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2. Guerrilla war—war in the shadows 1 страница
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Notes
1 Intelligence notes 1916: PRO C. O. 903/19.
2 Dr Risteard Mulcahy, MD, ‘The development of the IrishVolunteers, 1916–1922’, An Cosantó ir, vol. 40 (Part 1: February 1980). When Piaras Bé aslaí ’s book, Michael Collins and the Making of the New Ireland, was released, General Richard Mulcahy did not comment publicly but did make voluminous notes on the book. His son, Dr Risteard Mulcahy, compiled those notes and referred to the two volumes in books and lectures. They are cited as Richard Mulcahy, Bé aslaí Notes, vol. –, p. –.
3 See W. J. Brennan-Whitmore, With the Irish in Frongoch (Dublin, 1917). See also Lyn Ebenezer, Fron-Goch and the Birth of the IRA (Llanrwst, 2006); Seá n O’Mahony, Frongoch, University of Revolution (Killiney, 1987; 1995).
4 Brian Feeney, Sinn Fé in—A Hundred TurbulentYears (Dublin, 2002), pp 60–1.
5 Florence O’Donoghue, ‘The reorganisation of theVolunteers’, Capuchin Annual (1967).
6 Eileen McGough, Diarmuid Lynch: A Forgotten Irish Patriot (Cork, 2013), p. 82 et seq.
7 Diarmuid Lynch, The IRB and the 1916 Insurrection (Cork, 1957), pp 21–32; Geraldine Dillon, ‘The Irish Republican Brotherhood’, University Review, vol. 2, no. 9 (1960).
8 Padraig McCartan, ‘Extracts from the papers of Dr Patrick McCartan’, Clogher Record, vol. 5, no. 2 (1964).
9 Lynch, The IRB and the 1916 Insurrection, pp 21–32.
10 Tomá s Ó Maoileoin, in Uinseonn MacEoin (ed. ), Survivors: The Story of Ireland’s Struggle as Told Through Some of Her Outstanding Living People. Notes 1913–1916 (Baile Á tha Cliath, 1966), p. 83.
11 Lynch, The IRB and the 1916 Insurrection, p. 30.
12 From the time the Irish prisoners returned from Frongoch the British were tracking them, and the DMP detective notes of 29 May 1917 indicated that ‘Collins was the general secretary’ here. A. T. Q. Stewart, Michael Collins: The Secret File (Belfast, 1997), document 7, p. 48.
13 Francis Costello, The Irish Revolution and its Aftermath, 1916–1923 (Dublin, 2003), p. 23.
14 J. B. E. Hittle, Michael Collins and the Anglo-Irish War: Britain’s Counter-Insurgency Failure
(Chicago, 2011), p. 49.
15 See David Gates, The Spanish Ulcer: A History of the Peninsular War (New York, 1986).
16 James Fintan Lalor (ed. L. Fogarty), James Fintan Lalor, Patriot and Political Essayist (1807– 1849) (Dublin, 1919), p. 73.
17 Ibid.
18 C. E. Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice (London, 1903), p. 1.
19 An t-Ó glá ch, 1 March 1920.
20 An indication of just how von Lettow-Vorbeck’s campaign was viewed can be seen in An t-Ó glá ch (13 April 1920): ‘General Lettow-Vorbeck’s campaign in East Africa affords perhaps more valuable instruction for the employment of the Irish Republican Army in its present circumstances than any other campaign that was ever fought’. In general, analyses of guerrilla conflicts from a variety of eras and different locations were a frequent subject of An t-Ó glá ch articles.
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21 Piaras Bé aslaí, Michael Collins and the Making of the New Ireland (London, 1926), vol. 2, p. 124.
22 Charles Townshend, The British Campaign in Ireland, 1919–1921 (Oxford, 1975), p. 85.
23 Robert R. James, Churchill, a Study in Failure, 1900–1939 (London, 1972), p. 119.
24 Joost Augusteijn, From Public Defiance to Guerrilla Warfare (Dublin, 1996), p. 84.
25 Ibid., p. 86.
26 Ibid., p. 115.
27 Dr Risteard Mulcahy, ‘The development of the Irish Volunteers, 1916–1922’, An Cosantó ir, vol. 40 (Part 2: March, 1980).
