the purpose of a friendly invader who came with the avowed intention of expelling the British and erecting an Irish Republic.” Drawing upon this historical precedence, when General Humbert arrived for the 1798 Rebellion, Plunkett ventured to speculate:

Could a force of, say, 12,000 men be landed in the west of Ireland to day [sic], bringing with them an ample supply of arms and ammunition it is certain their success would be much more remarkable than that of the French General…A successful military landing in Ireland would have political consequences of the first magnitude abroad; and if the force landed were sufficiently strong to seize, say, Athlone and the line of the Shannon, the task of expelling it and overcoming a joint force of [sic – missing word?] with armed Irish and invaders would tax the military and moral resources of great Britain to the utmost.[12]

Roger Casement

A heady possibility, indeed, and it is perhaps unsurprising that, even as enthusiasm in Germany waned, Irish hopes remained high. “If 100,000 rifles and artillery officers and artillery men could be landed, there was no doubt of our ability to defeat the British forces,” Devoy told Casement by telegram in March 1916. Limerick was his suggestion for a landing site. By then, unbeknownst to those in Dublin or New York, the German Imperial Government had practically washed their hands of the matter, only consenting, at the start of April, with rebellion less than a month away, to send a single steamer’s worth of weapons to Tralee Bay in time for Easter Week – but even then on condition of the Irish Volunteers being committed to battle already.

“The utter callousness & indifference here – only seeking bloodshed in Ireland,” Casement raged in his diary.[13]

Maybe it was just as well nothing came of the whole venture. Casement had already witnessed for himself the aftermath of a German army’s attentions while travelling through Belgium along the Meuse River in November 1914. Some villages he passed had been almost entirely destroyed, with “burnt and shattered frameworks of roofless and wall-less houses alone marking the site.” While shocked at this “national agony”, he preferred to lay the blame on either the Belgians themselves for refusing German access to their country or on Britain for its vain offer of support to Belgium.[14]

The Belgian city of Leuven in the aftermath of German reprisals, 1914

It did not seem to occur to Casement – or to Devoy, Plunkett or Pearse, for that matter – that what Germany could inflict on one country could be repeated on their own, or that a German victory might result for Ireland not so much a Prince Joachim as a Baron von Kartoffel.

References

[1] The Germans in Cork: Being the Letters of His Excellency the Baron von Kartoffel (Military Governor of Cork in the Year 1918) and Others (Dublin: The Talbot Press Limited [1917]), p. 1

[2] Ibid, p. 8

[3] Ibid, pp. 3-5

[4] Irish Times, 25/03/1916, 21/07/1917

[5] McGreevy, Ronan, ‘A Prussian solution to an Irish problem – An Irishman’s Diary on Prince Joachim and the 1916 Rising’, Irish Times, 19/07/2020 ; Ibid, 15/04/1966 (Blythe’s reply) ; For information on Mary Carbery, see Fischer, Joachim, ‘A Future Ireland under German Rule: Dystopias as Propaganda during World War I’, Utopian Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3, Irish Utopian (2007), published by Penn State University Press, pp. 346-7

[6] McCartan, Patrick (BMH / WS 766), p. 49 ; O’Hannigan, Donal (BMH / WS 161), pp. 11-2

[7] Devoy, John. Recollections of an Irish Rebel: A Personal Narrative by John Devoy (New York: Chas. P. Young company, 1929), p. 403

[8] Casement, Roger (edited by Mitchell, Angus) One Bold Deed of Open Treason: The Berlin Diary of Roger Casement, 1914-1916 (Sallins, Co. Kildare: Merrion Press, 2016), pp. 250-2

[9] Ibid, p. 57

[10] Ibid, p. 142 ; Devoy, p. 406 ; Dillon, Geraldine (BMH / WS 358), p. 12

[11] Dillon, p. 13

[12] National Library of Ireland (NLI), Roger Casement Papers, MS 13,085/5/3, ‘Rough Survey and Remarks on Coastline and Maritime Counties of Ireland’

[13] Casement, pp. 185-6, 221-2

[14] Ibid, pp. 60, 63-4

Bibliography

Books

Casement, Roger (edited by Mitchell, Angus) One Bold Deed of Open Treason: The Berlin Diary of Roger Casement, 1914-1916 (Sallins, Co. Kildare: Merrion Press, 2016)

Devoy, John. Recollections of an Irish Rebel: A Personal Narrative by John Devoy (New York: Chas. P. Young company, 1929)

The Germans in Cork: Being the Letters of His Excellency the Baron von Kartoffel (Military Governor of Cork in the Year 1918) and Others (Dublin: The Talbot Press Limited [1917])

Newspaper

Irish Times

 Article

Fischer, Joachim, ‘A Future Ireland under German Rule: Dystopias as Propaganda during World War I’, Utopian Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3, Irish Utopian (2007), published by Penn State University Press

Bureau of Military History Statements

Dillon, Geraldine, WS 358

McCartan, Patrick, WS 766

O’Hannigan, Donal, WS 161

National Library of Ireland

Roger Casement Papers

Refuge for a Scoundrel: The Crimes and Chutzpah of James Redican in the Irish War of Independence

New Powers, Old Cases

When is a robbery not a robbery? When committed for the higher cause of one’s country, or so argued James and Thomas Redican before the inquiry convened to hear their case in May 1922. Of the pair, only James was present, albeit conditionally, on parole from the hospital in which he was being held under guard as a result of his sixteen-day-long hunger strike, undertaken in protest at his treatment.

The Irish Times covering the case, 04/05/1922

He and his brother had been imprisoned since their British court-martial the previous year for participating in three heists on two banks in Dublin over the course of four months, netting £1,017 from the Provincial Bank on the 5^th October 1920, then £2,789 from the National Bank, Baggot Street, a month later, and the National Bank again on the 7^th February 1921 for £1,237. For these acts, justice had been served accordingly: James Redican sentenced to fifteen years of penal servitude, with Thomas and a third man, Thomas Weymes, each receiving twelve years.

But that was then and this was now, and it was not only the times that had changed but the powers-that-be: no longer the foreign British oppressor of old but a new, independent Irish state which owed its existence to rough-and-tumble sorts like James and Thomas Redican. ‘Justice’, too, was a manageable concept; the brothers had done what they did as part of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), under whose orders they had been carrying out – so their argument went – and, as such, the acts in question were not so much criminal as patriotic. Therefore the pair asked to be immediately freed; other political prisoners had already been so, and the Redicans could claim to be as political as anyone.

Site of the former National Bank on Baggot Street Bridge, where the robbery took place

“If the new authorities wish it,” read their petition for release:

We can give them the names of others (officers in the IRA) who were with us, and who got an equal share of the money seized. This question of equally dividing money seized by us was decided by a man from IRA headquarters, as a result of a previous case investigated by Dublin and Mullingar.

If that was not proof enough:

Do the IRA authorities deny our having been engaged in certain operations against British Crown forces? If so, we can supply particulars.

Overseeing the inquiry in the Court of Conscience, South William Street, Dublin, were James Creed Meredith, as president, and Arthur Clery. Both were judges in the Republican Supreme Court, whose writ now ran in Ireland, triumphant over the British Crown’s, but the two Sinn Féin worthies seemed oddly ill at ease with their new responsibility.

City Assembly House, 55 South William Street, Dublin, site of the former Court of Conscience

“I take it that we have no right to consider the competency of this tribunal,” said a hesitant Meredith, “or to make any recommendations as to the nature of the court-martial by which these prisoners were tried?”

Charles Power, representing the IRA GHQ, said that was indeed the case, however hard it may be to swallow. The only question for the court before them was whether the Redicans had indeed been acting under IRA directives. Which, Meredith complained, was too narrow a scope to work with. His own view was that any and all sentences issued by British court-martials – their legitimacy now questionable at best – should be reviewed.

This would set a dangerous precedence, warned Power. Was every murderer, rapist and common criminal liable for release now? There was no question of James Redican, for one, being innocent, for Power had with him a letter written by the defendant, stating that: “On the 7^th February we robbed the bank, but we claim to get out, because we are members of the IRA.” So this was hardly a miscarriage of justice.

Furthermore, to the IRA command, the suggestion that it was complicit in the Redicans’ deeds – or misdeeds – amounted to scurrilous slander, prompting Power to demand on its behalf that James Redican either support his claims with evidence or withdraw them. Power also objected to Meredith’s and Clery’s stated preference for a postponement, while Redican repeated to the court his line that everything he had done had been per instruction – and that he was far from the only one involved. All local IRA companies had been told to see to their own finances, and if Redican was to give all the names of the other IRA officers who did the same as he had done, then the list would include most of the South Westmeath (Mullingar) Brigade.[1]

Irish Volunteers/IRA members

Claiming the Past

If that skirted unpleasantly close to blackmail on Redican’s part, then it would not be the last time. Writing thirteen years later, in July 1935, Redican, by then resident in England, warned in his appeal to John W. Delunty, High Commissioner of the Irish Free State, that he had in his corner certain unspecified ‘British revolutionaries’.

As part of his work with these comrades, Redican had recently received:

5,000 leaflets and sandwich boards to picket and distribute leaflets outside I.F.S. offices in Regent St. [London] The British revolutionaries will be with me WHEN I do picket but I will hold up my leaflets for another short period.

In case the message was not clear: “I think that you may cause Pensions Dept. to hurry my claim.”[2]

For Redican was applying for a pension based on his past military service, the latest of many attempts. The first had been shortly after the Civil War, for gunfire injuries sustained to his thigh and ankle at the start of the 1916 Rising, on Easter Monday, the 27^th April, while acting as a dispatch carrier between Boland’s Mill and Clanwilliam House. In that, at least, official memoranda was on his side. “There was no negligence or misconduct on his part,” read a report from the Director of Intelligence in February 1925.[3]

The scars were still visible when the Medical Board inspected him a month later, noting the stiffness in Redican’s right ankle and a slight drop-foot. An attempt to claim as well for a bayonet-wound to the hand was considered an application too far by the Minister of Finance, as the date of the incident, during training with the Irish Volunteers in October 1915, was before “active service conditions” became the norm in Ireland and thus ineligible.[4]

Nonetheless, while much of what Redican said about himself would be questionable, disputed or suspect, that he had been ‘out’ in Easter Week and paid the price in blood was true enough, as corroborated by Seán Byrne. Those five days of warfare in Dublin would become a blur to Byrne but he did remember one distinct fact from his time as a first aid worker and that was James Redican as his first patient, brought into the house on the corner of Clarence Street that had been turned into a field hospital, with a bullet to the thigh.[5]

Dublin street during the 1916 Rising

This would earn him a gratuity of £100 from the Army Pensions Board, the maximum amount permitted. But, however deserved the money, his subsequent robbery convictions saw it nullified in 1925 when the Department of Justice drew the attention of the Board to this not-so-admirable exploit.[6]

A previous attempt by his parents to have the blot on his record and his brother’s overturned was also rejected by the Department of Home Affairs in August 1923. Even political status – that most treasured prize for Irish revolutionaries – had been denied to James and Thomas in the months before the Truce of 1921 “as the political prisoners who were undergoing sentences in the same prison with them refused to acknowledge them as such,” or so it was reported.[7]

The brothers had at least been afforded a special tribune by Home Affairs to look into their case but their attempts at evasion only worsened how they looked:

James denied participation in this robbery, although he was identified unquestionably, and Thomas alleged he was on that date a prisoner in Arbor Hill Prison, whereas there was ample evidence to prove that this allegation was untrue.

And, most damningly, there was “no question of its having been carried out otherwise on their own responsibility and for their own benefit.”[8]

Mullingar Exploits

It was a shame, thought Michael Murray, captain of Ballynacargy company, Co. Westmeath, for he had rather liked James Redican, considering him the ideal sort of Volunteer, gutsy and bold and unafraid of pulling off daring operations like the raid on the Hibernian Bank in Mullingar, sometime in 1920. It was only to be expected of a high-ranking officer like Redican, sent by the IRA GHQ to help further the struggle for Irish freedom being waged in Westmeath. 

50 Pearse Street, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, site of the Hibernian Bank

Neither daylight nor the presence of police nearby deterred him as he led Murray and two other Volunteers in stepping out from their car, next to the bank, with revolvers at the ready. The sigh of them as they entered was enough for one of the female staff members to faint and the rest to instantly submit, giving no resistance as the intruders found the keys to the strongroom. Word had reached the Ballynacargy company that a box of weapons had been deposited on the bank, as was proven to be the case: shotguns and revolvers were found inside, a veritable treasure-trove in a war where every firearm counted.

The box was taken out to the waiting car. Such was the inertia of the police that the Crown representatives did not react until the Volunteers were already driving away, and even then they did nothing more than follow in their own vehicle, easily being lost as the IRA party took the smaller, less frequented roads. A police search was later attempted, to no avail, and the pilfered guns remained hidden as the property of the Mullingar IRA.

It was not the first time that James Redican had helped tweak the British nose, as he had previously headed a night-time swoop on a mail-train at The Downs, Co. Westmeath. Letters were taken off and then to a safe location, to be censored – a common IRA procedure during the War of Independence – and relieved of any cash: about three hundred pounds worth, Murray estimated. That one item of correspondence was for the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland himself was just icing on the cake.

Redican’s charmed run with the Mullingar IRA came to an abrupt end when orders came from Dublin, issued by GHQ, that he was to be considered persona non grata. This took the local Volunteers by surprise, as did the revelation that their supposed GHQ representative:

…was not a member of the Volunteers at all. He was an ex-prisoner from Mountjoy Jail. Apparently while in Mountjoy he got acquainted with some Volunteer prisoners from the Mullingar area and convinced them he was up for political reasons while, in reality, he was doing time for some criminal offence. On his release he came to the Mullingar area posing as a staff officer from GHQ and soon was O.K. with the Battalion O/C and other officers.

It must be noted that while Murray assumed James Redican to be a mere criminal who had only been using the cause of Irish freedom as a camouflage, the other man could point to having been ‘out’ in Easter Week. So there is that in his defence.

Regardless of the specifics, Murray broke the news to Redican, who took the hint and left Westmeath, just in time to avoid Volunteers looking for him for other robberies committed elsewhere in the country (Redican, it seems, was a consistent man). The next Murray heard from him was a letter out of Mountjoy, where Redican was detained yet again, saying he was under threat of execution for shooting a policeman – in Leitrim, Murray thought Redican said, or somewhere near there. Murray was telling his story in 1956, to the Bureau of Military History, so a fuzziness on details is perhaps to be expected, such as whether the money taken from the mail-train was passed on to his superiors or went no further than the participants’ pockets, or if the action had been sanctioned at all.[9]

Constantly Pending Instructions

Judging by the tone of the letter between the IRA Adjutant-General, Gearóid O’Sullivan, to Michael Collins as Director of Intelligence, on the 1^st March 1921, the answer to all of the above questions was ‘no’:

You spoke to me on one occasion when I was in town about Seamus [James] Redican of Boyle. You mentioned GHQ wanted this man and a man named Murray in connection with a robbery on mails in Mullingar. Both of these men are at present in Ballinacarrigy, Co. Westmeath.

O’Sullivan was quoting Seán Mac Eoin, the O/C of the Longford IRA Brigade. Mac Eoin finished with a slightly ominous: “If GHQ wanted these men presently I can get and hold them pending instructions.”

Seán Mac Eoin

In keeping with the elusive nature of anything connected with the Redican brothers, O’Sullivan had to admit to Collins: “I do not remember ever having mentioned this to O/C Longford Brigade. Had you the matter on hands?” While Collins, in his reply the following day, did “recollect that the O/C Longford did mention to me that you or someone at H.Q. told him the above fact”, Collins had “never mentioned the matter to” Mac Eoin before. Collins agreed that James Redican was due for “some action”, though one particular point perplexed him: “It is a fact – isn’t it – that he was to have been arrested on a former occasion?”[10]

Clearly, Redican’s name had been circulating among the upper echelons of the IRA for a while. The next occasion was a week after O’Sullivan’s letter, this time between Richard Mulcahy, as the Chief of Staff, and the Minister of Defence, Cathal Brugha. Typing on GHQ headed paper, Mulcahy laid out the facts of the case against Redican:

The previous cases against Redican which can be definitely vouched for are that while going through Mails as a Volunteer in Mullingar he stole money and later that he made a statement to the Police Authorities while in their hands that he robbed Banks under instructions from Volunteer officers [underlined in original].

Which led to the obvious question:

What are we to do with him? Although the last case mentioned is very definite no steps have been taken to follow up the charges made in the attached papers and I do not like to give anybody the work of following it up until we are clear that if Redican is now in touch with the enemy in any way likely to be prejudicial to us, that he can be dealt with without any consideration for anything that he may have been or anything that he may have suffered in the past.

Cathal Brugha

Mulcahy did not have to specify what he meant by ‘dealt with’. Less obvious was the handwritten note at the bottom of Mulcahy’s text, presumably from Brugha: “The statement made considering him at a meeting of the staff at which I was present was somewhat different from above.” No further clarification was offered.[11]

Collins was more direct in his own message to Brugha on the 23^rd March. He had previously heard about James Redican but was less concerned at the time about the alleged money theft than some documents which had gone missing. Now that the situation had gone on for as long as it had, Collins was impatient to see proceed it no further: “If we do not mean to act in a case like this, it is a pity that we should waste our time over this worthless fellow.”[12]

Brugha, for once, was in agreement with Collins:

I certainly do not want time to be lost pursuing Redican and if you consider that the matter not sufficient ground for going on with, the whole matter may be dropped and the papers even scrapped.[13]

Arresting the miscreant and leaving him with a warning to mend his ways should be enough, in Brugha’s opinion. However, even then, Redican continued to exert a strange power to befuddle even the steely minds of the IRA GHQ, for Brugha did not make his opinion into an order, instead advising that the Dublin IRA Brigade be consulted before a final decision was reached.[14]

The Need for Certainty

Whatever was said to whom about what, Mulcahy’s fears that the man of the moment would be ‘in touch with the enemy in any way likely to be prejudicial’ to them appeared to be borne out by a note from the Intelligence Officer from the Mullingar IRA, dated to the 8^th March 1921. Word had reached him that someone – a prisoner, seemingly – had told the British authorities about the rifles stored in Mooney’s Ironmongers on Earl Street, Mullingar.

“Do you know anything of this matter?” asked the officer. “I wonder who would the prisoner be?”[15]

Three days later, on the 11^th March, he believed he had his answer:

The report that is here is that Redican from Boyle knew where all was stored and gave all the information when arrested in Dublin. It looks as if some one gave a straight tip as they went right to where it was but it was changed a few hours so they missed it.[16]

Michael Collins

Nonetheless, Collins urged caution. “It would be a mistake, I think, to accept a statement from an enemy, and regard it as being absolutely correct,” he wrote to the other man on the 13^th April 1921. He advised contacting one of the many moles the IRA had within the enemy establishment; after all, “you would need to be very definitely certain of these things.”[17]

Two months after the initial warning, on the 10^th May, Collins had a name to put to the suspected leak, “our friend Weymes”, the third man convicted with the Redican brothers for the robberies. According to a source in Mountjoy, Weymes had been writing to prison officials:

…asking that the charge be withdrawn as Redicans and himself had given so much information. He also said that if the three of them were out they would be better than the whole secret service as they knew most of the H.Q. people and also their hiding places.

Even then, the benefit of the doubt was given: “Weymes may be pulling the Comdt’s leg, but you will know best.”[18]

Further information was considered necessary – and, two days later, the IRA intelligence network had it. Weymes had sent out two letters, one to ‘Crosbie’ asking him to call in on ‘5 Mount’ to see a ‘doctor’ who would give him ‘something for your pains’, and a similar one to a ‘Mr Cyrrill’ in Mullingar, also recommending a ‘doctor’.

“I wonder if you can explain any of the above references,” Collins asked the Mullingar Intelligence Officer, who presumably had a greater local knowledge. “There is a Crosbie of Mullingar – isn’t there? – I wonder if Weymes would be writing to him?”[19]

The Quartermaster of the Mullingar Brigade wrote back the day after, the 13^th May, as his Intelligence Officer was unavailable. Despite asking around, he had no knowledge of any ‘Cyrrill’, nor could guess at who the ‘doctor’ could be. ‘Cyrill’ may be Captain Cyril Crowther, a policeman who had been stationed in Mullingar and now in Dublin, where he might have met either James Redican or Weymes. Alternatively, the mystery man could be Seery, a gambling type Weymes had given money to before when both were in Mullingar. Not only was Seery also currently in Dublin, he had been seen in the company of James Redican and Weymes. Adding to the intrigue, Weymes previously posted to Mullingar through the post office in Ballynacargy, Co. Westmeath, a registered packet of £1 notes, fifty-five in total.[20]

Otherwise, the Mullingar Quartermaster could provide little else besides a promise to make further inquiries into Seery. Collins was not wholly satisfied with this progress or how it had been conducted, telling the other man:

I note what you say, but you should not say ‘you have been informed’ without indicating where the information comes from, or whether you regard it as being reliable.[21]

By the time Michael Murray wrote to the Bureau of Military History in 1956, the question of Redican’s guilt had been concluded for him: “While [in Mountjoy] he gave information to the British authorities about the Mullingar area.” Another erstwhile comrade from his Mullingar days, Michael McCoy, who had helped Redican loot the mail-train at The Downs, likewise struggled to give him the benefit of the doubt: “It was suspected that Redican then gave information to the British authorities as to the location of the arms in Mullingar.”

McCoy himself helped to relocate the rifles before the police could follow up on their tip (in his version, they were hidden not in Mooney’s Ironmongers on Earl Street but inside McDonnell’s bakery in Dominick Street). Interestingly, he ascribed the arrests of the Redican brothers and Weymes to Collins passing on the identities of the three miscreants to the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) once he heard about their bank robberies. No motive for this unusual largesse is given, assuming it is true – judging by the paperwork, Collins did not seem any more knowledgeable than his GHQ colleagues about the case or certain about what to do about it.[22]

Postcard depicting Dominick Street, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath

Still, some progress was made. Come September, Mullingar was able to provide Dublin with a photograph of Weymes, with a promise to obtain one of James Redican. Since both men and Thomas Redican had been already convicted of the heists – along with, in James’ case, shooting with intent to murder as part of the aforementioned crimes – little else could be done against them. Prison was inadvertently keeping the trio safe and, in any case, Collins, Brugha and the rest of the IRA would have slightly bigger priorities as 1921 moved on into 1922.[23]

‘As Well As He Might’

The two Thomases, Redican and Weymes, were each sentenced to twelve years of penal servitude, while James, evidently considered the most culpable of the gang, receiving fifteen. None of them would serve their full respective lengths.[24]

According to Weymes, he was released from Mountjoy in January 1922 with the rest of the political prisoners, the circumstances of his detainment evidently not held against him. He joined the anti-Treaty side during the Civil War, specifically the Active Service Unit in North Dublin City, and from there Weymes slips from the historical record, save for an unsuccessful application for an IRA pension in 1940. Part of its failure was due to his failure to obtain references from his former comrades in Mullingar, who returned his letters unanswered.[25]

Both Redican brothers had to wait until July 1924 for their own freedom. A DMP report in August 1925 found James to be:

…frequently through the City and Suburbs, he is always well dressed, and as far as I can see, well conducted. He appears to be in good circumstances, although, as far as I can ascertain, he is not in any employment.

Another report that same year gave an answer to the question of income, as well doubt on the ‘good conduct’ observation. James was apparently:

…running a lottery at 34 Lower Abbey Street; that he was seen in possession of a revolver, and that he was believed to be living with another man’s wife.

This was despite him still being out on licence. Due to the refusal of witnesses to come forward, however, the incorrigible James Redican remained at liberty.[26]

Éamon de Valera

The ‘good circumstances’ did not last. By 1935, he was in Fulham, England, “down and out, destitute, without any fixed abode,” so he told the Irish authorities in his quest for the IRA pension that had been first granted and then snatched from him. This denial was due to the jealously of “featherbed soldiers” in the Dáil and the military; if only the Pension Board would ask Éamon de Valera and see what the President had to say about his old bosom buddy.

For:

I am the man who influenced, took from his home and introduced into the Irish Volunteer movement Eamonn de Valera. We – de Valera and myself – were wonderful comrades. There were not any secrets between us. I was de Valera’s A.D.C and on Easter Monday 1916 I did deliver over to de Valera the orders given to me by P.H. Pearse from G.H.Q. Staff, Liberty Hall, Dublin, to seize positions and fight the British. I fell wounded in that fight Easter Week 1916.[27]

Somehow this incredible connection has escaped the notice of historians. As for Thomas Redican, the DMP report of 1925 had this to say:

Certain members of this Department have strong reasons for believing that James J. is not conducting himself as well as he might, but there is no reason to suspect so far that Thomas is concerned with anything wrong although he is constantly seen in company with his brother.[28]

Unlike James, Thomas managed to stay on the straight and narrow, even if that required a bit of tinkering with the historical record.

When signing up for the Irish army in 1927, his prior conviction was raised in the background checks but Thomas was able to persuade the Department of Justice that the robberies had indeed been committed on the orders of his superior officer, or so he had believed at the time. That was considered valid enough to let him enlist and a further report in 1930, prior his transfer to the reserve, decided that he had merely been a ‘dupe’ or a ‘tool’ for others. Thomas went on to enjoy a successful career in the military until his discharge in August 1939, his character being noted as ‘very good’.[29]

So perhaps there is hope for (almost) everyone, after all.

Resources

[1] Irish Times, 29/06/1921, 04/05/1922

[2] Military Service Pensions Collection, ‘Redican, James’ (MSP34REF521)

[3] Ibid, IP700, p. 48

[4] Ibid, pp. 10-11, 16

[5] Byrne, Sean (BMH / WS 422), pp. 9-10

[6] Ibid, IP700, p. 8

[7] Ibid, p. 34

[8] Ibid, p. 35

[9] Murray, Michael (BMH / WS 1498), pp. 9-10

[10] Military Archives – Cathal Brugha Barracks, Michael Collins Papers, ‘Typed and handwritten communications mainly between Intelligence Officer, Mullingar Brigade (Westmeath) and Intelligence Staff, General Headquarters, I.R.A.’, IE-MA-CP-05-02-33, pp. 7-8

[11] Ibid, p. 9

[12] Ibid, p. 28

[13] Ibid, pp. 28-9

[14] Ibid, p. 32-3

[15] Ibid, p. 25

[16] Ibid, pp. 10, 12

[17] Ibid, p. 41

[18] Ibid, p. 57

[19] Ibid, p. 59

[20] Ibid, pp. 61, 64, 75-76

[21] Ibid, p. 82

[22] Murray, p. 10 ; McCoy, Michael (BMH / WS 1610), p. 27

[23] Collins Papers, p. 106

[24] Irish Times, 29/06/1921

[25] Military Service Pensions Collection, ‘Weymes, Thomas’ (MSP34REF41338), pp. 19, 29

[26] ‘Redican, James’ (MSP34REF521), pp. 32-3

[27] Ibid, pp. 81-2

[28] ‘Redican, James’, p. 33

[29] Military Service Pensions Collection, ‘Redican, Thomas’ (W34E8718), pp. 25-6

Bibliography

Newspaper

Irish Times

Military Service Pensions Collection

Redican, James, MSP34REF521, IP700

Redican, Thomas, W34E8718

Weymes, Thomas, MSP34REF41338

Bureau of Military History Statements

Byrne, Sean, WS 422

McCoy, Michael, WS 1610

Murray, Michael, WS 1498

Military Archives – Cathal Brugha Barracks

Michael Collins Papers

Stepping Forth into the Breach: The Irish Labour Party and its Decision to Contest the 1922 General Election

Up to the Neck in Politics

Principle or power? Righteousness or responsibility? These were the choices facing the two hundred and forty-five delegates at the Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress (ILPTUC), held inside the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on the 21^st February 1922. Either way, it was time to decide, Cathal O’Shannon, as acting Chairman, told the room, for they were looking at the likelihood of a general election within the next five to eight weeks, the third in four years. Labour had stayed out of the first in 1918, “in order that there might not be the least suspicion of a split in the ranks of those who were fighting on one field or another against the British Empire.”

But that had been then, and this was now, and the sundering they hoped to avoid had come after all. Which should not be Labour’s concern, said O’Shannon, as he urged his audience:

Not to think of the contending parties outside, Free Staters or Republicans, but to give their vote in their own interests, and to sacrifice even their personal opinions in order to reach a decision that, in the judgement of the Congress, would be best for the Labour Party and the Labour movement.

Easier said than done, of course, as O’Shannon acknowledged, for he knew he was talking to people “steeped up to the neck in politics” and with ideals they could not easily put to the side. Of course, the Labour Party had aspirations of its own, as made clear in a statement read out by Thomas Johnson, on behalf of its National Executive, that Labour should this time contest the election.[1]

After all:

Our ideal commonwealth – a Republic based upon co-operative labour and service – and not upon property and capital – is not to be attained through either party in the present Dáil. Neither the Republican Party nor the Free State Party stands for our conception of what Ireland’s future should be, nor our view of the place of Labour in the Commonwealth.[2]

The news was initially received well enough. George Nason, on behalf of the Cork Trade Council, seconded this decision in his belief that the time had come for the Labour Party to take its share of responsibility for the future of the country. Year after year, the Congress had met and passed resolution after resolution without a difference being made. Now it was time to make that difference.

Cissie Cahalan

Others thought it risked a difference of an unwanted nature. Immediately following Nason came the first objection, from Cissie Cahalan of the Irish Union of Distributive Workers and Clerks:

Cahalan: I move that the resolution is out of order because it definitely recognises the partition of the country.

O’Shannon: Your motion is not in order.

Cahalan: You passed a resolution at the last Congress that the Party was definitely opposed to Partition. Now you spring a resolution recognising Partition.

O’Shannon: The motion before Congress is perfectly in order.[3]

Abbey Theatre, interior

Sitting it Out?

As if it was as simple as that. In the years to come, others would look back at Labour’s participation in the Irish revolution and find it wanting, even those who otherwise shared its politics. “The Labour Party were a great disappointment,” said Nora Connolly, daughter of the 1916 signatory, with a sigh. “You could say that they just sat it out in their corner and did not take part.”

Nora Connolly

And this was from somebody who had joined Labour, shortly after the Civil War. Even if it was in part due to family heritage – “It had been founded by Daddy in 1912, so we thought that it was the proper place for us to go” – a certain sympathy or willingness to see the Labour Party’s point of view might have been expected. Instead, Connolly saw only selfishness in its self-regard: “All during the years of the struggle, they concentrated on building up the bureaucracy of the ITGWU [Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union]. That seemed to be all that mattered.” Worst of the offenders in Connolly’s eyes was William O’Brien, Secretary and powerhouse of the ITGWU, who, “took no part in the struggle worth speaking of. From now on, he applied himself to become solely a full-time trade union official.”[4]

Peadar O’Donnell was not quite so condemnatory, even if he too saw wasted potential in Labour and grave disappointment in its leaders: “I believed that Bill O’Brien and company would mobilise and move forward. I was horrified then, when I found out that they too supported the Treaty.”[5]

William O’Brien

All of which is something of a simplification on Connolly’s and O’Donnell’s parts. Life had not exactly been easy for O’Brien; he almost welcomed his arrest by the British authorities in March 1920 as the chance at a long-needed break from the all-demanding union commitments for which Connolly criticised him. Besides, Wormwood Scrubs looked benign enough compared to the conditions in which he had been imprisoned before: the first time in Bridewell Police Station, followed by Richmond Barracks, in mid-1913 for inflammatory speech, and later three months in Frongoch Camp due to his suspected role in Easter Week of 1916 Rising.[6]

In truth, O’Brien had not been actively involved in the Rising, though it was perhaps an easy mistake for the British authorities to make, given how he had had more than a passing knowledge of the event, having been at a certain meeting in 25 Parnell Square, Dublin, on the 9^th September 1914. Also present were Connolly, Tom Clarke, Patrick Pearse, Joseph Plunkett and Arthur Griffith, among others, who agreed to start working towards an armed overthrow of British rule. Afterwards, O’Brien seems to have faded out of the picture as he only learnt of the upcoming putsch six days before Easter Sunday, and even then quite by chance, when Connolly told him to cancel a countryside trip O’Brien mentioned he was about to take.[7]

Joe McGrath

If O’Brien had done little more than dip his toe in the revolutionary water, then in Wormwood Scrubs he was determined not to sit back and put his feet up: news that a fellow Irish prisoner and union colleague, Joe McGrath, had been transferred to the less convenient accommodation of Brixton Prison prompted a hunger strike on the part of the politically-minded inmates, O’Brien included. Worsening health saw him moved under police guard to a nursing home, where he partook enough substance to keep himself going; any return to Wormwood Scrubs, however, and he would restart his self-starvation, O’Brien warned the prison governor.[8]

Upon his release two months later in May 1920, he returned to his duties at the ITGWU headquarters at Liberty Hall, where a member of the dockers’ section brought him a novel idea: the refusal of workers to handle British Army munitions due to be unloaded in Dublin. O’Brien took this to the rest of the Labour National Executive, who agreed: the subsequent strike lasted six months and disrupted British forces in Ireland enough to earn a mention in the memoirs of General Nevil Macready – a point of considerable pride for O’Brien.[9]

British soldiers guarding a train during the 1920 Munitions Strike

Little wonder, then, that O’Donnell, for all the subsequent let-downs, remembered how he and others had, at the time, considered O’Brien “as the Lenin of the Labour Movement.”[10]

Dan Breen

Labour had not participated in the strike alone, for Sinn Féin had contributed funds to help keep wages going. A Labour venture it remained, however, proof that it could retain its autonomy even as the country looked to Nationalism to deliver independence. O’Brien’s relations with individual Sinn Féin figures were a reflection of this: amiable but willing to say no, such as when Cathal Brugha proposed to him the mustering of the unemployed masses in Britain as allies should the ongoing Truce of late 1921 collapse. Highly implausible, O’Brien replied, to Brugha’s disappointment. Similarly, O’Brien resisted efforts by Dan Breen, also during the Truce, to fire a suspected British spy from his post as an ITGWU branch secretary in South Tipperary on the grounds that union regulations did not easily permit such a thing (Breen persisted, and the man was dropped, only to be reinstated when no one else proved capable of doing the job).[11]

Arthur Griffith

And, while O’Brien had known Arthur Griffith since 1899, that the trade unionist was then working for a newspaper, the Irish Peasant, in direct competition with the latter’s Sinn Féin was not an auspicious start. Nonetheless, the two future leaders were to stay cordial with each other as they moved, if not in the same circles, then at least in parallel lines as their respective brands of radicalism went from the national fringes into the political mainstream. Though the pair would never grow overly warm towards each other, at least O’Brien and Griffith avoided the sort of acrimony that so often split relationships in this period.[12]

Still, limits remained limits, as dryly noted by O’Brien in the February 1922 Congress, when a delegate asked if anyone on the National Executive had been offered a job in the new Irish government.

“We are all waiting for the offer,” replied William O’Brien, his wry response earning some laughter from the room and a pledge from O’Shannon:

O’Shannon: My personal opinion is that no member of the National Executive would accept a job under either the Provisional Government or the Dáil.

Delegate: Are you speaking for yourself or the whole Executive?

O’Shannon: The whole.[13]

In the Forefront, Behind the Scenes

Cathal O’Shannon

Much as she had done with O’Brien, Connolly dismissed O’Shannon as someone who “also took no part” in the revolution. Not so at the start, she conceded, as O’Shannon had been her father’s contact with the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) when the Connolly family lived in Belfast. Amidst the confusion of Easter Week, he tried his best, first attempting to reach Belfast to rally rebellion and then arrested en route to Dublin.

