Afterimage of the Revolution : Cumann Na NGaedheal and Irish Politics, 1922-1932 [1 ed.] 9780299295837, 9780299295844

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Afterimage of the Revolution

History of Ire l an d and the Iri sh D iasp or a James S. Donnelly, Jr. Thomas Archdeacon Ser ies Editors

Afterimage of the Revolution  Cumann na nGaedheal and Irish Politics, 1922–1932

Jason Knirck

The University of Wisconsin Press

Publication of this volume has been made possible, in part, through support from the Anonymous Fund of the College of Letters and Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

The University of Wisconsin Press 1930 Monroe Street, 3rd Floor Madison, Wisconsin 53711-2059 uwpress.wisc.edu 3 Henrietta Street London WC2E 8LU, England eurospanbookstore.com Copyright © 2014 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any format or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without written permission of the University of Wisconsin Press, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews. Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Knirck, Jason K., 1971–, author. Afterimage of the revolution : Cumann na nGaedheal and Irish politics, 1922–1932 / Jason Knirck. pages cm — (History of Ireland and the Irish diaspora) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-299-29584-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-299-29583-7 (e-book) 1. Ireland—Politics and government—1922–1949. 2. Cumann na nGaedhael—History. I. Title. II. Series: History of Ireland and the Irish diaspora. DA963.K59 2014 941.7082´2—dc23 2013015049

for Mar i

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction: Cumann na nGaedheal, Historians, and the Irish Revolution

3

1 The Treaty and the Revolutionary Inheritance

22

2 Security, Order, and Sovereignty

54

3 The Promotion of Irishness

105

4 The Treaty and the Empire

141

5 A Dominion in Name

177

6 Reclaiming the Revolution

214

Notes

255

Bibliography

291

Index

299

Acknowledgments

This book has been over a decade in the making, and I have accrued a tremendous number of intellectual and personal debts over the course of those years. The research for this project was mostly carried out at the University College Dublin Archives, the National Library of Ireland, and the National Archives of Ireland, and I would like to thank the staff at all three of those excellent institutions for their assistance during this process. The staff at UCD was particularly helpful, and I benefited very much from their rapid and thorough processing of the O’Higgins papers. Thanks also to the late Una O’Higgins O’Malley for alerting me to the content of those papers, as well as talking to me about her father more generally. Both Humboldt State University and Central Washington University supplied me with generous funding for research trips to Dublin as well as sabbaticals and course releases that allowed me to write the manuscript. In particular, I would like to thank the Humboldt Foundation for funding my 2002 research trip that initiated this project as well as Central Washington University’s College of Arts and Humanities and Graduate School for providing additional funding once I moved to CWU. Special thanks go to my current dean, Marji Morgan, who has been particularly supportive of the research agendas of those of us in the history department. In addition, I am tremendously grateful to Thomas Hachey, Mike Cronin, and the Center for Irish Programs at Boston College for awarding me a summer fellowship in 2008 so I could carry out lengthy research in Dublin. This project really began to take shape in the wonderful office overlooking Stephen’s Green provided to me by Boston College–Ireland that summer. Material ix

x

Acknowledgments

later incorporated into chapters 2, 4, and 5 was previously published in Éire-Ireland, and I would like to thank the editorial board of Éire-Ireland for allowing its publication here. A number of people have helped shape the ideas and the content of the manuscript as well. At CWU, Katie (Pittner) Marney, McKayla Sutton, and Andy Willden provided able and much appreciated research assistance, and McKayla also found sources for me in Dublin while listening to me ramble about Cumann na nGaedheal at various locales. Michael de Nie, Mari Knirck, McKayla Sutton, and Roxanne Easley all read various chapters of the manuscript in draft form, and their suggestions helped tremendously in refining it for publication. Jim Donnelly also read numerous drafts of the manuscript, and his astute and penetrating comments assisted me in clarifying, sharpening, and, thankfully, condensing many of my arguments. At the American Conference for Irish Studies, Paul Townend, Tim McMahon, Sean Farrell, Tim O’Neil, Doug Kanter, Michael de Nie, and Michael Silvestri have listened to me present countless papers on Cumann na nGaedheal and have given me very useful feedback. Their work has stimulated and deepened mine in a number of ways, and for that I am grateful. To give just one example, an invitation to be on a panel on empire with Paul Townend and Michael de Nie started me thinking about the role of empire in the Treaty debates and within the Cumann na nGaedheal leadership more broadly. That led, ultimately, to chapters 4 and 5 of this book. Naturally, any errors of fact or analysis that remain in this work are my fault. On a personal level, I have to thank Sterling Evans, my former colleague at Humboldt State. The entire Evans family helped to make our time in Humboldt County considerably better, and Sterling taught me a lot about the publishing world, the job market, and the life of a professional historian. At CWU, my friend and colleague Roxanne Easley has been an invaluable sounding board on topics historical and otherwise. I have also been fortunate to work at CWU with some stellar graduate students, including McKayla Sutton, Rachael (Birks) Morgan, Katie (Pittner) Marney, and Patrice Laurent, who made our time in Ellensburg much more fun and memorable. Thanks also to Greg Hall, an American historian who has listened to me discuss this project for years. My longtime friends outside of the discipline— Beth (Belgard) Carrol, Heidi (Gailey) Nettleton, Karen (Davis) Morris, Brian Knowlton, Lauralie Patterson, and Glen Curtis—have also been supportive. My family—particularly my mother, Teresa; my sister, Jocelyn; and the wider DeVine and Roe families—have also been understanding during my

Acknowledgments

xi

frequent absences from family events due to writing deadlines, research trips, and the general rhythms of academic work. My father, Bill; my grandfathers, Rueben Knirck and Frank DeVine; and my grandmother Ginger Knirck all passed away during the writing of this book, and I would like to honor their memory as well. Finally, the biggest thanks go to my wife, Mari. Above anyone else, she has put up with my consumption by this topic, my frequent physical and mental absences from our home, and my tendency to prattle on about Ireland in the 1920s to captive audiences during car trips. This project started around the time Mari and I were married, and we stopped in Dublin for two weeks at the end of our honeymoon so I could work in the archives, a fact that says much about my obsessiveness and Mari’s tolerance. The final stages of this manuscript were completed at the time our daughter, Jillian, was born, and I am happy to have this project completed as another, undoubtedly more meaningful and more perilous, begins. Mari has been a rock throughout, and I could not have done this without her encouragement, love, and support. This work is dedicated to her.

