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—Mao Zedong 3 страница
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Nevertheless, this teaching was where the anti-conscription campaign had led.
Whatever ambivalence the Catholic clergy may have shown towards the rise of Sinn Fé in, they were unequivocal in their condemnation of
political violence in the years afterwards and in questioning the morality of the killings. The threat of excommunication and the refusal of the sacraments were also widely used by priests in an attempt to break the will of IRA prisoners in British custody. Todd Andrews remembered Catholic priests visiting the republican prisoners on hunger strike in Mountjoy and using their religious and social position to try and force them to end their strike: ‘I had a visit from the prison chaplain … he warned me that I was wilfully endangering my life which was an immoral act totally forbidden by the Commandments …The chaplain was doing the dirty work required by his British employers’. 72 While the hierarchy condemned the gunmen, many of the priests were nationalists and supported the objectives and activities of the IRA. Squad member Vinnie Byrne recalled: ‘I went to confession one day and told the priest I had shot dead a man. He asked me why and I told him, “Because he was a spy”. The priest then asked me: “Did you believe you were right to do this? ”, and I said, “Yes, Father, because I was a soldier and the man was one of the enemy”. The priest smiled and said, “Good man yourself ”. ’73
None of this means that the election of December 1918 can be seen as a pure and untroubled moment at which a fully formed democracy was born. Labour’s fateful decision to stand aside had consequences from which the Irish left never recovered. Furthermore, while Sinn Fé in did target the first-time female voters with broad hints of political power in the new Ireland (‘in the future the womenfolk of the Gael shall have a high place in the councils of a freed Gaelic nation’), just two of the Sinn Fé in candidates were women and only one, Countess Constance Markievicz, was elected. 74 Winifred Carney, like Markievicz a veteran of the Rising, was defeated in Belfast. A pattern of male domination was laid down. And, of course, the outcome of the election—the creation of the first Dá il in January 1919— was a reflection of a bitterly divided ‘nation’, not a truly united one. The Irish Convention, which met between July 1917 and March 1918, had been unable to forge an agreement between nationalists and unionists on the implementation of Home Rule, and this effectively ended any hope of an all-Ireland settlement. 75 Moreover, just before the first Dá il met, Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane, KT, OM, PC, KC, an influential Scottish Liberal and later Labour imperialist politician, lawyer and philosopher, was summoned to Ireland by his old friend Lord Lieutenant
Sir John French. Haldane was one of the first British politicians to argue that the solution to the problems between Britain and the Irish lay in compromise rather than force. He arrived in Dublin on 16 January 1919 and rapidly constructed a proposal for Lord French, with the intention that the overture would be passed to the political leaders of Sinn Fé in: Ireland would be offered ‘self-government on the status of a dominion under the Crown’. To facilitate this, the British government would ensure that generous financial provisions would be forthcoming. 76 The Soloheadbeg ambush, however, put paid to all Haldane’s advice and efforts.
