'It is my considered opinion that in the fullness of time, history will record the greatness of Collins and it will be at my expense' - Eamonn de Valera
When Michael Collins signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921, he remarked to Lord Birkenhead, 'I may have signed my actual death warrant.' And in August 1922, that prophecy came true - Collins was shot and killed by a fellow Irishman.
Extract from Michael Collins a Biography, Tim Pat Coogan. ISBN: 0 09 174106 8, Hutchinson 1990.
Below we publish a series of articles from RM-Distribution with a historical reflection on the tragic civil-war, which was one of the first and most immediate results of the division of Ireland in December 1921.
Saturday, 30 November, 2002
Sunday, 8 December, 2002
History: Civil War executions begin
By RM-Distribution
Michael MacDonncha begins a series of articles marking the 80th anniversary of the Civil War
The winter of 1922 was one of the most tragic in the entire history of Ireland as the bitterness and destructiveness of the Civil War deepened and casualties increased. One of the main reasons for the escalation was the Provisional Government's policy of executing republican prisoners of war.
On 10 October the Catholic bishops had issued a Joint Pastoral putting their full weight behind the Free State and condemning the IRA's actions as "morally only a system of murder and assassination". Five days later the Free State government established Military Courts. Republicans were offered the choice of surrendering to the Free State army with their arms or facing sentence of death if captured in possession of arms or ammunition.
Erskine Childers was secretary of the Irish delegation in London which negotiated the Articles of Agreement (the 'Treaty') a year earlier. He opposed the Treaty and was a close confidante of de Valera. He was also a friend of Michael Collins and it was a small automatic pistol given him by Collins that was to seal his fate. Captured in County Wicklow, Childers was put on trial by the Military Court on 17 November. The press and public were excluded from the hearing.
Childers was an object of particular enmity on the part of both the Free State and British governments. He was a brilliant publicist for the republican cause during the Tan War, exposing the atrocities of the British forces to a world audience. He edited the republican newspaper Poblacht na hEireann during the Civil War. He was seen by the British establishment as 'one of their own' who had betrayed them. When he was arrested, Winston Churchill described him as "the mischief-making murderous renegade, Erskine Childers".
Because he was part of the London delegation and had brought his critical analysis effectively to bear on the Treaty in the Dail debates, he incensed Arthur Griffith, who described him as a "damned Englishman". Childers was Irish and accepted as such by his comrades during the Tan War. The use of the term Englishman as an insult was repeated in the Free State parliament by Kevin O'Higgins on the day of Childers' 'trial'.
That same day, 17 November, the execution policy commenced. Four Volunteers of the IRA's Dublin Brigade were executed for possession of revolvers. They were Peter Cassidy, John Gaffney, James Fisher and Richard Twohig.
O'Higgins told the Free State parliament that they had chosen to begin the executions with rank and file Volunteers because if they chose "some man who was outstandingly wicked in his activities, the unfortunate dupes throughout the country might say that he was killed because he was a leader, because he was an Englishman". This was while Childers' sentence had yet to be confirmed. Because the court was in camera it was not known publicly that the only charge against him was possession of a weapon. O'Higgins had given the impression that the charge was much more serious.
Childers was executed by firing squad in Beggars Bush Barracks on 24 November while an appeal on a writ of habeas corpus was pending in the High Court. The judge expressed shock a few days later when told that the prisoner had already been executed.
"I have fought and worked for a sacred principle, the loyalty of the Nation to its declared Independence and repudiation of any voluntary surrender to conquest and inclusion in the British Empire," wrote Childers in his last statement. Many others were to pay the same price. Volunteers Joseph Spooner, Patrick Farrelly and John Murphy were arrested near Oriel House at the top of Westland Row, the headquarters of the Free State Criminal Investigation Department, which was notorious for torture of prisoners. The three Volunteers were executed on 30 November 1922, 80 years ago this week.
History: Partitionist states established
By RM-Distribution
Micheal MacDonncha continues his series marking the 80th anniversary of the Civil War.