28 Geraldine Plunkett Dillon, ‘The North Roscommon election’, Capuchin Annual
(1967).
29 Ibid.
30 Bé aslaí, Michael Collins and the Making of a New Ireland, pp 153–4.
31 The Times, 13 June 1917.
32 Russell Rees, Ireland 1905–25. Volume I, Text and Historiography (Newtownards, 1998), pp 226–7.
33 Edgar Holt, Protest in Arms (New York, 1960), p. 140.
34 ‘The East Clare election’, An Phoblacht, 12 August 1999.
35 The Times, 11 June 1917.
36 Ivor Churchill Guest to Cabinet, 20 July 1917.
37 The Times, 4 July 1917.
38 ‘Summary of speeches made by Mr de Valera and other Sinn Fé in leaders, during his tour in the North’, in Sinn Fé in and Other Republican Suspects 1899–1921: Dublin Castle Special Branch Files CO 904 (193–216), United Kingdom Colonial Office Record Series 1 (Dublin, 2006), CO 904/198/105.
39 The Times, 16 July 1917.
40 RIC Joseph McCarthy, ‘Meeting at Skibbereen’, in ‘Summary of speeches made by Mr deValera and other Sinn Fé in leaders, during his tour in the North’, Sinn Fé in and Other Republican Suspects, CO 904/198/105.
41 Martin Walton, in Kenneth Griffith and Timothy O’Grady, Ireland’s Unfinished Revolution: An Oral History (London, 1982), p. 132. In fact, most of the participants used the term ‘eyes and ears’ to describe the RIC, and historians have followed suit.
42 Kilkenny Journal, 21 July 1917.
43 See Aodh De Blacam, What Sinn Fé in Stands For (Dublin, 1921).
44 P. S. O’Hegarty, The Victory of Sinn Fé in (Dublin, 1924; 1998), p. 120.
45 Ibid., p. 23.
46 Eamonn Gaynor (ed. ), Memoirs of a Tipperary Family: The Gaynors of Tyone, 1887-2000
(Dublin, 2003), p. 103.
47 RIC J. Clark, RIC Joseph McCarthy, ‘Meeting at Galway’, in ‘Summary of speeches made by Mr deValera and other Sinn Fé in leaders, during his tour in the North’, Sinn Fé in and Other Republican Suspects, CO 904/198/105.
48 Marie R. Cremin, ‘Fighting on their own terms: the tactics of the Irish Republican Army 1919–1921’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, vol. 26, no. 6 (2015), 912–36.
49 The Times, 20 February 1917.
50 As will become evident, GHQ exercised only a loose control over the units throughout the country, though it did have more and more effect as the war progressed. Richard Mulcahy stated: ‘During the War of Independence, decisions about the organisation and strategy of the Irish resistance were made by the GHQ staff ’; Risteard Mulcahy, My Father the General: Richard Mulcahy and the Military History of the Revolution (Dublin, 2009), p. 42.
51 Ibid.
52 See Richard P. Davis, Arthur Griffith and Non-Violent Sinn Fé in (Dublin, 1974).
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53 Charles Townshend, ‘The Irish Republican Army and the development of guerrilla warfare, 1919–1921’, English Historical Review, vol. 94 (1979).
54 An t-Ó glá ch, 15 August 1918.
55 An t-Ó glá ch, 29 October 1918.
56 An t-Ó glach, 15 August 1918.
57 An t-Ó glá ch, 14 September 1918.
58 An t-Ó glá ch, 28 September 1918.
59 Ibid.
2. Guerrilla war—war in the shadows
The guerrilla army resembles a gas—able to disperse as molecules to pre- vent a counter-strike—but able to coalesce for its own operations.
—T. E. Lawrence
At the outset it should be emphasised that rebels do not ‘win’ a guerrilla war by military action alone. 1 Most guerrilla wars of the twentieth century failed, and those that did ‘succeed’ did so by an intentional combination of military, political and propaganda action. Military action is a means to an end but it is not an end in itself. In the most basic sense, a guerrilla war is a competition for power—ultimately not military power but rather political power in the country. History has borne out the idea that confrontation between power and those who are subject to power is the only way that anything changes. There are certain conditions under which a particular insurgency has a chance of succeeding even against the professional armed forces of a status quo government, because for one reason or another the government cannot utilise its full resources. 2 Given these considerations, and in retrospect, the Irish leaders were justified in planning a strategy of insurrection that would bring them up against the armed forces of Britain because those forces would be hamstrung to a considerable extent. The Irish War of Independence falls into that ‘successful’ category. This does not happen often, but any revolutionary triumph is generally rare.