Afterimage of the Revolution

 introduction Cumann na nGaedheal, Historians, and the Irish Revolution

I

n 1919 Irish activists loosely gathered under the banners of Sinn Féin, and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) launched an attempt to throw off British colonial rule in Ireland. Seizing the initiative from the Irish Party, these men and women instigated what has generally been referred to as the Irish Revolution, the War of Independence, or the AngloIrish War.1 The fledgling IRA attacked the police force and intelligence services, and Sinn Féin’s elected representatives abstained from the Westminster parliament and created a self-proclaimed legislature in Dublin called Dáil Éireann. At the same time, revolutionaries commenced a propaganda push that both explained the justice of the Irish case and demonized British colonialism and repression. The main audience was the United States, where Sinn Féiners such as Eamon de Valera and Mary MacSwiney crisscrossed the country raising money for and awareness of the cause. By 1921 the Dáil had at least taken on the appearance of a functioning government, particularly in the realms of finance, justice, and local government, and the IRA had fought a guerrilla campaign that gutted the Irish constabulary, significantly hindered British intelligence gathering in Ireland, and forced the British government to devote more resources to politically unpopular repressive measures. In July 1921 a truce was signed, as leaders on both sides feared the conflict had significantly strained political and economic resources. Weeks of negotiations in London began in October, and the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, most commonly referred to as the Anglo-Irish Treaty, were concluded in early December. The Treaty 3

4

Introduction

created the Irish Free State (Saorstát Éireann) with something similar to the status of a dominion. Under the agreement, a Dublin parliament had wide authority over Irish matters, full tariff autonomy, and the right to raise an Irish army. On the other hand, the Treaty placed Ireland clearly within the British Empire, forced Irish representatives to swear a watered-down oath of loyalty to the British Crown, gave the British military the right to use certain Irish ports, allowed six counties in Ulster to opt out of the Free State, and barred Ireland from undertaking its own naval defense. The Treaty passed through the British parliament rather easily—Ulster and Tory diehards complained, but lacked the votes to reject it—but caused a huge controversy in the more closely divided Sinn Féin Dáil. Pro- and anti-Treatyites differed on Ireland’s capability for further resistance, the possibility of wresting better terms from Britain, and the probability that Britain would actually allow Ireland the freedoms enjoyed by other dominions. In addition, antiTreatyites questioned the morality of swearing an oath to the Crown while also raising technical issues about the plenipotentiaries having exceeded their mandate and broken their promises to the Irish cabinet. The Treaty passed the Dáil by a slim margin of seven votes, and the dispute exploded into civil war by the summer of 1922. Although there were ranges of opinion within and between each camp on social, economic, and political issues, the two sides primarily differed on the wisdom of ratifying the Treaty. Elections in 1922 and 1923 generally favored acceptance of the Treaty, although not necessarily acceptance of the entire program of proTreaty Sinn Féin. Once anti-Treatyites were defeated in the field by the fall of 1922, they undertook a guerrilla campaign that Treatyites characterized as murder and sabotage. For their part, the Treatyite government executed seventy-seven anti-Treatyites without civil trials and held thousands more without formal charge. When anti-Treatyites dumped arms in May 1923 without formally surrendering, each side claimed that the other had committed atrocities that placed them beyond the pale of political cooperation. Anti-Treatyites continued to function initially under the banner of Sinn Féin, running candidates for and abstaining from the Dáil. Frustrated with this increasingly futile abstention, a majority of anti-Treatyites led by Eamon de Valera formed Fianna Fáil in 1926, and that party’s elected representatives finally entered the Dáil after the assassination of Treatyite Minister for Justice Kevin O’Higgins in 1927. On the pro-Treaty side, supporters voluntarily abandoned the name Sinn Féin, for reasons that have never been entirely clear, and formed a pro-Treaty political organization. After a false

Introduction

5

start in December 1922, the party was formally launched in April 1923 as Cumann na nGaedheal, reviving the name of one of Arthur Griffith’s first nationalist organizations. This party won a plurality in elections in August 1923, June 1927, and September 1927, before finally being ousted from government in February 1932. While in power, the government passed a constitution in the fall of 1922, prosecuted a civil war between 1922 and 1923, presided over a very unpopular final settlement of the northern boundary question in 1925, launched the Shannon hydroelectric scheme in 1925, and raised Ireland’s profile internationally at imperial conferences and League of Nations sessions throughout the decade. As Ireland’s economy crumbled as a result of civil war and worldwide depression, the Cumann na nGaedheal government also presided over a series of deeply unpopular austerity measures, including cuts to teachers’ salaries and old age pensions. Richard Stites, writing on the Russian Revolution, noted the tremendous potential inherent in any revolutionary period: “Revolution opens up new space and discloses endless vistas; it invites rebirth, cleansing, salvation. Revolution is Revelation, an eschatological moment in human experience that announces the New Order, the New World, the New Life.”2 When Ireland’s revolution failed to create this New World and revealed very few endless vistas, historians generally either focused on the more promising revolutionary period itself or wrote about the failure of the revolution in the years after 1921. This has led to an explicable, if not always analytically useful, divide between the revolutionary and postrevolutionary years that has effectively foregrounded discontinuities between the revolution and the early years of the Free State. While there undoubtedly were significant changes after 1921, as well as severe disappointments with the failure to achieve some revolutionary goals, there were also considerable lines of continuity between the pre- and post-Treaty years. The language of the revolution continued to exert a dominant influence over Irish politics well after the Treaty was signed in 1921 and the violence more or less put to rest by 1923. This is not to say that there was always a correlation between words and action, but post-1921 policies and initiatives were generally placed within a framework of ideas inherited from the revolution. Revolutionary themes, and debates over the interpretation of the revolution, animated most political discussion during the 1920s. Despite Georges Clemenceau’s famously pithy sentiment, revolutions are not blocs, either as they are transpiring or after they have been completed. Instead, all individuals, parties, and factions choose which parts of

