The Irish Revolution and How It Came About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 8, 4 March 1925, Page 7

The Irish Revolution and How It Came About

(By William O'Brien)

CHAPTER XXyitt—(Continued.)

I The-I*ilack-ancl-Tans for their part, if they lofecre•'!%>'s resourceful in wit, made up . for />'-. their inferiority by a brutality run ' mad. if Whatever atrocities the jack-in, Germans :l committed in the first weeks of their occupa- '• tion of Belgium, the Black-and-Tans comf mitted improved upon for a year and a Y half during their Satanic reign in Ireland. §j ,They roamed through the country by night I in their armored- cars bellowing with drunk- ,\ en fury in search of vengeance'-for some . _* successful ambush or captured barrack; set .: fire to defenceless villages or blew them up " with bombs; flogged, tortured and murdered |'| without ceremony the' men whenever they ■'i could find them,. under conditions too loath-.' 4 some to-be particularised; whenever the men \ were missing, they extorted their last penny .-'/' from the ; terror of . the. women,; outraged M them with drunken obscenities more hateful ;A than their flourished revolvers, and left with • - a whole generation of Irish children memories '• of their midnight devilries- more horrible ■ : than any Dante could imagine for his 7n- ...... >,,...-'■■ - • ?. 1. : fi'.mo.' For -the bare offence of being found pfßt'i<?:» ■-.... '■':in possession of revolvers men -were hanged, '{-■'; and the -: statesmen who hanged : them were i/ •' shocked .to". find that the .hangings, were. fol-. :." lowed ..by vengeances no less drastic. . 'A ■ / trick more, cunning than crude barbarities '.';.•; like Jtliese was the systematic destruction of . • means of living by the burning itjhwn or blowing up -of - the. factories, like -'■ ■ those at Balbriggan and Mallow, upon which half the working population -depended for employment: Even. the blameless rustic" , creameries to which many thousands of farm- /./ ers' trusted for a market for their ilk were ; given wholesale to the flames; and 'the/only comment of the- Prime v Minister upon this

pretty employment for'the rarms^'of^uglanobtwas his . surer -at-- Hie !ftifluSnfe(>Jr(vlJ.r : Si!i. , i''Hoi'n : ce.' Plunkett -as a; could - no longer depend "'oven -upon tho-'s'upport of his creameries."- I*' .;' ! ''...•:"• • ''•' v.?M. •■•-h And the iiK'ft'ectuaThess ! -cf-all this gigAnths«: apparatus of "f rightfulness!" . The only people at ? all terror Ave'i'e the'''old Folks,' 1 the sick, the niotliws,-and-their. .Ming in their, cap ins,,-;, or .dr.jycn ;,^v|ly M stp 5 "•the mountains or the graveyards for refuge from their .midnight .-i«v.ader.Sj. . The young, men who woreHhfe'|' , e^|S^'iti^ , v ottlf| ists —even those -who %Q& n\tf\aiio%\^ij>%m{i^\ from the lt( , v.ol;iita()ys^i^( , 3w^ r 'le t (t -ik> live but to swell "the* fames or the RepithheaiV'' Army in their fastnesses in -the hills, whence they swooped down in their own .good; time with a' vengeance too often 1 ' as' savage' ! "iis' that of their antagonists' and Tar more sure. The young women' defied' bullets' and the" courts-mart fa I oven in ore bravelythan title ' brothers or sAvwlbqaris,. ■;.jAfteiv-;twelve .months while this lei: tali oh is was the only law of the land, the Irish Republican Army; had so far got the better of the apparently irresistible , forces /"onposed to' them,;; that even in the" cities r no .military*" lorry from which the nnizzlos.' : .vol ; - -the rifles protruded could pass through the streets in open day without a homb bnrtli,ng;ijiji ; l .the,.gars*of r its.garrison, and in the country the railways were made -im passable, 'the lH'idgt, f Kol-d<i.WuvU>.v' and tho roads trenched and barricaded, send their most- confidential despatches iifterc-epr-Ito'd until' their i armored ;cars:ivb ;l.ong"bis S'liSl'kf venture outside their garages and the 15h\ck- " and-Tans found themselves cooped up J i'n their guard-rooms, with no othoi* resource 1 left to relieve the tedium except'the of