“Having failed in that, he settled down as an editor of the Union Journal,” she concluded O’Shannon’s story dismissively.[14]

O’Donnell, again, was less stern in his judgement, praising O’Shannon as “a very good person, a brilliant person” who would have been ideal as James Connolly’s heir. The tragedy, in O’Donnell’s view, was that O’Shannon was too much under the sway of O’Brien to fulfil his potential.[15]

However, as O’Shannon told the Military Pensions Board, decades later in 1940, he had not only been his own man, but one very much to the forefront of the Irish struggle, helping – among other deeds – to flush out two enemy agents, including the notorious Timothy Quinlisk:

Timothy Quinlisk

Board Interviewer: Exposed two spies, afterwards executed. One was Quinlisk?

O’Shannon: Yes.

Board Interviewer: Was he caught in London or in Cork?

O’Shannon: Here in Ireland.

Board Interviewer: How did you manage to expose him?

O’Shannon: I had a friend who drew my attention to a suspicious character who approach him for employment and declared that he was an Irishman that had been in the British service and wanted to give his services to the IRA. My friend was suspicious of him and gave in a description of him. I conveyed the description to Mr John [sic – Joe] McGrath. He said he thought the description tallied. Some observation subsequently turned out that he was Quinlisk.

Quinlisk was found shot to death in Cork in February 1920, having failed to infiltrate the Irish Republican Army (IRA) on behalf of his British paymasters. O’Shannon could not recall the name of the second would-be mole, only that he had been a Dublin native whose uncovered subversion was also passed onto McGrath – a point-man for Collins – and ended with his murder in London.

Placard left by the body of a suspected spy in

It was all in a day’s work for O’Shannon, whose duties as an ITGWU organiser took him to Cork, Dublin and England, enabling him to cast a wide net on behalf of the insurgency:

O’Shannon: I established a kind of intelligence service between Michael Collins and some Hotel workers.

Board Interviewer: Were they members of the Transport Workers Union or whatever union you were organising?

O’Shannon: They were.[16]

Geáróid O’Sullivan

That is, if you believe O’Shannon. The Pension Board were not too sure if they did, noting that he “appears to have had somewhat intangible and elusive service, the value of which is extremely difficult to estimate.” Geáróid O’Sullivan definitely did not. “His story is a fabrication. Exposing Quinlisk – false!” the former IRA Adjutant General wrote on O’Shannon’s application papers. As if that remark was not scathing enough: “Collins hated the sight of him.”[17]

O’Shannon’s account does, however, chime with other statements about Collins’ interest in the Labour movement. Under his direction, and again with McGrath as a go-between, IRB activists in the various trade unions used their positions to agitate against any British or cross-channel links in favour of exclusively Irish-based bodies. The Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE) fell victim to these machinations, in May 1920, when the Irish Engineering, Shipbuilding and Foundry Workers Trade Union (IESFTU) was formed, claiming 4,500 members from the ASE by the end of the year and leaving its parent body in Ireland with a diminished 1,762 by 1922.

Luke Kennedy

“We smashed up most of the English trades unions in Ireland at that time,” boasted Luke Kennedy, an electrician and IRB man, while another operative described their roles as being “republican agents within the trade union movement. This was regarded as very important work both by the [IRA] Army Council and the Dáil at the time.” The Labour leadership did not seem to have been consulted on this policy of union separatism to judge by how they were “not very favourable to us at all,” according to Kennedy. “As a matter of fact from the start of our union they accused us of being a political union and do so still” – which was hardly surprising, all things considered.

Of course, as with much about the period, things were not necessarily as clear-cut as that, for the ITGWU, as noted by historian Padraig Yeates, was still willing to work with the IESFTU on industrial and other matters. Either way, the IESFTU, and the IRB puppeteering behind it, were “indicative of Collins’s extraordinary ability to control and manipulate any group he saw as either a threat or a potential asset to his objectives.”[18]

Out for a Deal

Harry Boland

So what was Labour to the Irish Nationalist movement – a threat or an asset? Alternatively both, depending on who was asking. “We are all of us anxious to placate Labour as we know we all require their aid in matters of greater importance than the General Election,” Harry Boland told Brugha in a letter upon Labour’s agreement not to contest the 1918 General Election and thereby grant Sinn Féin a clear run. That Labour had considered the question at all was enough for Brugha to grumble that it was “a pity the Labour people have not the intelligence and patriotism to let their class claim wait until we have cleared out the enemy.”[19]

Sinn Féin would practically sweep the board for the Irish constituencies, setting the course for Ireland’s future – and relegating Labour to ‘always the bridesmaid, never the bride’, a placement it has struggled to escape ever since. Never one to miss a chance to point out how Labour missed a chance, Peadar O’Donnell was to argue that the Party:

…should have demanded their quota of seats, as part of the inheritance won for them by Connolly, but they neither had the willpower nor the calibre of women and men, necessary to demand and to fill these positions.[20]

Again, it was not quite as simple as that.

“Sinn Féin is out for a deal,” the journalist L.P. Byrne told Thomas Johnson, the ITGWU President, as early as December 1917. The horse-trading began in earnest the following year, in mid-August 1918, when Boland told the Sinn Féin Standing Committee, after talking with Labour representatives, that the other party was preparing to contest fifteen seats. As this would risk splitting the radical vote, Labour’s participation was thus a severe danger to Sinn Féin’s aspirations to national dominance.

Sinn Féin poster on a carriage during the general election of 1918

Faced with the withering of its dreams on the vine, Sinn Féin renewed attempts to find common ground with Labour. At one meeting, in September 1918, O’Brien, O’Shannon and Thomas Farren put forward to Boland and Robert Brennan not only their aim to contest as many as fifteen seats in Ireland – they wanted Sinn Féin to step back for Labour in four of the seven Dublin constituencies. With the country to win or lose, with or without a deal, the Sinn Féin Standing Committee offered to leave the Dublin seats clear as asked in return for Labour candidates taking a pledge to commit to an Irish Republic: Labour seats on a Sinn Féin platform, in other words.

Seán T. OKelly

That Sinn Féin was stooping to deals at all irked some of its own. “Sinn Féin is the dominant party,” declared Seán Forest at the party’s Ard Fheis on the 30^th-31^st of October 1918. “It is not for them to go to any section, but for that section to come to Sinn Féin.” More conciliatory was Seán T. O’Kelly, who announced at the same event how at least one Labour candidate was said to have already taken the pledge in readiness; nonetheless, O’Kelly wished the other group would “stand aside to allow the election to be fought on the clean issue of Ireland vs England.”

Which is exactly what happened. Labour had its own gathering two days after Sinn Féin’s, in which the National Executive announced its recommendation for Labour to withdraw from the election. The delegates voted in favour ninety-six to twenty-three. With the crisis having safely passed, Republican journals were suitably appreciative of Labour doing “the right thing at the right time” and waxed lyrical about the “natural bonds” which existed between them.[21]

It is easy to be wise after the fact, and Labour was to have a surplus of wisdom. To Frank Robbins, abstaining in 1918 was the result of “immaturity in its political policy and strategy”, due in part to having “a very small membership without any proper form of organisation.” And William O’Brien, who helped direct Labour Party policy as much as anyone, compared Sinn Féin – “a fully political organisation and the adherents of it were under the control or inspiration of their elected officials” – to Labour’s then-ramshackle nature as a coalition of trade unions, loosely under the authority of a National Executive whose members seldom convened.

The Labour National Executive, 1913, including Jim Larkin, James Connolly and William O’Brien

Labour, as Robbins and O’Brien both told it, was just not ready in 1918.[22]

Helena Molony

Four years passed and the question posed by the ILPTUC in February 1922 remained the same: was Labour ready?

Helena Moloney (Women Workers’ Union), for one, did not think so. Right after O’Shannon assured Cahalan that the motion to contest the election was in order, Moloney threatened to cut it off at the knees with one of her own: “That the Labour Party does not take part in the forthcoming election.”

Helena Molony

Her explanation as to why was brief and to the point: to do so would split Labour. No matter what programme the Party put before the electorate, the Treaty was the issue on everyone’s lips – whether to accept or not – and overriding all others. Instead “the objects of Labour and the Workers’ Republic could be achieved as through their organisation and their own efforts as through Parliamentarianism.”[23]

There was certainly no doubting Molony’s efforts, ever since the start of Easter Week or even, as she told the Military Pensions Board in 1936, some days before:

Board Interviewer: You were mobilised on Easter Sunday?

Molony: Technically yes, although as a matter of fact I spent three nights from Thursday sleeping in Liberty Hall, headquarters of the Army.

Board Interviewer:  You were on duty on Sunday anyhow?

Molony: Yes.

Board Interviewer: Then on Monday?

Molony: We started out at 12 o’clock and I believe our party was the first shot fired, the City Hall, at the Castle gate, but we subsequently occupied the City Hall.

Board Interviewer: You were captured on Monday evening?

Molony: Yes. Monday evening.

Board Interviewer: Taken prisoner?

Molony: Yes.[24]

If her role in the Rising had been for less than a day, and the enterprise itself a defeat, then Molony was far from dispirited. Instead, she threw herself into the subsequent fray to the extent that, when asked about it, she could:

…not remember a single day when I was not doing something, going down to election meetings, taking charge of meetings, publicity, elections and that sort of thing in these periods. It was all revolutionary periods. It was difficult to disentangle what was military and what was civil.[25]

The last line was a response to the interviewer’s dismissal of her running a food kitchen in Liberty Hall, during the shortages of 1918, on the grounds that it was non-military work. The distinction between the martial and the civilian was a very fine one indeed during this era and, even though Molony never fired a shot post-Rising, she was willing to assist others in doing so, in addition to the rest of her revolutionary curriculum vitae:

Board Interviewer: Assisting First Aid, procuring and concealing arms. Assisted in Belfast Boycott under Miss L. [Lily] Brennan’s instructions, continued acting as [Republican District] Justice [for Rathmines Area]?

Molony: Yes. Also, my rooms in Leeson Street [Dublin] were raided in some high time of the Tan regime, No. 4 Leeson Street, and arms found. My landlord was arrested. I was not at home. He was an old man and I wrote pleading for him and saying he did not know he had these things. I got an instruction from the military authorities to surrender them and tell them where more could be got and they would release the man.

Board Interviewer: Had you been in the habit of keeping arms during this period?

A Webley revolver, a gun typically used in the Irish War of Independence

Molony: Yes. I mean, I constantly had them to either pass on or to keep them in safety.

Board Interviewer: Were you in charge of a dump at that period?

Molony: Yes.

Board Interviewer: A small dump?

Kathleen Lynn

Molony: Always small. I do not think I ever had more than five or six at the outside, in my personal charge. Of course, there were numerous raids on the place where I lived. I lived for a period with Dr [Kathleen] Lynn, although I had rooms downtown. This is 1920-1. It was later that my apartments were used for publicity.

Board Interviewer: Your service was rendered both to the IRA and [Irish] Citizen Army?

Molony: Yes. They were in liaison. They worked in conjunction.

Board Interviewer: There was no difference as far as you were concerned?

Molony: No. Whoever was in charge or suitable for duty was simply called upon.[26]

Maybe it is unsurprising that Molony did not see parliamentarianism or seats in the Dáil as the be-end and end-all, given her range of tools used in the pursuit of a Workers’ Republic. What is surprising is that, unlike O’Shannon, she said nothing to the Pension Board about her trade union activism, despite it being, as with everything else she involved herself in, extensive. By February 1922, she was on the National Executive, albeit an outsider as much as an insider, given how she was seeking to overturn a major decision of that body.

It was an incongruity picked up by another like-minded delegate in the room, Walter Carpenter (International Union of Tailors and Tailoresses), who accused the National Executive of trying to deceive the rest of them: Molony’s dissension was proof enough that the leadership was not speaking with one voice, contrary to its claim.

“Practically,” insisted O’Shannon in response. Everyone else in the Executive was onboard. But, as ensuing debate showed, there was nothing ‘practically’ or sure about much.[27]

To be the Cockpit or in the Cockpit?

The two rallying points in the ILPTUC were the National Executive’s proposal and Molony’s amendment to it, both in direct opposition to each other. Although she was to say nothing else – at least, nothing recorded in the report – Molony had provided a hill to fight on for those resistant to the direction Labour was moving. Of the contributors to the debate, fifteen were for Molony’s amendment and against a Labour run, while fourteen supported the National Executive’s proposed grasp at electoral gain. As it turned out, a greater outspokenness on the part of the ‘nays’ did not equate to numbers for the final tally – when the talking was done and it was time to cast a vote, the ‘yeas’ carried the day, one hundred and four to forty-nine.[28]

In the meantime, a wide range of opinions, doubts and fears, hopes and aspirations were voiced, allowing a snapshot of Irish Labour at this pivotal time. As detailed by historian Niamh Puirséil, dissenters to the party’s electoral ambitions consisted of four different schools of thought:

• Those who felt that industrial issues more pressing, with parliamentarianism a distraction.
• Followers of the absent Jim Larkin objecting to anything the current leadership said.
• Revolutionary syndicates or communists who wanted to focus on factories and services rather than the compromises politics would entail.
• Republicans who wanted Sinn Féin to have a clear electoral run as before.[29]

Personal bonds may have been as motivating as ideology. Two of the delegates supporting Molony’s amendment were Helen Chenevix and Louie Bennett, both present on behalf of the Irish Women Workers’ Union (IWWU). Post-Civil War, the three would form a powerful triumvirate at the apex of their union, the success of which, disproportionate to its modest size, was attributed by historian Cullen Owens to the combined negotiating skills of this formidable feminine trio.[30]

Members of the IWWU outside Liberty Hall, Dublin

At the 1922 ILPTUC, Chenevix and Bennett set the tone for their future working relationship by weighing in on Molony’s behalf. Pointing to their British equivalent’s dismal record of overthrowing capitalism, Chenevix argued that only direct action could establish a Workers’ Commonwealth, while Bennett took a slightly more pragmatic line: since no more than a handful of their candidates were likely to be elected, they would still be in a poor position to influence the course of events.

Only when they actually held power could they take power, she said:

Politics were useless until the party had some grip of the economic powers of the country. Before they went into politics, they should have a stronger grip of these powers than they had at the present time.[31]

E.P. Hart (ITGWU) held a similar view. Any seats won would be so few “as to be useless”, capable only of uniting the two bigger Sinn Féin factions against Labour, isolated as it was by its lack of direction on the Treaty question. But Hart did not rule out politics for its own sake, only that “the time was not opportune for Labour to run candidates.” Mr Keyes (Limerick Trades Council) thought the same: their moment had not yet come. Any successful seats would most likely number enough to count on one hand, maybe two hands at the most, and at the cost of subverting Labour, for the Treaty question was just too big to ignore and too important for people not to have opinions on, opinions that were already dividing friend from friend.

“When the present issue was decided between Free Staters versus Republicans, then the time would come to launch their policy,” but, until then, Keyes:

…asked them to stand down, rally their forces in the interval, make the other parties aware of their contribution to the political campaign, so that, when the time came, they could call for the recognition Labour was entitled to.[32]

In other words, a repeat of 1918. Which, argued E. O’Carroll (Railway Clerks’ Association) with the wisdom of hindsight, had been a mistake. Had Labour entered the general election four years ago, the country would not be in its current disarray. Mr White (Wexford Trade Council) did not go quite that far – or back – but he did think it was time for Labour to assert itself and “not be made the cockpit by other political parties” like before. It was a frustration shared by Mr Anthony (Typographical Association), who sarcastically asked the other delegates how long they were going to wait. Far from it being the wrong time, as some insisted, Anthony believed “Labour had everything to gain and very little to lose by contesting.”[33]

Thomas Irwin (Plasterers’ Trade Union and Dublin Workers’ Council) was bold enough to envisage such an ‘everything to gain’ moment: should the votes fall evenly for both Pro and Anti-Treatyites, then Labour would be ideally situated to:

…hold the balance of power in the legislature assembly set up. If such a position arose, the Labour Party should preserve its independence and act in the Labour interests. The Party would be placed in the position of having to make a momentous decision.[34]

What the momentous decision could or should be, Irwin did not venture. The argument that the Treaty was too large an issue to sidestep were not entirely wrong; even O’Shannon, when he urged both adherents and opponents of the Anglo-Irish agreement in his audience to disregard such considerations – at least until they had finished deciding whether Labour would enter the election – must have known his request was a futile one. The National Executive had already made up its collective mind (sans Molony) to support the Treaty; at least, so said Mr Rooney (Clerical Workers’ Trade Union), who accused the body in question of lacking “the courage or manliness” to say so openly.[35]

Transforming the Republic

If the National Executive stood charged with dishonesty through omission, then the same could be said for the written minutes of the ILPTUC – the published, official version, anyway.

The Irish Labour History Society and Archives, Beggars Bush, Dublin

Two long galleys of an earlier, unedited draft lie amidst the papers of the Irish Labour History Society. A third is absent, covering the middle part of the February 1922 Congress, leaving us with only the first and third ends, but enough to compare “with the recommendations which were circulated in printed form to the delegates at the Special Congress,” at which point, as described by historian Charles McCarthy, “this document becomes interesting,” particularly in what did not make the cut.[36]

Post hoc, the memorandum reads at one point:

Labour ought to have its representatives in the forthcoming Parliament to work in Labour’s interests, to frustrate reactionary measures, and to use every occasion to hasten the process towards our ideal Workers’ Republic.[37]

However, revisions in blue pencil mark what had been there in the initial draft:

If the country decides to confirm the Treaty, Labour ought to have its representatives in the forthcoming Parliament to work in Labour’s interests, to frustrate reactionary measures, and to use every occasion to hasten the process towards our ideal Workers’ Republic. On the other hand, if the country by its vote [cancels? – illegible] the Treaty and elects a majority to proclaim anew the Republic, then again Labour ought to have its spokesmen in any assembly which may function as a parliament, having powers of government.[38]

A little further down, an entire passage – containing a dramatic line of speculation – had been excised:

In the event of the Labour Party being in the position that they hold the balance as between the two main contending parties, the Labour members shall vote for the re-election of the Republican Government [emphasis mine]. Such a contingency will have proved the existence of a deep and widespread revolutionary purpose amongst the mass of the people sufficient to carry the country forward a long way towards transforming the Republic into our ideal Workers’ Republic.[39]

While studiously neutral for the most part, the National Executive was willing to countenance, if faced with the fork in the road, swinging behind the Anti-Treatyites. This was despite, as McCarthy points out, it “clearly did not reflect the general view of the Labour movement, although there was a substantial minority on the Republican side.”[40]

Talk at the ILPTUC of a Treaty-induced schism was more than idle speculation, for Sinn Féin was already rent and torn, as was the IRA – irreconcilably so, as it turned out. Fears of the same disarray infecting Labour would explain why the otherwise Treaty-leaning National Executive was willing to make overtures to its Republican constituents, hinting at a future common goal for the purpose of gaining a current consensus for its electoral proposal. This only lasted as long as the Congress, however, hence the editing of the official report, “from what might be seen as a pro-Republican document to one that some delegates regarded as being pro-Treaty,” with the initial Republican temptations “judged too perilous” to be remembered.[41]

Walter Carpenter

Certainly, many of the 1922 ILPTUC delegates who disagreed with the Treaty proved as willing to defend the Republic in the subsequent conflict as they did in the previous one. Molony returned from Brussels at the start of the Civil War to aid the Anti-Treatyites in procuring weapons, harbouring combatants and contributing to their publicity department. And Walter Carpenter, a 1916 Rising participant who had been the first to speak in favour of Molony’s attempted stymying of Labour’s electoral prospects, joined the IRA in the Four Courts. There, he collected material for making munitions, laid mines outside the building and was later a prisoner with the rest of the garrison when they surrendered to the Free State. As with Molony, O’Brien and O’Shannon, Carpenter was prepared to fight for the Green at the same time as the Red, even when his comrades were not entirely his ideological cup of tea.

“He would not join the Volunteers because we were not holding a class war,” noted a member of the Military Pensions Board.[42]

Frank Robbins

Frank Robbins

Like Carpenter, Frank Robbins (ITGWU) had served with the Irish Citizen Army (ICA) in the Easter Rising; in his case, as part of the St Stephen’s Green contingent, which saw him raising a tricolour over the College of Surgeons. Six years later, upon hearing of the ambush and death of Michael Collins in August 1922, Robbins came close to enlisting in the National Army; he had already been tempted with a captaincy, albeit one refused.[43]

Liam Mellows

He had had his fill of bloodshed, as had the country overall, he believed. Listening to Peter Flood, who had lost two brothers in the span of two years, speak of the need for young people to live for Ireland instead of dying for it moved Robbins greatly. In contrast, he found opponents of the Treaty to be dangerously cavalier about consequences. When Liam Mellows compared his fellow Republicans to engineers mapping out a new Ireland, Robbins retorted that good engineers would find ways around obstacles instead of careering straight into them.[44]

So what direction should Labour be heading in? Its National Executive wanted one way, via elections, Moloney’s amendment another. Both were wrong, Robbins told the 1922 ILPTUC. Though he concurred with the Executive otherwise, he did not believe parliamentary participation would benefit Labour, at least not for the moment, the main problem being that the party had yet to grasp the Treaty bull by the horns and announced whether it would support the deal or not.[45]

And so, as soon as Molony’s amendment was voted down, one hundred and fifteen votes to eighty-two, Robbins proposed a motion of his own, urging that:

This all-important question should be decided by a plebiscite, in order to ascertain the true feelings of the people on the Treaty, and having cleared the position, Labour should then take its place in the election.[46]

Presumably Robbins was counting on any plebiscite resulting in favour of the Treaty. Still, circumstances did not always permit him to follow through on his commitments. When the anti-Treaty IRA seized the buildings in Parnell Square, Dublin, in early 1922, they found Robbins and a number of other ICA personnel present at No. 35, the head office of the ITGWU. The Anti-Treatyites allowed the other faction to remain in return for food and an agreement to defend their section from any Free State attacks.[47]

IRA members outside a building they’ve occupied, early 1922

Conflicting opinions did not necessarily preclude mutual support, no more than overlapping sympathies guarantee healthy partnerships. Robbins would bemoan the lack of vision among his Labour colleagues and the failure to synergise their trade unionist aspirations with their nationalist convictions, continuing instead to see the two movements as separate strands. An example of this myopia was during the 1920 Municipal Elections, which saw – unlike the 1918 General one – a variety of radical candidates, such as Labour and assorted Independents, as well as Sinn Féin ones.

Labour election poster, 1920

Robbins thought it fitting for the Fintan Lalor Pipe Band to parade in support of Labour, since the group had always marched in lockstep with the ICA. When the idea was brought to the ICA Army Council, it decided that the Band should perform for all Republican candidates, such as Kathleen Lynn, who was standing for Sinn Féin despite her ICA membership, but not for Walter Carpenter, who was ‘only’ a Workers’ Republican man. It was apparently not enough to be Labour to be considered a Republican, much to Robbins’ chagrin.[48]

The Fintan Lalor band

An Abysmal Failure?

Notably, Robbins did not resent Sinn Féin for this relegation of Labour to second fiddle, instead casting blame on the ICA leadership and its utter inability to fill James Connolly’s shoes. As a compensation of sorts, according to Robbins:

It can be claimed with some justification that the trade union movement itself as well as individual trade unionists in their roles as members of the Volunteers to some extent made up for the abysmal failure of the Irish Citizen Army to play a significant role on behalf of the working class in the shaping of Irish independence during the crucial years of 1918 to 1921.[49]

Robbins did his best to be one of these said individual trade unionists. When an American shipment of arms landed off Dublin’s North Wall, dockers in the ITGWU ‘assisted’ in unloading the crates and emptying them of their revolvers, as Robbins told the Military Pensions Board in 1937:

Board Interviewer: How did you help in all this?

Robbins: Well, I had not very much to do beyond that of organising and I was receiving.

Board Interviewer: Was it the Transport Workers Union?

Robbins: There were members of the Transport Workers Union and because of my connection.

Board Interviewer: Because of your connection with the Transport Workers?

Robbins: No, the Citizen Army. I was one of the party that was working on the thing. We all had various kinds of jobs.

Board Interviewer: You didn’t take any part in taking the arms off?

Robbins: No.

Board Interviewer: But you had a part in taking the stuff?

Robbins: Yes, in taking the stuff and dumping it.[50]

ITGWU badge

The interviewer was perhaps struggling to sound impressed. The conversation became noticeably awkward when the topic turned to the Connolly Commemorations in June 1919, which saw the ICA clashing with Dublin policemen, wounding several of the latter who had tried to supress the banned event:

Board Interviewer: Connolly Commemoration, you had a conflict with the DMP [Dublin Metropolitan Police]?

Robbins: Yes, I think there was six or seven policemen shot that day, that evening. This was in June 1919.

Board Interviewer: Were you armed?

Robbins: Yes.

Board Interviewer: And you were shooting?

Robbins: Not at the actual time. I was there…

Board Interviewer: Did you have any actual conflict with the Black and Tans? Any fight with them or the military of the police during the time the Black and Tans were here?

Robbins: Yes, I gave you the instance in 1919.

Board Interviewer: There were no Black and Tans then?

Robbins: No.

Board Interviewer: In 1920 or 1921, did you have any fight with them?

Robbins: I cannot just remember. I just scribbled those notes down last night.[51]

Reading between the lines, the interviewer clearly believed that Robbins’ active service record left something to be desired.

Regardless, Robbins took pride in the surge of growth in his ITGWU, mirroring Sinn Féin’s, and if the two movements did not overlap as much as they could or, so Robbins thought, should, then relations were still friendly enough for the trade union and the IRA to share officers or branch halls, not to mention the use on occasion of Liberty Hall for clandestine Cabinet sessions of the underground Irish government. Once, in September 1919, Robbins was asked by an ITGWU colleague to keep an eye out for Michael Collins, who was due to arrive at Liberty Hall. Thanks to the warning of an impending raid, Collins decided against coming. No raid took place, as it happened, but better safe than sorry.[52]

ICA members on parade outside Liberty Hall,

‘A Splendid Substitute’

Robbins’ motion for a plebiscite on the Treaty dilemma appeared reasonable; after all, how could Labour, and the country, move on without knowing for sure which direction to go? Mr Magee (Irish Engineering Union) seconded the proposal and added an accompanying one of his own:

This all-important question should be decided by a plebiscite, in order to ascertain the true feelings of the people on the Treaty, and, having cleared the position, Labour should then take its place in the election.

Five more spoke up. Mr Campbell (Belfast) pointed out how the eighty-two delegates who had voted for Molony’s denial of a Labour electoral policy remained a formidable bloc out of the two hundred in the room – would it thus not be better to find a decision able to unify them into agreement with the rest? More tentative was Mr Cummins (Central Teachers’ Organisation), who thought the National Executive should gather opinions from trade unions across the country and then make a final, binding decision. Thomas Farren (ITGWU) dismissed Magee’s suggestion as ridiculous on the grounds that the National Executive lacked the means of conducting such a plebiscite, while Thomas Foran (ITGWU) wanted to pull out of the parliamentary process altogether – the inevitable falling out would not be worth the few paltry seats gained. And Mr Mullen doubted his area of Ballina, Co. Mayo, would deliver a Labour win anyway, since the farmers there were in the ascendant, having the numbers and the organisation. On the Ballina Municipal Council, for example, Labour had only three out of the twenty-four placements, and even these were negated by the other representatives ganging up on them.

A show of hands voted down Magee’s motion. The short time spent on debating it, compared to the length Molony’s merited, perhaps hinted that the mental engines in the hall were now running on fumes. Not so for P. Kelly (Postal Workers), who made a shot at keeping the Molony amendment alive by suggesting that it be returned to the National Executive for further consideration. This gained the surprising approval of Thomas Johnson – surprising because, as Johnson admitted, the amendment ran completely contrary to the National Executive’s proposition, of which he was the prime mover.

Thomas Johnson

The debate between political tools versus industrial action did not have to be a choice of one or the other, Johnson said. As a matter of fact, the National Executive, himself included, had more faith in the latter, while at the same time considering the former “as a splendid supplement and protection for industrial work.”[53]

Eoin O’Duffy

It was a characteristic move by Johnson, who could never quite stop giving the impression that he was on each side and nobody’s. In fairness, the men Johnson had to deal with as his political peers had a tendency to assume the worst in others, such as Eoin O’Duffy writing to Michael Collin, in the middle of the Civil War in August 1922, of his suspicion that “the Labour element and the Red Flaggers are at the back of all moves towards ‘Peace’, not for the sake of the country, but in their own interests.” These private motives were apparently nothing less than an armed takeover: “They realise that, if the Government can break the back of this revolt, any attempts at revolt, by labour, in future will be futile.”[54]

Conversely, Johnson’s leading of Labour into the Dáil proved his untrustworthiness in the eyes of the other side in the conflict. As the Free State implemented its policy of firing-squads for POWs, Liam Lynch warned Johnson in a letter, in November 1922, that since he was holding him as responsible as the Government, the anti-Treaty IRA would take “very drastic measures to protect our forces.”

Liam Lynch

Any doubt as to what these ‘drastic measures could mean would have been cleared up when Peadar O’Donnell’s future wife, Lile O’Donel, obtained a meeting with Johnson on the pretence of an interview. She then took the opportunity to inform Johnson that he would be the next to die in the event of her imprisoned sweetheart’s execution. As Johnson had no say in the Cabinet or its measures, it is unclear what Lile expected him to be doing, other than what he already was, namely using his time in the Dáil to condemn the shootings as a gross abuse of power. None of which absolved him in hardliner eyes, as Lynch admonished: “You, as spokesman, have given the approval of your Party to the present policy of the so-called Provisional government.”[55]

These were times when ‘those who are not with me are against me’ was the ruling assumption; Ernest Blythe would recall how Johnson “often irritated us a great deal by his insistence on debating a great variety of matters at considerable length” – as if that was not the point of the Dáil. Still, Blythe acknowledged this and Johnson’s service to the burgeoning democracy in providing a loyal opposition.

Otherwise:

If we had not been challenged and had not to make our case, many arguments against us would have been believed but, because of Mr Johnson’s opposition, we were put in a position to dispose of them.[56]

Not without reason, then, did the Anti-Treatyites turn their ire on Labour as Free State running dogs, wrecking the party’s head office in Dublin and making off with some of its equipment. And also not without reason, given the assassination of one pro-Treaty TD already in December 1922 and the wounding of another, did President W.T. Cosgrave offer Labour TDs the sanctuary of Buswell’s Hotel, conveniently near the Dáil, where other Free State representatives were housed under armed guard. Johnson declined, preferring to keep to his Rathmines residence and the daily commute to work even as the war raged on.[57]

“Johnson, while not an advocate of physical force,” wrote his ITGWU colleague, Robbins, “was certainly not lacking in moral courage” – nor of the physical sort, either.[58]

Thomas Johnson addressing a crowd

A Decision Finally Made

If Robbins had moved from a belief in force of arms to that of compromise, then Johnson could claim consistency: violence had always repelled him. He too had been in Dublin for the Rising, like others in Labour, but, unlike them, only as a spectator rather than a participant. Where some had beheld glory in those five days, Johnson observed only squalor. A walk into town from Drumcondra on Easter Friday turned into a tour of gun exchanges between British soldiers in the streets and Irish snipers from windows, with fires ablaze in different places at once. But the biggest impression made – to judge by the amount of description Johnson gave in his diary – was the impact on ordinary people, from the looters of wrecked shops on Upper Dorset Street to the “hundreds of men, well dressed, middle-class citizens” of Drumcondra buying up every item of food on sale and lugging them back home in sacks.[59]

The experience, so he told the Trade Union Congress at Sligo, four months later in August 1916, “cured me of any leanings I may ever have had towards the ideal of a ‘Nation in Arms’, if directed by a military caste.”[60]

O’Connell Street, Dublin, after the Rising

While nursing his own views, Johnson had taken the time to learn that of others on Easter Week, speaking to people from a range of backgrounds: labourers, shopkeepers and ‘better off clerks.’ Overall, public opinion, in Dublin at least:

Practically unanimously it is against the rebels, while compelled to admire the courage and resources of the young men and their leaders.[61]

Johnson would apply this same sort of constructive ambiguity upon the second great event in five years that ‘changed, changed utterly’ everything. The attitude of the National Executive at the ILPTUC in February 1922 was one of studied neutrality towards the Treaty: they were not responsible for it, it was no business or making of theirs, but there the deal stood, for better or for worse, and it was time to transition from one phase to the next.

Pro-Treaty poster, 1922

In truth, Johnson had favoured the Treaty from the start, even before its ratification in January 1922. Wary of the growing bitterness that emerged from the Dáil during its debates, followed by the widening splits within Sinn Féin and the IRA, Johnson kept his own counsel from his colleagues, at least initially. By the time of the ILPTUC a month later, Johnson, O’Brien, O’Shannon and most of the Labour leadership were in concord where the Treaty was concerned; even then, they moved cautiously, even subtly, whether tempting Republican-minded delegates with the possibility of bringing Labour on the side of the Anti-Treatyites or Johnson posing as all things to all men by approving of a motion to block a proposal he was behind. That Labour was to survive the coming disaster as an intact entity is perhaps a tribute to its deft handling by the leadership.[62]

Kelly’s motion was defeated by seventy-two votes against fifty-five, ensuring the final demise of Molony’s attempt to halt Labour’s march into the parliamentary process. Robbins’ motion for a plebiscite was next put to the room, the lack of further discussion necessitated by the late hour of the evening, and passed by a hundred and twenty-eight against twelve. Finally, Johnson’s motion from the start of the event, around which all debate had flowed, was favoured by one hundred and four to forty-nine, confirming Labour’s entry into the next general election.[63]

Election poster for Cathal O’Shannon in Louth-Meath, 1922

Thus concluded the Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress of February 1922, and Labour’s role as a political party in deed as well as in name began. It was time to turn principles into power and take long-delayed responsibility for their righteousness.