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Despite conditions of repression, the 1918 election changed the view and the activities of the reorganising Irish Volunteers immensely. Florence O’Donoghue summed it up thus:
Despite the intimidating factors and the immense disparity in the relative strength and resources, there were some compensation sources of hope and encouragement. The effect of the general election of December 1918 was fundamental. A great majority of the people had expressed its will for national independence and separation from Britain. When the elected representatives of the nation formed a government, endorsed the Proclamation of the Republic [from the 1916 Easter Rising] and issued a solemn Declaration of Independence, the Volunteers were given, at a critical moment, a clear mandate and a definite mission. The moral right inherent in all revolts against unjust alien rule became thereafter also for them an explicit duty—the duty of defending national institutions set up by the free will of the people. 77
As a basis for insurrectionary tactics, the alternative administration of the Dá il, both as a political concept and as a political fact, was extremely important. It gave the Irish struggle a national standing which it otherwise could not have claimed at that stage. The Irish Volunteers became the Irish Republican Army, the accredited force of a nation that was fighting for its life. 78 The Irish leaders were then able to apply the concept of a nation at war, an idea that enabled them to justify the killings that were to become an essential part of the campaign for undermining the British political hold on Ireland but which otherwise might have been seen as pointless acts of
terrorism. An t-Ó glá ch made the point:
The state of war which is thus declared to exist, renders the national army the most important national service of the moment. It justifies Irish Volunteers in treating the armed forces of the enemy, whether soldiers or policemen, exactly as a national army would treat the members of an invading army. Every Volunteer is entitled morally and legally, when in the execution of his duty, to use all legitimate methods of warfare. 79
On 21 January 1919 the First Dá il met at 3. 30pm in the Round Room of the Mansion House. 80 Count George Plunkett called the meeting to order and nominated Cathal Brugha as Ceann Comhairle (speaker/chairperson) for Dá il É ireann. Padraig Ó Maille seconded this. Brugha presided thereafter and, following the reading of the Declaration of Independence, he told the cheering assembly: ‘Deputies, you understand from what is asserted in this Declaration that we are now done with England. Let the world know it and those who are concerned bear it in mind. ’ It must be said that the political ferment that resulted in the election of the Dá il carried with it at least an acknowledgment of militancy. The Dá il declared at this first meeting that a state of war existed between Britain and Ireland, though many of its members had ambivalent feelings about what that war should be like—or even if a ‘war’ would be necessary at all. The Dá il’s dilemma was plain: its members had been elected to secure an Irish Republic, something that they all knew they could not wish into being.
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The Declaration of Independence was passed unanimously. Brugha read it in Irish, É amonn Duggan in English and George Gavan-Duffy in French. Piaras Bé aslaí, Conor Collins, George Gavan-Duffy, Seá n T. Ó Ceallaigh, James O’Mara and James J. Walsh drafted the Provisional Constitution and Declaration of Independence. The ‘Message to Free Nations’ was read by Robert Barton in English and by J. J. O’Kelly in Irish, and was an international appeal for solidarity to support Ireland’s demand for independence. 81 When the documents were read in Irish, most of the delegates listened eagerly but few understood a word of Irish. The simple fact that the Irish language was used, however, underscored the separate and
distinct nature of Ireland as its own country with its own language and culture.
A Democratic Programme of Dá il É ireann was read and unanimously adopted, founded on the 1916 Proclamation. Even in its ‘watered-down’ form, the Programme was a radical document outlining social change in Ireland. At the request of the Dá il, Thomas Johnson, 82 secretary of the Irish Labour Party, and William O’Brien83 prepared and submitted a draft for a social and democratic programme. Only about half of their draft was included in the programme as finally amended and submitted by Seá n T. O’Kelly. 84 Many of the TDs, including Collins, were opposed to some of the socialist ideas in the Programme, and Collins was vocal in his opposition. It is not clear whether he was innately opposed to socialism or simply feared that any ideology other than nationalism would hinder the independence movement. He threatened (through the IRB) to suppress the Programme on the grounds that it was too radical. 85 Prior to its submission, at the direction of Sinn Fé in leaders who were nervous about its socialist content, O’Kelly amended the Programme to meet the objections of Collins and other senior IRB members. They wanted the removal of explicit affirmations of socialist principles, such as the right of the nation ‘to resume possession’ of the nation’s wealth ‘wherever the trust is abused or the trustee fails to give faithful service’. O’Kelly also had to remove a reference that encouraged the ‘organisation of people into trade unions and co-operative societies’. 86 Some think that if Collins had been present at the first sitting of the Dá il, rather than in England preparing for de Valera’s escape from Lincoln prison, the Democratic Programme might not have been accepted. Even de Valera objected, though he was not in attendance; he warned that the priority had to be the overthrow of British rule in Ireland. 87 It must, however, be noted that, like the radical social principles embodied in the 1916 Proclamation, the Programme would have had little appeal anywhere in Ireland except Dublin.