their raids .for whisky and their quarrels—//; sometimes with 5 revolvers ./as/' /well/ as with, lists—with r the more clean-lived .of the. old' : • Royal Iri si 1.; Co tab til ary > who were still: coil;.. demned-to keep I heir obscene . company. They 1 had turned against them the most, timid:•; man in the country, Unionist, as. well;, as , 7 Nationalist, who was not -within, range ? at - I heir rifles. As for the Vuilion ; in : generally who had smarted under the taunt that Irishmen fought bravely for every country except; their own; who' were humiliated to remember Unit for. nearly a century they; could" only -quote -the three .Manchester Martyrs • and a very .'few others who had thought-it |; Avorth while to-offer up ."'their lives .for -Ireland—who remembered with a certain selfreproach, how lately it was that the country seemed to be sunk in shameless political corruption and self-seeking—they were openeyed in wonder and delight to discover .that ." a generation had arisen ready in thousands and in tens of thousands to die for Ireland . /with fa mystic, love-light in their eyes, and most Wonderful of all that they were .striking all the hosts of England with paralysi^pq^l bind their fortresses and big guns. Every Irishman worth his salt the, world over began to glow with pride in the young soldiers of his nation. ' / ' ■"•' " .• -_f- \ ft |Sir; Hainar Greenwood "might- go on un- " dauntedly bragging -lying,: but England Ywas to horrid glimpses ! of the 1 truth. English men and women,' who : came ,over to see for themselves, were going back.. •with stories: that turned honest cheeks aflame; - -and Mr.. Lloyd George, excellent. opportunist ■•that ;lm was, was ' beginning to' ask himself whether in place, of "having Sinn Fein on Itljo run" and "holding the ; murder-gang by the throat,"'it was not perhaps the' murdergang who were-, having the beg of it and '-whether it was not about time for him to . :jgo 'mi .the. run. himself.." . ./. , . . ./,. |.; v Chapter xxtx-ttie truce of jtiit ~„„.,.,.,. . ~ 11, 1921.,.,.\.......... I ffiiekoF the--worst consequences ;, c.f Mir. . ]|loy : d.;'rOcorge's^ ... Fei n floaders' Was/,to ' irccentuaW'-tlie ' demand '"tor. VI V'tip to that time, the talk? ; ;[a'vßepuhHc • largely from the hali't^f^pii^ln^^deuV^i^s - : higher than expectations, which the shifti'i\'tW[ oi" English party■'"politicians '/ had - en- .; ,; c^if',ige'. ; . "Tii ■'•"his interview with rue, in '■' Ahgust ' : T'f>22; Mr. de Val made a <tatei.xii! which throws.a-flood of. light upon tho secret processes by which the Irish RevolVi/(tHmyAva* .turned from peaceful / action/' to arms. ".Ho said" (I quote- from my own note of oiif)* on-vprsation) "he ; had spent -.the last four war's' trying : to keep 'the v peape between Cathal Rrugha, on what he might call the old. Fenian side, and v Arthur Grif,.fiyi,-; representing the Constitutional Sinn Feiners. They were ' reallyr' two separate ■,."'movements,.and uqt.hihg except:the pressure f s .of Ihe Black-and-Tan (error- \ ke;)f them 'to-' ;.";:'■",*?.. - C t 1 .!• - '-i- ■{'■'■■' •■■'■':. -P !..v.!!i:i so lung- i iiai. i .-oejieye to be prof ffMiiilltj i\\f >h istorie/ trull) .Vr the : mattter. : , : Parnoll.. had the same , nearly superhuman 1 task as between' the -t\w> 'wings of his own i movement ;• put not only did Parnell -C,p(^i3e,ss:,>,a s ' , supreme ... genius ■ for -.- com-

mand, but the captains he attracted from the old Fenian host were men of as weighty a political judgment as

his own, and the actual physical force movehad declined into a small and beaten s®vfc, while the original Sinn Fein intellectual

gimp had almost disoppeared when the men or the Easter Week Rising by an absurd accident were forced to inherit their name, and the ferocity with which Dublin Castle persecuted every form of open and advised action every month increased the secret predominance of the men of action.