References

[1] 28^th Annual Report 1922, Irish Trade Union Congress Annual Reports (Archives Exhibition by Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the National Archives of Ireland) (Accessed 28/09/2021), pp. 57-9

[2] Ibid, p. 62

[3] Ibid, p. 69

[4] MacEoin, Uinseann, Survivors (Dublin: Argenta Publications, 1980), pp. 209, 213

[5] Ibid, p. 24

[6] O’Brien, William (as told to MacLysaght, Edward) Forth the Banners Go (Dublin: The Three Candles Limited, 1969), pp. 180, 83-6, 123, 137

[7] Ibid, pp. 270, 282

[8] Ibid, pp. 180-2, 186-7

[9] Ibid, pp. 194-7

[10] MacEoin, pp. 22-3

[11] O’Brien, pp. 158, 217-8

[12] Ibid, pp. 23, 196

[13] 28^th Annual Report 1922, p. 77

[14] MacEoin, pp. 203, 209

[15] Ibid, p. 23

[16] Military Service Pensions Collection, ‘O’Shannon, Cathal’ (MSP34REF21723), pp. 7-8

[17] Ibid. pp. 3, 16

[18] Yeates, Padraig, ‘Michael Collins’s ‘secret service unit’ in the trade union movement’, History Ireland (Issue 3, May/June 2014) (Accessed 28/09/2021)

[19] Fitzpatrick, David. Harry Boland’s Irish Revolution (Cork: Cork University Press, 2003), pp. 167-8

[20] MacEoin, p. 23

[21] Mitchell, Arthur. Labour in Irish Politics: 1890-1930 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1974), pp. 96-100

[22] Robbins. Frank. Under the Starry Plough: Recollections of the Irish Citizen Army (Dublin: The Academy Press, 1977), p. 222 ; O’Brien, pp. 160-2

[23] 28^th Annual Report 1922, p. 69

[24] Military Service Pensions Collection, ‘Molony, Helena’ (MSP34REF11739), p. 21

[25] Ibid, p. 23

[26] Ibid, pp. 22-4

[27] 28^th Annual Report 1922, p. 73

[28] Ibid, p. 87

[29] Puirséil, Niamh. The Irish Labour Party: 1922-73 (Dublin: University College Dublin 2007), p. 10

[30] Regan, Nell. Helena Molony: 1883-1967 (Baldoyle, Co. Dublin: Arlen House, 2017), pp. 184-5

[31] 28^th Annual Report 1922, pp. 70, 78

[32] Ibid, pp. 71-2, 74

[33] Ibid, pp. 75, 77, 81

[34] Ibid, p. 76

[35] Ibid, pp. 81, 84

[36] McCarthy, Charles. ‘Document Study: Labour and the 1922 General Election’, Saothar 7 (1981: Journal of the Labour History Society), p. 115

[37] 28^th Annual Report 1922, p. 63

[38] McCarthy, p. 118

[39] Ibid

[40] Ibid, p. 120

[41] Ibid

[42] Molony, p. 25 ; Military Service Pensions Collection, ‘Carpenter, Walter’ (MSP34REF8789), p. 33

[43] Robbins, Under the Starry Plough, p. 97

[44] Ibid, pp. 230, 234

[45] 28^th Annual Report 1922, p. 81

[46] Ibid, p. 84

[47] Military Service Pensions Collection, ‘Robbins, Frank’ (MSP34REF17899), pp. 26-7

[48] Robbins, Under the Starry Plough, pp. 207, 233

[49] Ibid, p. 217

[50] ‘Robbins’, p. 26

[51] Ibid, pp. 25-6

[52] Robbins, Under the Starry Plough, pp. 217-8

[53] 28^th Annual Report 1922, pp. 84-6

[54] Regan, John M. Myth and the Irish State (Sallins, Co. Kildare: Irish Academic Press, 2013), p. 132

[55] Gaughan, J. Anthony. Thomas Johnson: 1872-1963, First Leader of the Labour Party in Dáil Éireann (Mount Merrion, Co. Dublin: Kingdom Books, 1980), p. 215 p ; MacEoin, pp. 30-1

[56] Blythe, Ernest (BMH / WS 939), p. 165

[57] Gaughan, pp. 215, 217

[58] Robbins, Under the Starry Plough, p. 220

[59] Gaughan, pp. 52-3

[60] Ibid, p. 57

[61] Ibid, p. 54

[62] McCarthy, p. 117

[63] 28^th Annual Report 1922, p. 87

Bibliography

Irish Trade Union Congress Annual Report

28^th Annual Report 1922, Irish Trade Union Congress Annual Reports (Archives Exhibition by Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the National Archives of Ireland) (Accessed 28/09/2021)

Books

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

Gaughan, J. Anthony. Thomas Johnson: 1872-1963, First Leader of the Labour Party in Dáil Éireann (Mount Merrion, Co. Dublin: Kingdom Books, 1980)

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

Mitchell, Arthur. Labour in Irish Politics: 1890-1930 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1974)

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

Puirséil, Niamh. The Irish Labour Party: 1922-73 (Dublin: University College Dublin, 2007)

Regan, John M. Myth and the Irish State (Sallins, Co. Kildare: Irish Academic Press, 2013)

Regan, Nell. Helena Molony: 1883-1967 (Baldoyle, Co, Dublin: Arlen House, 2017)

Robbins, Frank. Under the Starry Plough: Recollections of the Irish Citizen Army (Dublin: The Academy Press, 1977)

Military Service Pensions Collection

Carpenter, Walter, MSP34REF8789

Molony, Helena, MSP34REF11739

O’Shannon, Cathal, MSP34REF21723

Robbins, Frank, MSP34REF17899

Articles

McCarthy, Charles. ‘Document Study: Labour and the 1922 General Election’, Saothar 7 (1981: Journal of the Labour History Society)

Yeates, Padraig, ‘Michael Collins’s ‘secret service unit’ in the trade union movement’, History Ireland (Issue 3, May/June 2014) (Accessed 28/09/2021)

Bureau of Military History Statement

Blythe, Ernest, WS 939

Victory From The Jaws of Defeat: The Easter Rising in Co. Louth, 1916 (Part II)

A continuation of: Defeat from the Jaws of Victory: The Easter Rising in Co. Louth, 1916 (Part I)

Ground to a Halt

Seán MacEntee arrived at Dublin in the evening of Easter Sunday, the 23^rd April 1916, as a man on a mission to verify orders he and the rest of the Irish Volunteers in Co. Louth had abruptly received earlier that day. Signed by their Chief of Staff, Eoin MacNeill, the message was brief, to the point and devastating:[1]

Volunteers completely deceived.

All orders for Sunday cancelled.[2]

Handwritten orders by Eoin MacNeill

Though MacNeill did not quite spell it out, his words – however opaque to an outsider – could mean only one thing for those in the know: the Rising to free Ireland, an event months in the making, was over before it had even begun. Even more awkward was how the Louth Volunteers were already on the move, marching as an army from Dundalk towards Tara. From there, they were to cooperate with fellow Volunteers from Meath, Wicklow and Finglas in blockading British counter-attacks on Dublin, the lynchpin to the insurrection. All of this had been meticulously laid out over a week before by Patrick Pearse to Donal O’Hannigan, the rebel operative assigned to command in Louth.[3]

Donal O’Hannigan

O’Hannigan had braved the threat of arrest and imprisonment in the days leading up to Easter Week and was willing to risk further as he led his subordinates on their first steps on the road to Tara, and so it is understandable that his first reaction to learning of MacNeill’s eleventh-hour intervention was disbelief: the cancellation order could not possibly be genuine. Until confirmed by Pearse and the rest of Headquarters in Dublin, he would refuse to accept its validity.[4]

“O’Hannigan stated that he was not taking orders from MacNeill, that P.H. Pearse was his Commanding Officer,” according to one witness. “I remember distinctly O’Hannigan using those words.”[5]

When O’Hannigan took four of his most trusted officers, including MacEntee, aside from the rest of the Volunteers and informed them of this development, they agreed with his decision. Another man, Joe Birrell, was sent ahead on a motorcycle to Dublin with a written dispatch for Pearse, while the other Volunteers continued on foot to Slane. Zero hour came and went at 7 pm but O’Hannigan, paralysed by indecision, gave no orders to proceed beyond Slane.

Irish Volunteers on the march

Until Birrell returned with updates, there was nothing to be done save continue with the pretence that this was all just a routine march, with no seditious intent beneath the surface – which fooled at least the sixty or so onlookers from the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) detailed to shadow them. When O’Hannigan asked the RIC District Inspector in charge to withdraw his men to the other side of the river, while he kept his at the other northern end of Slane, the Inspector obliged.

With no sign of Birrell, nor of the other two couriers sent later on bicycles, O’Hannigan called another meeting, this time with all his officers. MacEntee agreed to be the next to venture out to Dublin, answering his commandant’s call for a pair of eyes to assess how things stood in the capital. If possible, MacEntee was to contact the rebel leadership in Liberty Hall and ask directly for clarification.

It was by then raining heavily, but MacEntee set off all the same by bicycle to Drogheda to catch the train from there. O’Hannigan waited in Slane until 3 am and then led his army back the way it had come. There was little else to do besides walk and wait.[6]

A Trip to Dublin

Seán MacEntee

The abnormal thing about the whole situation, MacEntee thought, was how normal everything was. In Slane, the Volunteers had acted as an occupying force, some placing pickets on all roads in and out, with the rest either mustered in the village square or by the bridge, opposite the RIC who seemed more bothered by the pouring rain than the blatantly provocative behaviour before them. If Dublin was up in arms in rebellion as originally intended, then surely the police would be treating things more seriously. Was the message from MacNeill authentic then?

Unless the RIC was waiting for reinforcements…?

On the other hand, the scouts sent out for miles along the roads were reporting no such thing.

On the other other hand, why had Birrell not returned?

As MacEntee later told it:

We could think of no satisfactory explanation for his absence – for, strangely enough, the most reasonable one and the real one, a motor break-down, escaped us. We could only imagine he had been taken prisoner.[7]

Dublin presented a similarly contradictory picture when MacEntee stepped off the train that Sunday evening, seeing streets that were empty save for a few people going about their business. Monday morning was busier but that was to be expected on a public holiday and with races at Fairyhouse to enjoy.

Dublin, circa 1900

It was only when MacEntee reached Liberty Hall that there were signs of something amiss at the heart of an otherwise placid city:

Alertness and animation marked the entrance to the famous Labour Headquarters. People were continuously passing in and out. All who went in, however, and all who came out were challenged by the sentries at the doorways…Though it was then only about half-past seven, the building was thronged.

Once he gave the password, MacEntee was taken through the corridors, past men – and the occasional woman – who were similarly in a hurry to get somewhere, into the office of the Workers’ Republic. It was as pressed for space as the rest of the building, with stacks of newspapers on the floor and the walls covered by posters, cartoons and other memorabilia like an exhibition of the Labour movement. MacEntee was left by himself to stare at the displays like a tourist in an art gallery when James Connolly entered.[8]

Liberty Hall, Dublin

The two recognised each other at once from their time together in Belfast, which made explaining his presence easier for MacEntee. Connolly listened in thoughtful silence, before telling him only to wait for Pearse to see him. MacEntee dutifully did so, his one indulgence a catnap while sitting on the stairway by the main landing, until the bustle of human activity all around proved too much and woke him up.

New Old Orders

Éamonn Ceannt

It was sometime after half nine when Connolly reappeared, this time in the company of Thomas MacDonagh, but MacEntee could barely get a word out before MacDonagh was called elsewhere. Éamonn Ceannt joined them a minute later and MacEntee resumed his story until he was again cut short, this time by Piaras Beasley needing to talk to MacDonagh and Ceannt. MacEntee moved aside to give them privacy:

By this time, there were about nine or ten people present, grouped about the room in little changing circles of threes and fours. Connolly had gone out, and MacDonagh, Beasley and Ceannt were the only others there that I knew, even by appearance. There was much talk and much gaiety.

MacDonagh and Ceannt in particular were having a jolly time in each other’s company, teasing and laughing; in contrast to Pearse when he entered, moving into a backroom with a slow, solemn sense of purpose which impressed MacEntee. When MacEntee was summoned, he found Pearse standing beside a table with Connolly.

James Connolly

As before, MacEntee was heard out in silence, broken by the occasional ‘humph’ by Connolly – MacEntee could never determine if that meant approval or not – and a few questions from Pearse on the state of the Louth Volunteers. Seemingly satisfied by the answers, Pearse asked his caller to wait in the other room. MacEntee passed the time by chatting with MacDonagh:

“I suppose you know”, he went on, “there’s to be a secret session (of the English Parliament, he meant) next Tuesday. They’ll declare for peace then. And the country will be lost without a blow.” “Will it be that – or conscription?” I asked. “No”, he replied, “peace – -”.

Patrick Pearse

At that point, MacEntee was called in again, breaking off the conversation, but MacDonagh’s point – however reliable his grasp of current affairs – was clear: If England’s difficulty was Ireland’s opportunity, then that window was rapidly closing. Perhaps this sense of urgency was why Pearse got straight to the point: MacEntee was to return to Louth and tell Commandant O’Hannigan to continue on as before.

“We strike at noon,” Pearse said.

MacEntee did not argue otherwise or ask about the countermand from MacNeill; that the Rising was back on was all he needed to know. As he headed out of Liberty Hall, with a revolver given by Pearse and in fresh change of clothes, he passed MacDonagh, engaged in some errand of his own. Someone else threw MacDonagh a question which MacEntee did not catch, but he heard the reply well enough: “Oh, quite alright, but the boys are turning up very slowly.”[9]

Cause of Death

But turned up they did, at least some. MacEntee was among those who endeavoured to make up for lost time, enough for him to face a court-martial five weeks later on the charges of insurgency and murder. Seated with him in Richmond Barracks, Dublin, on the 9^th June, as his co-defendants were Frank Martin, Denis Leahy and James Sally, with T.M. Healy, MP and veteran of the Irish political scene, and Henry Hanna, KC, as their counsel. The four prisoners pleaded not guilty to the charges read out before the British military court:

• Engaging in armed rebellion against the King.
• The murder of Constable Charles McGee in Castlebellingham.
• The attempted murder of Lieutenant Robert Dunville of the Grenadier Guards.

Richmond Barracks, Dublin

The aforementioned Lieutenant Dunville was present to testify about his experiences on Easter Monday: he was en route from Belfast to Kingstown (modern day Dún Laoghaire), when he and his chauffeur, Edward O’Brien, drove into Castlebellingham at about ten minutes to 7 pm. Blocking their way was a large group of men carrying weapons, some being revolvers and automatic pistols, others carbines and ordinary rifles. It was a rifle that one of the accused in the dock, Leahy, pointed at Dunville, and then MacEntee appeared brandishing a pistol.

More annoyed than afraid, Dunville demanded to know what this was all about and to let him pass – he had a boat to catch at Kingstown, after all. When MacEntee told him to stay civil, Dunville retorted he would be as civil as he was treated. With that said, Dunville and O’Brien were made to stand with three other captives, all policemen, by the railings on the roadside. There were a number of other motorcars on the scene, out of which another man got out and:

…aimed a long rifle at him [Dunville]. He heard a report, and somebody at his right hand side shouted, and he found that he himself had been shot; that the bullet passed through his breast from left to right. He saw a rifle still pointed at him after he was hit. After that he fell.

The prosecutor, Major E.G. Kimber, now moved to cross-examine the witness.

Kimber: Did you see anyone else that you recognised but MacEntee?

Dunville: I saw Leahy and Martin.

Kimber: Did you notice who was in command of the rebel party?

Dunville: It seemed to be MacEntee.

It was noted from previous testimony that the late Constable McGee, for whose murder the four defendants were on trial, seemed to have been shot before Dunville. On this point, the President of the Court, Major-General Cheylesmore, asked his own questions.

Robert Dunville

Cheylesmore: Can you tell us how many shots were fired before you were shot yourself?

Dunville: Two.

Cheylesmore: Are you quite sure that McGee was wounded before you were?

Dunville: Yes. I heard the shot, but I did not see McGee fall.

Cheylesmore: Before you were shot, were any of the accused in front of you?

Dunville: MacEntee was in front of me.

Cheylesmore: The other men had gone down the road?

Dunville: Yes, they had moved away.

Cheylesmore: Then MacEntee was practically the only man left when you were shot?

Dunville: Yes.

Cheylesmore: You don’t know who fired the shot?

Dunville: I don’t.

Cheylesmore: Were you wounded by a rifle or revolver bullet?

Dunville: I don’t know. It was a very small hole.

Cheylesmore: But it went right through your body?

Dunville: Yes.

Cheylesmore: Could you recognise the man who was pointing the long rifle at you?

Dunville: I could.

Cheylesmore: Is he one of the accused?

Dunville: No.

Edward O’Brien spoke next on the stand to corroborate his employer’s statement that Leahy had pointed a rifle and MacEntee a pistol at Dunville. But he did not think it was any of the four defendants who fired the shots that wounded Dunville or killed McGee. The Constable’s death – so testified Dr Patrick O’Hagan as the Coroner – was due to shock and haemorrhage, caused by four bullet-wounds: two in his left arm and two in the body, while Dunville had two altogether in the chest, the one on the left side apparently being the point of entry.[10]

Putting the Record Straight

The service of Dundalk men in Easter Week presents merits peculiarly their own when compared with that of other areas outside Dublin city and county.[11]

(John McCoy, Member of the Military Pensions Advisory Committee, April 1947)

History had not been particularly generous to Louth’s contribution in the Rising, to MacEntee’s chagrin. It was not so much that the historians of his day were intentionally side-lining the county, more that they simply did not have much to work on. Motivated by “impression that the misadventure at Castlebellingham was the beginning and end of Louth’s participation in Easter Week,” MacEntee sat down in 1966 to compose his memoirs in the “hope that this first-hand story of what actually did happen will put the record straight.”[12]

Which may have been easier written than done, for there was a good deal of uncertainty over what had occurred in Castlebellingham, even by those who were present, as shown by Dunville’s and O’Brien’s testimonies – not to mention the conflicting reminiscences from certain Volunteers, composed, like MacEntee’s, decades afterwards. All Frank Martin – one of MacEntee’s co-defendants in May 1916 – could report for his Bureau of Military History Statement in 1949 was that “some shots were fired. Const. McGee was killed and Lieut. Dunville got a slight wound on the arm.”

And this was from a man who had been as close to the scene as anyone, having been ordered by MacEntee to watch Dunville, McGee and the two other RIC men held at gunpoint when the Volunteers took over the main street in Castlebellingham. Despite later being on trial for his life as a consequence, the biggest impression made on Martin were the “antics” of “Lieut. Dunville [who] was jeering and abusing us.”[13]

Another participant, Edward Bailey, similarly recalled Dunville’s salty attitude: “He was not very nice about his treatment.” But Bailey was equally clueless about the Big Question of the day: “Some shots were fired and Const. McGee fell on the road, mortally wounded. I did not see the actual shooting. I saw McGee lying on the road after I heard the shooting.”[14]

Donal O’Hannigan, as overall commander of the Louth rebels, believed he knew more, not as a witness, but from a subsequent report he received:

It appears that when the officer [Dunville] was approached by McEntee [alternative spelling] he…ran behind the RIC men and made attempts as if to draw a gun from his pocket. On seeing this one of my men fired at him. At that moment the RIC man unfortunately moved into the line of fire and the bullet passed through the RIC man and wounded Lt. Dunville. Lieut. Dunville was found to be armed with a revolver.[15]

There is more than a whiff of passing-the-buck here, with responsibility – clunkily and rather obviously – passed on to Dunville’s shoulders for resisting and even on the victim by getting in the way. And despite MacEntee’s avowed determination to rescue Louth’s Rising deeds from the confusion and obscurity they had been cast, due to “the brief and garbled reports which were permitted to appear at the time”, he was candid enough to admit that, as far as Easter Monday in Castlebellingham was concerned, he had little definite to offer posterity.[16]

‘Unfortunate and Damaging’

It is ironic that an Irish-speaking constable from the remote island of Inishbofin in County Donegal should become the first Royal Irish Constabulary victim of the Rising in County Louth, and indeed in the whole of Ireland.[17]

(Madge O’Boyle, historian and grandniece of Charles McGee)

Or maybe it was less honesty and more embarrassment. The death of Constable McGee – entirely unnecessary, it seems – was a public relations disaster for the Rising locally, particularly after the initial inquest in May 1916 brought in a verdict of murder. Though James McGuill attributed this harsh judgement on the fact that the jurors tended to have relatives serving in the British Army and thus inclined against the rebels from the start, he also acknowledged that the late McGee “was evidently very popular with all who knew him.”

McGuill’s ownership of a garage in Dundalk allowed him to assist his fellow Louth Volunteers with transportation. He left active service to his brothers, who were also enrolled, and so he remained in town during Easter Week. There, McGuill heard the news about McGee, and experienced first-hand the “unfortunate and damaging effect on public opinion in the town of Dundalk and the district” his shooting had, with “the effect of turning sympathisers away from us and gave the people opposed to us the opportunity to cast ridicule on the early fruits of our efforts at Insurrection.”

Market Square, Dundalk

Dundalk was a cauldron of clashing emotions and conflicting ideologies: there was the personal popularity of the landowner Sir Henry Bellingham, whose two sons in the British Army in France were role-models for other young men in Louth to enlist. John Redmond also enjoyed a standing as the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party and mover behind Home Rule, which now looked imperilled thanks to the rebels, or so Redmond’s followers claimed:

We were referred to as pro Germans and as men who were trying to stab John E. Redmond in the back, and by our actions blasted all hopes of the implementation of the Home Rule Bill then held up in a state of abeyance.

If this was mainstream opinion, then resisting this consensus were men like Thomas Hearty, a former Fenian, who McGuill saw on Easter Thursday, returning to Dundalk from Dunboyne, Co. Meath. The Louth Volunteers had reached it, though Commandant O’Hannigan ordered Hearty back on account of his advanced age and the poor state of the horse pulling his hackney carriage. Though denied his chance at glory with the rest of the Louth contingent and their Meath comrades, the two groups having joined up as planned, Hearty had at least witnessed a tricolour fluttering over the marching ranks.

It was a moving sight, the emotion of which Hearty was keen to impart to McGuill: “He seemed in great form and spoke enthusiastically of our armed men marching across the country carrying our National flag.” Undeterred by the odds against them, Hearty “stressed his pride in the fact that the flag of the Republic flew so many days even though he feared it was fated to go down against much superior forces.”[18]

Irish Volunteers

Castlebellingham

However magnificent it seemed to Hearty, the impression MacEntee had of the Louth Volunteers when he rejoined them later that Monday at Lurgen Green was not an encouraging one. The rain had left the men wet and bedraggled, as if footsore and uncertain were not enough, and the route they were marching back to Dundalk on was a muddy mess. Perhaps that was why MacEntee – travelling in a motorcar he had hijacked at a roadside pub – was able to overtake them before the Volunteers completely quit the field.

O’Hannigan accepted without question MacEntee’s message from Pearse: ‘Carry out the original instructions. We strike at noon.’ Noon had come and gone, four hours ago, but later was better than never. The two RIC constables on their trail were captured and disarmed without trouble – a good start, at least – even if MacEntee had had to be unambiguous about what he would do if compliance was not given.

Coercion continued to be the strategy of choice for the Volunteers as they entered Castlebellingham, now moving in a fifteen-strong flotilla of cars pilfered from motorists returning from the races in Fairyhouse. This ‘by any means necessary’ attitude continued as the men dismounted and stole – or commandeered or whatever – from the shops along the main road that dominated an otherwise unremarkable village. The pair of RIC men who came to investigate the disturbance were disarmed and placed under guard, alongside their two captured colleagues from Lurgan Green, by the railings of the grass plot in the village centre, next to the road.

Castlebellingham, Main Street, County Louth

The first flicker of resistance came from a fifth curious policeman who appeared on the scene, this being Constable McGee:

…a tall, fine looking fellow, of rather a tougher spirit than his comrades, and he refused to obey when I ordered him to dismount [from his bicycle], and it was only under pressure from the other police that he complied.

Another stone on the revolutionary road presented itself in the form of the owner of a car which drove in just as the Volunteers finished loading their procured supplies: a British Army officer, MacEntee guessed him from his gold-braided uniform. In every account of that day, Lieutenant Dunville was undaunted and even pugnacious towards the men who had unexpectedly forced him from his journey at gunpoint, and here, in MacEntee’s, he is no different:

The occupant…was exceedingly angry at being held up and refused to get out of his car, whereupon there arose something of an altercation between him and the men, in which some rough words passed.

MacEntee says nothing about any verbal exchange between himself and the Lieutenant, as in the latter’s court-martial testimony, but their two accounts otherwise match: Dunville stood his ground in the face of overwhelming odds until finally joining the rest of the prisoners, as did his chauffeur O’Brien, by the railings.

It was time to go, Commandant O’Hannigan ordered. With his eye on the captives, MacEntee:

…then backed towards my own car which…was the last of the fifteen. I had just turned to enter it, had mounted the foot-board and was stepping inside the car, when a shot rang out. I jumped out at once and looked towards the prisoners. The lieutenant was standing quite steady and upright, two policemen were running across the road, while of the other policeman and of the chauffeur there was no sign. I thought that, like the others, they too had run away. At the sound of the shot, the cars had stopped. I ran to the leading car and told [O’]Hannigan that some person had fired on the prisoners.

When MacEntee said that he did not know if anyone had been hit, O’Hannigan instructed him to get back to his transport and continue. As MacEntee looked back from his moving car, at the rear of the convoy, he saw Dunville, who:

…had been standing very bravely and steadily up to this but, as I looked at him now, I saw him tremble and sway and slink to the ground. I realised then, for the first time, that he had been wounded.

Charles McGee

Doubling-back to check on the Lieutenant was not a feasible option, not with the journey to Tara and then Dublin still to do. Instead, leaving the wounded man to the care of whatever doctor was in the village seemed reasonable enough, and MacEntee satisfied himself that he had done the best he could. Of the second victim, “tall, fine looking” McGee, he had seen no sign, and it was not until five weeks later, at his court-martial in Richmond Barracks, that he learned that the constable had been killed, apparently from the same shot that wounded Dunville.[19]

A Fellow Countryman

This, of course, is from MacEntee’s memoir, written two years later, so stated at its start, when the author was in Gloucester Gaol in the summer of 1918 (though how much was edited between then and publication in 1966 is another question).[20] At the court-martial in May 1916, with life and death on the line, MacEntee was more circumspect, leaving it to the solicitors T.M. Healy and Henry Hanna to build up as much of a defence as they could. With their clients ‘caught in the act’, there was little the two legal eagles could do, though Healy’s argument that the British Government was in a sense as complicit in the rebellion as its participants due to prior permissiveness has a certain ingenuity.

Evidence against MacEntee included incriminating documents found in a police search of his Dundalk lodgings. The testimony to this effect by RIC Sergeant Christopher Sheridan allowed Healy to put his cross-examining skills to use:

T.M. Healy

Healy: Was there a government in Ireland while all this was going on? Were the police in Dundalk?

Sheridan: Yes.

Healy: Did your authorities allow a number of young men, under the eyes of the police and the Government, to join an organisation which you now say is pro-German and illegal?

Sheridan: Yes.

Healy: Therefore, whatever my clients did, they did it with the idea that the Government was, at all events, tolerating them?

Sheridan: That seems to have been Mr [Augustine] Birrell’s [Chief Secretary for Ireland] business.

Healy: Did you allow all these young men to be brigaded, drilled, organised, armed and pro-Germanised without taking any steps to stop it?

Sheridan: We did not interfere.

Healy: But Mr Birrell and the Government did, and now they are being tried for their lives. Did the Government allow these Volunteers to get arms and ammunition, and military instructions, in Dundalk, for the last two years without interference?

Sheridan: I am not in a position to express an opinion on that.

Healy: Did you ever caution them?

Sheridan: No.

Healy: Did you ever tell them they were taking a course that might lead to trouble?

Sheridan: No.

MacEntee limited his part to reading out to the court a prepared statement, in which he carefully downplayed his role in Castlebellingham, while leaving the specifics vague:

In obedience to the order of his commander, he stopped the constable, and searched him. He took an envelope, which he brought to his commander. The constable received no abuse from him, and he lamented his death; the constable was his fellow countryman, discharging his duty.

As for the charge of murder against him, “he was not a murderer and the term was loathsome to him.”

Witnesses for the defence were a mixed bag. While Thomas Alexander testified as to MacEntee’s good conduct and character, in doing so he also inadvertently confirmed the other man’s presence and involvement when Alexander was waylaid at Dromiksey while driving back from Fairyhouse to his home in Belfast. If not for MacEntee and the control he exercised, Alexander said on the stand, the thirty men pointing revolvers at him might not have behaved as well as they did. Another witness, a chauffeur named Dickson, had sat next to MacEntee in the car the rebels had commandeered at Lurgan Green. With him were five other Volunteers, one of whom had, at Castlebellingham, fired his rifle at the captives lined up by the railings.

Irish Volunteers

He got first blood, Dickson heard the rifleman say.[21]

Paddy McHugh

The good news for MacEntee, at least, is that none of the witnesses linked him to the shooting. If it had been done by the rifleman, then MacEntee was in the clear, since he had been carrying a pistol that day. Instead, the finger of suspicion pointed at someone not present at the court-martial: Paddy McHugh, a person of interest even before the Rising ended, a fact that dawned on MacEntee as he sat through his trial, so he told the Military Pensions Advisory Committee in June 1945, twenty-nine years later:

Advisory Committee Referee: How do you know that he was wanted for murder from Easter Monday night?

MacEntee: Because I happened to be charged with murder too and I know on the evidence which was given at the trial that they were looking for the other man, McHugh.

Referee: Was there any reference made to McHugh at your trial?

MacEntee: I think there was. Yes, there was, because it was definitely established that I hadn’t fired any shots, that was definitely established, and that the police were searching for the other man and had been looking for him.

Referee: There was not a specific reference made to him?

MacEntee: Not to him by name, but –

Referee: Could you say whether or not you formed the opinion at the time at the reference was to McHugh?

MacEntee: Yes.

Referee: You did?

MacEntee: Yes.

Referee: At the time?

MacEntee: At least it was to the man who was alleged to have fired the shot and he was the man alleged to have fired that.[22]

The man in question was to deny this in his Statement to the Bureau of Military History (BMH) in 1952, though McHugh did not repudiate that he had indeed been holding a rifle and using it to cover the prisoners from where he was standing on the running board of his car. The rest of the Volunteers were withdrawing, and MacEntee’s back turned, when Dunville:

…whom I had covered made a move that appeared to me as if he was attempting to draw a gun. I immediately called on him to put up his hands. He did not obey. I called no more but fired, and, to my amazement, the RIC man at the other end of the line of prisoners fell. Another shot then rang out and I called out to cease fire.

Judging by that common point with O’Hanigan’s version, it is probable that it was McHugh’s report O’Hannigan had read from. The difference between the two accounts is that, in O’Hannigan’s, McGee stepped between Dunville and the gunman (unnamed by O’Hannigan), and was hit by the bullet that then wounded Dunville, while in McHugh’s:

What happened has never been fully explained. The RIC man who fell on the road was killed by a charge of buckshot fired from a shotgun and the staff officer who fell to the ground as we were leaving the village was shot through the lung by .303 bullet… The man who fired from the shotgun has never admitted the mistake or the accident or whatever his motive was and so it will now probably remain forever his secret.

Two other men that day, RIC Sergeant Kiernan and a publican, Byrne, were to swear under oath at the initial inquest, in May 1916, that it was McHugh who fired the fatal shot at McGee. Since both knew McHugh personally, as McHugh conceded in his BMH Statement, their testimony carries some weight. However, Byrne also mentioned how McGee had been standing at the end of the line of prisoners furthest from McHugh, making a deliberate aim by McHugh implausible – why not shoot the target closest to him, if so?

Byrne was not aware of a shotgun being used, as McHugh claimed, and the only other gun he heard being fired at the time besides McHugh’s was a pistol at the wheel of Dunville’s car in order to disable it. The Coroner at the court-martial was unable to determine if McGee’s mortal wound came from a shotgun or rifle; however, if Dickson heard correctly, then the rifleman in his car was responsible – which would implicate McHugh the most.[23]

Maybe.

Possibly.

Sent into Action

Driving though Dunleer and then Collon and Slane at night, MacEntee became separated from the main force when the fourth car from the end took a wrong turn and ran into a deep gully, trapping itself and blocking the others. Not wanting to risk another accident in the dark, the stranded Volunteers camped for the night before doubling back at the crack of dawn in order to find where the rest had gone.[24]

They would have done better to stay put, for Commandant O’Hannigan, noticing his missing rearguard, sent two men to locate them. The pair returned to report that they had found only a single car, abandoned in a gully. Assuming – or hoping – that the absent others would make their own way to Tara, O’Hannigan ordered the remaining nine or ten cars to the ancient royal hill, arriving there on Tuesday morning and finding no one else, neither their MIA Louth compatriots or the Meath Volunteers who were supposed to join them. Taking the main Dublin-Navan road did not offer much encouragement either, for O’Hannigan could see, through the field glasses he had brought with him, British troops at Dunboyne Bridge ahead.

An empty country mansion, Tyrrelstown House, offered shelter and a place to consider their next move. Scouts were able to confirm the strength of the challenge awaiting them: with a hundred and fifty soldiers near Dunboyne, the enemy far exceeded the Volunteers, even with the addition of the sixteen-strong Dunboyne company which had disbanded on the Sunday like so many other units across Ireland, as per MacNeill’s countermand, but now eager to make up for lost time.

Irish Volunteers

It was a chance they were never to get, for one of the scouts, sent out to Dublin on a bicycle, returned on Tuesday night. He had made it to the General Post Office (GPO) and brought back a dispatch, signed by Commandant-General James Connolly:

To Comdt. O’Hannigan, commandeer transport and move your men to Dublin where they will be rested and armed before being sent into action.

Thomas Ashe

Fulfilling such a bold extortion did not seem remotely possible, as the Volunteers officers agreed when called together in Tyrrelstown House to discuss Connolly’s latest order. Another scout had been turned back at Cabra Bridge by a British picket before he could reach Dublin, which confirmed what they must have suspected: the enemy had made a cordon around the capital, through which there would be no way, not with their paltry numbers. Contact made with Thomas Ashe of the Fingal Brigade only gave false hope, for by the time O’Hannigan set out to meet him in Turvey on Sunday morning, Ashe had surrendered, as had – though O’Hannigan was oblivious to this – the rest of the rebel leadership in Dublin.[25]

The Dispensation of Providence

“It was not by their volition that theirs was a bloodless campaign – that was the dispensation of Providence,” so MacEntee finished his narrative of the Louth Volunteers in Easter Week, “but if the opportunity had been afforded to them – they would have proved themselves as gallant as any that ever fought in the nation’s cause.”[26]

Exactly what else they could have done remained a sensitive point, even thirty years later, when O’Hannigan and McHugh defended their honour and that of their comrades before the Military Service Pensions Board in July 1945. What irked McHugh in particular was a statement made by the Board, that ‘after Wednesday night, all possibility of cooperation with the main Volunteer forces had admittedly passed’, which made it sound as if Easter Week had essentially ended for them on the Wednesday.

“That is a rather high-handed assumption,” McHugh said:

Board Referee: But the possibility has passed?

McHugh: Not on Wednesday.

Referee: After Wednesday.

O’Hannigan: As a matter of fact, why did we remain under arms?

McHugh: The possibility had not passed on Wednesday.

Referee: After Wednesday?

McHugh: Even after Wednesday.

Referee: What possibility of contact was there?

McHugh: If we had been able to contact the main road or men to guide us into the city of Dublin, we could have got into some position. The possibility could not have passed until we couldn’t have got into the city of Dublin.

Board member McCoy: Is that your view, Mr O’Hannigan?

O’Hannigan: It is. We tried to get to the Fingal Brigade. Our unit wasn’t strong enough. There was a few rifles that I should have got and they went to Donabate instead.

Referee: As long as you kept your men under arms, you were ready and anxious to cooperate with any body of Volunteers who were fighting against the British?

O’Hannigan: Correct.

Referee: And that is beyond doubt. I think that is quite reasonable and I don’t think that has ever been in doubt.

McHugh: That is the position. I haven’t been given enough credit for it.

Referee: Has that ever been in doubt, Mr McCoy, that as long as these men remained under arms, they were ready and willing to cooperate with any Volunteers who were in insurrection against the British enemy?

McCoy: Well, rightly or wrongly, I had a sort of an idea in the beginning that they had orders to go to Tyrrelstown House and go no further.[27]

Tyrrelstown House, Dublin 15

Hamstrung

Au contraire, the Dundalk contingent, as per the plans laid out by Pearse, were to enter the outskirts of the capital from the north. From there, they would thwart British advances into the centre, while keeping an escape route open if needs be for the Dublin rebels. As much with else that had gone wrong on Easter Week, the failure to accomplish either task could be traced to the very start:

McCoy: Is it a fact that the trouble you had with cars, delays caused on the road and countermanding orders and all that, was responsible for your delay to such a time as the [British] reinforcements got into the park?

McHugh: Yes, we lost forty-eight hours.

McCoy: You lost a couple of days and that upset your timetable?

McHugh: Yes.

