Will the Real Revolution Please Stand Up? Reconciliation and the Irish Civil War – Part II

1921 Battle of Dublin

(Also see linked posts:
“Reconciliation and the Irish Civil War” Pt I & Pt III  on this blog site.)

It’s been seen how even the most seemingly reasonable outlook, (such as “..there were wrongs on both sides,”) can be twisted into travesty, where unjustly applied.  Yet it must be said now that reconciliation over the Irish Civil War requires circumspection, and willingness to admit errors, in the proponents of both Free State (FS) and anti-Treaty (AT, ATI (/ AT IRA) views.

Among those who continue to support AT views, often the most frequent complaint is, “They (FS) turned the guns on comrades!” Yet the anti-Treaty faction was itself unquestionably the first to “turn guns on comrades“: away from British targets, toward fellow Irish. By the same token, the partition of the North remains a big issue on that table, and justly so. Yet with willful blindness to the fact that the joint pro- & anti-Treaty 1922 Northern Campaign, to reclaim the six counties on all fronts: diplomatic, political, and military, was ended expressly because of Civil War between comrades. Lest we forget, IRA units in the partitioned six counties did not take up arms against the Dublin government. It was crystal clear to them that such a policy, or any split in nationalist forces, would leave them at the mercy of the new, murderous, unionist regime at Stormont. And that’s precisely what happened.

In the Free State’s Civil War campaign “the rate of executions and imprisonment superseded that of the earlier struggle for independence.” (Prof Siobhra Aiken, Queen’s University Belfast) Spiritual Wounds: Trauma, Testimony, and the Irish Civil War   post on this site] That is to say, exceeded British violence in Ireland over a comparable time span. Dublin’s summary executions without trial violated international conventions on war and human rights, then and now. Yet the inheritors of the FS establishment applaud their founders without exception as saviours of the country from bloody anarchy. Or was the FS government itself a form of bloody anarchy?

All of this was avoidable. By June 1922, Ireland, contrary to the conventional wisdom of hindsight, was bidding fair to avoid civil war entirely; much to the displeasure of the London regime, particularly Churchill. (May 1922: Leaders Strive to Prevent Civil War  post this site]

Pro- and anti-Treaty representatives at 1922 Pact Elections meeting. Michael Collins, Arthur Griffith, Eamonn DeValera front row

The June 1922 “Pact Elections” proved a majority of the Irish public war-weary, and more than willing to accept, for now, the measure of independence won at the 1921 London negotiations. This result was freely admitted on all sides.

Just days after the poll was decided, two events overturned all laudable peace efforts, and hurled the country into full-scale civil conflict: the assassination of Sir Henry Wilson (post, this site) and the resulting shelling of the anti-Treaty garrison at Four Courts. ( Four Courts Bombardment – Who Gave the Order? post this site)

According to the [Four Courts garrison], they were loading their arms onto lorries and would have evacuated the Four Courts by 8AM in the morning. Had the shelling not started at 4AM, they say, there would have been no Civil War.
– John M Feehan

Four Courts siege 1922

Michael Collins has unjustly been scapegoated as having ordered both disastrous actions; despite marked lack of substantial evidence that he did so. ( Sir Henry Wilson Assassination 1922 post, this site) Both may be said to have led directly to his own killing, just weeks later. Hazy, contradictory details in the chain of command in those actions echo the mystery surrounding Collins’ suspicious death; as well as that of Arthur Griffith, Harry Boland, and Liam Lynch.

Certainly blaming the victim is ever an all too convenient cop out. But Collins did not survive years on the most wanted list, captain Ireland’s most successful assault on foreign occupation yet, all the way to the negotiating table, winning unprecedented liberties which voided the nefarious Treaty of Limerick and Act of Union… by being known for such monumentally suicidal blunders.