Mr. Lloyd George’s unlucky response perforce threw Mr. de Valera more and more into the hands of the more revolutionary of his counsellors. The Dail was secretly assembled and the Republic solemnly proclaimed. A more serious matter still, the members were made to take an oath of allegiance to the Republic, and the difficulty of getting the young idealists who were the flower of the movement to break the oath by which they were thus consecrated to the service of the Republic as an organised reality became the most insurmountable of all the obstacles in the peace negotiations later on. When I commented to Mr. de Valera upon the unwisdom of thus prejudicing the ultimate issue by an engagement so notoriously sacred in Irish eyes, he answered (I again quote from my precis of our conversation), “that he was from the beginning opposed to any oath of any kind being taken. It was while he was in prison the first Dail began by swearing allegiance to the Republic, and at the second Dail they had to follow the precedent.”

I did not myself take too tragic a view of Mr. Lloyd George’s non possumus. It was impossible to know' him without counting

*v^upon < bis readiness with a new set of opinions whenever the old set proved unworkable. I construed his letter as an order that the war must go onuntil further orders. One of the brainiest of the Republican leaders, who afterwards became a Minister in the Cabinet of the First Dail (Mr. Austin Stack) has more than once reminded me of my prognostication at the time: “If you can hold out for six months longer, you’ll have a sporting offer from Lloyd George,” and his own amused reply; “If you’re a true prophet, that’s all right; we can hold out for two years longer against man or devil.”

Before the six months ere over, the Prime Minister was wobbling, and the “sporting offer” if it had not already come was on the way. In the meantime, Sir Hamar Greenwood’s desperadoes grew more frantic than ever. Fresh regiments were poured across from England, it was made death to be in possession of firearms (two men were actually hanged for the offence) and the war of reprisals from both sides month by month as-

sumed a more bloody and inhuman aspect, while a third party to the quarrel made its appearance in the shape of bands of highwaymen (mostly demobilised soldiers of the Brit-

ish Army) who roamed the country, plundering individuals and banks with impartial ■pistols. It is curious to remark that, for the bank robbery campaign, as for the substitu-

tion of assassination for persuation in the case of the Constabulary, it was the Black Cabinet in Dublin Castle who set the example. They directed one of their Resident Magistrates, Mr. Alan Bell, to hold a Star

Chamber inquisition at the Castle, at which he took forcible possession of the most confidential books of the -Munster and Leinster Bank and laid hands on £20,000 of their funds on the suspicion that they belonged to Sinn Fein depositors. The unfortunate magistrate was promptly taken out of a tramcar on his way to the Castle, and shot dead on the roadside, and the bank robbery initiated by the Government was copied with interest on the other side, until armed raids on the banks became everywhere a common incident in the anarchy.