Twenty-eight TDs attended this first session. 88 The answer to the roll- call for thirty-four absent deputies was ‘Imprisoned by the foreign enemy’, and for three others ‘Deported by the foreign enemy’. 89 Answering ‘Present’ were twenty-eight Sinn Fé in TDs out of a total of 104 names called, including all other parties. Even Ulster’s Edward Carson received an invitation—in Irish. Some TDs were elected for two constituencies, so there
were only sixty-nine persons elected. Two were ill, three had been deported, five were on missions abroad, but most were in jail in England. (Collins and Harry Boland were in England working on de Valera’s escape from prison but were marked present to keep others from asking where they were. ) Thirty-three per cent of Dá il members were under thirty-five years of age, and another forty per cent were between thirty-five and forty. There were only two Protestant members: Ernest Blythe and Robert Barton.
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Since the Soloheadbeg attack in County Tipperary occurred on the same day, some point to 21 January as the start of the War of Independence. 90 While that military aspect is not certain as regards a ‘beginning’, it is clear that the first sitting of the Dá il should be accepted as the start of the political campaign for independence. 91 All of the documents presented and speeches made were directed not only at the domestic audience but also at the international audience. To that end, there were about one hundred journalists present, most of whom represented international publications. Keeping in mind that many of the TDs taking their seats that day opposed and condemned the Soloheadbeg ambush, it is clear that even at this early stage many of the Irish saw that the true route to independence was through politics, and it was only subsequently that violence became a more important element of the equation.
However much the election of the Dá il changed Irish perceptions, it would be a mistake to argue that the Irish possessed a clear military, political or propaganda strategy for the conflict that was smouldering slowly, ready to be lit in 1919. They did not. Indeed, beyond a pragmatic principle that a massed uprising with fixed defences was to be avoided at all costs (the painful lesson of Easter 1916), the IRA campaign would prove to be a constant work in progress in all areas, adapting to circumstances and resources but gradually gaining in both intensity and sophistication. 92 An t-Ó glá ch sketched the outline of a strategy in broad brush-strokes:
England must be given the choice between evacuating this country and holding it by a foreign garrison with a perpetual state of war in existence. She must be made to realise that that state of war is not healthy for her. The agents of England in this country must be made to realise that their occupation is not a healthy one. All those engaged in carrying on the English
administration in this country must be made to realise that it is not safe for them to try to ‘carry on’ in opposition to the Irish Republican Government and the declared wishes of the people. In particular, any policeman, soldier, judge, warder, or official, from the English Lord Lieutenant downwards, must be made to understand that it is not wise for him to distinguish himself by undue ‘zeal’ in the service of England in Ireland, nor in his opposition to the Irish Republic. 93
The press in Ireland was generally sceptical of the Dá il; the Irish Times called it a ‘stage play at the Mansion House’ and said that the TDs ‘lived in cloud cuckoo land’. It reported that
The press gallery witnessed a solemn act of defiance of the British Empire by a body of young men [sic; no mention was made of Countess Markievicz, who was in Holloway Prison] who have not the slightest notion of the Empire’s power and resources. The quicker Ireland becomes convinced of the folly which elected them, the sooner sanity will return. 94
The British press reaction was overwhelmingly hostile, and the reaction in Ulster even more so:
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Thus Ireland is alleged to be a Celtic and Roman Catholic nation, and all who are not Celts and Romanists are regarded as foreigners. It is because Ulster knows that this is what Home Rule means that it will not have it. 95
At first, the British government did not see the Dá il as a threat serious enough to warrant the taking of active steps against it, but in republican minds a significant change took place on its establishment. The Dá il claimed to be the de facto government of Ireland, despatched envoys across the world to obtain international recognition and attempted to set up a ‘counter- government’ by establishing rival police, judicial and administrative departments. Fighting for a government—though ridiculed and unrecognised—legitimised the Irish acts of aggression against Crown forces