…There is as yet no adequate study available dealing with the role of the British secret service in the Civil War. No one really knows how far their promptings were responsible for starting the Civil War or indeed for the subsequent shooting without trial of so many republican prisoners.
– Feehan

Who was a traitor?
It’s necessary for commentators of all persuations to acknowledge that many well-meaning patriots supported FS and AT alike. Even as well-intentioned voters in Ireland today might vote for Sinn Fein, Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, the Labour Party, the Green Party, People Before Profit… as it may seem to them might best serve the country’s needs.

I disagreed with MIchael Collins about the Treaty. But he was no traitor.
– Kathleen Clarke

Kathleen Clarke

 

At the same time, Feehan’s call (above) for greater scrutiny of the role of clandestine British operations in the Civil War has remained a voice crying in the wilderness. While spies and “moles” (those who joined nationalist forces as operatives for the British) are freely discussed in histories of the Anglo-Irish War 1919-1921 (aka War of Independence / Tan War,) the topic with regard to the Civil War seems almost taboo. No one wants to admit that such operatives could have been active on their side.

Even as sincerity was in plentiful supply on both sides, it’s necessary to recognize that neither was either free from opportunists, even in the leadership of both sides: willing enough to exacerbate the situation, without regard to Ireland’s welfare; but rather with a view to their own subsequent post-war career. As history shows, some did very well for themselves by it.

Soul-searching among leaders of today would not be remiss: is there not reluctance to critique one’s own political forebears / founders of one’s own party? Certainly, in practical terms, every politician’s number one job is to raise a cheering section: to drum up support for their party. Whatever their programs, their sole means of pursuing them, is to gain power; which is to say, to gain popularity.

Who can blame them, if history may often be with them largely a tool for realizing such goals? How can they see a too-unsparing moral inventory of their founders as in any way related to that job?

Yet surely, any party which advertises itself as offering government for all, must move past a partisan position on the Civil War; and ought to do better than commemorating 1922 with a statement that “the shelling of the Four Courts started the Civil War.” As if no events preceded and led up to that turning point; as if members of the ATI garrison at Four Courts had no part in picking up the gun against their own countrymen, but were merely sitting on the quay, smelling a flower! As if both pro-and anti-Treaty leaders did not first carry on months of painstaking negotiations to avoid conflict.

“When choosing someone for a mission in which courage and judgement are equally required, I’d rather send a clever coward than a stupid hero.”
– Michael Collins

Michael Collins speaking in favor of the Treaty Clonakilty 1922

Perhaps the greatest service to Ireland possible, with regard to Civil War commemoration, might be for today’s prominent political representatives to cop on, and be an example of the good old democratic principle of criticism/self-criticism. To admit that, for all their sincere patriotic intentions, it was the ATI who first “turned guns on comrades“; and that their doing so never won a single further millimeter of Irish soil from British control. That however politically correct anyone might esteem them, their military strategy was a failure.

Let’s see the present Fianna Fail / Fine Gael (FF/FG) establishment issue a condemnation of the wanton executions, imprisonment, and torture practiced against the ATI under their successive governments; as well as their like failure to address or improve upon Ireland’s most imperfect independence, for the past 100 years.

Let’s be revolutionary. Let’s revolutionize the way we think of the Civil War; the way we deal with each other, and with that past.

R E A D    M O R E
on Irish History / Irish Civil War:
“The Assassination of Michael Collins:
What Happened At Béal na mBláth?”

by S M Sigerson
Paperback or Kindle edition here:
www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714

All other e-reader formats:
www.smashwords.com/books/view/433954

Read reviews:
http://www.rabidreaders.com/2014/12/03/assassination-michael-collins-s-m-sigerson-2/

OR ASK AT YOUR LOCAL BOOK SHOP

 

 

 

 

What is an assassination?

Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, following the close of US’ Civil War  (public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Was the death of Commander-in-Chief Michael Collins an assassination?
Can military actions by Collins and the Irish Volunteers during the Anglo-Irish War (1919-1921) be termed “assassinations” themselves?
Did British authorities commit political assassinations in their domains?
These questions are part of a sometimes-heated debate; by no means merely historical, but with high political stakes, in Ireland and elsewhere, now.