6

Introduction

revolutionary ideology to emphasize, which to deemphasize, and which to ignore. This process of consolidating the revolutionary message begins during a revolution and often never resolves into a unified narrative. As a result, labeling Cumann na nGaedheal “counterrevolutionary” and Fianna Fáil or Sinn Féin “revolutionary,” as some historians have done, is not particularly useful analytically, as it does little to enhance understanding of the revolutionary period and its aftermath. This book attempts to reconnect Cumann na nGaedheal and the revolution, in particular showing how party leaders engaged with the legacy of the revolution. In so doing, it demonstrates how the themes, ideals, and rhetoric from the post-1916 era continued to resonate throughout the first decade of independence. This is not a defense of Cumann na nGaedheal’s personnel or policies but rather an analysis of how various Treatyite members of the government and the Dáil perceived and enunciated connections between the early years of the Free State and the revolution that had created it. This is, then, an analysis of the political world that Cumann na nGaedheal attempted to create and promote, not an analysis of the veracity or wisdom of any aspect of this project.3 There have been two broad approaches used in analyzing the early years of the Free State. The first emphasizes the state-building activities of the new regime, and the second highlights the conservative or counterrevolutionary tendencies of the Cumann na nGaedheal leaders. One of the most assertive presentations of the former is found in Joseph Curran’s The Birth of the Irish Free State, published in 1980. This was one of the earliest academic works to focus on the formative years of the Free State and is generally quite favorable to the Treatyite government. Curran argued that the Treaty was the best Ireland could get at the time and that it marked a significant advance for Ireland. The Birth of the Irish Free State also presented the civil war as a contest to preserve democracy and defended the executions of anti-Treaty prisoners as justified and effective, just as the founders of the Free State had.4 Leo Kohn underscored the constitutional and diplomatic structures created by the Free Staters, arguing that the Treaty was a revolutionary achievement because it granted sovereignty to the Irish state in a much more formal way than that enjoyed by the dominions. The Free State constitution built on this revolutionary settlement because, unlike Britain’s constitution, it was a formal document and was explicitly based on popular sovereignty.5 F. S. L. Lyons’s Ireland Since the Famine, more than any other general text on the period, praises the Free State government for laying a solid groundwork

Introduction

7

for independent Ireland, a feat that Lyons deemed “an astonishing performance.”6 Other historians have analyzed the creation of state institutions through the lens of a single individual. Maryann Valiulis’s biography of Richard Mulcahy focuses on the building of military institutions and emphasizes Mulcahy’s aim to remake Ireland into a Gaelic state.7 John McCarthy subtitled his biography of Kevin O’Higgins “Builder of the Irish State,” and the book detailed O’Higgins’s significant contributions to the creation of functioning Free State institutions.8 The state-building approach necessarily privileges the restoration of order and the suppression of those who threatened this order, often equating the restoration of order with the establishment or defense of democracy. John Regan has criticized this approach as an attempt to write the north out of twentieth-century Irish historiography. Regan charged that this widespread inattention to the north by historians is an echo of the “southern nationalism” consolidated during the revolutionary period.9 Southern revolutionaries essentially regarded partition as an acceptable price to pay for the independence of the southern state. Since southern nationalists wished to remain silent on the issue of partition, they instead turned their attention to state building as their dominant source of legitimacy. Starting in the 1960s, the violence in the north of Ireland moved historians toward even greater acceptance of the pro-Treaty foundational narrative, as delegitimizing the republicans of 1922 was thought to assist in the delegitimation of later IRA violence in the north.10 This bias on the part of historians, in turn, aided the southern state as it tried to reconcile public memory with the northern “Troubles.” In Regan’s words, “Following the northern crisis’s emergence in the late 1960s, the Republic’s Irish governments required a revised public history that could reconcile the state’s violent and revolutionary origins with its counterinsurgency against militarist-republicanism. At the same time many historians adopted constitutional, later democratic, state formation narratives for the south at the expense of historical precision. This facilitated a broader state-centered and statist historiography, mirroring the Republic’s desire to re-orientate its nationalism away from irredentism, toward the conscious accommodation of partition.”11 Regan also said that this state-centered approach overstated the Free Staters’ commitment to democracy and the rule of law, while understating the British origins of the new state.12 The other frequent approach to Cumann na nGaedheal has been to emphasize the often stifling conservatism of the early Free State. Rather

8

Introduction

than praise the state-building aspects of the regime, these historians tended to see such activities as repressive or anglicizing. Valiulis declared that the leaders of the Free State were “conservative, anti-army, not terribly committed to the ideals of a Gaelic Ireland, [and] they seemed more willing to mould the new State in the image of British society—with token gestures thrown to those who clung to the old ideals.” Bill Kissane argued that the revolution was conditioned by the society from which it sprung and, as a result, had “little impact on the ethos of a fundamentally conservative society.” Terence Brown’s Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, 1922 to the Present depicted the Cumann na nGaedheal government as sacrificing all idealism and imagination to its narrow and quotidian world view.13 Mike Cronin began his article on the Tailteann Art competition by invoking this lingering sense of disappointment: “The Irish Free State that was brought into existence in 1922 was not the state that had been dreamt of by the insurgents of 1916, nor the state imagined by those that had fought in the Anglo-Irish War.”14 Roy Foster summed this up by observing that “the rigorous conservatism of the Irish Free State has become a cliché.”15 However, the most intriguing recent works on Cumann na nGaedheal have claimed that the party was actively counterrevolutionary and had more in common with pre-1916 Irish nationalism than with post-1916 Sinn Féin. This is evident in Mary Kotsonouris’s Retreat from Revolution: The Dáil Courts, 1920–24, which focused on the winding up of the Dáil arbitration courts, a development that Kotsonouris saw as a betrayal of the revolution. She also argued that most of the political system of the Irish Free State reflected pre-1916 values and structures.16 Charles Townshend concurred: “There can be no doubt that here a deeply counter-revolutionary impulse made itself felt. What Kevin O’Higgins did when he wound up the Dáil courts in 1923 was effectively to squash the utopian dreams of Gaelicism (the recovery of Brehon law) with the insistence that the British legal system was not just practical but good. This was a total reversal of Sinn Féin ideology.”17 Bill Kissane observed that “the [Treaty] split also enabled the restoration of elements of moderate nationalism that had been bypassed during the First World War, and the construction of the new state along principles clearly central to the mainstream brand of parliamentary nationalism before 1918.”18 Although Kissane used the term “restoration” instead of the more loaded term “counterrevolution,” the thrust of his argument is clear: pro-Treatyites negated any revolutionary definition of Irish nationalism and returned instead to the moderate liberalism of the Irish Party.19