In his 1963 article ‘Guerrilla warfare in Ireland, 1919–1921’, Florence O’Donoghue (who ran intelligence and military operations in Cork that rivalled those of Michael Collins in Dublin) wrote:
The type of guerrilla warfare evolved and operated by the Army of the Irish Republic in the years 1919–1921 was a complete departure from the policy of all earlier armed efforts in modern times to regain national freedom. It was original and unique and
has no exact parallels, either in the history of the Irish or any similar struggle before its time, or in the numerous guerrilla campaigns which have been fought since then. [Emphasis added]3
The emphasised words may make O’Donoghue’s statement acceptable, especially if only applied to Ireland, because all wars are unique in one way or another, but it misleads one into thinking that guerrilla war did not exist before the Irish War of Independence and that nothing was taken from the Irish war for use in later guerrilla conflicts. Neither assertion is true.
John MacBride, who was 51 when he was executed after the Rising and led the Irish Brigade in the Boer War, poignantly said:
Liberty is a priceless thing and anyone of you that sees a chance, take it. I’d do so myself but my liberty days are over. Good luck, boys. Many of you may live to fight another day. Take my advice, never allow yourselves to be cooped inside the walls of a building again. 4
All guerrilla wars—both prior to and after the Irish War of Independence—are fought by mobile, small-unit bands, usually in conjunction with a larger political–military strategy. Such wars are ‘wars of skirmishes’. The word guerrilla (the diminutive of Spanish guerra, ‘war’) stems from the Peninsular campaigns of the Duke of Wellington in the Napoleonic Wars, in which Spanish and Portuguese irregulars, or guerrilleros, helped drive the French from the Iberian Peninsula. Long before that time, the general and strategist Sun Tsu in The Art of War (sixth century BC) was one of the first proponents of the use of guerrilla warfare: 5 ‘All warfare is based on deception … Every battle is won or lost before it is ever fought. Attack the enemy where he is unprepared and appear where you are not expected. It is vital to undermine the enemy, subvert and corrupt him, sow internal discord among his leaders, and destroy him without fighting him. ’ His dictum that ‘The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting’ presages the use of intelligence and politics to bring a war to the best conclusion. The earliest description of guerrilla warfare is an alleged battle between Emperor Huang and the Miao in China. 6 Guerrilla warfare was not unique to China; nomadic and migratory tribes and Huns used
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elements of guerrilla warfare to fight the Persians, Alexander the Great and the Romans. Quintus Fabius Maximus, known as Cuncator, widely regarded as the ‘father of guerrilla warfare’ of his time, devised the so-called ‘Fabian strategy’ that was used to great effect against Hannibal’s army in 218 BC. 7 Guerrilla warfare was also a common strategy of the various Celtic, Iberian and Germanic tribes that the Romans faced. Caratacus, the British war chief, employed guerrilla warfare against the Romans for approximately eight years, mixed in with occasional set-piece battles. Although he was ultimately captured by the Romans, the historian Tacitus wrote that many Romans respected him while detesting his tactics. In the classical ancient world, this kind of warfare was indirectly mentioned by the Greeks in Homeric stories but usually as hit-and-run acts of foraging for booty in enemy territory, pretty much like later Viking piracy. 8 Fighting irregular warfare has been part and parcel of our history for a very long time. Most often, the Irish referred to tactics used in South Africa’s Boer War of 1899– 1902. 9
Over the centuries the practitioners of guerrilla warfare have been called rebels, irregulars, insurgents, partisans and mercenaries. Frustrated military commanders have consistently condemned them as barbarians, savages, terrorists, brigands, outlaws and bandits. The Prussian general and theorist Carl von Clausewitz reluctantly admitted their existence by picturing partisans as ‘a kind of nebulous vapoury essence’. Other writers called their operations ‘small wars’. 10 T. E. Lawrence, a guerrilla contemporary with Michael Collins and the Irish, held that, if certain factors existed, guerrilla warfare could be an exact science. He required an unassailable guerrilla base, a regular opposing army of limited strength with the task of controlling a wide area, and a sympathetic population. 11 Lawrence knew that the goal of a guerrilla war is to make action a series of single combats. He held that ‘irregular war is far more intellectual than a bayonet charge’. 12 But war, like politics, is not an exact science. While all of these factors did not exist at all times and in all places for the Irish, the Irish understood the necessity of each and moved to accomplish all of them. All events, most especially revolutions, have deep roots, but the Irish roots are particular, extending far into the past and greatly determining the course of present events. The fact that revolutionary fervour did not exist at the outset was not an impediment to the revolution, as Che Guevara