that were already taking place. 96 Nevertheless, there were continuing conflicts between those who wanted to follow solely ‘constitutional methods’, led by Arthur Griffith, and the ‘physical-force men’, led by those in the Irish Republican Brotherhood, Collins and the more aggressive men who had graduated from British prisons after the Rising. Though some of the Volunteers were moving to an open guerrilla war, the political wing regarded its task in the struggle for independence as the formation of a viable alternative government. As a result, translating Sinn Fé in’s moral and legal endorsement into practical political change was going to prove difficult. 97
Almost until the Truce in July 1921, Lloyd George refused to accept the situation as a war, primarily for political and public relations reasons; this did make some sense, however, because against whom was a war to be fought? A democratically elected, if errant, assembly? The British did not intend to conquer Ireland, so war was not the appropriate concept, but how, then, to restore law and order and give Home Rule a chance, with a police force that could not deal with the scale of the threat? 98 That lack of direction and confusion on the part of the British hampered them throughout the war and was blamed by many in their military or intelligence reports of military ‘failures’ in 1921 and thereafter. As with so much of the war, the British reactions, and over-reactions, were as important to the Irish as their own actions.
Early in 1919 the republican movement faced another crisis regarding the relationship between its political and military components. On 24 March a notice purporting to have been issued by Sinn Fé in’s general secretaries appeared in the press. It stated that deValera would be welcomed into Dublin by the lord mayor, and that there would be demonstrations by Sinn Fé in and the IrishVolunteers. Two Sinn Fé in secretaries, Harry Boland and Tom Kelly, signed the notice. The Times noted that ‘the arrangements for his [de Valera’s] reception seem to be designed with the object of impressing the Peace Conference and American opinion with the supremacy of the Republican movement in Ireland’. 99
When the Sinn Fé in Executive gathered that day, none of them recalled sanctioning such a reception. Darrell Figgis asked Kelly why he had signed the notice. Michael Collins rose and declared that the reception plans had not been issued by Sinn Fé in but by the Volunteers. He indicated that
the public demonstration was meant as a provocation, declaring that Ireland was likely to get more out of a state of disorder than from a continuance of the situation as it then stood. Returning to the issue of the authority for the statement, Collins added, ‘The proper people to take decisions of that kind were ready to face the British military, and were resolved to force the issue. And they were not to be deterred by weaklings and cowards. ’100 Collins was essentially telling the assembled political leaders that the ‘physical-force’ wing would decide the course of the republican movement, but his bombastic style did not cow Arthur Griffith, who told Collins that no body other than the Executive had authority to decide whether to go ahead with the reception. 101 The Sinn Fé in leaders debated for two hours, and their debate carried over to the next day, when Griffith reported that de Valera also objected to the reception and the Executive cancelled it. 102
Collins’s view of the necessity of politics had yet to manifest itself, and he continued to regard politicians with disgust. He wrote to Austin Stack on 17 March 1919 that ‘the policy now seems to be to squeeze out anyone who is tainted with strong fighting ideas. It seems to me that official Sinn Fé in is inclined to be ever less militant and ever more political, theoretical. ’103 In May Collins still deplored the ‘constitutional, moral force’ wing and their ability to exclude from the Standing Committee of Sinn Fé in those who believed ‘in the utility of fighting’. He added: ‘There is, I suppose, the effect or tendency of all revolutionary movements to divide themselves up into their components’. 104 Collins’s meaning was clear: if the politicians would not accept revolution, the revolutionaries would have to bypass the politicians. The relationship between the two arms of the movement remained ambiguous but strengthened as the conflict deepened and each became dependent on the other.