McCoy: By the time you arrived at the point in your journey the military had gone into Dublin on that road?

O’Hannigan: Yes.

McCoy: If you had been there forty-eight hours earlier, you could have intercepted them?

Liam Mellows

O’Hannigan: Yes. We could have got the [British] artillery but then if it had not been for the countermanding order, we would have had three hundred and thirty-seven men, whereas we had only a small number. Had we been in position with the number of men we had from the areas, we certainly would have got the artillery that was used in Dublin without any difficulty whatever. I had access to all the plans for all Ireland before I went to Cork [sic?]. I spent days going over the plans in St Enda’s with [Liam] Mellows and the others so that I would know the position we would be in all the time.

McCoy: Were you in touch with Pearse from Thursday morning onwards?

O’Hannigan: Not from the Thursday of Easter Week.

McCoy: Were you in touch with any of the leaders from Thursday?

O’Hannigan: Only with [Thomas] Ashe. We were cut off completely.[28]

Joy and Sorrow

In a bad case of crossed wires, the GPO garrison had apparently been expecting the appearance of their Dundalk comrades, almost until the final hour, if Connolly’s Order of the Day on Friday is anything to go by:

Dundalk has sent two hundred men to march upon Dublin, and in other parts of the North our forces are active and growing.

MacEntee was among the audience as this was read out to the GPO; despite all the mishaps and misfortunes, he had persevered and succeeding in slipping past British lines and then to the rebel headquarters. Galway, Wicklow, Wexford, Cork and Kerry were also reputed to be giving their all in the field of battle. As was the enemy – no question as to that – whose renewed bombardment succeeded in setting fire to the roof of the GPO, forcing the defenders out onto the streets.

Two things would stick in MacEntee’s mind during that flight to safety: the pale face of a woman by a window and another Volunteer dropping to his knee as MacEntee dashed by. He would pass that same man, outstretched on the pavement, as the rebel remnant marched towards captivity, the order to surrender having finally been given. The uniform on the corpse, MacEntee noted, was tattered and torn, with the upturned face white beneath flecks of dried blood.[29]

British soldiers leading rebel prisoners away in Dublin

Elsewhere in Ireland, another body was being transported through Lurgan to the deceased’s native Inishbofin Island, Co. Donegal. RIC Sergeant J.J. McConnell apologised to the passengers of the car carrying the coffin; he was merely following the ‘Secret and Confidential’ orders issued to his barracks on Easter Saturday to stop and search all vehicles due to the uprising that was supposed to break out the next day. Initially bemused by these seemingly unnecessary instructions, Sergeant McConnell saw even less reason for them as the week went by, for nothing was amiss save for the absence of any newspapers or mail.

Though the wildest of rumours filled the news vacuum, McConnell remained unfazed until he asked about the identity of the coffin’s occupant. The sergeant was informed that not only had he been a colleague, the constable:

…was cycling with a dispatch to Castlebellingham, unarmed and alone when he was held up and shot by a party of Sinn Feiners, as they were then known. Then I knew something momentous had happened and I was no longer amused.[30]

McGuill and his fellow ‘Sinn Feiners’ who had remained in Dundalk were similarly struck, albeit for a very different reason. “The news of the Surrender in Dublin came to us on Saturday and was received in Dundalk with mixed feelings,” McGuill recalled, “feelings of joy and jubilation by our opponents and by feelings of sorrow and disappointment by us.”[31]

“Thus our Easter Week was ended,” MacEntee dolefully concluded in his memoirs.[32]

O’Connell Street in ruins after the Rising

But, of course, it hadn’t, for Easter Week had set in motion feelings that fused into a movement that would sweep aside its foes – and, in time, some of its followers as well. Less than two years afterwards, in February 1918, MacEntee was touring Co. Donegal, campaigning alongside Éamon de Valera as part of the general election. Four hundred supporters greeted the pair in Letterkenny before escorting them in a torchlight procession to their lodgings in town. From Letterkenny, MacEntee and de Valera travelled across Donegal, addressing large and enthusiastic crowds who waved tricolours in a mass echo of the flag the Irish Volunteers had marched under on the Rising.

No more would a foreign power govern their country, MacEntee declared, for the day of England’s difficulty and Ireland’s opportunity was upon them. Turn away from England, he urged the crowds, and do nothing except for Ireland.

It was not the first step in what was to be a long and distinguished career for MacEntee – Easter Week could claim to be that start, for without the Rising, there would have been nothing and almost certainly a very different future for Ireland. But not everyone would have a future, a fact MacEntee was evidently aware of, for he took time out of his busy electioneering tour to visit Inishbofin and pay his condolences to the family of Constable McGee.[33]

References

[1] MacEntee, Seán. Episode at Easter (Dublin: M.H. Gill and Son Ltd., 1966), p. 82

[2] Ibid, p. 69

[3] O’Hannigan, Donal (BMH / WS 161), p. 11

[4] Ibid, pp. 20-1

[5] Greene, Arthur (BMH / WS 238), p. 5

[6] O’Hannigan, pp. 21-2

[7] MacEntee, pp. 74-5

[8] Ibid, pp. 82-5

[9] Ibid, pp. 28-33

[10] Dundalk Democrat, 17/06/1916

[11] Military Service Pensions Collection, ‘McHugh, Patrick’ (MSP34REF12512), p. 149

[12] MacEntee, p. 8

[13] Martin, Frank (BMH / WS 236), p. 4

[14] Bailey, Edward (BMH / WS 233), p. 4

[15] O’Hannigan, Donal (BMH / WS 161), p. 25

[16] MacEntee, p. 8

[17] O’Boyle, Madge. The Life and Times of Constable Charles McGee: The First RIC Casualty and the 1916 Rising in County Louth (Louth County Council, 2016), p. i

[18] McGuill, James (BMH / WS 353), pp. 17-9

[19] MacEntee, pp.107-12

[20] Ibid, p. 11

[21] Irish Times, 12/06/1916

[22] ‘McHugh,’ Military Service Pensions Collection, pp. 98-9

[23] McHugh, Patrick (BMH / WS 677), pp. 22-3 ; inquest testimony outlined in Dundalk Democrat, 06/05/1916

[24] MacEntee, pp. 113, 115-7

[25] O’Hannigan, pp. 25-29

[26] MacEntee, p. 176

[27] ‘McHugh’, Military Service Pensions Collection, pp. 141, 143-4

[28] Ibid, p. 148

[29] MacEntee, pp. 149-50, 154-5, 160-1, 164

[30] McConnell, J.J. (BMH / WS 509), pp. 4-5

[31] McGuill, p. 19

[32] MacEntee, p. 169

[33] O’Boyle, pp. 339-40

Bibliography

Books

MacEntee, Seán. Episode at Easter (Dublin: M.H. Gill and Son Ltd., 1966)

O’Boyle, Madge. The Life and Times of Constable Charles McGee: The First RIC Casualty and the 1916 Rising in County Louth (Louth County Council, 2016)

Newspapers

Dundalk Democrat

Irish Times

Bureau of Military History Statements

Bailey, Edward, WS 233

Greene, Arthur, WS 238

Martin, Frank, WS 236

McConnell, J.J., WS 509

McGuill, James, WS 353

McHugh, Patrick, WS 677

O’Hannigan, Donal, WS 161

Military Service Pensions Collection

‘McHugh, Patrick’, MSP34REF12512

Defeat From The Jaws of Victory: The Easter Rising in Co. Louth, 1916 (Part I)

The Killing

Blood had been shed in Co. Louth, and while the loss of a single life was slight compared to the toll elsewhere in the country – specifically Dublin, where many of the streets lay in broken ruins – Constable Charles McGee’s death was deserving enough of an inquiry, held on the 4^th May 1916, in the Louth Infirmary.

The first witness, Sarah Connoughton, testified as to how, on the Easter Monday of the 24^th April, ten days earlier, she had seen a band of men drive into her village of Castlebellingham in a convoy of eight motorcars. As she did not get a clear look at their faces, she could not say who they were and the only noteworthy thing about them, besides their guns, were the dark trench-coats they wore.

Castlebellingham, Main Street, County Louth

This was not the first such oddity of the day; earlier, another group, likewise armed despite their civilian dress, advanced on foot through the village in the direction of Dundalk. Someone remarked that these strangers hailed from Belfast but that was the only thing Connoughton could tell.

When two members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) came to investigate these newcomers in cars, Sergeant Kiernan and Constable Donovan were held up, searched and then placed against some railings. As the RIC recruited on height, the policemen towered over their captors but, staring down the barrels of revolvers, they had no choice but to comply. A few minutes later, a third policeman appeared on his bicycle.

“Don’t go down there or you’ll be shot,” Connoughton warned Constable McGee.

Policemen of the Royal Irish Constabulary

Nothing that dramatic happened quite yet, as the armed party at first just held up the constable as they had done with the other two, with one man taking the time to remove some papers from McGee’s pocket. When a man in an officer’s uniform of the British Army drove up, he too was made to stand against the railings, his chauffeur as well, in what was becoming a small collection of prisoners.

As not much else was happening, a crowd had gathered in the street, until the abrupt sounds of three gunshots and a whistle blast caused the onlookers to scatter. Connoughton’s first thought was that the revolvers were being used to puncture the tyres of the car belonging to the British officer, until she heard someone say: “Run, they’re going to shoot.”

Connoughton was in the process of doing just that when she heard both another shot and Constable McGee say: “Oh, my arm”:

I saw him catch his arm at the same time. He staggered across the road and I went towards him. There was blood streaming from his coat, and I said, “Oh, God, are you shot?”

McGee had been. He collapsed face-down, and Connoughton rushed to find help. Three of the men from the armed party were watching as she returned with a doctor but did nothing to help or hinder as McGee was taken inside and later to a hospital, where the constable died.

Connoughton’s testimony was enough to earn the respect of Mr McGahan, the Justice of the Peace presiding over the inquiry:

McGahan: I think, Miss Connoughton, you behaved very charitably and very bravely on this occasion.

Juror: The jury thoroughly endorse your remarks.

Connoughton: I only did my duty.

Old Louth Infirmary, the site of the inquest into Charles McGee’s death

The Killer

The second witness on the stand, Patrick Byrne, was able to fill in some of the details, such as the identity of one of the shooters: Paddy McHugh had been covering the captives with a rifle from the footboard of one of the cars, a Ford, from a distance of about seven or eight yards. Byrne even provided a description of McHugh:

He was a man of 5 ft. 7 or 8 inches in height and of slight build; he was inclined to be dark; he wore a brown, soft hat, and a long greyish overcoat.

Byrne had watched as the British officer and his driver were added to the line-up by the railings, with the latter next to McGee, who stood the furthest from McHugh on the far end. One of the others tried disabling the officer’s car by twice firing his pistol at the front wheel. As for what happened then, Byrne believed – “I am of the opinion,” as he put it – that it was McHugh, his rifle held up against his shoulder, who fired:

I heard the report of the shot and saw Constable McGee place his two hands on his breast and reel round. The chauffeur caught him and prevented him from falling.

Byrne admitted to not seeing a discharge from the rifle but, considering how it had fired at the same time as McGee’s shocked reaction, the theory of McHugh as the killer was a logical assumption. At that point, Byrne ran into the safety of a nearby shop. He had seen enough to conclude to the court that the shooting:

…was done without any provocation whatever. I saw the whole occurrence and it was deliberately done.

Charles McGee

As for the shots at the car-tyres, Byrne did not think it likely that they could have been the ones to hit McGee. Somewhat contradicting himself, Byrne continued, “in my opinion McHugh could not have taken deliberate aim at McGee,” considering how, if he had meant to shoot a captive, he would have chosen one closest to him, while McGee had been the furthest away.

One of the policemen held up that day, Acting Sergeant Kiernan, was unable to provide much more on the stand, only that the ‘Sinn Feiners’ had meant business to judge from the instructions he had heard their commander – a man unknown to Kiernan – give them: “See that your rifles are properly loaded, men, and be read to obey me when I give the order.”

After checking their weapons as ordered, the men began returning to their seats in the cars, apparently making ready to depart. It was then that Kieran heard shots, though he did not see from whom. He and Donovan ran into a public-house as the crowd shouted at them to get away, and it was only some time afterwards that Kiernan learnt that McGee had been wounded – mortally, as it turned out.

“We were all unarmed and there was no resistance offered by anybody,” Kiernan told the inquiry as he finished his version of events. After consulting with each other, the jury returned its verdict: that Charles McGee had died of shock and haemorrhage from gunshots inflicted by some person or persons unknown.

‘Failing to Ascertain’

If McGee’s death had indeed been unintentional, then his was not the first case of firearm mishaps that day. Earlier that Monday, Seán MacEntee had been overseeing a picket of Volunteers on a country road. Having marched all night, through rain and wind, with only the barest amount of food, the men were keen to ease their burdens and so were stopping all traffic that came their way and then seizing the transport for themselves.

Irish Volunteers

When one traveller refused the demands to step down from his pony-pulled cart, MacEntee drew a pistol from his pocket. The other man raised his whip to strike, prompting a step back from MacEntee, at which point he reflexively squeezed the trigger, wounding the cart-driver in the arm.

When composing his version of events, almost four decades later in 1954, MacEntee still cringed to recall how:

The safety catch of the pistol had been put to the firing position, and I had not known it – a fact which I offer as an explanation and not as an excuse. My negligence, in failing to ascertain whether the catch was at the firing position or not, and perhaps, the hastiness with which I presented the weapon were certainly blameworthy.

Seán MacEntee

Then it was MacEntee’s turn to be on the receiving end of another’s carelessness, when a bullet whistled past his head and those of several others from a Volunteer who had mishandled his rifle. To further add to the chaos, one of those assigned to sentry duty hurriedly returned to warn of another group which was advancing on them from the direction of Dundalk.

Judging these to be RIC from their blue jackets, the uniform of the Crown custodians, the Volunteers readied themselves for their first engagement in the name of Irish freedom. They had already captured a number of policemen who had been tailing them since their departure from Slane but that had been accomplished by the threat of force without having to exert actual violence.

Some distance still remained between the two bodies when the newcomers halted, waited and then, evidently deciding that prudence was the better part of valour, retreated back the way they had come. MacEntee later learnt that the ‘police’ he and his comrades had been about to fire on were actually fishermen on their way to Annagasson when rumours of the odd happenings piqued their interest, albeit briefly. It was an apt enough example of the confusion and uncertainty that characterised Louth during the Easter Week of 1916.[2]

Ups and Downs

Paddy Hughes

Though MacEntee had had a hunch that something big was in the works, his initial assumption when Paddy Hughes (not to be confused with Paddy McHugh, the alleged killer of Constable McGee) interrupted his duties at Dundalk Electricity Works, on the Holy Thursday of 1916, to break the news of an imminent uprising, was that Hughes was pulling his leg. Hughes insisted that he was not; besides, his demeanour – “eyes glittered with excitement, though his voice was quite cool and steady,” as MacEntee recalled – was convincing enough.

Orders had come up from Dublin: they and the rest of the Dundalk Volunteers were to muster, fully packed, and then march on Tara, come the night of Easter Sunday in three days’ time. Which did not leave a lot of time but then, MacEntee had been preparing for just this occasion ever since the Belfast native arrived in Dundalk, at the turn of 1914. The Irish Volunteers had been founded in Dublin in November 1913 and MacEntee moved quickly to ensure that his adopted town was not left behind by the new national movement.

In Dundalk Town Hall, it was agreed to set up a local company, with MacEntee as one of its founding committee members. Things were progressing smoothly…until disaster struck in August 1914, when the majority of Volunteers left to side with John Redmond, whose esteem was high in Dundalk, leaving the rest at a loss of what to do.

It was not until early 1915 that MacEntee was approached by Hughes, who MacEntee had befriended after his arrival. It was time, Hughes said, to restart the Irish Volunteers in Dundalk, except this time allied with Eoin MacNeill, Patrick Pearse and the rest of the central committee who had resisted Redmond’s control. Which was perfect for MacEntee and he went on to serve as Adjutant to the reborn Dundalk Company. Weapons were scarce, as the Redmondites had claimed most of the old stock, but the hundred or so men made do with what they had, training on sports grounds when not drilling in the John Boyle O’Reilly Hall on Clanbrassil Street.

The John Boyle O’Reilly Hall on Clanbrassil Street, Dundalk (modern day)

It was to this base of operations that MacEntee came that Thursday night, finding it already filled with fellow Volunteers, as well as a sense of excitement and anticipation in the air. Everywhere was activity: drills on whatever floor space was available, armourers’ working at a bench in the corner and knots of men from all over Louth engaged in deep conversation. Among them was Donal O’Hannigan, a recent addition from Dublin – sent by none other than Patrick Pearse – and Paddy Hughes:

Busier than any, his great big round face beaming as he moved from group to group, helping and cheering all…For years he had dreamed of such a night as this, while men had scoffed at him and mocked at him and called him mad. But he held on, and his dream had come true. On Sunday he would march to fight for the cause for which, all his life, he had laboured. Was it any wonder his heart was light?[3]

The same could have been said for MacEntee and the rest in the hall who now found themselves as players in the greatest drama of their lives, however sudden this casting-call had been. MacEntee had only been informed on the eleventh hour, and that was not untypical. Another member of the Dundalk Volunteer Committee, Patrick Duffy, only had an inkling when Hughes, upon meeting him in the street less than a week before Easter, informed him of plans for a parade on the Sunday, after which the Volunteers would be marched to Ashbourne, Co. Meath, and join others there.

Few other details were forthcoming from Hughes, and Duffy was lucky to get what little he did. Most of the other committee members, Duffy believed, were kept entirely in the dark as to the true purpose behind the Easter event. The same went for the rank-and-file, who “would have resisted attack or attempts to conscript them, but did not contemplate aggressive action.”[4]

Irish Volunteers

The Insider

Not so much was Donal O’Hannigan, who “ranked as Commandant and was described as a training officer,” remembered McHugh. To McHugh, O’Hannigan’s presence alone was a point of pride:

His allocation, I understood from Paddy Hughes, was at Hughes’ request to General Headquarters for a man with military knowledge to guide and advise the officers of Dundalk Battalion. This act of GHQ clearly shows that the 1916 Rising was not an impromptu affair, but a planned and organised affair, applying to all Ireland.[5]

Not only that, O’Hannigan personally had been helping with the script for rebellion long before coming to Louth. Even a game of football could be weaponised, such as when one of the players, one Sunday morning in Phoenix Park, carelessly kicked the ball over a barbed-wire fence and into the Magazine Fort. Watching the British soldier on duty allowing the player in to retrieve the ball, O’Hannigan began thinking of ways to exploit this chink in military security.

The Magazine Fort, Dublin

Both his underground superiors, Tom Clarke and Seán Mac Diarmada, were intrigued when O’Hannigan passed on his discovery, and assigned him to further study. From then, every match in the park would see the ball ‘accidently’ kicked over into the Fort, with sentries invariably abandoning their posts to return it, unwittingly giving O’Hannigan the germ of a plan for capturing the base, if and when the time came.[6]

None worked harder than he in laying the groundwork for this. Ever since his induction into the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), he had made the acquaintance of other rising stars in the secret society – such as Liam Mellows, Con Colbert and Seán Heuston – as well as gaining the trust of the leadership, enough for him to witness a meeting of minds between two future architects of the Easter Rising:[7]

James Connolly

[James] Connolly held that in the event of a revolution and if the English used artillery against the rebels that it would be the equivalent to recognition that they were fighting the armed forces of another country and that other nations would recognise us accordingly. On the other hand, if they only used rifles and other small arms, they could claim they were only dealing with a riot.

[Tom] Clarke maintained that no matter what they used – even poison gas – it would make no difference, as all the nations at that time were too interested in looking after their own affairs and skins to take any interest in us.[8]

Donal O’Hannigan

Military matters had long been of interest to the IRB. The Wolfe Tone Clubs, formed in 1910-1, provided cover for lectures or talks, in which some aspect of soldiering would be the subject, though O’Hannigan was to rate this clandestine recruitment drive a failure – one only met the same people at every event, he complained.

Promising better returns were the Irish Volunteers, who O’Hannigan joined in accordance with IRB instructions to its initiates. In between parades with the rest of his Dublin battalion, O’Hannigan found himself selected for special training classes reserved for officers. His IRB credentials already made him an insider, as shown when Clarke confided in him that the reason for his unit’s march to Howth, on the 26^th July 1914, was to retrieve the shipment of rifles there.

Another gun-running mission in Kilcoole, on the 2^nd August 1914, was likewise a success. O’Hannigan and his IRB brethren had been purchasing firearms since 1912, but Howth and Kilcoole were orders of magnitude far exceeding the odd revolver here and there as before. In a reflection of this growing confidence, Mac Diarmada tasked O’Hannigan, a week after Kilcoole, with a tour of the Irish Volunteers from Kildare to Cork, which he covered by bicycle before returning to report to Headquarters in Dublin.

Volunteer Cycle Corps

“I found all centres very active and keen, but all were short of arms” – a warning that, whatever the successes of before, the brewing revolution had yet to match the ‘weapons gap’ with the enemy.[9]

The Grand Plan

Still, the following year of 1915 saw morale remain steady amongst the Irish Volunteers, training having been intensified and munitions stockpiles reinforced by a steady stream of consignments. O’Hannigan continued to travel on behalf of the Volunteers, as well as the IRB, setting up cells of the secret fraternity wherever he could. He had by now abandoned all social and sporting life – or any life outside the cause – and, at the start of April 1916, he received instructions from Clarke and Mac Diarmada, in the former’s shop on Parnell Street, to drop his employment at the Guinness Brewery as well.

Tom Clarke (left) and Seán Mac Diarmada

Something was planned for Easter Week, Clarke revealed. O’Hannigan would play his part by taking command of the Louth-Meath-South Armagh-South Down and South Monaghan districts. This was a formidably large area to be responsible for, though O’Hannigan was not one to shirk duty, showing reluctance only in leaving paid work, particularly if there was no guarantee of success (he was to compromise by using his fourteen days’ annual leave).

As Dundalk offered the most Volunteers in the designated areas, with 270 men out of the combined 1,337 – “this has stuck in my memory through the years since” – that town was to be used as O’Hannigan’s starting point. For guidance, Clarke provided a list of IRB personnel in Dundalk, names O’Hannigan already was familiar with, having been the one to swear them in at the start. Though O’Hannigan guessed that a proper Rising was what the IRB ultimately had in mind, Clarke gave no further insight, only that he was to visit Dundalk that weekend to familiarise himself with his intended headquarters.

This O’Hannigan did on the Saturday, two weeks before Easter, and wasted no time in contacting Paddy Hughes, who introduced him in turn to MacEntee and a number of other officers. A Sunday parade by the Irish Volunteers through Dundalk, followed by field exercises under O’Hannigan’s direction, allowed him to assess the overall quality available to him.

The Court House, Dundalk

Upon his quick return to Dublin on Monday, O’Hannigan first went to see Clarke in his shop, and then to St Edna’s School, where its headmaster, Patrick Pearse, was to give further instructions to him and Séan Boylan, the commander for Co. Meath. After introducing his guests to each other, Pearse outlined their respective roles:

I was to mobilise the Volunteers from the area at Tara in Meath on Sunday (Easter) at 7 pm. On completion of mobilisation I was to read the proclamation of the Irish Republic and then march via Dunshaughlin on Blanchardstown where we would contact Sean Boylen [sic] and the Dunboyne men. We were to seize the railway at Blanchardstown and cut the line to prevent the English artillery coming from Athlone.

The Fingal Bn. [5^th Bn. Dublin Brigade] were to contact us on our left flank and the Kildare men were to come in on our right flank. The Wicklow and South Co. Dublin area was to be on the right of them again. In this way we would form a ring around the city.

Dublin would thus be shielded from British counter-attacks from the countryside. In addition, the rebels could keep open supply-lines into the city, as well as – in the worst case scenario – escapes routes.

That was not all: While en route through Meath, O’Hannigan was to liberate German POWs held in Oldcastle, some of whom were artillery specialists who would man the ordnance – either captured from the enemy garrison in Athlone or delivered as part of the anticipated aid from Germany – which should help balance the weapons imparity. As for Boylan, his priority was to hold Blanchardstown until O’Hannigan could arrive, upon which the latter would take charge of the units making up the ‘ring’ while maintaining hourly contact with Pearse in central Dublin.[10]

Patrick Pearse in the uniform of a Volunteer

Step by Step

Éamonn Ceannt

All of which was far more elaborate than what had been previously envisioned. With time of the essence, O’Hannigan was to return to Dundalk that evening to ensure the IRB cells in Louth were sufficiently prepared. This took the better part of the week and it was not until Friday that he could report back to Dublin, this time in Éamonn Ceannt’s house.

Previously, he had been consulting his IRB superiors in ones and twos; gathered now was the conspiracy at almost full strength: Clarke as the chair, flanked at the table by Pearse and Mac Diarmada, with Ceannt, Joseph Plunkett and Thomas MacDonagh also present, along with Cathal Brugha by the door and another participant who O’Hannigan believed, when recounting for posterity, to be James Connolly.

They listened as O’Hannigan made his report, the news visibly pleasing them, and he was rewarded with his command of the assigned area confirmed. Perhaps emboldened by this show of faith, O’Hannigan – now Commandant O’Hannigan – made the observation that the Hill of Tara would not be an ideal choice for a military starting-point, but Pearse insisted – beginning the blow for national liberty at Ireland’s historic royal capital was too good an act of symbolism to overlook.

Artistic depiction of the various 1916 leaders

There was little else to say, only a reminder of 7 pm on Easter Sunday being zero hour, and a warning that nothing be attempted prior to that. O’Hannigan was also to avoid arrest at all cost, which the man in question thought a tall order and said as much. After mulling over the likely scenarios:

Clarke said I could use my own discretion as regards shooting, but on no account to be arrested. All were in very good spirits and laughing and talking with each other. I was now very satisfied and as I left again Ceannt came to the gate with me and as we shook hands he said “Don’t let yourself be arrested or you will never forgive yourself.”

Which was easier said than done. O’Hannigan had not even left Dublin before spotting a police detective tracking him at Amiens Street (now Connolly) Station. O’Hannigan was able to lose him, only to find more RIC men waiting as his train pulled into Dundalk on the Saturday evening, the 15^th April, one week away from Easter. For now, the enemy were content to do nothing more than observe. All the same, O’Hannigan, remembering the dos and don’ts allowed to him, issued a blunt warning while addressing the Volunteers’ parade that evening:

I said that I believed that an attempt would be made at the end of the meeting to arrest me. I said “I have an automatic and a Colt revolver here and 13 rounds of ammunition, and 13 RIC [there were twenty policemen present] will die before I am arrested and then perhaps not either”.

This bold statement gave the Volunteers great heart as it was the first time anyone had spoken to them in that manner. I also wanted to let the police and the people know what the position was in case there was any shooting.

No arrest was attempted then, nor afterwards as O’Hannigan went about his business in Dundalk and elsewhere around Co. Louth. Instructions were dispatched for a general mobilisation of the Irish Volunteers on Easter Sunday, though O’Hannigan – an IRB operative through and through – kept the ultimate goal to himself. Ash Wednesday, on the 19^th April, saw a dry run for the Dundalk members, even if not many knew for what, as the men were marched outside town to practise offensive and defensive manoeuvres.

Irish Volunteers

Parallel to the grand plan ran smaller ones: the former comrades who had left during the split of August 1914 still remained in the form of the National Volunteers, with the guns they had taken with them stored in Ardee town. Phil McMahon, the officer in charge of the Irish Volunteers there, assured O’Hannigan that these would be seized in time for their own ends.

Eoin O’Duffy

Meanwhile, Eoin O’Duffy of Monaghan sent word of a large amount of explosives that he was willing to give to his comrades in Louth. Despite efforts to retrieve this, however, the material never arrived, though this was a small stone on an otherwise smooth road. Besides, the promised shipment of German aid was on its way, as Clarke and Mac Diarmada told O’Hannigan when he reported to them in Dublin on the 20^th April, the last Thursday before all hell was due to break loose.[11]

O’Hanigan shared in their confidence. When Paddy McHugh told him that, while he was willing to fight for Ireland, there was the paucity of weapons to consider, O’Hannigan replied: “That will be alright. We’ll get them.”[12]

Moving Out

A true conspirator, O’Hannigan showed his hand to the Louth men only one card at a time. After the Volunteers as a whole had been informed of a routine parade set for the end of the week, on Easter Sunday, he took the officers aside, including Hughes and MacEntee, and broke the real plans to them: There would be nothing routine about that day; instead, it was to be the blow for Irish liberty:

I gave out the necessary instructions, informing them the Rising was starting at 7 pm, on Sunday evening. I also gave them our plan as far as the mobilisation at Tara. All information given to them was secret and not to be conveyed to the men or any other person outside themselves.

By Saturday evening, O’Hannigan had updated the remaining IRB members in Louth about the insurrection-to-come. Slowly, surely, the Rubicon was being crossed.

Still, however small the steps being taken, an event of such magnitude could not help but  create ripples; the number of Volunteers attending Confession on Saturday evening, and then Mass in the morning, alone roused official suspicion. RIC surveillance increased, with no less than eight policemen posted outside where O’Hannigan stayed on Saturday. Otherwise, the guardians of the status quo made no moves to intervene – at the rate they were leaving things, it would be too late by the time they realised what was being plotted beneath their noses.

RIC policemen taking it easy

The explosives from Monaghan had still not materialised, so O’Hannigan focused on a chance closer to home: the rifles stored in Ardee by their rivals, the National Volunteers. Seizing them would require precise timing. As per strict orders from GHQ, nothing could be attempted before 7 pm, the appointed time for the Rising, when the rebels would need them the most.

Rather than delay, the Volunteers would set off for Tara as planned, while McMahon seized the rifles in Ardee and then deliver them to a waiting MacEntee in Dundalk. Then MacEntee was to catch up with the rest of the army, via a car laden with the goods, along with any news worth forwarding, for a friendly worker in the Dundalk telephone exchange had agreed to keep MacEntee abreast of any developments elsewhere in Ireland while he could.

Plaque for the John Boyle O’Reilly Hall on Clanbrassil Street, Dundalk

The Volunteers began to gather in Dundalk Square on Sunday morning at 9 am, with around a hundred and sixty standing to attention by half past, each man carrying three days’ worth of rations as instructed and holding whatever arms they had. Judging the iron to be hot, Commandant O’Hannigan gave the order to march in the direction of Ardee, their first stop on the trek to Tara, and where the appropriated rifles were hopefully waiting. Three miles out of Dundalk, McMahon met them on the road to inform O’Hannigan of the bad news: the rifles were staying where they were. Too many RIC watchers on the scene, McMahon explained.[13]

This left the army with “twelve bore shotguns, a few small arms amongst 200 men,” according to McHugh. Bayonets had been made by bolting blades from garden shears or hedge-clippers to the gun-barrels. With this martial pittance the Louth Volunteers intended to confront the might of the British Empire.[14]

Irish Volunteers

The Heist

Which would not do at all. O’Hannigan decided on a calculated risk: he and McMahon would drive into Ardee, while a detachment of fifty Volunteers would advance on foot to the town’s northern entrance. The rest of the army would continue on as before, under the command of Paddy Hughes.

Once in Ardee, McMahon took O’Hannigan to the chemist’s shop where the National Volunteers kept their coveted munitions. The four RIC constables outside did nothing as O’Hannigan rapped on the door. He entered as soon as it opened, with the air of a man who had every right to be where he was and to do what he was doing:

I asked the lady who had opened it if the rifles were still here and she said “yes”. I said I wanted to get them away as the “Sinn Feiners” were after them. She said “Thank God I have not slept since you left them here”. We found the rifles in a room in the house and McMahon and carried them to the hall and placed them against the wall.

The constables maintained their lack of reaction as O’Hannigan stepped outside to blow three blasts on his whistle, the signal for the fifty Irish Volunteers coming in from the north to make their appearance After all forty-eight Lee Enfield rifles had been removed from the chemist’s and in the hands of the Volunteers, O’Hannigan and McMahon got back in their car and drove next to where the ammunition was.

Ardee, Co. Louth (today)

Once again, a simple act of deception was sufficient:

Previous to this I had arranged with McMahon to have one of his men go to this house and to tell the people there that he had left the Irish Volunteers and had joined the Redmond [National] Volunteers and that the Irish Volunteers were after the ammunition and that it should be taken away and stored somewhere where the Irish Volunteers could not find it.

As before, this worked perfectly, the caretakers even assisting O’Hannigan and McMahon, upon their arrival, with the removal of the three boxes, each holding a thousand rounds. O’Hannigan had seized the pride of his rivals, equipped his men with what they needed most, and without as much as the threat of force, in keeping with GHQ’s directives.[15]

1871 Mauser Rifle, of the type commonly used by the Irish Volunteers

Although not present himself, MacEntee would recall this coup, and the exultation from it, in giddy, almost romantic terms:

Those rifles had long been a source of secret heart-burning to us. Every time a man handled his old single-shot, short-range shotgun, he thought of those beautiful Lee-Metfords, firing their five shots and sighted up to two thousand yards. Many times we had discussed the advisability of seizing them and, had we not been certain that when they were wanted in earnest they could be easily got, we would have taken them many months before. But the project was always deferred to a more propitious moment.[16]

That moment had now come – and not one too soon, considering the urgent need for weapons. But there was also the taste of sweet revenge. Back in 1915, when twenty or thirty men had met in Dundalk Town Hall with the intent of re-establishing the Irish Volunteers following the Split, the attendees found the building surrounded by rowdies from the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), a fraternity allied to the IPP and with a strong presence in Dundalk.

Belt-buckle with the initials AOH (Ancient Order of Hibernians)

Upon being refused entrance, the Hibernians tried to force their way in with sticks and clubs, prompting the defenders to smash furniture for makeshift cudgels to wield in response. The battle spilled out onto the street and was only broken up by the arrival of the RIC; even then, those leaving the Town Hall at the end of their resumed meeting had risked being set upon by AOH gangs lurking in the area.[17]

Stopping at Ardee

Inside Ardee, the Dundalk men were joined by their local comrades and some arrivals from Dunleer, swelling the army to about two hundred and thirty. Refreshments were in order, and so O’Hannigan arranged for tea and food to be purchased and brought out. While the men ate and rested their feet, the sergeant of the RIC detail, who were watching at a discreet distance, asked O’Hannigan for a quiet word. When he obliged:

The Sergeant told me that the telephones were going strong and that reinforcements were converging on Ardee from several points. He wanted to know if we were going back to Dundalk or going forward. Apparently his main concern was to get us out of Ardee and his district before there was a clash.

Even if most of the Volunteers had by now guessed the true ambition behind their manoeuvres, keeping the enemy in the dark for as long as possible would be useful. They were going for a lengthy trek and then back to Dundalk, O’Hannigan assured the sergeant, who was relieved to hear this, even agreeing to the request for more refreshments to be prepared for when the Volunteers came back through Ardee – which, of course, O’Hannigan had no intention of doing.

The only way now was forward.[18]

Irish Volunteers

Placated the sergeant may have been, the RIC continued to shadow the column out of Ardee and towards Slane. “The progress now was slowing as our untrained men were tiring,” remembered Paddy McHugh. McHugh had been previously entrusted with delivering messages by O’Hannigan, and thus knew more than most, but he could see the effects of keeping the others in the dark beginning to show around him.  “It would be untrue to say that there was no grumbling as the rank and file of the men did not know where our main objective lay.”[19]

Even worse consequences of conspiracy were soon revealed. McHugh had never joined the IRB, “having a holy horror of secret societies.” It was an aversion he would consider fully justified in the years to come: “Truly, secret societies only breed traitors and informers.”[20]

Which is a matter of opinion, perhaps, but keeping one hand ignorant of the other’s doings – the strategy the Easter Rising was built on – would certainly prove to have repercussions no less unfortunate.