Introduction

9

To Kissane, leaving aside some limited nods toward the Irish language, the regime headed by W. T. Cosgrave in the 1920s was fundamentally Victorian, and “between the convening of parliament on 9 September 1922 and the imperial conference of 1926, the overriding logic of policy seemed to be to tie ‘southern Ireland’ more firmly to the Empire it had repudiated in 1918.” All else was window dressing, as the acceptance and consolidation of the Treaty annulled Sinn Féin’s revolutionary arguments for self-determination.20 Anne Dolan’s Commemorating the Irish Civil War similarly charged the Cumann na nGaedheal government with betraying the legacies of the revolution and judged its members harshly: “As revolutionaries the Treatyites had failed: there was no thirty-two county Ireland, no republic.”21 Dolan repeatedly invoked the tattered and hollow Arthur Griffith/Michael Collins cenotaph on Leinster Lawn as a symbol of the decaying and fraudulent Free State.22 For Dolan, though, the Free Staters were not so much actively countering the revolution as they were complacently disinterested in revolutionary-era goals. Fergus Campbell, while believing that the revolution had significant radical potential, also argued that it was eventually the “reactionary element among the elite of Sinn Féin” that triumphed.23 The portrayal of Cumann na nGaedheal as an actively counterrevolutionary party is most associated, however, with the work of John Regan, particularly in his The Irish Counter-Revolution. That book begins with a statement that the processes of consolidating and countering revolutions are inherent in the revolutionary trajectory itself: “All revolutions, sooner or later, have to be consolidated. A point is reached at which an attempt has to be made to turn aspirations into realities and in that process compromises have to be struck, dissenters abandoned, opponents suppressed. Implicit in the act of consolidating a revolution is countering it, and it is this second process which concerns this book.” The counterrevolution itself is given a dictionary definition: “a revolution opposing a former one or reversing its results.”24 Regan ultimately placed both Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil on the side of counterrevolution, fundamentally equating it with an acceptance of parliamentary politics and a rejection of violence: But in the process of becoming constitutional some parts of revolutionary nationalism did of necessity declare their revolution concluded. Griffith’s and Collins’ revolution ended on 28 June 1922, when they finally used violence against those advocating revolutionary violence as a force for change, namely the Executive forces of the anti-Treaty IRA in Dublin. The anti-treatyites’

10

Introduction

advocacy of revolutionary politics persisted in ever-decreasing numbers after 1922. The majority, realigned in Fianna Fáil in 1926, recognized the legitimacy of the new state and the primacy of politics over violence in 1927. . . . What defined the end of the revolution, or at least the end of so many personal revolutions, was the act of counterrevolution, both violent and non-violent, in defence of constitutional politics.25

Cumann na nGaedheal’s 1923 program demonstrated to Regan the onset of counterrevolution: “Its conservativeness, quite apart from the retarding interventions of the elite, reflected the political culture which had triumphed in a revolution which for the treatyite elite had now spun full circle into counter-revolution.” Similarly, “juxtaposed with the more passionate speeches which had chased the treaty through the Dáil a year before, or indeed the aspirational texts of the revolution—the 1916 Proclamation, the 1919 Declaration of Independence and Democratic Programme—the Cumann na nGaedheal constitution read as an agenda for the negation of revolution, not its implementation.”26 Those who sought to implement this policy, in particular Kevin O’Higgins, were deemed by Regan to have been reactionaries. Among Treatyites, Regan’s paradigm posits the counterrevolution as the triumph of non- or antirevolutionary “conservative-consolidationist” Treatyites over “progressive nationalist-republican” Treatyites. The first group consisted of parliamentary moderates such as O’Higgins, who, at least according to Regan, never really imbibed the stated ideals of the Irish revolution and were much more comfortable with the politics of the Irish Party. Regan admitted that some Treatyites—he calls them the “progressive nationalistrepublicans”—had greater adherence to the revolution, but they were marginalized in the years after Michael Collins’s death. For Regan, Collins was the only man who had the history, the credibility, and the credentials to bridge this gap, and his early death brought the divisions within the Treatyite elite into the open. Regan also argued that the hostility to revolution demonstrated by the conservative-consolidationist wing was driven by class interests. Throughout his work, Regan assumes that the arrogance and aloofness displayed by certain Treatyite leaders—particularly O’Higgins, Patrick Hogan, and Patrick McGilligan—was a product of their university educations and their fundamentally bourgeois origins and interests. This dovetails with Senia Pašeta’s dissection of prewar Catholic elites, in which she claimed that university education had an anglicizing influence

Introduction

11

and that the vast majority of University College Dublin undergraduates were Home Rulers rather than separatists.27 There are numerous difficulties, both conceptual and historical, with Regan’s approach, and viewing the 1920s through the lens of counterrevolution generally distorts the decade. First, this approach masks connections between the pre- and post-1921 period. The Cumann na nGaedheal government unquestionably disappointed many, but there were policy initiatives pursued and stances taken that had obvious revolutionary pedigrees. The emphasis on being a national party, probably disastrous to Cumann na nGaedheal in the long run, was a holdover from the Sinn Féin philosophy. The constant stress on Irish sovereignty and the attempt to use the British Commonwealth in an anti-imperial vein were also grounded in standard Sinn Féin rhetoric. Even Kevin O’Higgins’s quest for the creation of a civil society had at least some connection to the republican ideal of civic virtue. This is certainly not to say that Cumann na nGaedheal fulfilled all the promise of the revolution but that there were revolutionary origins to a number of its policies. There also were several policies that aimed at significant changes in the Irish polity, changes that get lost amidst discussion of counterrevolution. The presence of British-style structures of government should not conceal the fact that the early Free State leaders did desire significant transformations in Ireland. O’Higgins’s law and order emphasis was designed to overturn centuries of resistance to colonial government and to install a new postcolonial sense of civic virtue. Free Staters also tried to promote Ireland’s sovereignty on the international stage, using the League of Nations and the informal organs of the commonwealth to advance an interpretation of the Treaty as a foundational document for Irish sovereignty. Cumann na nGaedheal made a variety of missteps and has been justifiably criticized by contemporaries and historians, but there was a more ambitious plan emanating from the government in the 1920s than is often assumed. More problematically, the counterrevolutionary lens tends to project postTreaty positions back to pre-Treaty times, which leads to a distorted rendering of the Irish revolution as a conflict between “radicals” and “moderates.” The moderates are assumed to have wanted something similar to dominion status for most of the revolution and to have adhered to the republican line only so as not to split the movement. Radicals, then, were those who sought a republic at all costs and desired to use violence in achieving this end. The radical republic would then implement a social agenda similar to that