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In August 1919 Brugha, as the Minister for Defence, took measures to bind the IRA to the Dá il. Initially the Irish Volunteers were answerable to no authority except their own executive. On 20 August Brugha moved that every Dá il representative and Volunteer should swear an oath of allegiance ‘to support and defend the Irish Republic and the Government of the Irish Republic, which is Dá il É ireann, against all enemies, foreign and domestic’. 105 The motion sparked much debate. Tom Kelly called it a species of coercion against the Volunteers. Arthur Griffith, acting president in deValera’s absence, spoke strongly in favour of the oath. Brugha said that
he regarded the Irish Volunteers as a standing army, and that as such they should be subject to the government. 106 The motion passed by thirty votes to five.
The controversy over the oath to the Dá il speaks to the lingering distrust between various sections of the republican movement. Carl von Clausewitz insisted that military authority should be subject to civil authority and that wars cannot be conducted without the political ends in view. 107 In a war such as that being fought in Ireland, in which the sides were so unequal and many anticipated a negotiated settlement, this necessity was even more apparent. Nevertheless, the Volunteers were created as an independent organisation, and the Dá il’s recognition that the IRA founded the Republic during the Easter Rising gave them a certain legitimacy for many of the rank-and-file. For these reasons the oath created some dissension. Todd Andrews later wrote: ‘I was sorry we took the oath to Dá il É ireann. I thought, or rather felt, that no outside organization should have any say in the activities of the Volunteers. ’108 Neither the Dá il nor the Volunteers were eager to formalise their mutual bonds. The Dá il, for its part, was more dilatory in admitting, or asserting, its responsibility for military actions. In practice, the oath was unevenly administered to various republican units at the discretion of their officers, but theoretically it bound the IRA to the Dá il.
Notwithstanding the conflicts in views between those advocating ‘constitutional means’ and those of a more ‘physical-force’ bent, the combination of effort in the military and political spheres was well illustrated in the campaign against the RIC. The attacks on individual RIC men and on their barracks were co-ordinated with a national call for the constables to resign from the force, discouragement of enlistment in it and social ostracism of those who refused to comply. The Dá il announced the policy of ostracism of RIC men and their families on 11 April 1919. This proved successful in demoralising the police, as people turned their faces from a force increasingly compromised by association with British government repression. The rate of resignation went up and recruitment in Ireland dropped off dramatically. The RIC were often reduced to buying food at gunpoint, as shops and other businesses refused to deal with them. Some RIC men co-operated with the IRA through fear or sympathy, supplying the organisation with valuable information. (See Chapter 6 for a
description of ostracism as a method of terrorism. ) In the spring of 1920 the RIC numbered around 9, 700 men. From the beginning of 1919 to the time of the Truce in July 1921, the police sustained more than 1, 000 casualties, constituting two thirds of all those suffered by the Crown forces, including 370 dead.
The fourth public session of the First Dá il was held on 19 August 1919 and established the ‘Dá il/Republican Courts’. 109 These were set up under Austin Stack, Minister for Justice, and had civil and criminal jurisdiction. 110 Young barristers from the Law Library in Dublin’s Four Courts drew up the Rules of Court under the direction of James Creed Meredith, KC, a Protestant, who served as the president of the Dá il/Republican Supreme Court from 1920 to 1922. The judges on the courts were rarely trained or qualified as solicitors or barristers but had an innate sense of justice and fair play. Soon even loyalists were appealing to the courts to decide their cases. The Irish Times wrote that ‘the Sinn Fé in Courts are steadily extending their jurisdiction and dispensing justice, even-handedly between man and man, Catholic and Protestant … landlord and tenant’. 111 These courts took advantage of the malaise within the British administration in Ireland, and by directing its blows at the weak points of that structure the IRA hastened its collapse. So effective was their campaign of terror and intimidation on the British courts, the police, the magistrates and the local authorities that in time they abandoned their responsibilities and saw them assumed by the local officers and leading politicians of the underground government represented by Dá il É ireann. The British administration in Ireland thus failed to provide for a modicum of internal law and order. Once a government can no longer guarantee public security it has abdicated its mandate. By 1919, after the result of the Dá il elections was proclaimed to the world, the British administration was thus doubly illegitimate, and the Irish de facto government was gaining legitimacy in the eyes of the Irish people and internationally. 112
Enough had occurred in the way of violent insurrection throughout 1919 to make it clear to Lloyd George that the use of force alone was not the answer if Ireland was to be pacified. By the start of 1920 the ‘King’s Writ’ was no longer to be found in much of Ireland.