The Volunteers had not yet reached Slane when MacEntee caught up with them in a motorcar at around 2:45 pm. As instructed, he was bringing news on the general situation in Ireland, though the message was not one even insiders like O’Hannigan and McHugh could have foreseen. By the authority of Eoin MacNeill, Chief of Staff of the Irish Volunteers, all activities, such as the one they were currently performing, were to be ceased at once and the men to return home until further notice. The Rising had just been cancelled.[21]

To be continued in: Victory From The Jaws of Defeat: The Easter Rising in Co. Louth, 1916 (Part II)

References

[1] Dundalk Democrat, 06/05/1916

[2] MacEntee, Seán (BMH / WS 1052), pp. 51-3

[3] Ibid, pp. 2-5

[4] Duffy, Patrick (BMH / WS 237), p. 6

[5] McHugh, Patrick (BMH / WS 677), p. 11

[6] O’Hannigan, Donal (BMH / WS 161), pp. 7-8

[7] Ibid, pp. 2-3

[8] Ibid, p. 9

[9] Ibid, pp. 3-6

[10] Ibid, pp. 8-12

[11] Ibid, pp. 12-15

[12] McHugh, p. 12

[13] O’Hannigan, pp. 16-18

[14] McHugh, p. 13

[15] O’Hannigan, pp. 18-20

[16] MacEntee, p. 8

[17] McHugh, pp. 9-10

[18] O’Hannigan, pp. 20-1

[19] McHugh, p. 15

[20] Ibid, pp. 11-2

[21] O’Hannigan, p. 21

Bibliography

Newspaper

Dundalk Democrat

Bureau of Military History Statements

Duffy, Patrick, WS 237

MacEntee, Seán, WS 1052

McHugh, Patrick, WS 677

O’Hannigan, Donal, WS 161

The Outsider Inside, the Insider Outside: Patrick McCartan and his Role in the Irish Revolution, 1916-22

Tyrone accent, small brown eyes, regular nose, pale complexion, long face…has a habit of looking in a shifty way from side to side and downwards when speaking to anyone…keeps hands in trouser pockets; peculiar gait, takes long steps and looks shaky at the knees when walking.[1]

(Police description of Patrick McCartan, May 1916)

Choosing the Best Man

Politics makes for strange bedfellows, even for the Irish Times, but, so explained its editorial, a higher principle was at stake: should the Presidency of Éire be defined by party machinery or individual worth? While elections in Ireland were nothing new, the one in June 1945 for the head of the twenty-six county state was a first. Dr Douglas Hyde had secured that honour seven years by unanimous agreement of the nation’s elite; among his many achievements, Hyde belonged to no political camp and was thus an uncontroversial choice. But now the electorate had come to a three-pronged fork in the road, with a trio of candidates before them: two titans in Seán T. O’Kelly and Seán Mac Eoin, and a third hopeful, Dr Patrick McCartan.

That McCartan was running at all was a surprise, considering he had only just about secured the minimal number of signatures on his nomination papers, these being from TDs and senators in the Farmers Party. This was despite McCartan not standing on their platform, or for any faction for that matter, as opposed to the blocs – and powerful ones at that – behind the other two contenders: Fianna Fáil for O’Kelly and Fine Gael for Mac Eoin.[2]

Which made McCartan’s chances something of a long shot but, for some, his independent status was part of his appeal. “We are glad Dr McCartan has been nominated,” wrote the Irish Times:

We believe that he is a true patriot whose abiding interest is the welfare of the State. Undoubtedly his candidature will have a profound effect on the outcome of next week’s election. By his challenge to the two big parties he has shown himself to be a man of courage as well as of principle. He is fighting a lone battle; but we are convinced that he will not lack popular support.

Sean Mac Eoin

There were grounds for believing the last point: a straw poll conducted by the newspaper put its favourite’s support at 30.75%, not so far behind Mac Eoin’s 32.48%. The remaining 36.75% had O’Kelly at the fore but, if his lead was formidable, the gap did not appear insurmountable. While the other two had national records second to none – from O’Kelly playing “a man’s part in the Rising of 1916” to Mac Eoin’s time as “active guerrilla leader” during the War of Independence – McCartan’s own was “impeccable”, having been “throughout his life…closely associated with the Irish independence movement.”[3]

For readers scratching their heads at why a broadsheet of genteel respectability was cheerleading for such an unrepentant Fenian, the Irish Times admitted that “this newspaper hardly can be accused of active sympathy with his political ideals.”

Nonetheless:

We are convinced that, of the three candidates, he is the most suitable. We do not wish to disparage either of his rivals. They are both men who have done the State some service…The fact is, however, that they are both party politicians, for which reason we cannot support them…The electors’ duty is to choose the best man, and ignore all party ties.[4]

Whether the electorate did just that on the big day, the 16^th June 1945, is a matter of debate. When the first preference votes were totalled, it was a resounding win for The Powers That Be:

Seán T. O’Kelly – 537,965

Seán Mac Eoin – 335,543

Patrick McCartan – 212,791

Seán T. O’Kelly

An overall majority had been denied to all three contenders, necessitating a sequel count based on the second preference votes, but it would be between O’Kelly and Mac Eoin, the underdog having been edged out. The Irish Times put on a brave face when O’Kelly was announced as the new President of Éire, taking solace in how the Fianna Fáil standard-bearer had not had an easy victory. That the Independent had earned support at all was seen as a win in itself.

Besides:

We feel that Dr McCartan, whose chances of success from the very beginning were slight, has done a national service by his courageous candidature, which, of course, has been financed out of his own pocket. He had proved that there is still a hard core of intelligent opinion in this country which is prepared to turn a deaf ear to the platform bellowings of the politicians.[5]

Which, again, is debatable.  Either way, this sort of quixotic endeavour was characteristic of McCartan. He had been the dissenter in the system, an eternal maverick, even as far back as January 1916 when, at a meeting of the Supreme Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), he had voiced doubt about the wisdom of rebellion without first securing popular support.[6]

The Supreme (Committee)

Denis McCullough

Though this caused a stir from a number of those present, Denis McCullough, as Chairman of the Supreme Council, was more understanding. Shushing the critics, to whom any chance of a fight against the British occupation must be seized and without delay, McCullough pointed out that the question was a fair one and the condition McCartan raised entirely in keeping with their Constitution.

On the other hand:

I stated that we had been organising and planning for years for the purpose of a protest in arms, when an opportunity occurred and if ever such an opportunity was to arrive, I didn’t think any better time would present itself in our day.

With both differing strands of thoughts – McCartan’s caution versus hard-line pugnaciousness – appeased, the subsequent discussion was conducted in a more judicious manner, ending in an agreement to carry out such a ‘protest in arms’ upon any of three contingencies:

• Any mass arrests of Irish Volunteers, particularly their officers.
• Conscription imposed on Ireland.
• The premature ending of the Great War, at least on Britain’s part.

A compromise had been reached: commitments made without too much of a commitment. To take the IRB – as well as the Irish Volunteers which the Brotherhood had been infiltrating since their formation in November 1913 – into more of a war footing, a Military Committee was formed, consisting of Tom Clarke, Seán Mac Diarmada, Patrick Pearse, Éamonn Ceannt, Joseph Plunkett and, later, Thomas MacDonagh and James Connolly.

“I think that they were given limited powers of co-option,” McCullough wrote years afterwards, in 1953, to the Bureau of Military History (BMH). “However, I am not certain of these latter details about the Military Committee.”[7]

Denis McCullough in later years

It says much that not even the President of the IRB’s ruling clique was entirely sure about the goings-on of one of its junior bodies. McCartan provided more details in his own reminiscences about the aforementioned gathering, such as Clontarf Town Hall as its location. He also recalled himself saying: “We don’t want any more glorious failures,” which was what presumably provoked the hullabaloo that McCullough described and was enough for one other attendee, Diarmuid Lynch, to later write of McCartan as being against the whole idea of an uprising.

Glorious Failures

“This was not true,” McCartan clarified to readers of his own BMH Statement. It was just “I did not want our people to rush out into a revolution unprepared and without practical hope of success” and was unafraid to say so, even to a roomful of his peers. Not that the others on the IRB Supreme Council had anything stronger to contribute:

I remember Pearse saying in a vague sort of way, “Around Easter would be a good time of the year to start a revolution”. Pearse spoke more like as if he was thinking aloud when he said this, rather than making a definite proposal.

McCartan did concede the possibility that he was misremembering things – such are the perils of recording decades after the event. He was sure, however, that no definite date for insurrection was set at the meeting – he had been there, after all – nor had it been beforehand. Otherwise, “I’m certain Tom Clarke would not have concealed such important news from Denis McCullough and myself.”[8]

Liam Mellows

Time had perhaps allowed him to make a generous appraisal. In the immediate aftermath of the 1916 Rising, however, McCartan may have been of a very different certainty. By mid-1917, he was in New York, on behalf of the underground Irish government, where he met two other revolutionary expatriates, Frank Robbins and Liam Mellows. Easter Week had marked all three, albeit in different ways: Robbins had fought in Dublin as part of the Irish Citizen Army, while Mellows commanded the Irish Volunteers in Co. Galway.

Mellows was supposed to have been McCartan’s superior officer, had McCartan led the Tyrone Volunteers to him as intended, but obviously very little had gone as planned and it was left for the trio to make the best of things with each other in a foreign land. Mellows and McCartan quickly grew close, much to Robbins’ chagrin, for, while he and Mellows were walking together, Robbins asked the other man why he was in a gloomy mood.

Frank Robbins

“If I had known as much in Easter Week as I know today, I would never have fired a shot,” Mellows replied. The authority of the IRB Supreme Council had been usurped, Mellows explained, and its prerogative stolen by the Military Committee in order to launch the Rising under false pretences. Mellows went so far as to call the Committee a junta, an opinion Robbins suspected was more McCartan’s than Mellows’ own. Though Mellows hotly denied this was the case, an unconvinced Robbins insisted on setting straight the record as he saw it: the men of the Military Committee such as Clarke, Pearse and Connolly were heroes who had laid down their lives for Ireland, however much McCartan badmouthed them to justify his own dereliction of duty.

Mellows was thankful when Robbins was done, saying he had helped set his mind at ease. Robbins was troubled all the same; McCartan had been in the United States for less than a fortnight and already he was raising awkward questions about the rights and wrongs of Easter Week.[9]

Making Sense of Things

(From Patrick McCartan’s interview with the Pension Advisory Committee on 28^th July 1940)

Q: Were you in touch with them here in Dublin at that time – the three weeks before Easter Week [1916]?

Tom Clarke

A: I could not tell you. I was up in Dublin sometime or other and saw Tom Clarke. He told me to see Pearse. I saw Pearse, and Pearse told me that our function would be to go to a place called Belcoo [Co. Fermanagh]. That there was a plan – there was to be a German landing. If there was a German landing, we were to go to Belcoo and join up with Mellows in Galway. He did not say Mellows. I had to keep the line of the Shannon. He said there might be other instructions later. He did not give me the instructions in case of no German landing and that puzzled us. The idea of that I could not tell you.

Q: For the three weeks before Easter Week, were you doing anything particular?

A: Not that I know of. I came up on Holy Thursday [the 20^th April 1916]. I got word on Holy Thursday and I came up to make sure – I think it was Burke, now Dr Burke. I came up on Holy Thursday and saw Tom Clarke. He was enthusiastic about it and he expected a German landing. Going home on the train [to Co. Tyrone], I saw in the evening paper where the Aud was captured and Saturday I sent up my sister and two Miss Owens to make sure: one of them came back on Saturday night and had seen Tom Clarke and he said it was hopeless but we must go on. On Sunday, the other two arrived back with [Eoin] MacNeill’s message [cancelling plans for the Rising]. The Belfast men came down to Tyrone. I did not know they were coming until they arrived.

Irish Volunteers

Q: That was on Sunday [the 23^rd April]?

A: Saturday or Sunday. We sent them back on Sunday after getting MacNeill’s message.

Q: It was Friday, probably, you were coming home?

A: Friday, I think it was.

Q: On Saturday, you sent your sister and the Misses Owens to Dublin and they returned?

A: One of them returned on Saturday night by the mail train and the other two on about 2 o’clock on Sunday.

Q: And the Belfast men came on Saturday night?

A: Yes.

Q: On Sunday of Easter Week, the Belfast men went back?

A: Yes.

Q: You remained at home that day?

A: I suppose I went back and pretended to be as innocent as I could.

Q: During Easter Week?

Patrick Pearse

A: Monday, I got word from Pearse. The message was “We started. Carry out your orders”. Matt Kavanagh’s brother brought it to me. That was about dark on Monday evening and I sent word around that we were going to Clogher and got Fr. O’Daly out of his bed at 4 o’clock in the morning. On Tuesday, we had all the fellows mobilised and then our orders were to go to Belcoo. We did not know what we were going to do. That night, Fr. O’Daly and Fr. McNeillus came and then that night I spent telling the rest to go home. We did not know what to do.

Q: Wednesday, Thursday and Friday?

A: Wednesday, I don’t know what I was doing.

Q: For the rest of the week, were you a sort of standing to?

A: Our idea was to start out again as soon as we would get out [sic] bearings and see what we could do. I did not go back to work after that at all. Where I was or what I was doing, I don’t know. Fr. Daly and Father Coyle and myself [and] Fr. McNeillus, we were meeting and discussing business.

Q: For the rest of the week you were waiting then?

A: After Thursday, they began searching every house. I just escaped out of my father’s house that day.[10]

Dealing with the North

James Connolly

If Ulster does not loom large in the memory of the Rising, then, in fairness, it was never intended to be more than an afterthought. This was made plain to McCullough when summoned to a meeting with Pearse and Connolly in Dublin. Despite his presidency of the IRB Supreme Council, as well as rank of commandant over the Belfast Volunteers, McCullough listened passively as Pearse laid out the plan of action.

Once the Rising was decided on, McCullough would receive a coded message a week beforehand. Come zero hour and he was to mobilise his subordinates, armed and equipped accordingly, and march them all the way to Tyrone, join up with the Volunteers there, and then continue towards Galway, where Mellows was to take overall charge. All of which was quite an undertaking, considering how this was to be done on foot, to say nothing of the limited armaments of the Belfast men, for surely the various barracks and garrisons of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) along the way would resist.

RIC barracks, with policemen in front

When McCullough pointed this out:

Connolly got quite cross at this suggestion and almost shouted to me “You will fire no shot in Ulster: you will proceed with all possible speed to join Mellows in Connaught, “and”, he added, “if we win through, we will then deal with Ulster”…I looked at Pearse, to ascertain if he agreed with this and he nodded assent, with some remark like “Yes, that’s an order”. That interview is perfectly clear in my mind, and was exactly as I set it down.[11]

McCartan was given similar instructions by Pearse, who told him, in response to the question of any RIC strongholds facing them: “Don’t waste time dealing with police” – which did not in itself make the problem go away. McCartan at least had the promise of German reinforcements – which McCullough did not, if his memory was as clear as he claimed – as relayed to him by Clarke while staying the night in the latter’s house. McCartan had received word in Tyrone on the morning of Holy Thursday, the 20^th April 1916, about a shipment of arms the Aud was bringing for the rebellion, but details were so vague that he went down to Dublin to have them clarified.

The Aud

There was nothing to worry about, Clarke assured him, not with five thousand – at least! – of the Kaiser’s finest on their way. By the time McCartan left for the Friday morning train back to Tyrone, he was as giddy as Clarke – until, that is, he read of the arrest of Roger Casement and the Aud’s capture while sitting in the carriage with his newspaper. While he did not think these twin blows would be enough to derail their enterprise, the mood in the North was apprehensive enough already, even amongst Those In The Know. While passing through Monaghan on the way to see Clarke, McCartan was warned by a priest, Father McPhillips: “Tell them in Dublin not to do anything until the British try to enforce conscription and then the whole country will be behind you.”[12]

Another man of the cloth, Father Eugene Coyle, had attended a gathering of Volunteer officers a day or two earlier, on the Tuesday or Wednesday of Holy Week, in Beragh, Co. Tyrone. McCartan and McCullough were present, along with another Fenian-minded priest, Father O’Daly, and several other insiders. Though Father Coyle was to describe it as a ‘council of war’, the mood was far from belligerent, particularly when the latest missive from Pearse, outlining the joint role of the Tyrone and Belfast contingents, was read out.

Irish Volunteers

If McCullough had been apprehensive upon hearing it the first time, then the others were no less dismayed: the distance to cover was formidable, their men undersupplied and the countryside they were to enter strongly held by the enemy. When one of the attendees, failing to read the room, suggested they begin by blowing up trains carrying British soldiers from Derry to Dublin, the threat to civilian life was deemed too great by the rest. The proposal was quickly dropped.[13]

Effective Organisation

The presence of Fathers Coyle and O’Daly would not have surprised the RIC District Inspector (DI). When writing his report in May 1916 about the disturbances in Tyrone of the month before, DI Conlin noted how “Dr Patrick McCartan, a dangerous IRB suspect” had a way of attracting “considerable clerical support, because he was very astute and had the art of hiding his real sentiments from those to whom he did not wish to reveal them.”[14]

Patrick McCartan

No dissembling would have been necessary with Father Coyle, who had been converted to physical force methods even prior to knowing McCartan. Alarmed at the rise of the Ulster Volunteer Force in his parish of Fintona, Co. Tyrone, Coyle decided it was only just that his congregation should likewise exercise their right to bear arms. Paying for fifty rifles from his own means, which he distributed to the Fintona Volunteer Company, brought him to the attention of McCartan, then the medical officer of the Gorteen Dispensary District.

“Dr McCartan and I became great friends,” Father Coyle told the BMH. “I had great admiration for the work he was doing in organising the Volunteers and the IRB all over the north of Ireland.”

The respect went both ways, with McCartan allowing his priestly friend to sit in on IRB conclaves, where he also made the acquaintance of McCullough and Father O’Daly. Coyle’s religious scruples held him off from taking the Fenian oath – secret societies being frowned upon by the Church – though not from accompanying McCartan in the latter’s car to Dublin and driving back with guns purchased out of McCartan’s medical salary. Father Coyle’s martial philosophy was more reactive than proactive – “I believed that defensive military preparation by our people was the keystone of our national wellbeing,” as he put it – while his friend’s was willing to risk an outright insurrection – when the time was right, that is.

1871 Mauser Rifle, of the type commonly used by the Irish Volunteers

In McCartan’s view, the time was most certainly not right, so he told Father Coyle sometime in early 1916. He was not alone in thinking so, as he relayed to his priestly confidant about an IRB summit in Dublin from which he had just returned:

A small minority of the delegates expressed the opinion that the Rising should be postponed until the country was better organised, as in many counties there did not exist any organisation whatever…The position in the north then was that in all areas except East and South Tyrone and Belfast City there was no organisation. In the south, with the exception of Dublin, Galway South and Wexford, there was little evidence of any effective organisation.

Nonetheless, the Rising was set to go ahead, much to McCartan’s frustration. His IRB co-conspirators could not seem to think in terms outside of Dublin’s, he complained. If it was fine for the big city, it was the same for everywhere else, went the attitude.[15]

Both he and Father Coyle knew better. When McCartan was singled out for his alleged culpability in the subsequent debacle, Coyle hastened to set the record straight or at least place it in context. “Why specially condemn him for inactivity when in areas like Cork and Kerry with friendly populations, with better organisation, more men, more arms and better equipment, no action took place,” he asked, defending the honour both of his friend and the North’s.[16]

Contradictory Conflictions

And yet, perhaps there is more than a hint of hindsight in such remarks, composed decades afterwards when the Rising might have appeared doomed from the start. Other sources, written mere weeks after the venture, present McCartan in a much more confident, even cocksure light. A letter of his in early June described how he had, on the Easter Tuesday of the 25^th April, proposed to a RIC sergeant that he and his colleagues:

…would get their jobs under the new government if they did not actively oppose us. And I advised him to pretend to do his duty but not be too officious and to pass the word to those whom he could.

McCartan obviously was envisioning himself as someone with a say in this new state of affairs. The sergeant instead reported this seditious offer to his superiors, leaving McCartan open to charges under the Defence of the Realm Act and with no choice but to go into hiding:

Of course I was an ass for saying anything to him but at the time I was certain we would have a walk-over as I thought the Germans were here.

Evidently, news of the Aud’s capture had not deterred McCartan from believing in the story Clarke had spun for him about overseas reinforcements. While he knew all too well now that this had been a forlorn hope, at the time: “I thought the hour for discretion had passed.”[17]

Irish Volunteers

This was not necessarily post factum bravado on McCartan’s part. The RIC report of DI Conlin, written on the 23^rd May 1916 to explain to his employers in Dublin Castle how Tyrone had fared, made a point of identifying McCartan as “not only a local leader in the rebellion movement but…was a leader in the higher councils of the Dublin rebels.” Such as the trust bestowed in him that “he had control of large funds from America for propaganda work…I have evidence of large payments made by him to such men as T.C. Clarke of Dublin, who has since been shot, and to Professor MacNeill and others connected with the Sinn Fein movement.”[18]

And McCartan led not just from the shadows. Although the authorities had him under enough surveillance to record his visit to Dublin on Good Friday, as well as observing him and several others in Tyrone “making final preparations for the rising,” Conlin mistakenly believed Easter Wednesday, the 26^th April, to be the set date for action. Even when news reached the RIC in Omagh of the fighting in the capital, the warning was considered insufficiently clear for the police to do much more than stand by. Conlin seemed unaware of the divisions within the rebel leadership, and the contradictory orders about whether or not the Rising was to go ahead, attributing instead its failure in Tyrone to the “special zeal, energy, tact and wholehearted devotion to duty” of the RIC.

RIC constables

Self-congratulation aside, the District Inspector was correct in his report that the majority of Tyrone Volunteers simply decided to sit things out:

When the Sinn Feiners assembled at Eskerboy on night of 26 ult. they numbered only 105 all told. The question of attacking the police barracks at Carrickmore was put to a vote, and there was a majority of 3 or 4 against the attack because the forces were not sufficiently strong.

However:

Dr McCartan and the more violent of his supporters fought hard to lead the attack. He failed to carry his point but he had not yet given up hope of raising the republican flag in Tyrone, and he expressed himself to that effect and promised that a sufficiently large force would be in readiness in a day or two.

McCartan never got the chance. On the next day, continued Conlin, three hundred British soldiers drove into Carrickmore and aided the RIC in raiding:

…the home of Dr McCartan’s father where the meeting had been held the previous night, and seized several thousand rounds of ammunition and 15 or 20 automatic revolvers and cartridges and other equipment. This military demonstration and the seizure of the ammunition put the finishing touches on the rebellion in Tyrone.[19]

That McCartan was able to take his two revolvers with him, while fleeing his father’s house in Eskerboy just in time to avoid arrest, was a small victory, though it did little to mitigate the loss of the rest of the arsenal. The Tyrone Volunteers had been in two minds about rebellion, or at least about putting the principal into practice, but now the choice had been made for them, and there was nothing else to be done except lie low and hope the military and police parties would pass them by.[20]

A British soldier hunting for rebels, post-Rising

If the Volunteers had really been debating the merits of attacking Carrickmore RIC Barracks, then this meant a departure from Pearse’s instructions to do nothing against the police in Tyrone. As Seán Corr remembered it, however, the question had been no more ambitious than whether to seize explosives from Carrickmore quarry, which ended in the decision not to. Other insider accounts give the impression of an army that had already lost its spirit, going through the motions while waiting for it all to end one way or another.[21]

“When I met [McCartan on Monday evening] he seemed to have had a bad time and showed the effects of it,” recalled Jim Tomney. Tyrone had by then suffered its sole casualty of Easter Week: McCartan’s car, left a burning wreck after soldiers paid a call to his house. With the promise of worse to come, now that the authorities were on the alert, a shaken McCartan told Tomney “that he was not in favour of doing anything further.”[22]

Flight or Fight

(From Patrick McCartan’s interview with the Pension Advisory Committee on 28^th July 1940 – continued)

Q: You went on the run?

A: I was on the run from that on [until] about February or January of 1917. It was the end of January because I was arrested on the 28^th February.

Q: The 21^st or the 22^nd February?

A: Sometime like that.

Q: You were deported then?

A: I was in Oxford and Fairford, and we came back for Joe McGuinness’ election.

Sinn Féin activists in the South Longford by-election, 1917

Q: You escaped from there in May 1917?

A: Yes.

Q: You assisted at the election?

A: Yes.

Q: It was at that time that you were ordered to go by the Provisional Government?

A: We called it a Provisional Government. It was really the Supreme Council of the IRB.

Q: You could not get a boat to Russia – you were ordered to go to the USA and make your contact there?

A: That is right.

Q: About what time did you leave for there? In June?

A: Yes. The prisoners got out of Lewis [sic] Jail about June. Three weeks before that. It was after McGuinness’ election. I went to London and gave a statement to the Russian – to a secret agent. Then I went to Liverpool looking for a boat and there I saw about the prisoners getting out and crossed over in the boat with them here. I got a statement signed by the officers which was presented to President Wilson.

Q: De Valera signed the statement?

A: Yes and MacNeill and all the officers.

Éamon de Valera, captured after the Rising

Q: In addition to the Supreme Council of the IRB, you had now the sanction of all the released prisoners?

A: Yes, all the released prisoners really.

Q: With that statement, you left?

A: Yes. I sailed on the Baltic as a seaman. I forgot the exact date. Whatever date they got out, it was on the following Wednesday.

Q: You went to America?

A: Yes.[23]

Coming to America

John Devoy

For Frank Robbins, McCartan’s arrival in New York was the start of one headache after another. He and Mellows made the acquaintance of the newest entrant in the Gaelic American newspaper offices, the base of operations of John Devoy, the hoary old Fenian legend. McCartan had only just stepped foot on American soil and already he was at the centre of a crisis.

He had brought with him a document, stating the case of Irish freedom, and addressed to President Woodrow Wilson and the United States Congress. The twenty-six signatures at the end, all of which belonged to Volunteer officers who were newly released from prison, made this as official a statement as could be made by the independence movement. Elaborate preparations had gone into its making: written in indelible ink on starched linen, which had then been washed into a state pliable enough to be sewn onto the inside of McCartan’s waistcoat.

The starched linen address to the

There was just one problem, as McCartan revealed to the others in the room: he had left his waistcoat, and the document within, on the ship.

Whether this was something important or not, McCartan could not seem to decide, at least in front of Devoy, Mellows and Robbins. Fed up with the dithering, Robbins finally undertook to retrieve the document himself. Knowing McCartan had spent his Atlantic crossing on the forecastle of the Baltic ocean liner, Robbins would sneak on board, find the rogue item of clothing and bring it and the contents back. McCartan appeared relieved at hearing this and followed Robbins and Mellows to the harbour of the West Side, where the Baltic was docked. Robbins left the other two on a street corner and, assuming the confident air of a man who had every right to be where he was, tried walking past the guard-sheds of the dock.

Unfortunately, the watchman on duty was not so trusting as to let Robbins pass without a challenge. Nor was he swayed by Robbin’s sob-story of being a down-on-his-luck sailor who had missed his previous ship and was desperate to find employment on another. No pass, no entry, the sentry insisted, forcing Robbins to return, defeated, to where Mellows and McCartan were waiting.

New York waterfront, early 1900s

Though the story was to have a happy resolution, Robbins found the whole thing more than a little frustrating:

I do not know how the document was brought ashore eventually but there is a point of view held that it was through the influence of Clann na Gael [the Irish-American organisation headed by Devoy] that this problem was overcome. Dr McCartan in his book “With De Valera in America” says he took it ashore with him on the Sunday, the day the ship docked. Yet on Monday he was deploring its loss, and was party to, and in agreement with my effort to get it by boarding the ship. However, I have given the facts as known to me.[24]

“Frank, McCartan will never make a revolutionist,” Devoy told Robbins one day. “He can never make up his mind about anything which is very important, and I attribute this to being an inveterate smoker.”[25]

Regardless of suspect tobacco habits, Robbins was stuck with McCartan for the meantime. Devoy put his own doubts aside to add the newcomer to the circuit of speakers in talks organised by Clan na Gael, in which McCartan performed to packed houses, sharing the stage with other activists such as Mellows, Sidney Czira (née Gifford) and Hannah Sheehy-Skellington, while Robbins sang suitably rousing songs like Call of Erin, Wrap the Green Flag Round Me and Armed for the Battle.[26]

But patriotic productions were only part of the agenda for McCartan and his stateside peers. Whatever its faults as a military operation, the 1916 Rising had at least set the Irish revolution in motion, and McCartan, whatever his private views about the Easter Week of the year before, was eager to play his part. When Czira told him that a German friend of hers, Lucie Haslau, had bade farewell to some of her compatriots from the German Embassy who were homebound, given the state of war that now existed between their country and America, McCartan was surprised – and intrigued.

What routes were they using, he wanted to know. McCartan returned to Czira’s flat in Beekman Place, New York, the next morning, at a notably early hour. Mellows was with him, the two men being eager to learn if they could take the same ships as the departing diplomatic staff for business of their own in Germany.[27]

Caught in the Act

(From Patrick McCartan’s interview with the Pension Advisory Committee on 28^th July 1940 – continued)

Q: When were you arrested in Canada?

A: That was in October 1917. The same year.

Q: You spent ten weeks in jail there?

A: Yes.

Q: You were arrested there attempting to go to Germany for special explosives?

A: That is right.

Q: At that time, you were working specially for this group of officers?

A: I don’t know who was in charge then but the question was whether these could be used or not. First, I was to go to Liverpool to organise for the use of them and then it was decided for two to go to Germany. Mellows and I were to go. Mellows was to go first and I was to stay behind representing and then it was necessary to make a second trip.

Patrick McCartan (left) and Liam Mellows (right)

Q: You were working at any rate for some GHQ and you were working still on the instructions received from [Éamon] de Valera and the others officers there?

A: That is right.

Q: Did you return then to New York after that?

A: They sent me back to New York for trial. I went on a seaman’s passport under an assumed name.

Q: How long were you held?

A: They kept me in the Custom House in the Secret Service place for a couple of days.

Q: You were released then?

A: I was brought into court and got out on bail, first trial.[28]

Our Gallant Allies in Europe

An American-German-Irish alliance had long been identified as the ideal leverage by both revolutionaries and their opponents. While discussing the history of resistance to British rule in Tyone, dating all the way back to the O’Neills in the 16^th century, DI Conlin, noted, in his report of May 1916, how:

…this appealed to the sentiment of extremists amongst the Irish in America, and brought unlimited funds through the Clan na Gael, which have doubtless been augmented since the outbreak of war by subscriptions from German-Americans to foster rebellion in Tyrone.[29]

And at the centre of this Transatlantic-Continental conspiracy was, of course, McCartan:

…delegated to Tyrone, his native county by the American Clan na Gael to spread the Sinn Fein and revolutionary movement. His private papers, bank accounts, etc., which I have seized, prove this conclusively.[30]

Even after the absence of their ‘gallant allies’ when it mattered on Easter Week, McCartan stayed true to his Teutonophilia. “Hurrah! Hurrah!! Hurr-ah!!! Great news in yesterday’s papers!” he wrote excitedly, on the 4^th June 1916, about the naval news on the Battle of Jutland. “Brittania who rules the waves admits the loss of fourteen warships and others missing. Our cause is not therefore hopeless.” It was time, thus, to renew strategic ties: “We want a representative in Berlin to take [Roger] Casement’s place, and he should get there quickly.”

Roger Casement

In the event of no takers, he offered himself for this diplomatic role:

…for I am convinced it is the proper thing to do. If an Irishman arrived there, “to put conditions in Ireland before the German Government” and publish the fact, it would serve both Germany and Ireland. Even though it were impossible for an expedition to come here it would frighten John Bull into giving better terms to Ireland in the coming or promised reform. It would also keep up, or help at least to keep, the enthusiasm of the Irish in America for Germany and perhaps influence the presidential election and Wilson. If the expedition came here it would prepare the mind of the people for it and give them heart.[31]

Sidney Czira

In other words: whatever happened, an envoy in Berlin could only benefit their cause. Almost a year later, McCartan saw the opportunity to put his theory to the test. Czira answered his request by putting him and Mellows in touch with Frau Haslau and allowed the budding cell the use of her flat for meetings, though she kept her own involvement to a minimum, save counsel. When Haslau asked if she could include a fellow worker in German propaganda, a Dr von Recklinghausen, Czira advised her and Mellows against this, fearing the doctor was too high-profile.

Nonetheless, she did not forbid it and her warning went unheeded, as did her urging of McCartan not to tell Devoy what they were doing. She regarded the Clan na Gael head as a petty tyrant, while Devoy resented the Young Turks who were bucking his authority. McCartan attempted to straddle both horses, continuing to associate with Czira and her allies, while arguing to them that it was unfair to leave the ‘Old Man’ in the dark.[32]

Donal O’Hannigan

Besides, Devoy had German contacts of his own, exchanging word via a cablegram between Europe and New York, and was sufficiently informed to host a gathering in the Astoria Hotel with McCartan, Mellows and Donal O’Hannigan, the commander of the Louth Volunteers during Easter Week. Devoy assigned to the others their destinations: O’Hannigan was to return to Ireland and await contact with German operatives, with McCartan and Mellows making their way to Germany.

Everything seemed to be laid out smoothly – except for how, as McCartan, Mellows and O’Hannigan left the Astoria, they were tailed by four strangers who O’Hannigan assumed to be police detectives. Though the trio were able to give their shadowy escorts the slip, it was clear that they had not been as discreet as they should, McCartan especially.[33]

The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York

As if Dr von Recklinghausen was not inconspicuous enough, McCartan was warned by Devoy not to be paying calls to a certain German woman – Haslau, presumably – who was already known to the American authorities. McCartan continued doing so anyway. Another blunder was when he and Mellows were at the New York Shipping Board for their seamen’s papers in preparation for their Atlantic crossing. As befitting men on a secret mission, both gave false names and provided forged birth certificates as ‘proof’ but, when McCartan was asked by the official at the desk to name his previous ship of employment, he answered incorrectly, as he did immediately after about whether he had been a sailor or foreman before. Though the official made no comment, anyone checking McCartan’s statements against the Board books could tell that something was amiss.

While McCartan was able to secure the necessary paperwork, according to Robbins:

Mellows also informed me that McCartan, who was employed as a cook, was ordered to report daily at 7 am to the ship while she was in port in New York. This he failed to do, on many occasions turning up as late as ten o’clock.[34]

Between this and that, it is little wonder , when the time to move finally came, that their mission was halted in its tracks, like Easter Week all over again. McCartan had set off in October 1917, stopping off in Halifax, Canada, where he was detained by the authorities. A week later, Mellows too was arrested, still in New York, with his fraudulent seaman’s passport on him. Neither would be leaving American shores quite yet, though McCartan at least had the distinction publicly bestowed on him by the media as the “First Ambassador to the Irish Republic.”[35]

Envoy Work

(From Patrick McCartan’s interview with the Pension Advisory Committee on 28^th July 1940 – continued)

Q: During ’18, you were still there in America?

A: Yes, I was still there.

Q: Were you acting as an envoy there?

A: Yes. That was the best period of work I had, because de Valera came in 1919 and Harry Boland, of course, they took the…

Éamon de Valera and Harry Boland in their tour of the United States

Q: Were you officially working there as envoy right up to the time they came?

A: Yes. I gave statements to the State Department, all that kind of thing. The 1918 Election was here, I sent a note to the Legation in Washington [that] Ireland was separated from the British Empire.