12

Introduction

presented in the 1919 Democratic Programme. Regan’s work adds a layer of class difference to this analysis, as the moderates are portrayed as Irish Party sheep in republican wolves’ clothing, hailing from the same wellheeled Catholic middle-class families that would have taken power under a Home Rule scheme. The radicals, in whom Regan assumed resided the “real” revolution, did not share their adversaries’ economic comfort, university educations, or expectations of power. This schema has the advantages of being analytically interesting and of removing the discussion of the Treaty from the excessive focus on personalities that has colored much of the historical writing on the period. However, it suffers from the disadvantage of grossly distorting the pre-Treaty landscape of Ireland and of assuming that post-Treaty divisions were conditioned almost entirely by pre-Treaty politics and origins. This is manifestly not true for many revolutionaries. While not all general schemas are wrong simply for being general—after all, historians often have to make some studied generalizations in order to render the past comprehensible—Regan’s model obscures as much as it illuminates. Simply put, evaluations of the Treaty itself—specifically Britain’s willingness to offer more, Ireland’s ability to achieve more, and the sacrifice that was justifiable in attempting to get more—created the split in Irish republicanism. There were certainly those whose political positions were consistent from pre- to post-Treaty times: Cathal Brugha wanted a republic at almost any cost, and Arthur Griffith’s lifelong enthusiasm for dual monarchy sat uneasily with his position as a leader of ostensibly republican Sinn Féin after 1917. However, for most leading Irish revolutionaries, the Treaty was a line of demarcation. Those who were “moderate” postTreaty would not necessarily fit that label pre-Treaty, and many of the radical republicans of 1922 or 1923 had not been thought of as such in earlier years. Eamon de Valera and George Gavan Duffy had similar university educations to O’Higgins and Hogan. Rory O’Connor was a Clongowes student. Erskine Childers wrote a manifesto for Home Rule in 1912. O’Higgins and Cosgrave voted to reject any oath of allegiance as late as October 1921 and would not have accepted the Treaty but for the fact that it was already signed by the plenipotentiaries. Collins and Richard Mulcahy were among the most vocal proponents of an active military policy, and no one would have pegged them as essentially middle-class liberals in 1920 or 1921. Certainly, differences of opinion within Sinn Féin existed before the Treaty was signed, but it is not helpful to see the issue in terms of “moderates” and “radicals,” particularly if those labels are linked to class and projected back before the Treaty’s signing.

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Basically, despite attempts at keeping the concepts separate, Regan conflated countering the revolution and consolidating the revolution. As Regan said, all revolutions must be consolidated, but the process of state building does not mean that the achievements of the revolution are overturned. Regan’s model ends up placing both Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil, which together encompassed the vast majority of participants in the Irish revolution, in the counterrevolutionary camp. This implies that the “real” revolution was that envisioned by the rather disparate group of republicans who continued to reject the authority of the Irish state well into the 1930s. This equation of the Irish revolution with violent separatist republicanism, and counterrevolution with acceptance of parliamentary politics and rejection of violence, is problematic on a number of levels. First, if Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil were both counterrevolutionary parties, and if the vast majority of participants in the Irish revolution ended up as counterrevolutionaries, then there was not much of an Irish revolution at all. To equate the rejection of revolutionary violence with counterrevolution—as Regan does when he dates Collins’s and Griffith’s counterrevolution to June 1922 and de Valera’s to his entry into the Dáil and condemnation of O’Higgins’s assassination in 1927—vastly oversimplifies the nature and intent of revolutionary violence.28 A model that renders counterrevolutionary the use of violence against any group wishing to promote its definition of the revolution leads to the unenviable position of having to classify Lenin as a counterrevolutionary for suppressing the Kronstadt rebellion, and Robespierre as a counterrevolutionary for executing the Hébertists. Simply using violence against self-proclaimed revolutionaries seems insufficient to transform one into a counterrevolutionary. Regan is correct in noting that the violent and unmandated origins of the southern state (or at least of the Easter Rising) made southern nationalists and many elements of southern society uncomfortable once violence erupted in the north in the 1960s. However, using resistance to, or denunciation of, violence as a measuring stick for counterrevolutionary tendencies implicitly assumes that Irish revolutionaries were not capable of distinguishing what they considered legitimate, viable, and productive uses of violence. Free Staters such as Mulcahy and Collins argued vigorously that resistance to British instruments of government was legitimate, whereas resistance to Irish instruments of government was not. Regardless of the veracity of that argument, simply voicing it does not make someone a counterrevolutionary. Similarly, de Valera argued that his constitution of 1937, along with

14

Introduction

the earlier removal of the oath to the British king, meant that republicans could sufficiently participate in politics so as to make further revolutionary violence illegitimate. His argument was not accepted by some in the IRA, but that alone does not convert de Valera into a counterrevolutionary. By this logic, Eoin MacNeill, Terence MacSwiney, and Michael Collins would have been counterrevolutionaries in 1916: MacNeill for countermanding the orders for the Rising, MacSwiney for accepting this countermand, and Collins for claiming that the methods and tactics chosen in 1916 were ridiculous and futile. Only a very few revolutionaries would have said that violence was appropriate or effective in all situations and circumstances, as the historical context, choice of targets, chance of success, and other options available all influenced revolutionary decisions on the efficacy of violence. Equating acceptance of constitutionalism with counterrevolutionary tendencies also ignores the very significant constitutional or parliamentary tradition within the revolutionary movement. Violence was certainly a part of the Irish revolution, as was republicanism, but the revolution is not reducible to either of those characteristics. Standing largely outside of either of these two approaches is Ciara Meehan’s recent The Cosgrave Party, 1922–33. Meehan did not specifically engage with many of the ongoing historiographical debates, other than to assert that a “more balanced judgment” of Cumann na nGaedheal is needed from historians, who have either been unfairly critical or have neglected the party’s significant achievements.29 She argued that Cumann na nGaedheal’s greatest achievement was the creation of stability and that many of the weaknesses it manifested, particularly at the grassroots level, were a product of the strange circumstances of its formation. Unlike most political parties, which are created to gain power, Cumann na nGaedheal was formed after its leaders were already in power, making the party leadership slow to recognize the necessity of quotidian electoral and organizational activities, and also perhaps more willing to put the interests of state ahead of those of party.30 Although she detailed the creation of a variety of Free State institutions, Meehan’s most novel contribution was her focus on Cumann na nGaedheal’s electoral activity, which she subjected to a close analysis. She claimed that the party was much more active politically and electorally than previously thought, in particular through its innovative uses of new electoral techniques such as airplanes, film, and radio. Meehan’s work is admirable in that it neither focuses exclusively on state building nor depicts an image of the party as static or counterrevolutionary. However, The Cosgrave