 

He’s a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
a Bhuddist, and a Baptist, and a Jew.
And he knows he shouldn’t kill,
And he knows he always will…  – Buffy Ste Marie “Universal Soldier”

All societies have their rules of operation; usually including express sanctions intended to inhibit killing unjustly, excessively, or indiscriminately. When first set forth, even “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” represented a major moral leap forward.

In modern times, international debate rages as to which wars are just or unjust. Following World War II, the concept of war crimes focused unprecedented scrutiny on the actions of both leaders and combatants in military conflicts. It meant that such actions could be judged and sanctioned according to global standards of martial conduct.

Ireland’s Revolutionary Era, which gave birth to its democratic Republic, was part of the same ideological maelstrom. During World War I, Irish thinkers pointed up the irony of Britain’s claim to be defending “small nations”; while it still held Ireland by force.

Controversies of this kind continue around the world today. The press and other public platforms often disagree as to which side to call white-hat “good guys” “freedom fighters” “security forces” etc and which to label black hat “bad guys” “terrorists” “warlords”, in hostilities which dot the globe as we speak.

The word “assassination” in English particularly denotes killing which is secretive, and targets a politically prominent person. That is to say, for political reasons.

The word originally came to English from French, where it simply means “murder” and has no other context. The same word & definition occur in Spanish and other Romance languages. The Irish equivalent “feallmharu” means secretive but not expressly political violence. Many languages have no word which means political murder per se.

“Even he who commands thousands of swords must fear one who commands dozens of daggers.” – Voltaire

We owe the word “guerilla” to popular resistance which opposed  Napoleon in northern Spain: literally “little war” in Spanish. They entered the dictionary by giving pause to an emperor whose forces vastly outnumbered and outgunned them. The word and the techniques have proved decisive in numerous theatres since, wherever poorly-armed locals defended their homes against overwhelming odds.

The right of individuals and nations to self-defense is one of the cornerstones of law everywhere.  Although unconventional in methods, the Irish Volunteers (aka Irish Republican Army) during the Anglo-Irish War aimed with remarkable fidelity and success at enemy combattants and spies, as acts of war against a violent foreign occupation force. 

Together, Collins, Arthur Griffith, and colleagues in the Dail’s shadow government-in-hiding understood that such a war could be carried on successfully in Ireland, only with great care to maintain an orderly campaign; which struck effective blows against British rule, while minimizing negative effects on the general population.

They realized also that the underdogs in that war hadn’t a chance, without the decisive weight of public opinion, at home and abroad, on their side. A tall order, while powerful British voices flooded the media with denials that this was a fight for national independence at all, dubbing the movement a mere “murder gang”.

“Our Government and our Army were not going to allow any man to be shot without the fullest possible proof.” 
– Frank Thornton, IRA GHQ 1919-1921
https://collinsassassination.wordpress.com/2019/09/21/michael-collins-squad-no-man-shot-without-full-proof-of-his-guilt/

In the link above, Frank Thornton of Collins’ GHQ Intelligence command, details the painstaking care which went into these actions. There’s little question but that it was this kind of discipline which won the field for the embattled Irish.

I am a war man in the day of war. But I am a peace man in the day of peace.
– Michael Collins 1922

While he continued after the Truce to cooperate with local IRA in the northeast, in their defense against unionist violence, there is no evidence that Collins participated in the killing of any public or private individual, unless military targets, in wartime. 

On the other side, the British establishment of the time viewed those they called subjects as meriting imprisonment or death, for any resistance to or questioning of the Crown’s right to rule in and out of season. Its routine executions of non-combattants and strictly political figures are legion, across the Empire, throughout history.

For decades, historians were non-committal regarding the violent death of newly-independent Ireland’s Commander-of-Chief in 1922. Since the appearance of the book “The Assassination of Michael Collins: What Happened at Beal na mBlath?” http://www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714 commentators have come more and more generally to look on it as an assassination.