If women’s purses (even that of General Strickland’s wife) were snatched in the public streets by the Black-and-Tans, still less were the ministers of religion spared, and the higher their station the more ferocious was the relish with which they were persecuted and murdered. Dr. Fogarty, the Bishop of Killaloe, was the only one of the Irish bishops, since the death of Dr. O’Dwyer, who openly took his stand with Sinn Fein in its time of agony, but he was none the less an innocuous politician who had been up to a quite recent date a fervid admirer of the Parliamentary Party. The Bishop’s palace at Ennis was raided in the middle of the night by an armed gang whose object, it can be charged upon unanswerable evidence, was to murder him. It came to my knowledge, upon the testimony of an actual eye-witness, that the Inspector of Constabulary, who commanded the Raiders, was shortly afterwards summoned to Dublin Castle to give a report of his expedition to his principal in chief command of the Auxiliaries. He related, with somewhat bumptious pride, the perfection of his arrangements, but “cursed his rotten luck that the old fox had given him the slip, and attributed to “some damned Catholic peeler” the warning which had saved the Bishop’s life. My information (which comes from a quarter not open to doubt) is that the Commandant, far from rebuking his subaltern’s murderous zeal, followed him to the door when he was leaving, and took him by both hands with this shocking parting message: “Good-bye, old chap. God bless you! Better luck next time!” And for months afterwards the hunted Bishop was on the run” for his life in the mountains of Clare, like the most persecuted of his predecessors of the Penal Days. Two other strokes of “frightfulness” which it was counted would mark the final subjugation of Sinn Fein, in reality put an end to the last possibility of breaking its spirit. One was the capture by a British warship on the high seas of Most Rev. Dr. Mannix, Archbishop of Melbourne, on his way to pay a last visit to his aged mother in his native country. The deportation to England of the Archbishop (admittedly the most powerful man in the Australian Commonwealth next to, if even next to, its Prime Minister, Mr. Hughes), and the paltry insolence of refusing him a last interview with his old Irish mother had the double effect of exhibiting the realities of the Irish situation to all civilised mankind in a way there could be no suppressing or falsifying, and of stirring up the spirit of resistance in Ireland to a pitch incomparably more passionate than could have been roused by the few public speeches it was the poor strategy of the British kidnappers to strangle.

A still more stupid offence against humanity was the slow torture to death of the young Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence Mae Swiney. He was seized during the ceremony of his inauguration in succession to his predecessor, Thomas Mac Curtain, who was called out of his bed at midnight by a band of Auxiliaries and murdered in the presence of his wife and children, and who, Sir Hamar Greenwood with a face of brass assured the House of Commons had been assassinated by his brother Sinn Feiners. Young Mac Swiney, once in the toils of these monsters of lying and foul play, made the last protest that was open to him against the iniquity of his imprisonment by devoting himself to the slow torments of death by hunger. Day by day, week after week, the world kept watch outside Brixton Gaol while the Irish idealist lay calmly looking into the eyes of death every hour of the day and of the night with a steadfastness outlasting that of Mutius Scmvola, whom History has made immortal for plunging only an arm into the flames. His gaolers were as inexorable as Death, but, as the clumsiest experimentalist in human nature might have anticipated, it was the dead idealist who left Brixton Gaol the victor, and not they. Sir Hamar Greenwood himself began to understand when an Archbishop and six Bishops, with their mitres and croziers and in their purple robes, tramped through the streets of Cork before the coffin of Terence Mac Swiney.

By this time the sea-change was beginning to work in the Prime Minister. As the Commission of Inquiry from the Labor Party and the foremost publicists of the American and French press swarmed over to see for themselves and published their experiences to a horrified world, Sir Hamar Greenwood’s early manner as a professor of able-bodied mendacity could no longer yield much comfort to his chief. The first indignant denial that there had ever been reprisals had to be given up for shambling admissions that reprisals and no doubt reprehensible reprisals there had been; the stories that the Mayors of Cork and Limerick had been murdered and a hundred towns and villages given to the flames by the Sinn Feiners themselves could no longer be got to pass the lying lips of the mythomaniacs, although they have never to this hour been honestly apologised for. But at least the reprisals, it was promised, -were henceforth to be “official reprisals” carried out under responsible military authority. The more barbaric vengeances of the Black-and-Tans were without doubt discouraged, instead of being instigated, by humane and gallant soldiers like Sir Nevill Macready. It was not possible for such men to come to close quarters with those miscreants without being obliged to report that they had placed themselves outside the pale of civilisation and that their deeds, far from diminishing the power of Sinn Fein, had maddened the country into a system of resistance so irresistible, so omnipresent, and so ably conducted that no army could put it down without a general massacre of unarmed old men, women, and children, which would make the name of England an astonishment and a hissing among civilised men.

(To be continued.)