Introduction

15

Party sidesteps the revolution almost entirely, finding the roots of Cumann na nGaedheal in the Irish Party’s tradition of “moderate nationalism” or “constitutional nationalism.”31 The comparison to the Irish Party understates the changes ushered in by the revolution and minimizes the lines of continuity between the revolution and the postrevolutionary period. I argue for a different approach to the study of the Cumann na nGaedheal period. Regan’s criticisms of the state-building slant have merit, but he tends to posit absolute dichotomies between the revolution and the postrevolutionary period and between state building and revolution. Instead, the ideas, rhetoric, and legacies of the revolutionary period hung heavily over the new government and were often invoked in creating and defending its policies. There were certainly some discontinuities between the preand post-1921 periods, but there also were significant continuities, many of which have been buried in the recent literature on Cumann na nGaedheal. Those historians focusing on state building have emphasized the technical aspects of that process, and not its revolutionary context, while those who argue for a counterrevolution have obviously taken pains to divorce post-Treaty politics and institutions from the revolution that spawned them. This work, in contrast, will place greater emphasis on the lines of continuity between the pre- and post-Treaty years, and particularly on those continuities perceived and articulated by Cumann na nGaedheal leaders themselves. Those continuities are most obvious in the general field of political culture, particularly rhetoric. Tom Garvin, borrowing from Almond and Powell’s Comparative Politics, defined political culture as “the psychological dimension of the political system,” including the “attitudes, beliefs, values and skills which are current in a political community. . . . It is perhaps most usefully thought of as the ‘memory’ of the political system.”32 An analysis of political culture and political language is a crucial way by which Cumann na nGaedheal can be incorporated into revolutionary historiography, because political language is a key aspect in the creation of legitimacy. In the words of Orlando Figes, writing about the Russian Revolution, “All these systems of symbolic meaning defined and separated the competing sides of the political struggle. Indeed, at one important level they were the object of the fight itself, the symbolic battlefield of the revolution, in so far as each side competed for the ascendancy of its own political symbols within the political culture of 1917.”33 Figes argued that language both created and then reflected the differences between various groupings of socialists in the Russian Revolution.

16

Introduction

A similar conclusion can be reached about the Irish revolution. In many ways, the dispute between pro-Treatyites and anti-Treatyites was mostly about language, since there was a broad socioeconomic consensus between the two sides. Pro- and anti-Treatyites differed over the meaning of words— self-determination, sovereignty, Saorstát, freedom, Commonwealth—more than they differed over fundamental social or economic issues. Roy Foster was right in writing of the civil war that “exalted leaders first fought out a brutal duel over a form of words,” but this form of words perhaps mattered more than Foster appeared to concede.34 Irish politics took much of its twentieth-century shape from the split over the Treaty, and the linguistic differences exposed and created by the Treaty revealed different worldviews and modes of thought among formerly united Irish revolutionaries. Without getting as schematic as Jeffery Prager, who refers to the two sides as IrishEnlightenment and Gaelic-Romantic, or Tom Garvin, who sees the struggle as one between majoritarian democrats and the “public band,” there is a fundamental difference here that prevented Irish politics from developing along more conventional left-right lines.35 One of the difficulties involved in studying the Irish revolution through the prism of language is the confusion between revolutionary language and revolutionary acts. To improve their political fortunes, and to repress the violent revolt of anti-Treatyites during the civil war, pro-Treaty leaders tried to shift the discourse of Irish politics to one of evolution. This does not mean that they rejected wholesale, or tried to overturn, the ideas of the revolution. Like other Irish political parties, they prioritized some of the ideas of the revolution and discarded others, but they attempted to wrap and repackage these ideas in a discourse that they believed was better suited for a postcolonial, postrevolutionary period of state building (and, of course, better suited to promote their own political futures). Closer attention to the language of the postrevolutionary period allows entry into the world that pro-Treaty leaders wanted to create and rescues some significant lines of continuity between the pre- and post-Treaty periods. This book, then, is as much about the world that Cumann na nGaedheal leaders thought they were building, or at least rhetorically articulated, as it is about the Irish society and political world that actually existed in the 1920s. The incorporation of Cumann na nGaedheal into the revolutionary era has a number of benefits for historians. First, it salvages individual Cumann na nGaedheal leaders (particularly O’Higgins and Cosgrave) from the shadow of Collins and de Valera and allows them to be evaluated as

Introduction

17

revolutionaries. It also places emphasis on lines of continuity from the prerevolutionary period that continued into the Free State and thus reveals a more assertive agenda by party leaders. Seeing Cumann na nGaedheal as something other than a party of counterrevolutionaries or betrayers of the revolutionary promise allows both its successes and failures to be evaluated differently than is evident in the works of many previous historians. This is not to argue that the first decade of the Free State was an unqualified success, or to exonerate Cumann na nGaedheal from blame for mistakes made while in office, but rather to overturn this disconnection between Cumann na nGaedheal and the revolution. Without a doubt, the thinking of Treatyites about the revolution did undergo some changes in the 1920s. These were not static views. The three major factors in altering Treatyite thinking about the revolution in the 1920s were the Treaty, the civil war, and the Treatyites’ growing experience in government. The latter involved bureaucratizing, regulating, and controlling the revolutionary impulse, solving what F. S. L. Lyons called “the problems of accommodating the revolutionary spirit within the framework of constitutional politics.”36 Some disappointment inevitably followed, and the government had to placate both those who wanted the revolution to go further as well as those who felt nostalgia for the heady revolutionary days when everything seemed possible. The other two factors were rooted in a particular Irish history. Treatyites had to engage with the legacy bequeathed to them by the revolution, in the context of a compromise Treaty, a divided polity, a civil war, and a weakened leadership caste. They did this by repackaging, reiterating, and reasserting the ideals and goals of the revolution within the new context. Cumann na nGaedheal leaders, like any other revolutionaries, chose which revolutionary ideas to emphasize after the Treaty was signed and which to alter, dismantle, or ignore. Their prioritization of revolutionary ideas is itself revealing, of course, and was not value free, but it was also not inherently counterrevolutionary or inauthentic. Liam Mellows’s revolution was no more inherently “real” than was W. T. Cosgrave’s or Sean Milroy’s. The new government particularly highlighted three themes from the revolution. The first was Irish sovereignty and self-determination. Cumann na nGaedheal leaders repeatedly boasted of having brought about Irish self-determination and positioned this as the central achievement of the Irish revolution. Often, Cumann na nGaedheal linked Irish sovereignty with parliamentary democracy, particularly during the civil war. Anglo-Irish