understood later: ‘It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making revolution exist: the insurrection can create them’. 13 Lawrence’s conceptualisation also moved away from the notion of guerrilla warfare as a purely military phenomenon and laid far more stress on the political aspects of such a conflict. Guerrilla operations must flow from a clearly defined political goal, which in turn must flow from the aspirations of the people. Mao Zedong’s ‘Long March’ and his writings contributed much to the concept of guerrilla war. ‘When the enemy advances, we retreat. When the enemy halts and encamps, we harass him. When the enemy seeks to avoid battle, we attack. Whenever the enemy retreats, we pursue. ’ Always attack, and quickly disperse. Popular support is not only necessary for the success of the struggle but also determines the nature and location of guerrilla operations. ‘The guerrilla must move among the people as a fish swims in the sea. ’ And good planning depends on superior intelligence, which can only be gleaned from the people. 14
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Charles Townsend continued to place military action in a guerrilla war alongside political (and, by extension, propaganda) effects:
The purely military effects of guerrilla warfare will usually be seen as subordinate to its political and psychological effects. Victory is achieved not so much by knocking the enemy’s sword from his hand, as by paralysing his arm. On the question whether guerrilla war can by itself be the means of defeating a strong and determined enemy, views differ.
Eastern theory, exemplified by Mao [Mao Zedong, in China] and Giá p [Võ Nguyê n Giá p, in Vietnam], has tended to see it as no more than a transitional phase, which must give way by degrees to conventional open war. Westerners have perhaps been more inclined to believe that the moral effect of guerrilla struggle can be sufficient to overcome governments, at least those dependent on public opinion. 15
A comprehensive description of guerrilla warfare, used interchangeably with insurgency, is:
Guerrilla warfare is a form of warfare by which a strategically
weaker side assumes the tactical offensive in selected forms, times, and places. Guerrilla warfare is the weapon of the weak. It is never chosen in preference to regular warfare; it is employed only when and where the possibilities of regular warfare have been foreclosed. 16
An insurgency—and, in response, counter-insurgency action (COIN)—is primarily a political struggle in which both sides use armed force to create space for their political, economic and propaganda activities to be effective. 17 Following World War II, such revolutionary warfare (asymmetrical or unconventional warfare) became a staple, as did insurgency, rebellion, insurrection, people’s war and war of national liberation. Thereafter, ‘wars of national liberation’ proliferated, and most were fought using guerrilla principles. As noted, most guerrilla wars are unsuccessful, but the ones that do succeed combine politics and propaganda along with military action. Regardless of terminology, the importance of guerrilla warfare has varied considerably throughout history. Traditionally, it has been a weapon of protest employed to rectify real or imagined wrongs inflicted on a people either by a ruling government or by a foreign invader. As such, ‘guerrilla war’ has scored remarkable successes and has suffered disastrous defeats. Throughout the war, the British may have had the power to dominate the Irish militarily but the Irish succeeded in achieving their goal—their own
governance.
With that in mind, O’Donoghue continued:
The accepted definition of guerrilla warfare is an armed struggle carried on by organised forces in territory occupied by the enemy. Within that definition it has taken many forms but its object is, invariably, to inflict as much loss and damage to the enemy while evading engagements that could result in the annihilation of the guerrilla forces. The common attribute of all guerillas is a material weakness in relation to the army opposed to them. They cannot fight positional warfare; they cannot afford losing battles; they must fight only when there is a prospect of success. 18
O’Donoghue’s words define precisely how the Irish modified and adapted well-known guerrilla principles to the Irish terrain, as well as fighting in the cities. All guerrilla activity is conditioned by local circumstances, and the measure of success is influenced by the extent to which maximum use is made of those conditions that are favourable to its operation. There was hardly a single conventional battle. The Irish War of Independence was a ‘shadow war’: that shadow war was the essence of the conflict. Broadly speaking, the IRA waged guerrilla war in the countryside, targeting police barracks and patrols, while in the cities its soldiers operated more as terrorists, killing off-duty policemen or civil servants.