Read more
“The Assassination of Michael Collins:
What Happened At Béal na mBláth?”
by S M Sigerson   
Paperback or Kindle edition here:
www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714

All other e-reader formats:
www.smashwords.com/books/view/433954

Read reviews:
http://www.rabidreaders.com/2014/12/03/assassination-michael-collins-s-m-sigerson-2/

OR ASK  YOUR LOCAL BOOK SELLER

 

Oliver St John Gogarty: Witness Statement #700 – Bureau of Military History

Oliver St John Gogarty (image courtesy of prabook.com)

Dr Oliver St John Gogarty cut an enigmatic figure in Ireland’s early 20th century renaissance; turning up in the background of great works (such as James Joyce’ “Ulysses”) and great deeds (in the War of Independence.) A medical doctor, he counted W B Yeats among his patients.  After meeting Arthur Griffith, he became a founding member of Sinn Fein. A poet of the Irish literary revival, he also served as a Senator in Dublin’s early Senate; and was still writing and publishing in the 1950s.

His comments on the death of Michael Collins (included below) are particularly interesting to historians, not only as Collins’s personal friend and physician.  It was Gogarty’s melancholy duty to prepare Collins’ remains for burial.  Witnesses recount his penetrating remarks, as he pointed out to Collins’ family and friends the young General’s fatal wounds, before the lying-in-state.  Although reputed to have performed an autopsy as well, no report by him as medical examiner seems to have survived.  (One of many startling mysteries concerning records of the Commander-in-Chief’s untimely loss.)

Gogarty’s own views on this topic have been difficult to pin down; until the recent release of the Bureau of Military History’s files on the War of Independence and Civil War.  His Witness Statement (below) is the only official documentation of his assessment of Collins’ end.  It must carry considerable weight; especially in view of its having been made in strictest confidence, as not to be released in his lifetime.

(The text below constitutes Doctor Gogarty’s Witness Statement in its entirety.  Note the Bureau’s notation of his “Identity”.)

“Identity: Close associate of Michael Collins

Subject: Placing of his home at Michael Collins’ disposal as a hiding place

June 19th, 1952

When the Black and Tans behaved in such an excited and unsoldierly way by endangering my daughter’s life when she was playing in St Stephen’s Green, I resolved to give all the help in my power to the Resistance movement headed by Michael Collins. His confidante, Batt O’Connor was a patient of mine. To him I gave whatever gold I could come by for his reserve which was in a metal box cemented into a wall at Donnybrook where Batt O’Connor was building at the time. I also gave him a latch key of my house, 15 Ely Place and prepared that apparently impassible cul de sac so that Collins, if hard pressed, could use my garden and appear in St Stephen’s Green. There was a passage between the Board of Works and the Church Representative Body house that, through a wicket, gave on to the Green. In order to facilitate the scaling of the wall I had some cases of petrol placed against it under a large ash tree in the garden. These preparations were passed on by Batt O’Connor to Michael Collins and his thanks conveyed.

Collins was an infrequent caller at my house. Emmet Dalton handed me back the latch key which he took from the blood-stained tunic of General Collins, who was murdered by the instigator of the Civil War.

You are at liberty to make whatever use of this you may find good.
Believe me to remain
With every good wish for you and the work
Yours sincerely,
Oliver St J Gogarty (signature)”

Read more
“The Assassination of Michael Collins:
What Happened At Béal na mBláth?”

by S M Sigerson
Paperback or Kindle edition here:
www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714

All other e-reader formats:
www.smashwords.com/books/view/433954

Read reviews:
http://www.rabidreaders.com/2014/12/03/assassination-michael-collins-s-m-sigerson-2/

Or ask at your local book shop

Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland, & Michael Collins: the unfinished business of Irish independence

It was through the lessons of Collins’ life & death, that Former Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, with his colleagues & community, survived to achieve so much: in a lifetime struggle to repair what happened to northern* Ireland, following Collins’ death.

 

Michael Collins in Armagh 1921

In 1922, Dublin’s fledgling independent government was headed by the representative for Armagh in northern Ireland: Michael Collins, TD.