18

Introduction

relations were similarly framed in terms of protecting or advancing Irish sovereignty, a goal that even trumped the Free State’s financial needs. Throughout Cumann na nGaedheal’s decade in power, the party usually assured its constituents that the various restrictions placed on the Free State by the Anglo-Irish Treaty did not fundamentally impose on Irish sovereignty. The internal achievements of the government—the restoration of order, the creation of law, and the setting up of a functioning parliamentary system— were also touted as the fruits of sovereignty. A second theme concerned the government’s attempt to make the new state “Irish.” There is an old joke that Cumann na nGaedheal painted the mailboxes green and changed very little else. There were some similarities between the Free State and the British state, including the use of the English language, the structure of the judicial system, and the general tenets of parliamentary government. However, there was a concerted effort by Cumann na nGaedheal to create an “Irish” state. Surprisingly, historians have not generally queried what was meant by an “Irish” state, too often conflating it entirely with attempts to revive the Irish language. While the language movement was critical to most revolutionaries, the desire to make the state Irish went beyond the language and included calls for an Irish political system, an Irish economic policy, and even an Irish fiscal policy. Cumann na nGaedheal’s attempt to create an Irish state, therefore, needs to be reanalyzed in light of the ambiguity and breadth with which the revolutionaries themselves defined an ideal Irish state. Members of Cumann na nGaedheal were more concerned with language revival than often assumed, and the party also undertook a number of other initiatives that were justified in terms of a desire to make the state and the polity more Irish, or to reflect particularly Irish realities. For example, the government strove to create an Irish place in the empire, depicting Ireland as different from the other dominions; an Irish political system, using extern ministers and a different electoral system than Great Britain; an Irish “national” party representing all of Ireland; and an Irish state that included the principles and goals of the Gaelic revival. The Free State under Cumann na nGaedheal was also explicitly anticolonial, something minimized in much of the recent literature. There has been significant debate in Irish historiography of late as to whether Ireland was a colony or part of the metropole. The revolutionaries themselves rejected any metropolitan inclusion and believed that Ireland had been colonized by Great Britain. They nuanced this, however, by arguing that Ireland was not a settler colony—as Canada and other dominions were often dismissively

Introduction

19

described by Sinn Féiners—but an historic nation and a mother country, as Britain was. Despite being forced into the empire by the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and despite frequent accusations of Anglophilia leveled against them by political opponents, there was an expressed anticolonial dimension to Cumann na nGaedheal’s policy in the 1920s. The party preferred warmer relations with Great Britain than did its republican opponents, but this did not equate to neocolonialism. Instead, many Cumann na nGaedheal policies were infused with anticolonialism or justified with anticolonial rhetoric. Free State diplomats sought to forge an alliance with other dominions, with the intention of using combined dominion strength to resist metropolitan domination. Cumann na nGaedheal also aggressively asserted Irish sovereignty within the empire, resisting British attempts to create an empire-wide foreign policy or to have the Crown occupy anything but a symbolic position within Ireland. Cumann na nGaedheal’s restoration of order after the revolution and civil war, for which the party has received substantial criticism, was also contextualized and explained by party leaders through references to the colonial experience, as the government frequently claimed that colonialism had conditioned the Irish people to think that resistance to authority and disobedience of the law were noble acts. The government therefore sought to alter that attitude and create a civic space and a sense of civic virtue after these had been denigrated, or at least not nurtured, by the colonial experience. The book treats Cumann na nGaedheal and its rhetoric thematically. Chapter 1 establishes the groundwork, focusing on how the Treaty became the foundation for Treatyite rhetoric and how pro-Treaty politicians attempted to divorce anti-Treatyites from the revolutionary legacy during the civil war. Chapter 2 highlights Cumann na nGaedheal’s focus on sovereignty and national self-determination. This centered on an attempt, largely articulated by Kevin O’Higgins, to create a new sense of civic virtue in Ireland after the withdrawal of colonial structures and institutions. O’Higgins believed that genuine self-determination could never be achieved without a significant alteration in Irish political culture and the ending of what both Treatyites and republicans called, in very different contexts and with very different intended targets, the “slave mind.” The focus among Cumann na nGaedheal leaders was on building up the institutions of the new state, creating laws that enabled the state to defend itself from internal enemies and occasionally resorting to extralegal or extraordinary measures to defend the state when ordinary mechanisms seemed insufficient.

20

Introduction

Chapter 3 discusses the attempt to create an Irish or Gaelic state, a key plank of the revolutionary ideology. Nearly all revolutionaries invoked a desire to make the new state Gaelic, but most historians have not really examined the full range of what was meant by this. Much of this rhetoric centered on language policy—initiatives for which Cumann na nGaedheal often receives little credit—but there also was an attempt to re-create an Irish national party out of the wreckage of Sinn Féin. This had two major aspects: the attempt by the government to be above party and distinguishable from a party government and the creation of a broadly based Cumann na nGaedheal party that incorporated all elements of the nation. This was perceived to be superior to the various sectional parties, particularly the Farmers’ Party and the Labour Party, that formed Cumann na nGaedheal’s major opposition in the Dáil before 1927. This enmity to party was a holdover from the hostility to the Irish Party and “party” politics, and shared much rhetorically with Sinn Féin, but ended up alienating those Sinn Féin veterans who did not approve of the inclusion of former opponents of the revolution under Cumann na nGaedheal’s banner. The government also pursued an Irish economic policy through the imposition of tariffs, however halfheartedly, and initially contemplated some new features of the state that would distinguish it from its British predecessor. Chapters 4 and 5 analyze the furtherance of Irish sovereignty, which was the major thrust of Cumann na nGaedheal foreign policy. Hoping to retain a connection to the anti-imperialism of Sinn Féin, Cumann na nGaedheal leaders attempted to use the mechanisms of the British Commonwealth and the League of Nations against Britain. They wanted, in short, to make an anti-imperial commonwealth. Despite its reputation of being slavish to Britain, the Free State government actually took frequent opportunity to highlight its political independence from Great Britain and made the display of sovereignty one of its most important goals.37 The final chapter is on the period after 1927. The entrance of Fianna Fáil into the Dáil changed Irish politics dramatically. Challenged for the first time in parliament by a party that explicitly derived its ideas from the revolution, Cumann na nGaedheal leaders reasserted their Irishness and their revolutionary credentials with greater force and frequency and dropped entirely the praise of small, shifting factions that had been proposed during the debates on the constitution. Instead, they aimed again for a party large enough to govern on its own, and strong enough to keep Fianna Fáil out of power.