Four days in December 1922 saw tragic events that were the working out of the British government's plan to divide and rule Ireland. Partition had been legislated for under the 1920 Government of Ireland Act. At the time of its passing, that Act was a dead letter throughout most of the country, where the Republic had the allegiance of the majority of the people. But in North-East Ulster, the Act led to the establishment of a sectarian Orange state. Partition and the creation of a Six-County state were confirmed in the Treaty which now divided nationalist Ireland.
On 5 December 1922, legislation for the establishment of the Free State was passed at Westminster and the King of England, George V, appointed Tim Healy as Governor-General of the Irish Free State.
The Treaty provided for the formal establishment of the Free State on 6 December. On that day, the Free State parliament assembled and the deputies took the Oath of Alleigance to the English king as set down in the Treaty. A seven-member Executive Council was elected, with WT Cosgrave as President. The next move in the constitutional sequence was made in Belfast.
Having terrorised the nationalist population through brutal pogroms, the Orange ascendancy in the North consolidated its rule during 1922. The Unionist government had 20,000 armed 'Specials' under its control. These were basically loyalist paramilitaries operating on behalf of the State. The 3,000-strong Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was established in April. The same month the Six-County Parliament rushed through the Special Powers Act, giving Ministers almost unlimited powers to imprison and punish, including by flogging. Internment without trial was imposed, with hundreds of nationalists held on the prison ship Argenta in Belfast Lough. The Unionist government abolished proportional representation in local government elections and gave itself the power to redraw electoral boundaries, setting up the system of gerrymandering, which they honed to a fine art in the years to come.
Thus reinforced, the Unionist parliament formally notified the King of England on 7 December 1922 that they would not be exercising their power to 'opt in' to the Free State. Unionist Prime Minister James Craig also repudiated the Boundary Commission, upon which many nationalists - including Michael Collins - had pinned their hopes. They believed that in redrawing the partition boundary the Commission would inevitably make 'Northern Ireland' ungovernable - but it was not to be.
The Free State parliament had given to its Army drastic new powers under which eight republican prisoners of war were executed at the end of November. The IRA Chief of Staff, Liam Lynch, wrote to the Speaker of the Free State parliament pointing out that the IRA had treated its prisoners by the recognised rules of war but that IRA prisoners held by the Free State had been tortured and executed. The letter warned that unless the Free State Army recognised the rules of warfare, "we shall adopt very drastic measures to protect our forces".
On 7 December Deputy Sean Hales of Cork, who was also a top Free State Army officer, was shot dead in Dublin. Another deputy, Padraig O Maille, was wounded. The Free State government determined to avenge this killing by an act of reprisal. They chose four republicans who had been held in Mountjoy Jail since the summer and could have had no part in the killing of Hales.
Liam Mellows, Rory O'Connor, Joe McKelvey and Richard Barrett were leading members of the IRA and were especially admired by their comrades inside and outside jail. Mellows had begun to develop his thinking on the republican struggle, adapting Connolly's socialism to the new situation. "A political revolution in Ireland without a co-incident economic revolution simply means a change of masters," wrote Mellows from his cell in Mountjoy. He clearly identified the role of big business, the Catholic hierarchy and the establishment press in backing the Free State as the means of ensuring that a social and economic revolution would not follow a political one. He urged republicans to develop links with organised labour and to stress the role of the unions in the fight for freedom. After his death, the Free State government published his notes in an effort to portray the IRA as 'Bolsheviks'.
Mellows, O'Connor, McKelvey and Barrett were taken from their cells in Mountjoy in the early hours of 8 December 1922 and executed by firing squad. The Free State government stated frankly that the killings were carried out "as a reprisal for the assassination of Brig. Hales TD". The family of Sean Hales publicly expressed horror and disgust at the executions.
Britain's policy of divide and rule came to fruition in the tragic of events of 5, 6, 7 and 8 December, 80 years ago this week.