Q: That would be after they proclaimed the Republican Government here in 1918?

A: I did not wait for the Proclamation. As soon as the result of the Election [came in], I acted.

Q: You had been acting as envoy prior to that?

A: Yes.

Q: Full time?

A: Yes. I delivered a statement up to [President Woodrow] Wilson or his secretary any time I got one. Then we protested about the Conscription of Irish Nationalists also, and the Conscription here in Ireland, [we] sent it to the State Department.

Q: Before de Valera came over, were you officially appointed by the Republican Government at that time?

A: When Harry Boland came, he gave me the official note appointing me by de Valera as head of the elected Government – he called it, he signed it – of Ireland.

The Old Country meets the New World: (left to right) Harry Boland, Liam Mellows, Éamon De Valera, John Devoy (seated), Patrick McCartan and Diarmuid Lynch at the Waldor-Astoria Hotel in New York, June 1919

Q: From that on, you were acting in that capacity?

A: Until I went to Russia in 1920. December 29^th, 1920, I think, I sailed for Gottenburg.

Q: Who sent you to Russia?

A: De Valera. He gave me one of those printed documents with instructions. It was in Irish and French.

Q: You arrived there?

A: 14^th February [1921].

Q: You returned to Ireland what time?

A: I left Moscow, February, March, April, May, June, 14^th June ‘21. I was exactly there four months. Then, I think, I spent about a month or so in Berlin, as John T. Ryan.

Q: You were full time there?

A: Yes.

Q: Did you return here?

A: I returned here then during the Truce, I could not give you the exact date, I have not the old passport.

Q: You were there up to the time of the Truce?

A: I was. As a matter of fact, the Truce took place when I was in Germany.[36]

Eastern Promises

Russia had been McCartan’s original intended destination, back in mid-1917. After his arrest and a spell of deportation in England, he had returned to Ireland, participating in whatever opportunities came his way such as canvassing in the South Longford by-election, but otherwise at a loss of what to do. In the wake of Easter Week, the IRB Supreme Council had been reformed without him, though it is unclear if this was an act of exclusion or his own decision.

Kevin O’Shiel

If the former, then debarment did not stop the Secretary of the Supreme Council, Seamus O’Doherty, from sharing news with him or asking for advice; if the latter, McCartan still itched to contribute to the cause. The O’Doherty family house in Dublin provided a venue for him and like-minded souls to drop in and chat about the state of affairs, and it was during one of these symposiums, between McCartan, O’Doherty and Kevin O’Shiel – another Tyrone-born activist – that the notion of sending an emissary to the Soviet Union on behalf of the Irish Republic was born. O’Doherty forwarded this suggestion at the next Supreme Council conclave, which confirmed it, at least according to McCartan’s account, which makes it all sound very much an ad hoc process, as was the subsequent change of plans to send McCartan to America instead, based on how catching a boat there seemed easier.[37]

Such extemporaneous spirit continued when McCartan finally made contact with the Soviet Union, through the Russian Mission in the city of Reval (modern day Tallinn), Estonia, which he reached on the 6^th February 1921. He had hoped to mitigate the worst of this impromptu as far back as May 1920, when the idea of a Soviet outreach was next mooted. “As far as I am personally concerned I’ll go only on condition that I get plenary powers and that I shall have absolute authority no matter who is sent to make final decision in case of disagreement,” he wrote from New York. “This may seem at first sight an extraordinary demand but it is the only satisfactory course.”

Tallinn, Estonia

Otherwise, standing as a warning was the historical example of Benjamin Franklin during his ambassadorial tenure in Paris – who “had no end of wrangles with his colleagues and in the end had to take the bull by the horns and act as his own judgement dictated” – and, more recently and closer to home, Roger Casement, whose lack of full authority “left him to an extent powerless and even suspected.” McCartan had no intention of letting history repeat itself where he was concerned – but, when the time came, history appeared to have had the last laugh.[38]

Upon meeting Maxim Litvinoff in the Russian Mission in Reval, on the 9^th February, his Russian counterpart:

He seemed at first to study me as a sort of curiosity and asked me if I had any programme or plan to submit. As the Cabinet, so far as I know, never sent any recommendations nor suggestions after the receipt of the proposed Treaty and as President De Valera did not give me any specific instructions I was evasive and said that it was considered better to discuss proposals with them as we could only be expected to view the situation largely from an Irish point of view but we desired that whatever agreement, if any, we might make would be to our mutual advantage.

Maxim Litvinoff

Unfortunately, Litvinoff saw through this prevarication: “He openly expressed disappointment and intimated that it was folly for me to proceed if I had no plan to submit.” At least Litvinoff was willing to discuss the situation with McCartan, specifically whether the Soviet Union would recognise the Irish Republic. The chief sticking point was the treaty being negotiated with Britain, which would react poorly to a separate deal with a country it considered part of its domain. Still, McCartan suspected Litvinoff was not completely averse to tweaking the lion’s tale; when he asked the Russian if he trusted Britain, Litvinoff answered with a sardonic laugh.

Despite the earlier brusqueness, the meeting ended on a positive note: McCartan could proceed to Moscow and meet Santeri Nuratova, Assistant Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.[39]

Mission to Moscow

Santeri Nuorteva

Arriving in Moscow on the 14^th February, McCartan made a point of being at the Foreign Office exactly on time. He did not have long to wait before his interview with Nuratova, who repeated Litvinoff’s line that the Anglo-Russian treaty-in-the-making was the hurdle to an Irish-Russian one, and the Soviet Union wanted the former very keenly, certainly more than the latter. When McCartan speculated on the chances of these talks with Britain falling through, Nuratova set him straight: “I may tell you confidentially they will not break down for we want the agreement. It is essential for us.”

The Irishman was again left in suspense as Nuratova said he would have to wait until the next day to learn if he could meet the next rung on the Soviet Foreign Affairs ladder: Georgy Tchitcherin, Secretary of State. When McCartan received the affirmative by a telephone-call to his hotel, he was once again punctual for the appointment. Tchitcherin was not, being delayed – so McCartan was told – by a few minutes. Which was not an auspicious start, nor was the opening awkwardness and confusion when the two men met:

Mr. Tchecherin appeared an extremely gentle sort of man, very polite and a trifle nervous. Both of us seemed embarrassed as to how to start. He mumbled rather than asked whom and what I represented. I submitted my credentials from President de Valera and he seemed to read and re-read them.

They were dated Dublin December 15. He asked if I came from Dublin and then asked how I came from New York while the credentials were signed in Dublin. He wanted to know if our Government were in New York. I explained all this. Then he suddenly asked me what I wanted and I said recognition by the Soviet Government and a discussion of co-operation which might be of advantage to both.

Georgy Tchitcherin

When Tchecherin queried Ireland’s sovereignty, considering how the country was still occupied by its neighbour, McCartan had his responses ready: did George Washington not lack full control of the American Colonies when receiving recognition from France against the same enemy as now? Had the Allies not acknowledged in Paris an independent government for Bohemia while it lay under the Austrian thumb? No other government admitted the Soviet Union as one of its own, even though it was accepted as a fact by the peoples of the world. Ireland, likewise, was denied official approval, even while the government McCartan represented ruled Ireland more truly than the British military did.

This question of recognition led to another: Tchecherin had read in the papers about the possibility of President de Valera accepting something less than a Republic, like Dominion Home Rule. Was this true?

Not at all, assured McCartan:

If we said we would accept Dominion Home Rule we would give away our whole case for nothing. Surely he could himself see that it would be very poor statesmanship for President de Valera to say he would accept Dominion Home Rule. There was one real danger of a compromise but it was one with which we were not likely to be confronted. If the British Government threw a genuine measure of Dominion Home Rule at us and virtually said ‘take it or leave it’ we might be compelled to operate it as many of our people might consider it more than they had ever hoped for in their lifetime. In such a case we would have to accept it or run the risk of splitting the people again into fractions.

But, as McCartan had said and what he stressed, this sort of make-or-break offer was very unlikely to happen. As the interview drew to a close, Tchecherin asked what was the likeliest outcome to expect.

“An Irish Republic or a land in ashes,” McCartan replied, “for it is going to be a fight to a finish.”[40]

A Fight to the Finish or Finishing the Fight?

Joseph McGarrity, a key ally of McCartan’s in America

There is no reason to think McCartan did not mean those words; indeed, one handshake made under the table – which did not reach the official memorandum – was for the Soviet Union to smuggle 50,000 rifles to Ireland. McCartan and Harry Boland were to handle the logistics, with the help of their Irish-American contacts and the Irish Overseas Shipping and Trading Company acting in Dublin as the front for surreptitious imports. As with other similarly grand guns-running plans during the War of Independence, this one fell through when the American authorities caught wind of it at their end and alerted their British counterparts. At least McCartan left Russia with his public mission a success, as an accord had been struck that made the Irish Republic the first nation to recognise the Communist state.[41]

Which was ironic, considering how its ideology would be as welcome as the Bubonic Plague in a staunchly Catholic Ireland – but one thing at a time. The possibility that McCartan had assured Tchecherin was impossible – that Britain would offer Ireland something less than a Republic – had just become a reality with the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921. McCartan returned to Dublin to attend the Dáil debates as the TD of the Leix-Offaly constituency, a seat he had won uncontested seven months ago in the General Election of May 1921. Such was Sinn Féin’s dominance that its candidates had not even needed to be in the country. But now this sort of absentee representation was no longer permissible. It was time to stand in the Dáil and be literally counted – for the Treaty or not?

A doleful-looking Dan MacCarthy

Where McCartan stood on that question was one Dan MacCarthy dearly wished to have answered. As Whip for his faction, it was McCarthy’s duty to rally the other pro-Treaty TDs; a stressful job, as evidenced by how intent he seemed, during one parliamentary session, at poking holes in his cushioned seat with a pen-knife. When his neighbour, Ernest Blythe, asked about the matter, McCarthy replied that McCartan, who he had been led to believe shared their support of the Treaty, had asked to be put down on the list of opposition speakers.[42]

Messages remained mixed in the lead-up to McCartan’s allocated timeslot. When President de Valera tried stopping the Treaty dead in its tracks on the opening day of Dáil debates, the 14^th December 1921, by questioning the credentials of the Irish Plenipotentiaries in negotiating the agreement in the first place, McCartan spoke up in their defence.

Michael Collins leaving 10 Downing Street during negotiations, 1921

“I do not think the question arises,” he said. “The Delegates had powers to conclude a Treaty. They had plenary powers and it is for us now to accept or reject what they had agreed to.” Perhaps he was remembering his own struggles to have his right to represent taken seriously in Moscow. On the other hand, six days later, on the 20^th December, McCartan announced himself “as one who stands uncompromisingly for an Irish Republic.”[43]

Burying the Republic

Later that day, his turn came to rise and explain exactly where he stood. Bitter and vehement were his opening words: “It appears to me, since the opening of the Session, there has been a deliberate attempt to shirk responsibility for the way we find ourselves today,” he said, pointing a metaphorical finger of accusation:

The people elected us to direct the destinies of Ireland at this period and we elected a Cabinet. I submit it was their duty in all conditions, in all circumstances, to lead us, the rank and file, in the best possible way. I submit that they have failed.

The Plenipotentiaries were not to blame for the present disarray. That there was division at all showed the rot and how it had started from the top:

From when representatives had earlier gone to London to ascertain if Irish aspirations could be reconciled with the British Commonwealth.

From when Irishmen in the Dáil announced themselves to be not doctrinaire Republicans.

From when the Cabinet had failed to resign en masse rather than bring them all to this current point.

Because of this, and because of that, the Republic was dead. It had been sold. Partition acquiesced to with the willingness to grant Ulster exclusivity, and all this before the Plenipotentiaries had set foot inside Downing Street. This was not what men had died for. This was not what Tom Clarke died for. Clarke was the noblest of them all, a man McCartan had known intimately, and Clarke had not died for the Treaty or for Document No. 2 or External Association with Britain or Internal Association or anything of the sort. And yet that was the situation they were facing, a situation some preferred to turn away from, nursing wounded pride and resentment rather than to confront like statesmen.

Dáil representatives debating the Treaty

Others present tried to shout him down, calling out ‘No! No!’, but McCartan would have his due:

You can contradict me when you rise to speak. I submit it is dead, and that the men who signed the document opposite Englishmen wrote its epitaph in London. It is dead naturally because it depended on the unity of the Irish people. It depended on the unity of the Cabinet. It depended on the unity of this Dáil. Are we united today as a Cabinet, united as a Dáil? United? Can you go forth after the decision is taken and say the people of Ireland are united? Can you even say the Irish Republican Army is united? You may say it is. I have my doubts. I think any thinking man has his doubts.

But, if not the Treaty, then what was the alternative? What choice could be made?

I as a Republican will not endorse it, but I will not vote for chaos. Then I will not vote against it. To vote for it I would be violating my oath which I took to the Republic, that I took to the Irish Republican Brotherhood. I never intend violating these oaths. I took these oaths seriously and I mean to keep them as far as I can. I believe just the same rejection means war. I believe every man who votes for it should be prepared for war. But you are going into war under different conditions to what we had when we had a united Cabinet, a united Dáil and a united people.[44]

The choice, then, was no choice at all in a literal sense: McCartan would neither vote for nor against the Treaty. Constituents in Edenderry, Co. Offaly, were sufficiently alarmed by their representative’s doleful words and finicky neutrality to wire him a petition, “signed by all classes and creeds”, urging him to consider his own words and get behind the Treaty, lest his withheld support amounted to its repudiation and the chaos that would surely follow.[45]

Patrick McCartan

In the end, McCartan did indeed vote for the Treaty, his name – in its Irish equivalent of Pádraig Mac Artáin – appearing thirty-third on the list of sixty-four representatives in favour, against the fifty-seven naysayers. Which, Blythe believed, was McCartan’s intent from the start, his rejectionist stance which had so worried MacCarthy being an artful ploy to make the reveal of his true commitment all the more dramatic.[46]

Maybe. One could never take anything about McCartan for granted, that most quicksilver of men during this period of flux. Not for nothing did District Inspector Conlin bestow on him the highest accolade as a conspirator and most questionable trait for a co-conspirator: “Very astute and had the art of hiding his real sentiments from those to whom he did not wish to reveal them.”[47]

References

[1] Martin, F.X., ‘The McCartan Documents, 1916’, Clogher Record, Volume 6, No. 1 (Clogher Historical Society, 1966), p. 51

[2] Irish Times, 19/05/1945

[3] Ibid, 07/06/1945

[4] Ibid, 12/06/1945

[5] Ibid, 19/06/1945

[6] McCullough, Denis (BMH / WS 915), pp. 13-4

[7] Ibid, p. 14

[8] McCartan, Patrick (BMH / WS 766), pp. 40, 43-7

[9] Robbins, Frank (BMH / WS 585), pp. 118-9

[10] Military Service Pensions Collection, ‘McCartan, Patrick’ (MSP34REF56175), pp. 24-5

[11] McCullough, p. 16

[12] McCartan, pp. 49-51

[13] Coyle, Eugene (BMH / WS 325), pp. 5-6

[14] Martin, pp. 56, 58

[15] Coyle, pp. 2-5

[16] Ibid, p. 7

[17] Martin, p. 52

[18] Martin, p. 57

[19] Ibid, pp. 61-4

[20] McCartan, p. 54

[21] Corr, Seán (BMH / WS 145), p. 189

[22] Tomney, James (BMH / WS 169), p. 7

[23] ‘McCartan’ (MSP34REF56175), p. 25

[24] Robbins, pp. 116-8

[25] Ibid, pp. 139-40

[26] Ibid, p. 134

[27] Czira, Sidney (BMH / WS 909), pp. 41-2

[28] ‘McCartan’ (MSP34REF56175), pp. 25-6

[29] Martin, p. 57

[30] Ibid, p. 56

[31] Ibid, pp. 44-5

[32] Czira, pp. 42-3

[33] O’Hannigan, Donal (BMH / WS 161), pp. 32-3

[34] Robbins, pp. 138-9

[35] Irish Times, 03/11/1917

[36] ‘McCartan’ (MSP34REF56175), p. 26

[37] McCartan, pp. 64-5, 67

[38] Ibid, p. 75 ; ‘Extract from a Memorandum by Patrick McCartan on mission to Russia and on draft Russo-Irish Treaty’, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy, Volume 1, 1920, Doc. No. 33 (Accessed 11^th February 1921)

[39] ‘Memorandum by Patrick McCartan on hopes of recognition of the Irish Republic from the USSR’, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy, Volume 1, 1921, Doc. No. 88 (Accessed 11^th February 1921)

[40] Ibid

[41] Moylett, Patrick (BMH / WS 767), pp. 21-2

[42] Blythe, Ernest (BMH / WS 939), p. 141

[43] ‘Debate on the Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, signed in London on the 6^th December 1921: Sessions 14 December 1921 to 10 January 1922’ (accessed on the 12^th February 2021) CELT: The Corpus of Electronic Texts, pp. 13-4, 75

[44] Ibid, pp. 79-81

[45] Irish Times, 28/12/1921

[46] ‘Debate on the Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland’, p. 345 ; Blythe, p. 141

[47] Martin, p. 58

Bibliography

Newspaper

Irish Times

 Bureau of Military History Statements

Blythe, Ernest, WS 939

Corr, Seán, WS 145

Coyle, Eugene, WS 325

Czira, Sidney, WS 909

McCartan, Patrick, WS 766

McCullough, Denis, WS 915

Moylett, Patrick, WS 767

O’Hannigan, Donal, WS 161

Robbins, Frank, WS 585

Tomney, James, WS 169

Article

Martin, F.X., ‘The McCartan Documents, 1916’, Clogher Record, Volume 6, No. 1 (Clogher Historical Society, 1966)

Online Resources

CELT: The Corpus of Electronic Texts

Documents on Irish Foreign Policy

Military Service Pensions Collection

 

Where No Plan Survives Contact with Your Ally: Limerick City and the Mid-Limerick Brigade in the Irish Revolution, 1916-21

Mutiny in the Ranks

Four months into the Truce between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and British forces in Ireland had passed since July 1921, and while the country overall was in a tentative peace, the same could not be said for the Mid-Limerick Brigade. Long the problem child of the IRA, the Brigade took a dysfunctional turn for the worse when its O/C, Liam Forde, received a message dated to the 1^st November 1921, giving him notice that:

At a fully attended meeting of the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th Battalions of the Mid-Limerick Brigade it was unanimously decided on that pending further action which they were about to take and which may effect [sic] their relations with the Mid-Limerick Brigade as presently constituted they will not attend any Brigade Council for the present.

The five signatures at the end showed the gravity of the situation: Martin Cooke, Michael Conway and John Clifford headed the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th Battalions respectively, making their threat to withdraw a plausible one. As for the other two signatories, neither Richard O’Connell nor Seán Carroll held rank at present, but both could claim a respectable war record: O’Connell had formerly led both the 4^th Battalion and the Brigade’s Flying Column – earning him imprisonment in Spike Island, out of which he had escaped five weeks before – while Carroll had succeeded him as the column’s leader.

IRA Flying Column

However alarmed, Forde could not have been surprised; relationships within the Mid-Limerick Brigade had been sour ever since the Easter Week of 1916. Now three out of his four battalions were announcing their intent to break away; if permitted, the move could cripple the Brigade. Forde wasted no time in contacting the chain of command, the closest being Ernie O’Malley as O/C of the Second Southern IRA Division. When O’Malley’s attempts at mediation failed, the problem was moved further up to GHQ in Dublin, which dispatched its Deputy Chief of Staff, Eoin O’Duffy, to Limerick.

The subsequent meeting was at least well attended, with the entire Brigade and battalion staff present, as was the Divisional O/C. Despite the floundering of his own efforts, O’Malley was a particularly useful addition, having spent time in Limerick as an IRA operative, and was able to fill O’Duffy in on some of the local context:

I learnt from Comdt. O’Mailley [alternative spelling] that the object of Nos. 2, 3 and 4 Batts. was to form a Brigade of their own. I took the opinion of the Officers of No. 1 Batt. in this matter, and they stated that it would be very difficult for them to carry on the fight without the co-operation of the other Battalions.

Of the four battalions present – there had been a fifth, until the Brigade reshuffle earlier in the year – only the 1^st were content with how things stood, so they told O’Duffy. True, there had been some trouble before but that was water under the bridge. About the other three, it appeared that their threat to form their own brigade had, in fact, already happened a few weeks ago. The 1^st Battalion – encompassing Limerick City – thus stood alone, a vulnerability underscored by how two of their arms dumps had been raided by men from the three separatist country units.

Patrick Street, Limerick (1910)

O’Duffy talked to the representatives from the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th Battalions, taking the time to deal with each separately before reaching a verdict. He found that they had all been motivated by anger against the 1^st, whose officers dominated the Brigade’s upper echelons. In his report to GHQ, O’Duffy listed the primary bugbears:

1. Brigade officers being largely from Limerick City and thus not appreciative of the conditions beyond.
2. On the other side, rural men not understanding urban combat.
3. The failure of the City Battalion, the 1^st, to do its bit.
4. A lack of support from the Brigade Staff and City Battalion to their country subordinates.
5. Loose lips on Limerick City Volunteers, resulting in the frustration of operations in the county.
6. An unequal and unfair distribution of weapons, with the three battalions besides the 1^st losing out.
7. That oldest of grievances – money, again at the expense of the country units.

While this was a lengthy list, the root cause could be boiled down to one constant: none outside the 1^st Battalion had a good word to say about it. The sickly suspicion that had plagued Limerick City for the past few years appeared to have spilled out to the rest of the Brigade.[1]

Flag of the Limerick City Irish Volunteers upon its founding in 1914

‘A Peculiar Situation’

Controversy had long dogged the 1^st Battalion; indeed, whether it had even existed past a certain point in time, at least in any meaningful sense, would be a matter of some confusion in the years to come. While drawing up a picture of the Mid-Limerick Brigade in 1936, the Advisory Committee of the Pensions Board asked what became of the 1^st, for while they had records for all five battalions before 1919, post-1919 saw no reference to the City unit at all.

“It seems extraordinary to us here that, in one particular Brigade, you should have certain battalions such as 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th, and no 1^st Battalion,” said one baffled Board member.

Limerick Volunteers and Cumann na mBan women, 1915, (murder victim James Dalton, standing third from the left)

As historical advisor, Forde was at hand with an explanation, albeit one that only scratched the surface of the controversy:

That is an old-standing fued [sic] in Limerick. It is a peculiar situation. That 1^st Battalion dropped out. What happened was, it resulted from the 1916 Insurrection. Ernest Blythe came to Limerick, and the 1^st Battalion was suspended. Then the 2^nd Battalion sprung into existence in the city, and it formed the nucleus of the Mid-Limerick Brigade.

The 1^st Battalion was never reinstated, and some time having passed, the members of this who were anxious to participate in the activities down here, merged into the 2^nd Battalion. There was a certain amount of rivalry between the 1^st and 2^nd Battalions in Limerick. The 1^st still functioned and carried out parades, etc., and were not recognised by Headquarters, and when the 1^st Battalion disappeared the title of the second Battalion remained.

As with much in Ireland, it all came back to the Rising, a “matter much debated,” continued Forde. “In Limerick, a number of Battalions were mobilised, and went under arms to participate in the trouble, and because of the action of the superior officer, if you like, those prepared to fight were demobilised, not called upon to do so.”

“They had no fighting?” asked one of the Board.

“No.”[2]

1916 Memorial at Sarsfield Bridge, depicting Tom Clarke pointing at the Proclamation of Independence

Memories of Easter

And that was the crux of the problem that begat all the others. If the Rising had rallied the country together, its failure also threatened, conversely, to drive apart its participants – or participants they would have been, if not for the flurry of orders and countermands and counter-countermands that caused the majority of Irish Volunteers to retire without firing a shot. To put the issue to rest, the Executive of the Irish Volunteers appointed an investigatory committee which, after some delay, delivered its findings in March 1918.

Irish Volunteers

The Volunteers of Cork, Kerry and Limerick were relieved of responsibility for the débacle; considering the circumstances, they had had little choice in what they did, or did not, do. There was, however, one lingering point to be made about Limerick:

With regard to the surrender of arms, it is to be deprecated that at any time arms should be given up by a body of men without a fight. But we do not see that any good purpose will be served by any further discussion on the matter.[3]

Not that Michael Colivet, the commander of the Limerick City Regiment had had many options. The Easter Week of 1916 had begun miserably enough, with his subordinates trudging back to the city under weeping skies, their plans and hopes dashed by the decision to accept Eoin MacNeill’s instruction that their uprising was off over Patrick Pearse’s exhortation to press on.

Michael Colivet

Limerick seemed deserted, almost as if the place had forgotten about them, and not even the marching tune struck by the regimental band could raise their spirits, nor the lack of reaction from the British garrison disguise the fact that the occupying power retained control. A vote on the Tuesday by the officers to continue their ‘wait and see’ stance was confirmed by ten to six, though morale was not so depressed that they accepted British demands to hand over their weapons. However meagre the armoury, it was the only point of pride left.

The Volunteers only broke on the Friday, when it was clear that the enemy was poised to seize the arms anyway. Even then, Colivet and his staff decided to hand the guns over to the Lord Mayor of Limerick, not to the British Army directly.[4]

When this proved too subtle a distinction for the post-Rising inquiry committee, Colivet demanded a reconsideration, or at least a clear ruling on his conduct, as opposed to the tut-tutting and clicking of tongues in the first report. It was not merely a case of ego on Colivet’s part, for the original ambivalence left him open to accusations of dereliction in his duty, as noted in the sequel paper, issued by the Volunteer Executive in March 1918:

Commandant Colivet of Battalion 1 Limerick City has on behalf of self and said Battalion objected to above report out of grounds (1) that he was not furnished with particulars of evidence tendered to the Committee so as to enable him to meet any adverse evidence or charges, (2) that in consequence of (1) the report has, in his opinion, pronounced unjustifiable the surrender of arms by the Battalion at the period mentioned.

The Executive have considered the matter and desire to say in regard to No. 1 as the report has not condemned Commandant Colivet it was not necessary to furnish him with evidence. In regard to No. 2, the report made no pronouncement on this head.[5]

If Colivet had not been judged unworthy, then the Executive had not exactly given him a ringing endorsement either. It was thus unsurprising that when Ernest Blythe came to Limerick in July 1917, as part of his work in reorganising the Irish Volunteers, “a great deal of strained feeling between the officers” was still to be found.[6]

One Step Forward, Another Back

Sinn Féin postcard, 1917/8

Sinn Féin had just won its third parliamentary seat in East Clare, with its ranks swelled by the mass release of Rising prisoners. But, while Nationalist Ireland was moving ahead at an increasing speed, Limerick remained stuck in a rut, brooding over the missed opportunity of the past year, with the officers of its Volunteers doing no more than they had done – justified or not – on Easter Week. Though Blythe had no great desire to dwell on the past, he came round to the idea that the current leadership in Limerick had passed its expiration date.

“No appeals to them were of any use at the point,” he later wrote, indicating that he had at least tried.

When worthy efforts proved for naught – the start of a trend in Limerick – Blythe tried instead with a group of Young Turks, including Peadar MacMahon, Peadar Dunne and Jim Doyle – veterans of Dublin during the Rising – and those local Volunteers, such as Johnny Sweeney and Martin Barry, who were frustrated with the current inertia. Dismissing the 1^st Battalion as a lost cause, it was agreed to set up one of their own – the 2^nd.

Recruitment, with Blythe as a speaker, was successful in attracting a sizeable following of youths not previously connected to the Volunteers, enough to start a company:

We then fixed a place outside the city where they could drill, and Peadar McMahon arranged for a drill instructor for them. More men were got in, and ultimately elections of officers were held. A little later, on the outskirts of the city…I held another meeting and got a second Company established. A third meeting was held in a quarry on the outskirts of the city, not far from the railway station, and a third Company was established.

Clearly, there was a demand for Blythe to supply, even if the inductees were not always as committed as they were to their social duties. “Between sodalities and confraternities there was not so much as one night in the week in which everyone was free,” Blythe recalled with a sigh. “I do not suppose there is any city in Ireland which has so many religious societies as Limerick has.”

Church of St Mary, Limerick, with the old Cathedral of St Mary in the background (photo taken 1938)

Needless to say, Blythe and his allies did not seek permission from the pre-existing Volunteer staff; indeed, as Blythe initially took advantage of the rooms used by the 1^st Battalion, it could be said that the 2^nd was raised under false pretences. Regardless, the new group swelled to include four companies, sufficient to form the 2^nd Battalion for real. The old and the new both marched in the parade in honour of Thomas Ashe, recently deceased from his hunger strike, with the 1^st taking the lead and the 2^nd – “which was rather bigger” – next in formation.

Despite their joint appearance, relations between the new battalions remained chilly, and Blythe was to ponder, with the wisdom of hindsight:

I am not sure if we did right in creating a new organisation; perhaps if we had continued to urge the existing officers to undertake some activity, our appeals, plus the changing temperature of the country, would have sufficed to induce them to make the moves that would bring them recruits and strengthen the movement.

Ernest Blythe

Maybe. Either way, the damage was done. When Blythe was offered a job in West Cork by the Gaelic League – an opportunity the cash-strapped Blythe could not refuse – some assumed that the 1^st Battalion was behind it in order to remove a rival leader. Suspicion, to the point of paranoia, was now the order of the day. “It was a long time before there was the right feeling and proper discipline in Limerick,” wrote Blythe.[7]

Not that Blythe was entirely blameless. With Colivet struggling for his post-Rising reputation, Blythe saw fit to weigh in with a mocking piece of doggerel about the former’s performance to date:

The non-combatant Colonel of the non-combatant corps,

Was a-drilling of his regiment down by the Shannon shore,

Parading all the city streets dressed in his jacket green,

And saying in a martial tone the things he didn’t mean.

A fight broke out in Dublin and the Colonel’s courage shook.

He said: “I don’t believe in fighting and I think we’ve done enough,

We’ll beat the whole world at this noble game of bluff.”[8]

The Dalton Affair

Judging by subsequent mishaps, ‘right feeling and proper discipline’ were as elusive by the end of 1921 as it had been at the start. Nothing illustrates this better – if that is the appropriate word – then the case of James Dalton, gunned down outside his house on Clare Street, Limerick, on the 15^th of May 1920. The party of assassins – numbering between four and six youths, according to witnesses – left nothing to chance, opening fire with revolvers at point-blank range on the 48-year-old man and continued to do so mercilessly after Dalton collapsed. Even when the assailants fled, one lingered long enough to shoot twice more into his victim’s prone back.[9]

Clare Street, Limerick

Anyone at a loss for a motive could have read one in the graffiti about the streets: A bullet is waiting for Dalton the spy. Word was that Dalton had been spotted leaving the house of a police detective at night.[10]

As Ireland slid into guerrilla warfare between the Irish Volunteers – rechristened the IRA – and Crown forces, murders such as Dalton’s would become all too frequent as the former made plain the penalty for those believed to be talking to the authorities. What made this case notable – besides its public viciousness – was that Dalton had also been a participant in the Limerick IRA. The insurgency had executed a traitor in its ranks, so it seemed, but, for a historian shifting through the various reminiscences of the time, that is not quite the full picture.

“Whisperings, underhand rumblings – all these things were taking place to blacken the character of the Executive of the 1^st Battalion,” to which Dalton belonged, so described John Quilty. A fellow Volunteer, Quilty was called upon – ‘subpoenaed’, as he put it – to testify on Dalton’s behalf. Held over a shoe-shop in O’Connell Street, the courtroom may have been of a makeshift sort, but the consequences to Dalton should it deem him guilty of untoward motives were real enough. Indeed, Dalton had called the inquiry in the first place, desperate to clear his name lest his comrades take allegations of his disloyalty to their logical conclusion.

Dáil Court, photo taken in Westport Town Hall, Co. Mayo, 1920

As it was, Dalton was judged innocent. As it was, he was murdered all the same, and not just – according to Quilty – because of some ill-advised social call:

It is common property that certain members of the 2^nd Battalion were anxious to dishonour him, or attribute dishonour to the 1^st Battalion, by saying all kinds of things about him, which I feel were not correct.

“I believe,” wrote Quilty, years afterwards:

That the attempt and subsequent death of Jim Dalton was caused by certain members of the 2^nd Battalion, who were suffering from a terrible hatred of the 1^st and were anxious to put Dalton away in order to discredit the 1^st Battalion.[11]

If true, then Dalton’s public slaying was not so much ‘in-house cleaning’ but an act of aggression between two hostile factions. If true: Quilty had been close enough to Dalton to act as a character witness, and it is understandable that Quilty would think the best of his late friend. He was not, however, the only one to believe that Dalton’s death had been not only a mistake but a crime.

Kevin O’Shiel

“Poor Jim was no informer,” insisted Kevin O’Shiel, who had made Dalton’s acquaintance while canvassing together in the South Armagh by-election of 1918. Adding to the confusion, O’Shiel blamed the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) for the slaying, or rather “an undisciplined group” within the secret society, without reference to Limerick’s internal issues.[12]

Which is not to say that the strife between the two battalions did not spill over into the IRB, their feud leaving few things in the local scene unscarred. Despite his own membership, Richard O’Connell, O/C of the 5^th (Caherconlish) Battalion, did not think much of the Brotherhood, a disdain he partly attributed to who else belonged:

Most of its members in Limerick City belonged to the 1^st Battalion. We did not look with high regard on the members of the 1^st Battalion, and the IRB being identified with the 1^st Battalion, we did not bother much about it either.

The one service O’Connell performed for the fraternity was luring out Martin Barry, one of the suspects, who just happened to be Quartermaster of the 2^nd Battalion. “When Dalton was shot, the IRB was doing its best to trace the person or persons who had done the shooting,” O’Connell remembered.

Barry was a hard man to find, as befitting a guerrilla fighter, but O’Connell succeeded, allowing the IRB to arrest him, or so O’Connell described, making it seem like a Brotherhood, rather than an Army, affair. Perhaps lines were sufficiently blurred to make little difference. Barry endured a week of confinement before being released due to lack of evidence, leaving Dalton’s murder as one of the many lingering mysteries from the era.[13]

Ruffling the Surface

Clearly, there was very little that was straightforward in Limerick, even with a war on. Instead of focusing minds and rallying enemies together against a common foe, the conflict only exacerbated the one between the separate Limerick City battalions. “Between these two units relations were such that any concerted action by the Volunteers in the city was next to impossible,” remembered Jack MacCarthy, who had fled police crackdowns in his native East Limerick to take refuge in the city, one of the many IRA members ‘on the runs’.

To his shock, the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) dominated the streets in a way it had ceased to do elsewhere in Ireland, its blue-uniformed sergeants and constables swaggering about “with impunity, largely because of almost complete inactivity on the part of the Volunteers in Limerick City. Apart from two or three incidents of no great magnitude, this situation persisted up to the Truce.”[14]

Ernie O’Malley was to record a similar impression from his foray into the city in May 1921, as part of inspection duties on behalf of the IRA GHQ. This was despite the warnings of the Mid-Limerick Brigade O/C; too many soldiers about, too many spies, O’Malley was told. On the streets, he witnessed stop-and-searches by the RIC and military, conducted with kicks and the butt-ends of rifles for no other reason that O’Malley could fathom save the intoxication of its culprits. He later watched from his safe-house for the night as three men were dragged out on to the street and hauled away into lorries.