What links Collins with Martin McGuinness’ generation of Irish statesmen? These excerpts from The Assassination of Michael Collins: What Happened at Beal na mBlath? explore their connections:

“The 26-county Republic of Ireland, and the 6-county Northern Ireland statelet, directly owe their existence, their institutional structures, and much of their history, to Michael Collins’ life and times; to the controversies which culminated in his death; and to the travesties which his death enabled.

… Before the ink on the Treaty was dry, even among smiles, handshakes, and agreements, Winston Churchill was funding, directing and protecting military aggression in Ulster (both on and off the record.) Michael Collins, not to be outdone, cooperated without hesitation in republican units’ response there…

On 1st and 2nd August 1922, Commander-in-Chief Collins met with northern [IRA] officers at Portobello Barracks in Dublin. He told them, “The civil war will be over in a few weeks and then we can resume in the north. You men will get intensive training.” Collins explained that, until the Civil War was resolved, IRA in the north would have to remain defensive and avoid engagements. A small, specially paid “Belfast Guard” would be created to protect Catholic areas from sectarian attacks. The Dublin government in the meantime would apply political pressure. Said Collins, “If that fails, the Treaty can go to hell, and we will start again.”

… Following British soldiers’ killing of two adolescent girls near the northern border, an outraged Collins wrote to WT Cosgrave:

I am forced to the conclusion that we have yet to fight the British in the northeast. We must by forceful action make them understand that we will not tolerate this carelessness with the lives of our people.

In other correspondence:

[The north] must be redeemed for Ireland, and we must keep striving in every way until that objective is achieved. The northeast must not be allowed to settle down in the feeling that it is a thing apart from the Irish nation.

Six counties implies coercion. South and east Down, south Armagh, Fermanagh and Tyrone will not come into Northern Ireland.

… Coogan … agrees that Collins’ policy on the North was “unwelcome to his Cabinet colleagues and of course to the British.” [That is,] Collins was serving on a Cabinet with men whose agenda for the future of Ireland was closer to the British, than to his own.

… [Then, in August 1922,] Arthur Griffith and Collins suddenly died within two weeks of each other. And with them, all hope of an amicable settlement with honor to the Civil War. All hope of merging anti-Treaty heroes from the War of Independence into the leadership of the Free State Army. All hope of continuing armed resistance against unionist pogroms in the north.

It was then that the Troubles for Northern Ireland began.

“The spreading [Civil War], marked by the cessation of IRA operations in the north, was correctly interpreted by the unionist government and armed loyalism as effectively removing the threat of concerted assault on the northern state.” **

… That threat was more real and present than most people, (including many historians,) realize … A shooting war between Irish troops and their British / loyalist counterparts in the northeast flared up continually throughout 1922. It included both IRA guerrilla actions and Free State regulars, British troops and loyalist paramilitaries combined. It moved Churchill to call for defense preparations against a Dublin-sponsored invasion of Ulster. https://ansionnachfionn.com/2015/06/08/the-battle-of-pettigo-and-belleek-may-to-june-1922/

With Collins removed, subsequent Dublin governments were content, or reduced, to leave northern nationalists twisting in the wind.”

Dublin governments all too willing to “tolerate this carelessness with the lives of our people” and to allow the northeast “to settle down in the feeling that it is a thing apart from the Irish nation.” Until the north’s simmering apartheid regime exploded into thirty years of bloody conflict.

Would the north have been different, had Collins lived? Could Martin McGuinness have been born in a united 32-county Ireland? Could decades of mayhem and murder been avoided, had the appropriate governments and armies come to grips, in 1922? 

Could Collins, with his War of Independence army intact, have extended their victory throughout the north? With the aid of officers who, over Collins’ dead body, were later executed by the Dublin government of W T Cosgrave (founder of Finn Gael)?

Could the Troubles have been prevented, by Collins and company’s combination of political pressure from Dublin, plus sustained military response to British/loyalist violence in the north?

Ultimately, the story of Ulster is inseparable from the story of Michael Collins: who clearly saw, almost a hundred years ago, that peace might be won only at the cost of eventual armed conflict in the north; who perhaps died striving to make it possible for republican comrades to lay down their arms; and who died … as elected representative for the people of northern Ireland.