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The growing Volunteer army experienced many of the problems that plague nascent armies, and training and organisation were not completed in a uniform manner nationwide. Over most of the country officers and men had undergone such elementary training as it was possible to give them under the conditions of arming and organising sub rosa. While many tactical ideas and innovations were born in the field, the IRA GHQ in Dublin set a policy of guerrilla war and began to guide theVolunteers as early as spring 1918. The policy was intended to be a nationwide one but never accomplished that aim. The IRA in the field, for most of the war, acted on its own initiative and made its own decisions. 19 In some ways this proved valuable to the Irish, as inactivity or setbacks in one area did not affect the morale or operations of other areas. Nevertheless, the slow development of a GHQ policy, restraining some of the more belligerent among the rank- and-file outside Dublin, was to be one of the keys to prolonging the struggle and ultimately forced the British to negotiate a truce. When Sé amus Robinson20 led Seá n Treacy, Dan Breen, Seá n Hogan, Paddy O’Dwyer, Tadhg Crowe, Patrick McCormack, Michael Ryan and Seá n O’Meara in an ambush of the constables escorting a load of gelignite in Soloheadbeg, Co. Tipperary, on 21 January 1919 (the same day as the first meeting of Dá il É ireann in Dublin) it was without any sanction from GHQ. 21 Two RIC men, James McDonnell and Patrick O’Connell, were killed. At the time, the Irish press headlined the events as ‘New Era of Terrorism Begins’. 22 There is little doubt that Treacy fired the first shot, 23 and he was quoted as saying that the intent of the Tipperary Volunteers was clear: ‘If this is the state of affairs, we’ll have to kill someone, and make the bloody enemy organise us’. 24 In describing the action at Soloheadbeg, Breen wrote that,
without any authorisation, they set out to fire the shots that ‘would begin another phase in the long fight for the freedom of our country’. Breen felt that ‘we had to kill and can’t leave anyone alive afterward’. He was only sorry that there had not been more policemen: ‘If there had to be dead Peelers at all, six would have created a better impression than a mere two’. 25 Like many members of the IRA (particularly in Munster), Breen, Treacy and their comrades were afraid that the whole movement was drifting into politics, and in danger of becoming just another ‘political party’. They felt that action was required to turn their men into an army. 26 Breen wrote that ‘The Volunteers were in danger of becoming merely a political adjunct to the Sinn Fé in organisation’. 27
Despite all the action in 1917–18, 28 most accounts attribute the start of the war to that attack. 29 Following de Valera’s election victory in East Clare in June 1917, Breen had led a protest of uniformed Volunteers in Tipperary:
Our military display in Tipperary town did not cause a bigger shock to the enemy than it did to the local Sinn Fé iners, many of whom were not in favour of any stronger weapons than resolutions. They were exasperated by our audacity. We should not have acted until the matter had been solemnly discussed in advance. A formal long-winded proposition would then be put before the meeting and a decision arrived at by majority vote. Such timid souls often hampered our line of action, but we were not prone to worry. The political wing of Sinn Fé in criticised us severely. We just listened to all the orations and prognostications and made up our own minds. 30
According to Treacy, they had had ‘enough of being pushed around and getting our men imprisoned while we remained inactive’. Breen argued that the republicans needed the explosives, but said of the expected six RIC guards: ‘If they put up an armed resistance, we had resolved not merely to capture the gelignite but also to shoot down the escort’. 31
At the start of the war, it was not clear that the Irish had any definite plan beyond militarily attacking representatives of the British government. The Soloheadbeg ambush made very little impression on the
immediate political situation, and both The Times and the New York Times reported the event as a double murder. The idea that the perpetrators were IrishVolunteers or that the crime might have had a political intent was not mentioned. 32 Soloheadbeg did not change the course of the Irish struggle, but the British government’s response and GHQ’s reaction to the Dá il opening did alter the situation. Tipperary was proclaimed a disturbed district by the British and subject to martial law. Before the month was out, arms raids took place in at least three different County Cork towns, and grenades were thrown at a Londonderry prison. 33 On 31 January An t-Ó glá ch reinforced the Dá il’s assertion that a state of war existed between Ireland and England. It added that IRA members were justified 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. They were to ‘use all legitimate methods of warfare against the soldiers and policemen of the English usurper’. 34 Piaras Bé aslaí, who wrote the editorials, asserted that they were approved by Brugha and the GHQ staff and therefore reflected Volunteer policy.