Mugshot of Ernie O’Malley, December 1920

All this was enough for O’Malley to write off the city for any contributions to the insurgency: “We would have to rely more on the material resources of Limerick than on the driving force of her officers,” who “did not seem to ruffle the surface of enemy occupation.” He seconded MacCarthy’s prognosis for this martial malaise: “Internal trouble: a row between our first and second battalions. It had meant jealously and bitterness; our effectiveness there suffered.” Though O’Malley toured the country extensively and appreciated the difficulties of the various Volunteers he encountered, the Limerick ones were singularly troubled, for which he had no solution.[15]

These dismissals were not entirely fair on the part of MacCarthy and O’Malley, for effort was made by some to ensure that their city was not entirely left out of the struggle for Irish liberty. Michael Stack joined the 2^nd Battalion as soon as it was formed, taking part in the preliminary organising, training and gathering of weapons that defined much of 1919 for the burgeoning IRA.

Robert Byrne

More dramatically, in April 1919, he took part in the rescue of Robert Byrne from the hospital where he was recovering, under armed watch, from the hunger strike undertaken in protest at his imprisonment by the British authorities. Stack led the Volunteers posing as well-wishers for the other patients, but what was supposed to be a swift ‘in and out’ turned bloody when the policemen on duty reacted quicker than expected, one shooting Byrne in bed before Stack shot and wounded him in turn. Stack then gunned down another guard, Constable O’Brien, killing his victim this time, as Byrne was hustled out, successfully so, or so it seemed, for Byrne died of his own injuries later that night.

While far from a success, “this exploit was really the start of IRA activities in Limerick city,” according to Stack.[16]

Blood on the Streets

The subsequent imposition of martial law in Limerick allowed the 2^nd Battalion another chance to buck British rule, this time in the form of a week-long general strike, organised by the Battalion staff in conjecture with the Trade Union Councils. Martial law was lifted as a result of the strike, both that and the rescue attempt being “a great impetus to the movement and was responsible for considerably increasing the strength of the 2^nd Battalion,” which swelled from a hundred members to four hundred, providing enough for four companies.

British troops and a tank in Limerick as part of martial law, April 1919

Stack had been one of the only two participants in the rescue operation to carry guns, a sign of how rare they were, but raids on the homes of former soldiers in the British Army allowed the 2^nd Battalion to accumulate more. So empowered, Stack led a party in waylaying Sergeant Wellwood, in February 1920, as the policeman was making his way to the William Street Barracks. Wounded by bullets, Wellwood still managed to reach the safety of the barracks’ gate before his assailants could seize his revolver. A second attempt was made on another RIC man in Thomas Street, with a similar result: though bloodied, the target made it to his lodgings in time to deprive the Volunteers of his weapon.

If the primary aim of these two attacks had been robbery rather than assassination, then an ambush on a mixed RIC-military patrol in O’Connell Street was specifically to pick off a particularly troublesome Sergeant Conroy. “The Battalion Commander did not issue any instructions to this effect but a few of us took it upon ourselves to watch him and, when an opportunity presented itself, we were to eliminate him,” as Stack put it.

Stack and another Volunteer opened fire from the corner of Cecil Street and then hurried into new positions to shoot again on the enemy patrol as it retreated to the William Street Barracks. Conroy was injured, enough for Stack to chalk it up as a win, though three passers-by were killed in a crossfire, which Stack blamed on the return-shots of the patrol.[17]

Gardai Station in William Street, Limerick, formerly the RIC barracks

Regardless of culpability, it was probably inevitable – between the civilian deaths and these ‘wildcat’ operations – that the Brigade O/C, Peadar Dunne would want to have a word with Stack:

[Dunne] severely admonished me for carrying out activities without any instructions from Brigade or Battalion Headquarters. He said that, by our actions, we had spoiled the chances of Brigade in carrying out much bigger engagements that they had in mind.

Considering how Stack thought “the Brigade and Battalion staffs were most inactive,” in contrast to how “a number of us were actively engaged in harassing the British forces in every possible way we could,” it was unlikely that he was impressed at such claims of ‘bigger engagements’ in the works. Refusing to come to heel on Dunne’s demand, Stack decided to leave for a busier warzone – East Limerick, perhaps, or elsewhere in Mid-Limerick outside the city. He ended up in Dublin, enlisting in the IRA there and finding a more fitting environment – and appreciative superiors – for his warrior talents.[18]

Webley revolver, of the sort used in the Irish War of Independence

Papering Over the Cracks

If discipline was to be prized in the Limerick IRA, even at the expense of personal initiative, then its command did little to set an example – or commands, rather, for the Volunteers in the city remained split between the two opposing battalions. The best that could be said was that the murder of James Dalton, while the nadir of their relationship, was at least not replicated or retaliated against; instead, a sullen kind of cold war lingered over the ranks.

Richard Mulcahy

An attempt to start over again was made in 1919, according to Morgan Portley, who attended a conclave of O/Cs from the five battalions in the Mid-Limerick Brigade, the 1^st and 2^nd included. Portley represented the 5^th (Caherconlish) Battalion at the meeting, held in the Railwaymen’s Club at the corner of O’Connell and Hartstonge Streets, and presided over by no less than Richard Mulcahy, over from Dublin to give the GHQ stamp of approval for what transpired.

An election of Brigade staff was in order, and it would be Portley and Seán Carroll who would be acting as counters, by Mulcahy’s instructions. Mulcahy had already taken the pair aside to explain that, since:

There was, at this time, a dispute, between two city battalions and General Mulcahy pointed out that as Commandant Sean Carroll and myself belonged to battalions outside the city and had no connection with the dispute, we were in a neutral position and best suited to act as umpires.

Which was wise. In regards to the election, it was a simple enough affair:

We handed a piece of paper to each battalion representative with instructions to write the name of the candidate of his choice on the paper, which should then be folded. We collected and counted the votes and General Mulcahy announced the result for each vacancy. Commandant Peadar Dunne was elected Brigade O/C., Michael Doyle, Brigade Adjutant, and Martin Barry, Brigade Q.M.

All of whom were of the 2^nd Battalion. As for their rivals:

The officers of the 1^st Battalion, Limerick City, failed to secure any post on the brigade staff and, as a result, took no further part in the movement.

Barry would later come under suspicion for Dalton’s murder, so perhaps it was not just wounded pride on the part of the 1^st that prolonged their standoffishness. Either way:

Regular Brigade and Battalion Council meetings were now held, but the 1^st Battalion in Limerick City was not represented. The Brigade O/C., Peadar Dunne, gave considerable attention to the battalions in the county, but was more or less handicapped by the disunity in the city.[19]

George Clancy

Patrick Whelan would provide his own version of events, one more sympathetic to both battalions. An earlier attempt to bridge the divide had been tried in March 1918 and even made progress – up to the choice of Adjutant for the proposed consolidated battalion. Members of the 1^st Battalion, including Whelan, wanted one of their own, George Clancy, while the 2^nd pushed for its man, Joseph O’Brien. Since each candidate won the same number of votes, the issue was deadlocked, with neither side willing to climb down.

It was then that Mulcahy was summoned on behalf of GHQ. After a session with the 1^st Battalion failed to dissuade its members from their choice of Clancy as Adjutant:

Mulcahy returned to Dublin and furnished his report to GHQ. On receipt of Mulcahy’s report, HQ immediately suspended each of the five companies [of the 1^st], together with all battalion officers of the original battalion. At various periods in 1917, 1918 and 1919 several of these officers were arrested, but the battalion continued to function, carrying out route parades and drilling as usual and ignoring the suspension order of GHQ.

Michael O’Callaghan

Whelan was among those detained at His Majesty’s pleasure, being sent to Wormwood Scrubs in January 1920, along with a number of other officers from both battalions. Even if GHQ wanted nothing to do with the 1^st, and others dismissed it as defunct, then members like Whelan at least shared in the suffering. Upon his release five months later, in May 1920, Whelan was approached by the Lord Mayor of Limerick, Michael O’Callaghan, who had hopes for a reconciliation, claiming that some of the 2^nd were eager to bury the hatchet. Another wave of arrests in October 1920, including Whelan’s again, put a halt to any overtures, and Limerick City was left as rudderless as before when it entered the new year.[20]

A Narrow Escape

Which is not to say 1920 had seen nothing from Mid-Limerick, though anything of note was largely limited to outside Limerick City. The Brigade had expanded to include three more battalions: the 3^rd (Castleconnell), the 4^th (Adare) and the 5^th (Caherconlish), overseen by a Brigade staff. Despite the status of the 1^st as a nonentity in the eyes of GHQ, as well as its brother-battalions, the numbering system stayed the same, as described by Richard O’Connell:

The 2^nd remained the 2^nd; then the 3^rd, 4^th, and we were the 5^th Battalion [Caherconlish]. That was what comprised the Mid-Limerick Brigade. The 1^st Battalion was inactive, and therefore was ignored by the other units of the Brigade, but the 1^st still constituted the 1^st Battalion, although we tried to make the 2^nd Battalion the 1^st, with a corresponding change in the other numbers. It did not materialise just then, however, and the inactive 1^st Battalion held its numerical identity.[21]

Recently released from prison and still wanted by the authorities for his seditious activities, an ‘on the run’ O’Connell was appointed O/C of the 5^th, as part of which he led the attack on the Murroe RIC Barracks in January 1920. As with Stack and his escapades in Limerick City, this was not sanctioned by the rest of the Brigade command. Instead “we just thought of doing this, and we did it.”

‘Doing’ did not go so far as actually succeeding, for the mine that was intended to blast a hole through the wall of the building instead blew outwards, sparing the barracks from the worst of the impact and prompting the Volunteers to retreat after a few parting gunshots. Waging war on police fortifications proved easier when they had already been evacuated, as most of the ones in Ireland were by the time the IRA was ordered to raze whatever targets they could at Easter 1920.

The empty RIC barracks in Caherconlish, Ballyneety, Ballysimon and Murroe all went up in flames, but leaving the ones in Croon and Fedamore untouched due to their still being occupied by Crown forces. The Croon Volunteers instead turned their attention to the town courthouse, resulting in the deaths of two of their number when the pair were trapped inside the burning premises.

Burnt RIC barracks in Belgooly, Co. Cork

The kidnap of Major-General Cuthbert Lucas provided one of the more light-hearted episodes in the war. First captured in Co. Cork in June 1920, Lucas had been passed on to the Clare IRA and then to Caherconlish where the 5^th Battalion held him in the house of a doctor who was away on holiday. Despite the circumstances, Lucas proved a genial captive and his captors amiable ‘hosts’, allowing him out for daily walks, albeit under armed guard.

O’Connell was with him, along with Mick Brennan of the Clare IRA, on one such occasion:

When we were out in the middle of the field, a big three-year-old bull attacked us, and we had to run for the ditch, the three of us. Lucas, who was a very lively man, got up on the ditch and we followed. While we were on the ditch, Mick Brennan pulled his gun, and the bull was underneath us. Mick was going to shoot the bull, and I said, “Stop.’ That bull won’t be paid for if he is shot.”

Respect for private property prevailed over self-preservation but it was only narrowly that the trio escaped the horns of the bull, enraged as it was by the interlopers in its domain. Lucas, for one, saw the funny side in a letter to his wife: “Imagine. Two officers of the Irish Army and a British General. A bull frightened us.”

Cuthbert Lucas and his wife, Poppy

When Lucas slipped out of a window one night, it was not treated by his captors as a particular loss. “No one was very sorry about his escape,” O’Connell later wrote. However likeable, “the business of holding him prisoner was a considerable lot of trouble.”[22]

The Flying Column

Readers of O’Connell’s reminiscences could be forgiven for not assuming there was a war on. The pace appeared about to quicken in September 1920, when the Brigade O/C decided it was time for a flying column to make an appearance in Mid-Limerick:

Brigadier [Peadar] Dunne came out to me. There were about ten of us “on the run” at the time and there was a share of lads from Limerick who were “on the run” also. He suggested that the Column would be formed. We formed the Column. I was appointed Column Commander by Dunne and given the power to act on my own initiative whenever I thought it necessary to do so without reference to him.

Before taking the fight to the British state, there was still the antipathy within to contend with:

At that time another move was made to link up the 1^st Battalion. A meeting was held at a place called Drombane, attended by Colivet and Liam Forde from the 1^st Battalion, and the rest of the Battalions were represented at it. At that time we were making arrangements to have an attack on a police car that used to go from Bruff to Limerick City, and Colivet did not like the idea. He went away without making any arrangements.

Failure almost worsened into disaster. The peace talks had been held in the back of a farmhouse in Drombane, the same hideout for the members of the newly-formed column. The day after the latest inter-battalion pow-wow that went nowhere, the sentries rushed into the farmhouse to warn the others of an incoming sweep through the area by British forces. They were already close to being surrounded, save for a single gap in the enemy cordon, through which the column hastily escaped.

IRA Flying Column

The plan for the ambush on the police car would have to be dropped but a new one was formed, to be done in Ballynagar, against another RIC vehicle that was foolish enough to be taking the same route each morning. As good Catholics, the column men first made confession to the sympathetic parish priest of Fedamore and then assembled by the roadside, a hay-bogey ready to be pushed into the path of the incoming lorry. Then the attack would be sprung. But first, the Volunteers paused to permit a pony and trap through, inadvertently allowing the lorry, coming up closely behind, to drive past before the hay-bogey could be used to stop it.

“They got clean away,” O’Connell lamented. Also “at that time an order was in force that we were not to fire on any enemy forces without giving them the option of surrendering, by calling on them to surrender. This order was issued by the Brigade” – noble, perhaps, but hardly practical in a hit-and-run engagement.

RIC patrol on Crossley Tenders

Success – of sorts – was finally achieved on the 10^th November 1920, at Grange, in partnership with the East Limerick Brigade Column. The former lined the wall on the west side of the road, with its Mid-Limerick counterpart opposite it on the eastern side. Also present was a company of local Volunteers, overlooking a bend in the road from a hill, though the limited range of their shotguns would achieve little except noise.

O’Connell could not see the British patrol when it appeared but knew from the sounds that it consisted of more than the anticipated lone motor – about ten lorries, he guessed. Also heard was the single gun-crack, followed by several more from the Volunteers closest to the leading two vehicles in the convoy, and then every IRA man who could was firing away, prematurely so, before all the targets could come into view.

A whistle-blast from the East Limerick-held side signalled withdrawal, for it was now evident that the ambushers were outnumbered. O’Connell left behind five of his column who were waiting in a cottage down the road, unaware of the retreat, but he remembered in time to hurry over and alert them. The two columns separated, each unit making their way back to their respective territories.[23]

Stepping Up

As with much of the war, the 1^st Battalion was unrepresented in the Mid-Limerick Column; by its own choice, too, if the behaviour of Colivet at Drombane is anything to go by. A notable exception was Liam Forde, “the only one out of the 1^st Battalion that was anxious to fight,” recalled O’Connell. While the two men would become bitter rivals when O’Connell helped lead the schism from Forde’s leadership of the Brigade in late 1921, O’Connell was willing to give the other his due in this, at least: “He came to the Column and he said, ‘I want to remain with the Column’. He remained with us then.”[24]

Which was only to be expected, given how Forde had been in the thick of things from the start. In Dublin during the start of Easter Week in 1916, Forde had had a front-row seat to the confusion that doomed the Rising. When he suggested to Seán Mac Diarmada that, considering the state of things, their enterprise be cancelled, the other man had flown into a rage.

Seán Mac Diarmada

The next morning, on Easter Sunday, the pair read together Eoin MacNeill’s fateful commanding order in the Irish Independent, which only made Mac Diarmada angrier – and more determined, walking all the way to Liberty Hall, accompanied by Forde, to consult with the rest of his militant coterie. Forde breakfasted with Tom Clarke, James Connolly and Éamonn Ceannt – not something everyone could boast of – before making his way back to Limerick, carrying Patrick Pearse’s instructions to the rest of the Irish Volunteers there to “hold yourself in readiness for further orders.”

Limerick’s ultimate role – or lack of – would have been all too well known but, lest his readers deem Forde a shirker:

I would point out that I was one of the six members of the [Limerick Volunteer] council who strongly advocated taking part in the fight for freedom. I also strongly opposed the surrender of arms. I personally did not surrender my rifle…I am aware that Commandant Colivet, in his statement to the Pensions Board, referred to me as the one and only exception who did not comply with the order for the surrender of arms.

Forde’s rifle, and those of six other Volunteers which he got his hands on, would finally see action in the service of the Mid-Limerick flying column.[25]

Rifles of the sort used in the Irish War of Independence

Forde stayed with the 1^st Battalion until February 1921 when, concluding that the regiment was a ‘dead letter’, he defected to the 2^nd. The refusal of his former comrades in the 1^st to work with his new ones in the 2^nd had been frustrating him for a while – “it serves little purpose to set out the reasons put forward by the 1^st Battalion officers for their attitude in this manner,” he wrote with a sigh – despite his own efforts at healing the breach. Soon after the switch, he was promoted to the Brigade staff, a meteoric rise in recognition of his long-time commitment – or perhaps because of a dearth of talent and enthusiasm otherwise.[26]

As a case in point: In an interview between Peadar MacMahon and Richard Mulcahy in 1936, the subject of Limerick and its internal mishaps was touched upon, in particular the short-lived tenure of Michael de Lacy as Brigade O/C. MacMahon briefly served as an IRA organiser in the city, while Mulcahy had had his own experiences there, with both having certain choice words to say:

Mulcahy: Surely De Lacy had no guts or drive in him.

General Peadar MacMahon, in the uniform of the Irish Army

MacMahon: He had no drive in him; I don’t know anything about his guts. I think he was the laziest man I ever met. I had occasion to visit him in a house a couple of times when he was on the run. He had letters from GHQ and he never bothered replying to them. He wouldn’t give you a decision on anything. He was a nice, pleasant man but that was all…I don’t know how he was ever appointed because he really was the laziest man I ever knew.[27]

Under Threat

Certainly, an officer’s life brought its share of risk as well as responsibility, as shown by the arrest of the Brigade O/C, Peadar Dunne, in March 1921. Forde stepped up as his successor and not a moment too soon, for the future of the Mid-Limerick Brigade was hanging in doubt:

When I took over command I found that things were not too happy with the Brigade in its relationship with GHQ, and Headquarters were about to insist that the Brigade would merge with and form part of the East Limerick Brigade.[28]

This had been under discussion for some time. The shared ambush at Grange had done little to endear the Mid-Limerick Brigade with its eastern neighbour, and the continuous state of disarray by the former made some wonder if it was worth the bother.

Seán Wall

On the 12^th January 1921, the Vice-Commander of the East Limerick Brigade wrote to his O/C, Seán Wall, with a copy earmarked for GHQ, reviewing the current state of the war. The Brigade had accomplished twelve engagements against Crown forces in the previous year, not including those that had fallen through for whatever reason but nonetheless attempted. It was an impressive record, which the author put down to East Limerick being the first area in Ireland to form a flying column.

In contrast, continued the Vice O/C:

As far as we know, there has been scarcely a military activity of any consequence in two Brigade areas adjoining ours – Mid Limerick and West Limerick. Two such inactive areas on our borders are a danger to us in our operations and I therefore respectfully make the following suggestions –

(a) That three or four Battalions of West Limerick Brigade nearest to us be included in our Brigade.

(b) That all Battalions in Mid-Limerick between us in the city be included in our Brigade.

(c) That all arms, ammunition and men in these districts be placed at our disposal so that the burdens and trials experienced by the civil population consequent on military operations be equally distributed over the whole county.

(d) That, as an alternative to the foregoing suggestions, East Limerick be appointed Headquarters for the whole county and city and that the Brigade be empowered to spread the offensive operations over the whole county and city and to organise the men of the county, to use their arms to the best advantage.

This proposal was nothing less than the dissolution of not one, but two brigades and their takeover by another. A bold move, but the Vice-O/C was “of opinion that they will be quite willing to co-operate with us if we are commissioned by GHQ to approach them.”[29]

A Clean Sweep

Actually, the Mid-Limerick Brigade was not, or at least not with Forde as its new O/C:

I wrote requesting Headquarters to stay its hand and give me a chance of tightening up the general looseness that was so apparent in the carrying out of the duties of the Brigade. My request was granted and with the proverbial ‘New Broom’ energy I set to work.

The début for this refreshed policy was again in conjuncture with East Limerick as part of a planned attack on a Black-and-Tan squad, dubbed the ‘Green Hornets’ at Shraharla Chapel, in May 1921. Forde and about fourteen other men from his Mid-Limerick column had reached the main road, at the prearranged site near the chapel, when the would-be ambushers were instead surprised by two British military lorries appearing from around the turn in the road, each filled with soldiers, followed by five more – or so Forde described. Others remembered four vehicles altogether. Either way, the Irishmen were outnumbered and outgunned; the only factor in their favour being that the other party seemed equally off-guard:

I can never understand why the enemy did not rush our small unit; it might be due to a faint-hearted officer, or, perhaps, they were not in a position to gauge our numerical strength.

A running-battle ensued, as the column men let off shots to cover their retreat to the chapel, where their East Limerick allies should be waiting, while the soldiers kept up volleys of their own. Two Volunteers were killed, with a couple more captured, before the rest made it to where some cover gave them the chance to turn and hold their ground. With the British now caught in the open and pinned down, the IRA managed to slip away.

IRA men

Losses had been suffered, but it could have been worse in Forde’s view. Besides:

I think it is only fair to say that, while my name is not mentioned in connection with this engagement in “Limerick’s Fighting Story” [book, first published in the 1940s], there are plenty living witnesses to verify that it was I who marshalled and led the column in this engagement, and it was I who made all the arrangements for the bringing of the column into the East Limerick area.

(Officially, the column was commanded by Seán Carroll after O’Connell’s arrest earlier in the year. Carroll only appears in passing in Forde’s account; to judge by comments like the one above, Forde was sensitive to his portrayal and frequency in the historical record compared to that of others.)

IRA men

Contact at last having been made with the East Limerick IRA, the two columns billeted in Lackelly, with the intent of carrying out the original plan against the ‘Green Hornets’. These Tans had taken a page out of the insurgency’s book and patrolled on bicycles in a flying column of their own, and it was this that enabled the ‘Hornets’ to surprise four Volunteers – two from Mid-Limerick, the other pair from the East – in a farmyard on the morning of the intended ambush and cutting them down in a flurry of bullets.

Forde and sixteen others hurried to the sounds of gunfire, where the ‘Hornets’ were exchanging shots with another IRA sub-group, this one under Carroll’s command. Carroll would later lead with Richard O’Connell a breakaway faction from Forde ‘s authority as Brigade O/C but, for now, there was only the struggle together to survive.

Black-and-Tans

The combined Irish numbers had the Tans cornered in a field of uncut hay. Forde downed a foe with one shot, broke the pin of his rifle in attempting another, and then found that the man next to him had a gun-jam of his own. Hoping to bluff his way to victory, Forde:

…then asked the enemy to surrender, but the reply was “No b….. surrender”. All this happened in a split second, and I am prepared to swear as to the truth of this statement, as it sounds far-fetched. The enemy, realising that there was something amiss, rushed our position.

As it was just Forde and two others holding the line at that particular point, and with one working rifle between them, the trio had no choice but to hurry aside and let the Tans break through. Bloodied and spent, both sides withdrew to lick their wounds and count their dead – six altogether on the Irish side from the two engagements.[30]

Murroe Memorial Cross, dedicated to War of Independence dead from the Mid and East Limerick Brigades, located in Murroe village, Co. Limerick

Out and In and Out of Harmony

Its excursion done, the Mid-Limerick column pulled back to its area. While its fortunes had been no better than mixed, that things had happened at all was enough for Forde to conclude:

…having filled key positions here and there with men of the right calibre, the work of the Brigade ran smoothly and in a short time we had the good will and respect of GHQ.[31]

Which was perhaps a trifle optimistic. GHQ was niggardly in its respect and rarely bothered with good will if the opposite could be given. When Forde led an attack on Fedamore RIC Barracks on the night of the 21^st April 1921, by luring out the policemen and then opening fire with revolvers and shotguns, the IRA succeeded in wounding three and killing a fourth, so the report to GHQ read.

Mulcahy, however, was unimpressed.

“There does not seem to be any reason why this operation should not have been a much more finished piece of work,” he wrote back in his role as IRA Chief of Staff:

Events may occur which will prevent an actual operation, but there is no reason at all any planning of operation should not have a perfect finish, and I want you to give and to see that your Officers give particular attention to this. Slovenly or incomplete plans mean work in which there is little satisfaction, and they are very bad from the training and discipline and every other point of view.[32]

But then, condescending and irritated was how Mulcahy generally talked to his subordinates, particularly those in IRA units that had not, in his view, been carrying their share of the load. Still, by this time, there were reasons for the Mid-Limerick Brigade to be confident in catching up: the 1^st-2^nd Battalion rivalry had finally been put to rest in April 1921, with an agreed merger of the two units at the Catholic Commercial Club in Barrington Street. This reduced the battalions from five to four, which were renamed accordingly.

Cathal Brugha

The new start brought a second wind, with a number of bridges between Co. Limerick and Clare blown up by the Mid-Limerick Brigade engineers; one of whom, Robert de Courcy, went so far as to draw up plans for a gun large enough to hurl bombs. Parts were surreptitiously taken out of Limerick Power Station and put together at the Fianna Hall. When the scratch-built cannon was judged ready, Mulcahy and Cathal Brugha from GHQ were among those in attendance of its demonstration at Killonan.

The gun was fired – and promptly exploded, sending a metal fragment into the face of one onlooker, breaking his teeth and almost killing him.[33]

‘An Attitude of Revolt’

Eoin O’Duffy

If no plan survives contact with the enemy, then Limerick was where none remained upon meeting your ally. The improvements in the months before the Truce of July 1921 were not enough to placate some in the Mid-Limerick Brigade, namely the heads of the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th Battalions (formerly the 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th respectively, before the 1^st and 2^nd ones amalgamated) announced their decision at the start of November 1921 to withdraw from the Brigade and form their own.

Since there were no guarantees that the Truce would hold, and bloodshed between Crown forces and the Irish Republican soldiers not resumed, this partitioning would put the war effort in this corner of Ireland in grave peril, so reported Eoin O’Duffy:

If the City Batt. were cut off from the surrounding country Batts….the former would be considerably hampered in carrying out operations against the enemy, particularly as the new Brigade would be very likely be out of harmony with the City.[34]

Not that the country units would perform much better, in O’Duffy’s scathing view:

From what I have seen of them, I believe that without Limerick City control, these Batts. would become mobs. They certainly would not enforce discipline, when they have shown so little respect for discipline themselves.[35]

Which, for a martinet like O’Duffy, was the ultimate crime. This perhaps coloured his dismissal of the reasons cited for the mutiny, which included a disconnect between the Volunteers of Limerick City and those in the countryside, and an unequal treatment of the two demographics, with the urban 1^st Battalion keeping a disproportionate share of the guns available. All lies or exaggeration, the Deputy Chief of Staff informed his colleagues in GHQ. While all the Brigade staff had expressed their willingness to step down to diffuse the situation, “I am satisfied, and the Div. Comdt. [Ernie O’Malley] agrees with me, that none of the Brigade Officers could be efficiently replaced.”

Ernie O’Malley

Which sounds like a very different O’Malley who left Limerick convinced that nothing useful was to be found there. Culpability instead fell on the Brigade separatists, against whom O’Duffy recommended the harshest of measures: the O/Cs of the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th Battalions to be stripped of rank, dismissed from service or, at minimum, have their positions ‘considered’. As for Richard O’Connell and Seán Carroll, they were to “be expelled from the army in ignominy, and their names read on parade.”

O’Duffy was evidently of the ‘justice not just done but seen to be done’ school of thought. He conceded that “the recommendations made above may appear drastic,” but it was for the best, for the malcontents “have been most unscrupulous in their allegations, and even when allegations were clearly disproved, they still maintained an attitude of revolt.” All of which placed “them in the same category as the enemy.”[36]

Limerick coat of arms, whose Latin motto translate to ‘An ancient city well-versed in war’.

But then, this was Limerick, and the distinction between friend and foe was not always an obvious one.

References

[1] Military Archives – Cathal Brugha Barracks, Michael Collins Papers, ‘Mid Limerick Brigade. Letter from Intelligence Officer, Mid Limerick Brigade to Director of Information, with related material’, IE-MA-CP-04-30, pp. 3-5

[2] Military Archives – Cathal Brugha Barracks , Military Service Pensions Collection, ‘Mid Limerick Brigade GHQ’, MA/MSPC/RO/133, pp. 52-4

[3] Gubbins, James A. (BMH / WS 765), p. 34

[4] Ibid, pp. 31-2

[5] Ibid, p. 35

[6] Blythe, Ernest (BMH / WS 939), p. 76

[7] Ibid, pp. 76-9

[8] University College Dublin Archives, Richard Mulcahy Papers, P7/b/181, p. 65

[9] Limerick Chronicle, 18/05/1920

[10] Limerick Leader, 17/05/1920 ; Quilty, John (BMH / WS 516), p. 16

[11] Quilty, pp. 17-9

[12] O’Shiel, Kevin (BMH / WS 1770, Part V), pp. 147-8

[13] O’Connell, Richard (BMH / WS 656), pp. 37-8

[14] MacCarthy, Jack (BMH / WS 883), p. 67

[15] O’Malley, Ernie. On Another Man’s Wound (Cork: Mercier Press, 2013), pp. 401-2

[16] Stack, Michael J. (BMH / WS 525), pp. 2-5

[17] Ibid, pp. 5-7

[18] Ibid, p. 11

[19] Portley, Morgan (BMH / WS 1559), pp. 6-7

[20] Whelan, Patrick (BMH / WS 1420), pp. 15-6

[21] O’Connell, pp. 10, 13

[22] Ibid, pp. 13-6

[23] Ibid, pp. 17-21

[24] Ibid, p. 17

[25] Forde, Liam (BMH / WS 1710), pp. 11-3

[26] Ibid, p. 17

[27] Mulcahy Papers, P7/b/181, p. 63

[28] Forde, p. 17

[29] MacCarthy, pp. 133-5

[30] Forde, pp. 17-23

[31] Ibid, p.

[32] Mulcahy Papers, P7/A/38, pp. 86-7

[33] Whelan, pp. 17-8

[34] ‘Mid-Limerick Brigade (a) (b) (c)’, Ref. No. A/0739, p. 5

[35]Ibid, p. 8

[36] Ibid, pp. 6-8

Bibliography

Book

O’Malley, Ernie. On Another Man’s Wound (Cork: Mercier Press, 2013)

Bureau of Military History Statements

Blythe, Ernest, WS 939

Forde, Liam, WS 1710

Gubbins, James A., WS 765

MacCarthy, John, WS 883

O’Connell, Richard, WS 656

O’Shiel, Kevin, WS 1770

Portley, Morgan, WS 1559

Quilty, John J., WS 516

Stack, Michael J., WS 525

Whelan, Patrick, WS 1420

Newspapers

Limerick Chronicle

Limerick Leader

Military Archives – Cathal Brugha Barracks

Michael Collins Papers

Military Service Pensions Collection

University College Dublin Archives

Richard Mulcahy Papers

Out of the Shadows: Rory O’Connor in the Easter Rising and After, 1916-9 (Part I)

A Close Shave

Something was up – Lieutenant Laurence Nugent knew that at least. After all, his superior officer, Captain T.J. Cullen, had received word, in the lead-up to the Easter Week of 1916, to ready their men in preparation for a freight of rifles that was said to be on its way to Ireland.

Nugent and Cullen were in something of an odd position. When the Irish Volunteers split almost two years previously, in September 1914, both had elected to go with the majority and form the National Volunteers. But, though training continued as before, the old spark was lost. Members began dropping out of the ranks, never to return.

A parade of the National Volunteers, with John Redmond (left, holding flag)

When Éamonn Ceannt addressed a Dublin parade of the National Volunteers in August 1915 on behalf of the rival Irish Volunteers, both Cullen and Nugent were receptive to a possible change to their stupefying pace. There was the chance of a shipment of guns and ammunition into the country, Ceannt confided, too large for his organisation to handle alone. Would the National Volunteers be interested in taking part in any action – and probably soon – for the freedom of Ireland?

Éamonn Ceannt

Every man present agreed and, from then on, the National Volunteers in Dublin could train with a goal in mind. But, by the end of the week before that of Easter 1916, news filtered down that the promised rifles were not coming after all. Orders for an uprising were cancelled, and that appeared to be that.

Nugent was on his way to work on Easter Tuesday when he chanced upon a group of women and children watching from the top of a street leading to St Stephen’s Green, where a man – so Nugent was told – lay dead inside the park railings. Nugent pressed forward to see for himself and was ordered back by the British soldiers who were occupying the Shelbourne Hotel, opposite the park. Bullets were whining through the air, and Nugent tried warning the onlookers about the danger, but they paid him no attention, seeming more curious than concerned about the battle unfolding in their city.

Nugent seems to have been equally blasé in his own way, for he continued on to his shop at 9 Lower Baggot Street. When Captain Cullen came in with another man who was – incongruously enough – carrying half a ham and some mutton, Nugent sent them upstairs, out of sight from his customers, for he recognised Cullen’s companion as Rory O’Connor, a leading figure in the Irish Volunteers.

“That was a close shave,” said Cullen, taking off O’Connor’s hat. As Nugent examined the hat, he found it had been holed through on either side. Looking at its owner, he saw a burnt break in O’Connor’s thick black hair, made by, say, a passing bullet.[1]

Roderic Ignatius Patrick O’Connor

Rory O’Connor

In the years to come, O’Connor was to leave a striking impression on many who had known him. “He was a smallish, very dark man, dark skin, blue jaws,” remembered Geraldine Dillon (née Plunkett), “he had to shave twice a day and had such a deep voice that it seemed to slow his speech, yet he had great charm.” This charisma worked itself on her brothers, George and Jack, both of whom followed him unquestioningly.[2]

Another Plunkett sibling on close terms with O’Connor was Joseph. For someone like O’Connor, looking to strike a blow for Irish freedom, this connection meant a lot, for Joseph Plunkett sat on the Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). The family property at Larkfield, Co. Dublin, became the base for the growing number of young Irishmen united in their desire to overthrow British rule in Ireland.

As part of this, O’Connor worked with George and Jack on their brother’s staff, along with Michael Collins – another rising star in the revolutionary underground – and Tommy Dillon, Geraldine’s future husband. O’Connor was put in charge of engineering, a role which suited his talents.[3]

He had worked on the engineering staff of the then Midland Great Western Railway in Ireland, before emigrating to Canada in 1910. There, he had been employed in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway and afterwards the Canadian Northern Railway. During this time, he was responsible for the laying of some 1,500 miles of railroad, according to the estimations of his brother, Norbert.

Canadian Northern Railway under construction

In 1915, O’Connor returned to Ireland. His closeness to the Plunketts was such that Norbert believed he had come back “at the request of Joseph Plunkett.”[4]

Making Contacts

John Redmond

Having said that, there is not much to indicate that O’Connor even knew Joseph Plunkett at that stage. Also, his motive for returning seems to have been not for any brewing rebellion but instead to fight for King and Country in the Great War – an odd desire for a budding Fenian. Inspiration came from John Redmond’s call for Irishmen to enlist in order to secure favourable terms for Home Rule, though O’Connor did not intend to go quite as far as joining the British Army, preferring instead a different military that was on the same side. He told Dillon:

…that he was responding to Redmond’s call and that a Colonel…had promised to get him a comission [sic] in the Engineering Corp of the Canadian army. I told him to take his time and explained the situation to him. I brought him out to Larkfield and he soon gave up on the idea of joining the British forces.[5]

O’Connor and Dillon had known each before as school chums at Clongowes Wood. They met again when Dillon came to study in Dublin in 1905, and O’Connor, recognising a kindred spirit, introduced him to the Young Ireland Branch of the United Irish League, a grassroots movement for the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP).[6]

Both joined the committee, as did Patrick J. Little, a future government minister, who accredited O’Connor with being one of the driving forces in a “remarkably clever and interesting” body of young men, consisting mostly of students and professionals, who wanted a voice in how their country should be run.