 

** Eamonn Phoenix Michael Collins – The Northern Question 1916-22

* “northern Ireland” is here used to refer to that region of the country, before partition; “Northern Ireland” (capitalized) refers to the statelet created by Partition.

Read more

“The Assassination of Michael Collins:
What Happened At Béal na mBláth?”

by S M Sigerson

Paperback or Kindle edition here:
www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714

All other e-reader formats:
www.smashwords.com/books/view/433954

Read reviews:
http://www.rabidreaders.com/2014/12/03/assassination-michael-collins-s-m-sigerson-2/

Or ask at your local book shop

 

 

 

Arthur Griffith & Michael Collins: Were their deaths connected?

Arthur Griffith 1871-1922)

(The following is an excerpt from the book
“The Assassination of Michael Collins: What Happened at Béal na mBláth?”)

Griffith, the founder of Sinn Fein, is considered by many to have been the leading strategist of Ireland’s 20th century independence movement … After ages of continual battle against British imperialism, it was his genius for uniting Ireland’s internal divisions, which brought nationalism into a new, ultimately victorious phase …

… The chances seem astronomical against there having been anything either “accidental”, “random”, or “natural” about the sudden death, within days of each other, of Michael Collins, Arthur Griffith, and Harry Boland. Even in the dangerous environment of the Civil War, it would be about equivalent to being struck by lightening while holding a winning lottery ticket.

P S O’Hegerty quotes Griffith himself as saying, in their interview on June 30, “Of course, those fellows will assassinate Collins and myself. DeValera is responsible for this, for all of it. There would have been no trouble but for him.”

[The Cabinet “junta’s”] first step was to isolate Arthur Griffith … shortly before his death [P Moylett] found Griffith sitting alone with not even a secretary or typist available to him.  –  John M Feehan 

Collins, who was working intimately with Griffith on a daily basis at the time, by no means took his death so much for granted as historians have been willing to do. As shown in his personal correspondence:

The death of poor Mr Griffith was indeed a shock to us all, more so naturally to those of us who had been intimate with him, and who thought that his illness was a very slight thing indeed. We shall miss for many a day his cheerful presence and his wise counsel … He had sounder political judgement than any of us, and in this way we shall feel his absence very keenly. 

Although no bounding youth like the C-in-C, Griffith, at 51, was hardly decrepit. The negotiations with Britain, the deterioration of the country into Civil War, certainly would place a tremendous strain on anyone in his highly responsible position. Yet, lest we forget, since the founding of Sinn Fein in 1905, Griffith had lived in the eye of a political storm. His life had consisted of unending controversy, continual persecution; in the course of which he endured years of imprisonment, and constant threat of arrest or assassination.

Yet P S O’Hegerty was even more shocked at Griffith’s demise:

Until the last few months, he never lay in a sickbed. Whoever else died, we felt sure that it would not be Griffith – Griffith with the iron will, the iron constitution, the imperturbable nerve. Griffith, whom we all thought certain to live to be one hundred and write the epitaph of all of us.  Griffith, upon whom we all leaned and depended.

At the time of Griffith’s death, the Civil War was in full swing. A list appears to have issued from some quarter, indicating that members of the Dublin government were to be shot on sight at the first opportunity. Government Buildings became for Griffith and other ministers “a place of internment,” for their own safety…

As for DeValera, that ambitious statesman would never have the most potent political voice in Ireland, as long as Griffith still lived.  Nor would any post-war government led by Griffith ever be supine to British interests …

Read more
“The Assassination of Michael Collins:
What Happened At Béal na mBláth?”
by S M Sigerson
Paperback or Kindle edition here:
www.amazon.com/dp/1493784714

All other e-reader formats:
www.smashwords.com/books/view/433954

Read reviews:
http://www.rabidreaders.com/2014/12/03/assassination-michael-collins-s-m-sigerson-2/

OR ASK AT YOUR LOCAL BOOK SHOP