Fintan O’Toole points out: ‘In retrospect, Soloheadbeg was shaped as a mythic point of origin. In reality, it looks more like a local coup—not against British rule but against those in Sinn Fé in who favoured a non- violent path to revolution. ’35 Richard Mulcahy went on to discuss Breen and Treacy in detail:
It pushed rather turbulent spirits such as Breen and Treacy into the Dublin arena from time to time, where their services were not required and their presence was often awkward. 36
Such impetuous activities had to be controlled for the Irish to maintain the pace of the war, which had to be set by GHQ. Politics, propaganda and military actions needed to run approximately in step with one another.
It is important to understand the reaction to the attack at Soloheadbeg in considering the need to ‘pace’ a guerrilla war. The attack was generally condemned throughout Ireland. 37 The newspapers condemned it, as did the Catholic Church and many of the TDs who had been sworn into office that very day. The shocked reaction underlined the danger of the population’s being alienated by excessive military aggression and brutality.
Not only was Collins concerned about public reaction but he was also personally affected by a curious tension whenever a ‘job’ was planned or ordered to be carried out. He did not view assassinations and killing as the first resort but only as a necessary last resort.
When Breen, Treacy and Robinson were summoned to Dublin, Collins met them in the street, not in an office—an expression of the official displeasure with the attack. Robinson remembered that Collins asked them whether they were ready to go to the US. Robinson answered that ‘to kill a couple of policemen for the country’s sake and leave it at that by running away would be so wanton as to approximate murder’. Collins asked what they intended to do and was told that they intended to fight it out. He replied, ‘That’s all right with me’. Clearly, Collins started out by giving the official Volunteer policy but then saw that they intended to continue and left it at that. Even in early 1919 Collins was playing a very dangerous political game. 38
The Irish war was like many insurrections in that, at least initially, a small group of militants used violence while much of the population was uneasy with the means, even if supporting the political ends. How the war developed was determined by several factors:
• The British government’s need to provide military forces to garrison and protect a worldwide empire while the Irish war was ongoing. ‘Imperial over-stretch’ prevented the British from massing sufficient forces to overwhelm the insurgents. Britain was required to garrison a far-flung empire, as well as to provide forces for the newly Mandated Territories and an occupation force for the German Rhineland. In addition, the British government faced public pressure to reduce the unprecedented size of its army and to control costs in the wake of a very expensive global war.
• The ability of the Irish to create a variety of threats to the British security forces. The flying columns, the full-time irregular field troops of the IRA, were just large enough to require military as opposed to only paramilitary forces to deal with them.
• The impact of world opinion on British policy. (See Chapter 4 on Propaganda. )
• The self-imposed restrictions on action by British security forces. Being
a democratic state supposedly dedicated to the rule of law and the freedom of the press, the British government limited its actions to those that Parliament and the British people would support and accept. 39 (Extraordinary measures, especially those that could be perceived as illegal or immoral, would be difficult to justify and thus impossible to take in the light of an open press and public opinion, which is just what happened in the case of the ‘Terror’, as treated in Chapter 6. )
At the beginning of 1919, Irish politicians feared that incidents such as Soloheadbeg would turn the people against the separatist movement in general. Collins realised that he would have to wait until the shock and anger abated somewhat. He could not risk assaulting the detectives of ‘G’ Division for a time, and so there was a lull in Irish activities. Early on, Collins knew the importance of public reaction to the Irish political position. He did not authorise an attack on policemen for some weeks while he gauged the public mood, and when the attacks came the reaction was muted compared to that after Soloheadbeg. As the time for action neared, É amon Broy saw Collins becoming ‘extremely anxious as to what effect the shooting of detectives would have on theVolunteers themselves and on the Sinn Fé in movement generally, and how it would be taken by the public’. 40 Collins was always aware of the ultimate political and propaganda effects.
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