Joe Devlin

Young Ireland proved a touch too radical for the IPP grandees, one of whom, Joe Devlin, tried to persuade them, sometime in 1905 or 1906, to take a less strident approach. He failed, but the divergent opinions on board the committee proved too fractious and the group broke up in 1915, while O’Connor was still working in Canada.

Shortly after his homecoming, and diverted from his original idea of enlisting, O’Connor went into business with Dillon, setting up together the Larkfield Chemical Company, the intent being to produce aspirins. From the outset, they ran into difficulties with the authorities, against which they hired their old Young Ireland colleague, Little, as a solicitor. As Little described:

We floated the company, in spite of a refusal to allow us to do so, under a regulation of D.O.R.A (Defence of the Realm Act). On the legal advice of my brother, Edward, I found that D.O.R.A. did not prevail over an Act of Parliament and proceeded to float our company.

Complications continued when machinery purchased from Glasgow arrived defective. The offending suppliers were taken to court and the suit settled for £2,000.[7]

Tommy Dillon (centre), with Rory O’Connor (right) and an unidentified third man (left)

In any case, O’Connor and Dillon, with the assistance of the Plunketts, on whose property in Larkfield they worked, had become more interested in fermenting rebellion than curing headaches, having learnt of the IRB plans for an armed uprising. At one war council, O’Connor said to those present: “Do you realise what this effort is going to cost in blood? But, if you decide on fighting, I am with you.”

At least, that is what he later told Nugent. It is unlikely, however, he would have been inducted into such a conspiracy if the others were not already certain of his commitment. Previous rebellions had been thwarted in no small part by their carelessness with information. This time, the Military Council would hide its secrets well – perhaps a little too much so.[8]

The Castle Document

Among O’Connor’s responsibilities was the printing of the ‘Castle Document’ with the assistance of George Plunkett. The Military Council, including its de facto leader Tom Clarke, had met previously at Larkfield, in the bedroom of the sickly Joseph, to discuss the document, purportedly smuggled out of Dublin Castle by a sympathetic clerk, which detailed the authorities’ plans to move against the Irish Volunteers as well as a number of other suspect bodies in Ireland.

Colm Ó Lochlainn

Its credibility would be a matter of controversy. Geraldine was sure it was genuine, but Colm Ó Lochlainn, its original printer before O’Connor and George took over, assumed it a forgery on account of it being in Joseph’s handwriting. Regardless of authenticity, printing the piece proved boring work. O’Connor and George sung together to get through the tedium, even resorting to God Save the King as well as the more expected fare such as The Croppy Boy and I Tread the Ground That Felons Tread. When halfway done, one of them knocked the ink over with an elbow and the work had to be started all over again.

More problems arose. When the finished product was sent out to the newspapers, none would accept it as real. Instead, O’Connor brought a copy to the New Ireland, a weekly newspaper with modest circulation, whose proprietor and editor was none other than Little. After acquiring it in February 1916, Little had assured O’Connor that he would publish anything if it served the cause of Ireland. He was as good as his word, though it was only when the ‘Castle Document’ was read out at the Dublin Corporation meeting on the 19^th April 1916 that it finally achieved some proper publicity.

The Castle Document

The intent behind it had been two-fold, as Geraldine explained:  “Make the Castle hesitate to do the things they were accused of planning, and make the public realise what was planned whether there was a Rising or not.”[9]

Last Minute Plans

Eoin MacNeill

‘Whether or not’ would become a pressing issue when, after months of preparation, the Irish Volunteers were confronted by the one thing the conspirators had failed to account for: dissension in their own ranks. Suspicious of the activities of the IRB, to which he was not affiliated, Eoin MacNeill, as Chief of Staff, had abruptly countermanded the parade for Easter Sunday that was to provide cover for the Rising, effectively putting the insurrection on hold.

If the IRB had assumed MacNeill would be a compliant figurehead, then they gravely misjudged him. Faced with this unexpected setback, Geraldine assumed that the event would be postponed for a week, possibly longer, until the swirl of rumours obscuring everything had been cleared. She had her own investment in it – she and Dillon were due to be married on Easter Sunday in a double wedding with Joseph and his own fiancé, Grace Gifford.

Joseph Plunkett

Geraldine and Dillon visited Joseph on Saturday in the Metropole Hotel on Sackville (now O’Connell) Street, where he had checked in the day before, his luggage carried by Michael Collins as his aide-de-camp. Using his suite as a temporary base of operations, Joseph met with a succession of people until he could spare an hour for his sister and brother-in-law-to-be.

Joseph’s instructions to Dillon were to go to the Imperial Hotel on the same street and wait for news. In the event of activity, Dillon was to take over the chemical factory in Larkfield and set to work alongside O’Connor in making munitions. That is, if anything happened – Joseph was as unsure on that point as anyone since MacNeill’s intervention had thrown everything and everyone into disarray.[10]

Joseph had no time to get married, but Geraldine and Dillon still could. With the Rising due either Sunday or Monday, at least as far as Geraldine understood, she insisted the ceremony be on the earlier date – with the world about to be upturned, she knew she had to carpe diem. Besides, she had had enough of living with her harridan of a mother and grasped at any chance to escape the suffocating confines of her family life.

The wedding was held accordingly in Rathmines Church, attended by George and Jack, both in the green uniform of the Irish Volunteers, with O’Connor, in civilian clothes, acting as best man. His duties included the ejection, helped by the Plunkett brothers, of two police detectives who tried to intrude.

Afterwards, the newly-weds cycled to the Imperial Hotel as per instruction. O’Connor came with the news that MacNeill’s countermand had been published in the Sunday Independent, making it definite. As far as O’Connor could say, the Rising was definitely off for the rest of Sunday but Monday remained an open question. Still, the new Mr and Mrs Dillon should remain on the alert, at least from noon the next day.

Site of the former Imperial Hotel, Sackville Street, Dublin

If anything was to happen, O’Connor told them, it would be then.

Easter Monday

The couple were seated by their open second-storey window, looking out on to Sackville Street when the big question was finally answered by the column of uniformed Irish Volunteers marching towards the General Post Office (GPO), where they halted. As the Imperial Hotel stood directly opposite the GPO, the couple had a front-row view of the men wheeling left and continuing into the post office. Geraldine caught sight of Joseph, with Collins beside him, and a number of the other leaders, such as Patrick Pearse and Seán Mac Diarmada.

General Post Office, Dublin

There was a bang and Geraldine saw someone being carried away on a stretcher. When O’Connor came by their room shortly afterwards, he explained that one of the Irish Volunteers had slipped when entering the GPO, setting off the bomb in his hand.

Other than that, the long-gestating Rising was unfolding smoothly enough. With the GPO established as their headquarters, Volunteers began bringing in supplies and smashing windows with rifle-butts to make room for barricades. Geraldine asked O’Connor to tell Joseph to let her help, but when he returned to the Hotel at 6 pm, the answer he brought back was ‘no’. The GPO was too crowded, O’Connor explained.

Geraldine Plunkett

Instead, Joseph’s instructions were for her and Dillon to return to Larkfield with O’Connor and, if possible, manufacture some more explosives (Geraldine had already beheld the prowess of a Larkfield-made bomb when one was used to mangle an empty tramcar on Sackville Street for use in a barricade). To avoid British patrols on the way, it was agreed for O’Connor to take a different route to Geraldine and Dillon. He would try to reach his father’s residence in Monkstown, while the other two headed to Rathmines where the Plunketts owned another house, and the next day they would reconvene in Larkfield.

Night was falling and the street lights flickered on to guide the newly-weds as they cycled over O’Connell Bridge, encountering almost no one else along the way. The streets were devoid of people, whether civilians or military, and Geraldine could take satisfaction at least that the Rising, after all the effort and trouble to bring about, had taken everyone, the authorities especially, completely by surprise.

Tommy Dillon

At Larkfield, the trio reunited as planned on Tuesday morning. O’Connor had first checked in at the GPO, and assured Geraldine and Dillon that Joseph was well. As the assigned chemical expert on the Plunkett staff, Dillon began making production plans as per Joseph’s orders, but O’Connor stopped him, saying that the situation had moved past that.

The Rising, it seemed, was not going as smoothly as hoped.

When Dillon wondered if it would be any use going to the GPO, O’Connor again demurred, repeating Joseph’s line that the building was packed enough as it was. For want of anything else to do, O’Connor decided he would take messages in and out of the GPO and other parts of the city, a risky endeavour considering the fighting that was about to be waged. It was while doing this that O’Connor, after narrowly avoiding a bullet to the head, met Cullen, who took him to Nugent’s shop in Baggot Street.[11]

Something to Do

There, O’Connor did not mince words. “He told us the whole position and it was hopeless,” Nugent remembered.

As O’Connor explained, much of their ammunition had already been spent and the remainder would not last for more than a few days. Joseph Plunkett was confident that their ‘gallant allies in Europe’ would come to their rescue, having been to Germany beforehand and heard the promises of a military landing, but no one else in the GPO was putting much stock in this possibility.

Sir James Gallagher

O’Connor begged the two National Volunteers to do everything in their power to effect a ceasefire of some kind. The duo were as good as their word, as they gathered a small delegation of fellow officers to call on the Lord Mayor, Sir James Gallagher, on the Wednesday. With Cullen and Nugent were Major James Crean, the head of the National Volunteers, the Hon. Fitzroy Hemphill and Creed Meredith. None of these three were aware of Cullen and Nugent’s contacts with O’Connor or the Irish Volunteers.

Unfortunately, Gallagher proved less than helpful:

Our reception was anything but dignified. Both the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress gave us terrible abuse. Both expressed the hope that not a rebel would escape.

One by one we tried to reason with him that it was for the purpose of stopping the fight that we wished to intervene. He had been to the Castle and had consulted with the Army Authorities already.

After a long debate he said he would mention the matter. But he would not recommend any cessation of hostilities until the rebels were wiped out.

With this not-very-encouraging promise obtained from the Lord Mayor, for what it was worth, Nugent and Cullen left the other three to next try John T. Donovan, the MP for West Wicklow and, more importantly, the Secretary of the National Volunteers. Through him, the pair hoped to induce John Redmond to exert his influence in Westminster for a truce. They were no more successful here:

Donovan was also very hostile and said that a telegram had been sent to him by Mr Redmond ordering him to call out the National Volunteers to assist the British Military. The telegram had not been delivered and that was why he did not act. He could not act on a ‘phone message. We were sorry for this as we would have answered the call and used the arms and ammunition on our own way.

With little to show for their efforts, Cullen and Nugent returned to O’Connor, who had been mulling over options after talking with Pearse in the GPO. He asked the pair to contact the Dublin Fusiliers, one of the British regiments tasked with putting down the Rising, and offer £2 a man to defect, as per Pearse’s instructions.

Royal Dublin Fusiliers

Neither Cullen nor Nugent bothered asking O’Connor if he even had that sort of money – as the Fusiliers were based in Kilmainham, which was firmly in enemy hands, they had no chance of reaching them anyway. When Cullen offered the services of whatever National Volunteers he could muster, O’Connor declined.

“Send them home. We have no arms for them now,” he said, adding a trifle optimistically: “We will want them again.”[12]

The End and the Start

O’Connor spent the rest of that fateful week passing messages in and out of the GPO – when he could. He was able to pass through British cordons by showing a letter to his father, a solicitor to the Land Commission, from Augustine Birrell, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, but even this proof of official connections had its limits, such as on the Thursday, when he found himself under fire while en route to the GPO and was forced to turn back.

Irish rebels (of the ICA?) take aim on a rooftop

The nonstop rattle of machine-guns had by then permeated the city, intercut by the boom of artillery. On Saturday, news filtered out that the rebel leaders had surrendered, cutting short the fight for Irish freedom. Those Volunteers who had not managed to slip away were held overnight on the wet grass of the Rotunda Gardens under searchlights and the curses of their British captors.

Still at large, O’Connor made further use of his father, getting him to write a letter to Dublin Castle, begging for intervention for George and Jack. Even if there was little chance of Joseph being spared execution, there might be hope for his brothers. He was on his way to deliver the letter when a bullet from a sniper, still holding out in the Royal College of Surgeons, ricocheted off a metal box on the corner of Grafton Street. O’Connor had had a close call before, but this time he was not so lucky, being hit in the leg.

Left to right: George Plunkett, Rory O’Connor and Jack Plunkett

So stricken, O’Connor was admitted to Mercer’s Hospital under an assumed name. Nonetheless, some of the nurses guessed he was one of the rebels on account of the holy medal in his pocket, a gift from Fiona Plunkett, Joseph’s sister, with whom he had an off-and-on relationship. Concerned that the nurses – who made plain their views on the Rising by telling O’Connor that he ought to be shot – would give away the identity of his patient, the doctor had him moved to a nursing home in Leeson Street.

He stayed there for three weeks until his brother Norbett found him. Another visitor while he was recuperating was Cullen, to whom O’Connor had sent word through one of the friendlier nurses. There was much for them to talk about, after all.[13]

As Nugent put it:

For Rory O’Connor, Capt. T.J. Cullen, myself and the men who had already started organising again, the war was still on. Rory mentioned that it did not stop at any time, and while he and those who were prepared to work with him did so it would continue to carry on in various ways.[14]

“All changed, changed utterly,” wrote Y.B. Yeats on the Rising but, for O’Connor, it was merely business as usual.

Sackville (now O’Connell) Street in ruins after the Rising

Transience

O’Connor had never been particularly important before the Rising, instead serving as an aide to those who were, such as Joseph Plunkett. But now, as one of the few leaders of the Irish Volunteers alive and at liberty, he was ideally placed to help shape events. For, though the Rising had been a military disaster, its aftermath provided a crop of opportunities to be harvested.

Patrick Little was one of his allies in this venture. If before Little had been dipping his toe in radical politics, now he threw himself in wholeheartedly, having had his offices in Eustace Street, where he did his work as a solicitor, trashed by British soldiers during Easter Week. When a rifle was found on the premises, the soldiers dragged out the son of the caretaker into the narrow lane at the back of the building, where they shot him.

H.H. Asquith

The boy had been with the Irish Volunteers but, confused by the contradictory orders over mobilisation, he had decided to stay at home with his family. When H. H. Asquith visited Dublin three weeks after the Rising, Little made sure to avoid contact as the Prime Minister passed by Eustace Street.[15]

As editor of New Ireland, Little had a platform to use, and in O’Connor he had a teacher in the new way of thinking. The two would lunch together in Bewley’s on Westmoreland Street, and Little attributed much of the content of his writings from that time to these conversations. Not only Little but the country as a whole was revaluating its stance on the National Question. When the pair travelled together to South Longford for the by-election in May 1917, even they were taken aback by the fervour of the crowds who responded at the sight of a tricolour with hearty cheers of “Up the Republic!”

The former site of Bewley’s on Westmoreland Street, Dublin

“This was a time when public opinion was very confused and in a very transient condition,” Little remembered. “Many Unionists were prepared to accept Home Rule, and moderate national opinion, which represented the majority of people – and included the former supporters of Redmond – were becoming strongly Republican.”[16]

Sinn Féin Rising

Among the beneficiaries of this shifting mood was Arthur Griffith. The ‘Sinn Féin Rebellion’, the British state had called the Rising but, in truth, Griffith and his talking-shop of a group had had naught to do with it. Which did not stop Sinn Féin from basking in the appropriated glow of Easter Week when the public mood turned in its favour. Nor was Griffith in any particular hurry to correct the misnaming. Nationalist Ireland had been dominated for years by the IPP but now, as trust in Redmond and his Home Rule agenda plummeted, Sinn Féin was poised to step in with a promise of its own.

“As Ireland became pro-insurrection she became Sinn Féin, without knowing what Sinn Féin was,” was how one contemporary described the phenomenon, “except that it stood generally for Irish independence in the old complete way, the way in which the Irish Party had not stood for it.”[17]

Opportunity presented itself in North Roscommon at the start of the new year, when the sitting Member of Parliament (MP) died in January 1917, and Count George Plunkett was the Sinn Féin selection for the resulting by-election. If the Rising had been a family affair for the Plunketts, then so was the subsequent political movement, as the Count was the father of Joseph Plunkett, and O’Connor, serving as the candidate’s unofficial aide, was his son-in-law in a way, given his romantic involvement with Fiona Plunkett.

When Nugent arrived in Roscommon, he found the contested consistency gripped in the chill of winter, and a threadbare campaign. The local Sinn Féin circles had not even been aware he was coming, so poor was the communication between them and Dublin. Nugent had been sent by O’Connor to help with the canvassing, but the only thing O’Connor had given him was advice, and that amounted to no more than ‘do what you think is right’.

Neither he nor Nugent had any experience in electioneering, or in public speaking in the case of the latter, but the handful of Sinn Féin activists who greeted him at Dromod Station, Co. Leitrim, just outside Roscommon, insisted he speak after Mass the next morning, the opening day of the campaign. Despite his doubts, as he stood in one foot of snow on the platform, Nugent did not feel he could refuse.

Nugent was set to speak at Rooskey, Co. Roscommon, after Thomas Smyth, the Irish Party MP for Leitrim South. The two foes were driven to the church by the local priest, Father Lavin, who was keen to stay on friendly terms with both sides. After being introduced by Lavin in the church, Smyth delivered his pience, only to be received in stony silence by the congregation. Nugent then rose without waiting for an invitation and mounted the steps to the chancel for his turn.

The Election of the Snows

Afterwards, Nugent would not be able to remember what he said, only that, according to others who were present, they were “very strong things”. When Smyth tried to interrupt, he was quickly shushed. Nugent could read the writing on the wall: “As far as the election in this district was concerned, the Count had won there that first Sunday morning of the campaign.”

Things went even worse for Smyth later that day. He was so angry that he refused to let Nugent come with him and Father Lavan in the car to Slatta Chapel, where the two representatives were due to appear next.

“Smith [sic] could have saved himself the journey,” Nugent gloated, as the MP’s vehicle became stuck in the snow, forcing him and the priest to walk to Slatta Chapel, which Nugent had already reached by horse and trap. “My meeting was over before he arrived and it was most enthusiastic.”

Rubbing salt further into the wound, when Smyth finally had the chance to address the crowd, he was barred from doing so.[18]

Margaret Pearse

The times, they were a-changing, a point underlined when the votes from polling day were counted in the Roscommon Courthouse. Nugent drove back to Dublin, reaching his house in Dundrum to find it full of Sinn Féin supporters, including Margaret and Margaret Mary Pearse, the mother and sister respectively of the 1916 martyr. Though Margaret Pearse said she would be content with a win by as much as a single vote, even she found Nugent’s announcement of a landslide victory by Count Plunkett hard to take in.

When news of the result and its scale was published in the evening papers, the country understood that a great statement had been made – what that message was, however, would take some deciphering.[19]

Different Ideas

“When people say that this was not a Republican election, they say wrong,” Nugent would later write. “The principles of the men of Easter Week were shouted from every platform. From the crowds attending these meetings came the cries of ‘Up Dublin’.”[20]

Count Plunkett

That he felt the need to clarify the issue was a sign in itself. It was not even clear if Count Plunkett intended to take his newly-won seat at Westminster, as some wanted, or if he would abstain on Republican principles, as per his declaration. And so O’Connor, acting as Plunkett’s unofficial director of operations, dispatched Nugent back to Roscommon to gauge local opinion on the question.

He returned with the answer that the electorate was not only fully in agreement with its MP but would return him with an even greater majority in the event of another election. When the Count confirmed that he would indeed not be taking his seat, there was, according to Nugent, “consternation in the ranks of Sinn Féin.”[21]

It was clear that, despite their points of ideological overlap, there was at least as many differences between Sinn Féin and the burgeoning Republican movement, embodied in the Irish Volunteers, the IRB and behind-the-scenes operatives like O’Connor. “Rory O’Connor and the people working with him had different ideas from the Sinn Féin party,” was how Nugent put it.[22]

‘Politicians’, a term loaded with contempt in the mouths of Nugent and other Republicans, included their Sinn Féin partners as much as the Redmondite old guard:

The politicians were different from the Volunteers. They saw no hope of recovery on Republican lines. They were preparing to go back to their old political policy of action. Passive resistance was their programme.[23]

When Count Plunkett announced at a rally in Ballaghaderreen, Co. Roscommon, that the Irish Volunteers would be reformed and organised, this was exactly in line with O’Connor’s agenda, which most certainly did not include ‘passive resistance’. For there was a new battle to be waged, one not limited to Dublin and a few other scattered districts as Easter Week had been.

It would be nationwide.

It would be a Rising worthy of the name.

O’Connor’s statement on Easter Tuesday – “Send them home. We shall want them again” – now took on a different, more prophetic, meaning.

“But the politicians were troublesome,” Nugent noted with a sigh. “They did not countenance another fight.”[24]

Which Ticket?

However annoying politicians might be, politics was not something that could be ignored. O’Connor had by then appointed himself secretary to Count Plunkett who, having scored his major win in North Roscommon, did not seem inclined to do anything with it. O’Connor would have to enter the Plunkett family residence in 26 Upper Fitzwilliam Street early enough to find all the mail dealing with the new movement before the absent-minded Count could put the letters in his pocket and forget about them.[25]

26 Upper Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin

As Ireland reassessed where it stood on the National Question, Sinn Féin was undergoing some restructuring of its own. After the North Roscommon by-election, Griffith increased the Executive with a few extra faces but, otherwise, “no one seemed to know what to do,” recalled Michael Lennon, one of the new Executive members. “Sinn Féin had three or four hundred pounds in the bank but organisation there was none.”

Arthur Griffith

Lennon was uncomfortably aware that Count Plunkett and his Republican-minded followers were forming a party of their own, one with which “it was difficult to work in harmony. Many of these then Republicans treated Mr Griffith with unconcealed contempt and aversion.” Griffith may have had name recognition, being “probably the best-known man out of gaol,” but what his opponents lacked in numbers, they made up for in pushiness.

A meeting held in the Mansion House, dubbed the ‘Plunkett Convention’, on the 19^th April 1917, was meant to unite the radicals of Ireland. Instead, it resulted in an undignified scramble between Giffith’s and Plunkett’s followers, one which Lennon cringed to remember:

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.

After the Convention had ended, Griffith withdrew to his offices at 6 Harcourt Street. He was sitting in the front drawing-room with Lennon and a few other confidantes when:

Suddenly the door was thrown open and a man of splendid physique entered, followed by a frail figure. It was Michael Collins, accompanied by Rory O’Connor. This was the first time I ever saw the former. His entrance was characteristic of his manner at that period.

Looking around, rather truculently, his eyes rested on Mr Griffith, and he asked in a loud voice: “I want to know what ticket is this Longford election being fought on.”

Michael Collins

Griffith appeared rather more interested in the cigarette he was smoking. The by-election in South Longford was the second such contest of the year, one in which Sinn Féin and Plunkett’s faction were eager to replicate the success of North Roscommon – on whose terms, however, had yet to be decided.

“If you don’t fight the election on the Republican ticket you will alienate all the young men,” Collins thundered to the room. By ‘young men’, he meant the Irish Volunteers. Even if not meant as a threat, it was hard not to take it as one.

‘A Great Silent Worker’

To Lennon, this was the first time he had heard the Republic being pushed as official policy, a sign of how divergent he and the others in Sinn Féin were from Collins, O’Connor and the other ‘young men’. The discussion – or argument, rather – warred on until, tiring of it, Collins and O’Connor withdrew to count the donations from the convention, the question put aside but most certainly not forgotten.[26]

It was noticeable that Collins had been doing the talking while O’Connor remained silent; ‘fragile’, perhaps, but no less of a presence – or influence. “Rory O’Connor was not a politician or a parade man,” so Nugent described him. “He was a great silent worker and, consequently, he was not as well known to the rank and file of the army as were most of the other leaders.”[27]

That the Plunkett Convention had happened at all was due to O’Connor. Dillon believed he had taken on the role of its secretary because no one else was doing it The invitation to the event, issued in the name of Count Plunkett, had been met with many a hostile reception, at least according to the Freeman’s Journal. Which was unsurprising, this being the organ of the IPP, but O’Connor would read almost every daily edition, specifically looking for the names of the one or two members in the various county or district councils who did not condemn the invitation, even when the rest voted to reject it.

To each of these dissenters, O’Connor would dispatch a letter, saying:

I see by the paper that you are the only person in ____ who represents the true opinions of the people and therefore send you a card of invitation to the convention.

“In this way,” Dillon described, “a very large attendance at the [Plunkett] Convention from all over the country was secured and tickets left over were given to Dublin supporters, so that when the day came the Round Room was full.”

For his part, Dillon had drawn up the agenda, with a number of resolutions to be passed. He did this at O’Connor’s request since Count Plunkett, after signing his name to the invites, assumed that all he had to do was address the attendees and leave it at that. Without O’Connor intervening with a workable agenda, the event might still have been an embarrassing flop. Instead, the Plunkett Convention was the first large-scale meeting in a movement that would upheave the political status quo.[28]

And yet, despite all his work, O’Connor “never appeared on the scene. He was almost unknown,” according to Nugent, which was apparently the way he liked it. Even with the culmination of Sinn Fein’s political ascent, the Dáil Éireann, Geraldine Dillon knew of her friend’s involvement only as the one who escorted her and Fiona Plunkett to its inauguration, on the 21^st January 1919, at the Mansion House.[29]

The first Dáil session, January 1919

On that same day, two policemen were shot dead at Soloheadbeg, Co. Tipperary, in the opening volley of what would become variously known as the War of Independence, the Anglo-Irish War or the Tan War; throughout which, O’Connor was to remain in the shadows, an obscure figure to the wider public despite the leading role he played.

When a reporter from the Derry Journal met O’Connor in April 1922, finding him to be a “serious, ascetic and somewhat cadaverous-looking man”, it was noted that, despite his involvement in the Republican movement since 1916, no one had heard of him until the recent Treaty split.[30]

To be continued in: Out of the Bastille: Rory O’Connor and the War of Independence, 1918-1921 (Part II)

References

[1] Nugent, Laurence (BMH / WS 907), pp. 15-8, 30-1

[2] 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, 2012), p. 311

[3] Ibid, pp. 195, 199-200

[4] O’Connor, Norbert (BMH / WS 527), p. 2

[5] University College Dublin Archives, Éamon de Valera Papers, P/150/576

[6] Ibid

[7] Little, Patrick J. (BMH / WS 1769), pp. 5-6, 8

[8] Nugent, p. 43

[9] Plunkett Dillon, pp. 210-3 ; Little, p. 11

[10] Plunkett Dillon, pp. 214-5

[11] Ibid, pp. 219-22, 224-6

[12] Nugent, pp. 32-3

[13] Ibid, p. 50 ; Plunkett Dillon, pp. 226, 228 ; Little, pp. 14-5

[14] Nugent, p. 51

[15] Little, p. 21

[16] Ibid, pp. 16, 52, 54

[17] O’Hegarty, P.S., The Victory of Sinn Féin (Dublin: University College Dublin, 2015), p. 5

[18] Nugent, pp. 70-1

[19] Ibid, p. 79

[20] Ibid, p. 75

[21] Ibid, p. 80

[22] Ibid, p. 67

[23] Ibid, p. 68

[24] Ibid, pp. 69, 80

[25] P/150/576

[26] Lennon, Michael, ‘Looking Backward. Glimpses into Later History’, J.J. O’Connell Papers, National Library of Ireland (NLI) MS 22,117(1)

[27] Nugent, p. 43

[28] P/150/575

[29] Nugnet, p. 92 ; Plunkett Dillon, p. 268

[30] Derry Journal, 17/04/1922

Bibliography

Bureau of Military History Statements

Little, Patrick J., WS 1769

Nugent, Laurence, WS 907

O’Connor, Norbert, WS 527

Books

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

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, 2012)

Newspaper

Derry Journal

National Library of Ireland Collection

J.J. O’Connell Papers

University College Dublin Archives

Éamon de Valera Papers

Book Review: John Redmond: Selected Letters and Memoranda, 1880-1918, edited by Dermot Meleady (2018)

John Morley was a worried man despite his recent elevation. He had just been appointed as Irish Chief Secretary, a role he was regarding with considerable dubiety. This he sought to assuage by a talk, on the 17^th October 1892, with a man who had his ear to the ground of that troubled – and, from the point of view of many in the British Government, troublesome – quarter of the United Kingdom.

John Redmond was only too keen to respond to Morley’s urgent invitation and got straight to the point: “How do you regard the prospects of this winter?”

Not good, the Chief Secretary-to-be admitted. “If I can’t rule Ireland this winter with success, it means destruction.”

While Morley dismissed rumours of secret societies, he was all too aware of how politics on that island were of a tempestuous sort, fully capable of wrecking any public career – such as his – on its rocks. With that in mind, he was equally direct with Redmond: “Can you give me any hope on this point?”

Redmond could, while leaving the onus on Morley. “It depends on yourself,” he replied. “If you are thorough, you can disarm hostility. In the first place, release the prisoners.”

John Morley

“Do you mean the Dynamiters?” Morley asked, referring to the Fenian bombing campaign in England. While the minutes of this conversation do not convey tone, it is clear that Morley was hesitant about such a step but it was something Redmond felt strongly about, particularly if the other man wanted a quiet winter. “Amnesty – Amnesty – Amnesty!” he stressed, in case Morley missed it the first time.

As the conversation passed through a number of other topics, Morley expressed incredulity on one in particular while, in doing so, exposing the depths of his naivety:

Morley: Do you really want Home Rule?

Redmond: Certainly – genuine Home Rule.

Morley: Then don’t destroy our chances of giving it to you.

Redmond would show just how much he wanted Home Rule – of the genuine sort – by refusing to sit idly by for it to be granted. But it was not enough and the subsequent generation was to push him and his Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) aside, impatient to take rather than wait. All political careers may end in failure, but Redmond’s failed harder than most, leaving not so much a legacy as an embarrassment.

“The caricature of Redmond that has come down to us from the Sinn Féin-permeated political culture,” as historian Dermot Meleady puts it, has him as:

…out of touch with the Irish people and Irish culture, too much time spent in London, too trusting of British politicians, his tendency to ‘compliance’ where Parnell had embodied ‘defiance’.

The reader is invited to judge the truth of this image for themselves from this selection of correspondence, stretching four decades, from 1880, when Redmond first entered the political game, to his final year of 1918:

The letters in general are courteously businesslike in style and content, conveying in their neatness of handwriting and conciseness of style, a strong impression of self-discipline. Little emotion is revealed.

William O’Brien

This stoicism served Redmond well during his tenure as IPP Chairman, buffeted as he was by one squall after another. No sooner had he been elected leader in 1900, in a move to bind the wounds of the Parnell Split, then he was faced with another feud that threatened to undo all the work of reuniting the Irish Party, this time between the prima donnas: William O’Brien and Timothy Healy.

“The only thing on which I am quite clear and which for me will involve the question of my membership of the Party,” O’Brien wrote to Redmond in November 1900, “is that the Convention ought specifically to direct Healy’s exclusion from the Party.”

O’Brien had his way in that regard, and the IPP began the following year by re-entering the Land Struggle as they agitated for land purchases, alongside the tactics of intimidation and boycotts, while staying short of violence. It was a delicate balance, and O’Brien’s push for an escalation alarmed Redmond, as it did his deputy, John Dillon.

This led to a three-way exchange of letters, as Redmond and Dillon strove to reign in their headstrong colleague. “I am…in complete agreement with you in thinking there is need at this moment for renewed activity,” Redmond told O’Brien soothingly. “What I differ from you is as to the means.”

Which was exactly Redmond’s style: calm, measured, in polite disagreement if need be while giving every impression that he was otherwise on your side. The emergence of the Irish Volunteers in 1913, a consequence of the Home Rule Crisis, put his powers of diplomacy to the test.

John Redmond at a parade of the Irish Volunteers

“I can assure you I am extremely anxious that we should come to some understanding,” he wrote to Eoin MacNeill, the Chief of Staff of the armed new movement, on the issue of IPP personnel on its ruling body. It was a question of control, something which MacNeill was reluctant to surrender, but Redmond was nothing if not persistent.

“Why this moderate demand of ours was not conceded at once, I cannot understand,” he told MacNeill, rather passive-aggressively. “The present Committee [of the Irish Volunteers] is purely provisional, self-elected and includes no representative of the Irish Party.”

Eoin MacNeill

Between themselves, the IPP leaders were not overly impressed with their new rival. “My interview with MacNeill left me the impression that he is extremely muddle-headed,” complained Dillon. MacNeill showed some of his strain in a reply to Redmond: “I am sorry that I have not been able to make the position clear to you.”

When the tenuous peace between the political and the paramilitary cracked with the Volunteer split in September 1914, and the majority sided with the IPP, Redmond indulged in some uncharacteristic ‘tough talk’. The remnants of the Volunteers who had stayed with MacNeill’s faction were “to be fought vigorously and remorselessly by us, who believe in the constitutional movement and in Home Rule as a settlement of the Irish question.”

John Dillon

At the end, the Irish question would be settled, vigorously and remorselessly, by a very different set of tactics. When the Easter Rising of 1916 broke out, Redmond was in London, cut off from the rapid turn of events, while Dillon did his best to relay news to his Chairman from the warzone.

“Dublin is full of the most extraordinary rumours,” he wrote on the Easter Sunday, the 23^rd April. “What it is I cannot make out.”

By Wednesday, Dillon had made out a little more, if barely. “The situation here is terrible,” he lamented. “We are in absolute ignorance of what has been going on, beyond the fact that fierce fighting has been in progress in many parts of the city.”

The Easter Rising in Dublin at night

While always engaging, the book turns particularly gripping from here, as the IPP struggled to come to terms with an Ireland that had been turned on its head by the end of the six days over Easter Week. Dillon provided the voice of reason, warning Redmond that the resulting executions would be a PR disaster, both for the British Government and themselves.

In that, he was entirely correct. The correspondence from then on presents a picture of ‘death by a thousand cuts’ as the constitutional cause was rejected by the voters, first in a quartet of by-elections in 1917, and then in the 1918 General Election, in which the Irish Parliamentary Party was wiped off the political map.

Cartoon of John Redmond, following the IPP’s electoral loss in South Longford, May 1917

Its erstwhile Chairman was dead by then, the victim of a heart attack in March 1918. “What a terrible thing that poor Redmond should be taken from his people just at this time,” T.P. O’Connor wrote as he commiserated with Dillon. “However, personally, I think that the inability of his heart to respond was not due to any other cause than that it was broken.”

Eagle-eyed readers with a keen memory will recall how, earlier in the book and the year 1895, Redmond had received a report assessing the state of the ‘Dynamiters’ held in Portland Prison, the same men on whose behalf he had lobbied John Morley. That Redmond wrote out the findings showed his abiding interest.

Tom Clarke

Health-wise, the inmates were a mixed bag. Duff – “Insane”, Dalton – “Sound in mind and body”, McDermot – “Ditto.” One in particular showed “symptoms of valvular disease” and indigestion but otherwise was also of “sound mind.” That mind belonged to a certain Tom Clarke, who went on to overturn everything his benefactor had been working on with the Easter Rising, twenty-one years later.

If history goes in cycles, then nowhere is that truer than of the Irish variety, where today’s heroes could become tomorrow’s failures, and the prisoners of now end up shaping the future; just one of the many lessons this book can provide.

Publisher’s Website: Irish Academic Press