The alternative government of Dá il É ireann had blossomed in the summer of 1920.
…
Its success with the courts, the police, army and local government created a demand for services far beyond those of administration. It is now seen by many, if not most people as the defacto government of the country. It was now viewed by many people as being at least one of the governing forces in Ireland. 113
A report by the British on its Irish administration of the time presented a damning view to the Cabinet:
The Castle Administration does not administer. On the mechanical side it can never have been any good and is now quite obsolete: in the infinitely more important sphere of a) informing and advising the Irish government in relation to policy and b) of practical capacity in the application of policy it simply has no existence. 114
Concurrently with increased military action, the Irish engaged in more direct political action in 1920, including an attempt to disorganise the entire transport system of the country so far as carrying British troops or war supplies was concerned. Dublin dockers were instructed to refuse to handle suspect cargoes, and railwaymen throughout the country were ordered to refuse to work on trains carrying men or maté riel for the British. Attempts were also made to derail trains. 115 The campaign succeeded to the extent that General Macready called it an almost complete ‘dislocation of transport’.
Whenever the necessity arises, soldiers and police present themselves as passengers by train. If they are carried, well and good; if not, the defaulting railwaymen are suspended, and a shortage of staff ensues, resulting eventually in a curtailment of services. It is obvious that sooner or later complete paralysis will overtake the Irish railway system. When this occurs, it will be impossible to institute an alternative road transport service. In the first place the necessary lorries and drivers are not available; and in the second, it is unlikely that the Republicans would allow such service without interruption. 116
Not all guerrilla activities involved weapons and ammunition. Some of the best political weapons were those used to disrupt the economy, especially since much of the economy involved British or loyalist owners of businesses. Nevertheless, the Irish suffered setbacks as well. In June 1920 Collins proposed that all republicans, except publicans, public servants and various classes of businessmen ‘highly susceptible to enemy distraint or seizure’, be encouraged to send their income tax payments to the Dá il instead of the British Department of Inland Revenue. He hoped thereby to augment the Dá il’s income by as much as £ 500, 000 annually. The Dá il agreed, intending the funds to be used for the new Irish apparatus of local government, but it eventually abandoned the programme. Farmers and businessmen, fearing that their land or assets would be seized if they refused to pay the taxes and rates to the British, showed no inclination to send them to the Irish
instead. 117
Meanwhile the British did have military successes in the field, although these came at a great political cost. Patrols, raids, reprisals and arrests were indiscriminate measures that caused resentment among local communities. By 1921 many of these raids and reprisals were carried out by regular British army soldiers, and this played into the IRA’s hands. One of the chief objectives was to incite a violent British reaction or reprisal, so that it could be exploited for propaganda and political purposes. 118
Politics were just as important within the British Cabinet and parliament as within the Irish contingent. It was a common thread in the British government that the Irish situation in 1920 was ‘one of disastrous failure on the part of a police force overmatched by a vicious and cunning foe and undermined by a weak government’. That view was a general one and was shared by the head of the British civil service, Sir Warren Fisher, who prepared a report for Lloyd George on the state of British intelligence and the general administrative situation in Ireland. His report revealed a Dublin Castle political administration mired in stagnation, bureaucratic intrigue and sectarian bigotry, whose bunker mentality had completely ‘demoralised the civil service’. ‘With the notable exception of General Macready who had fortuitously now been imported, the Government of Ireland strikes one as almost woodenly stupid and quite devoid of imagination. ’119 Fisher saw that the British government thought that it faced a straight choice between conciliation and massive force, though the military
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