Introduction

21

This book proposes to study Cumann na nGaedheal through the lens of revolution. The end result is an analysis of Cumann na nGaedheal’s engagement with the revolution and its attempt to frame its policies in terms of the revolution. Ultimately, the electorate rejected this assertion, believing that Fianna Fáil was instead the better choice to govern as the revolution faded into memory. However, Cumann na nGaedheal’s lack of electoral success after 1932 does not mean that it is unworthy of study during its years in power, or that it was somehow inherently disconnected from the revolution. Ideally, this work will start a discussion of Cumann na nGaedheal’s relationship with the revolution and enable readers to see both the party and the revolution in a new light.

1 The Treaty and the Revolutionary Inheritance

T

he Treatyites were brought to power by what all concerned believed to have been a revolution. They did not want to ignore their origins, nor did they want to overturn all the principles and ideas that had propelled their rise. Instead, they had to accommodate the ideas of the revolution in a context changed immensely by the Treaty and the civil war, each of which had to be framed as contributing to the furtherance of the revolutionary project. At least for their first few years in office, the Treatyites’ rhetoric was largely designed to merge revolutionary goals and principles with post-Treaty realities without surrendering the revolutionary heritage to the republicans, who were eager to claim it for themselves and to paint their Treatyite opponents as traitors. Despite abandoning the name Sinn Féin, the Treatyites did not discard their revolutionary legacy as easily as is sometimes asserted. The notion of an “afterimage,” a visual image that lingers after the object itself disappears from the field of vision, is an apt metaphor for the revolution’s importance in Ireland throughout the 1920s, and it highlights how the ideas and ideals of the revolution were not abandoned in the 1920s but remained an important part of Cumann na nGaedheal rhetoric and policy throughout the decade. The Treatyite government had to manage the personnel and institutions it inherited from the revolution, break the links between anti-Treatyites and the revolution, and elevate the Treaty as a means of fulfilling revolutionary goals. This meant diagnosing the civil war as something other than a contest between republican revolutionaries and Treatyite apostates and also positioning Treatyite ministers as the true guardians of Irish revolutionary 22

The Treaty and the Revolutionary Inheritance

23

nationalism. In essence, they had to incorporate the Treaty into the revolutionary narrative while excluding anti-Treaty republicans from that same narrative. Historians have obviously differed on the Treaty, just as Sinn Féiners did at the time. Joseph Curran, in the context of a generally pro–Free State book, characterized the Treaty as “much more radical in implication than either its Irish critics or British supporters were willing to admit.”1 Leo Kohn argued that “the Treaty represented the most revolutionary settlement ever effected within the framework of the British Empire,” pointing to its transformation of dominion status through a watered-down oath, the equation of de facto and de jure status, and the fact that it was formulated as a Treaty, which implied equality between signatories. Kohn calls the agreement “the supreme vindication of the original policy of Sinn Féin.”2 Historians who generally depict the Treaty as a positive development take something similar to Michael Collins’s line, emphasizing the disparity in power between the two sides, the evolutionary potential of Ireland under the document, and the unwillingness of the British to go much beyond their final offer.3 John Regan, on the other hand, has argued that the negotiators could have achieved more had they followed de Valera’s plan to allow the negotiations to collapse, and that the Treaty paved the way for the negation of the Irish revolution. Dorothy Macardle’s seminal prorepublican history The Irish Republic observed: “It was not such a Treaty as would conceivably be freely negotiated and freely signed between two independent States. It not only made partition possible but it prevented the wishes of the inhabitants from being the sole determining factor in delimiting boundaries.”4 These differing opinions on the Treaty, which were certainly already current in 1921, illustrate the difficulty faced by Treatyites in writing the document into the revolutionary narrative. The implementation of the revolution and the Treaty was presided over by a group of men who had themselves participated in the revolution and had revolutionary pedigrees of various depths. Regan has called the first eleven state ministers the “treatyite elite,” arguing that they marked a break from the Collins-Griffith leadership and that “these eleven did, despite internal contradictions and conflicts, come to form an identifiably different political subculture within the Treaty party which had produced them by virtue of their experience of what became their crucible in 1922–3.” Regan admitted that the elite were not “homogeneous in terms of policy or ideological outlook,” but he persisted in seeing them as some sort of unified group, with

24

The Treaty and the Revolutionary Inheritance

the unity being attributed to civil war service in government.5 An elite with different ideologies and policy views, not to mention varying class origins and revolutionary histories, seems hardly a cohesive elite at all, and truly not much connected these men other than acceptance of the Treaty in some fashion. W. T. Cosgrave presided over the first Free State government and would continue to lead Cumann na nGaedheal governments until the party was voted out of office in 1932. Cosgrave’s family ran a public house on James’s Street in Dublin, and he had a long history of nationalist activity, including being present at the founding of the Irish Volunteers and Sinn Féin. He had been a Sinn Féin member of the Dublin Corporation since 1909, taking a particular interest in finance and housing, and as such had more government experience than any of his colleagues. He fought at the South Dublin Union in 1916 and had his subsequent death sentence commuted to penal servitude. Chosen as minister for local government in the 1919 Dáil cabinet, Cosgrave presided over one of the most successful revolutionary-era departments, although it appears that his assistant minister Kevin O’Higgins did the bulk of the work and Cosgrave frequently absented himself from his duties, at one point hiding in a monastery in the Dublin mountains for several months. Under the Free State, Cosgrave was president of the Executive Council and also briefly minister for defense and finance. Cosgrave has been frequently neglected by historians in favor of some of his flashier colleagues, and he still awaits an academic biography. Most historians have presented him as solid, unassuming, and dependable, although there is some variance. Stephen Collins, in his joint analysis of W. T. and Liam Cosgrave, is one of the few writers who gives unstinting praise to Cosgrave, crediting him with “establishing the basic democratic norms which have characterized a free Ireland.”6 Brian Farrell described him as a “chairman” rather than a “chief,” and his leadership style has generally been viewed as more collective than individualistic.7 Tom Garvin noted that Cosgrave, like Seán Lemass, was from Dublin and as a result was less concerned than many of his colleagues with romanticizing rural life.8 The dominant view of Cosgrave, however, has been that of a mediator, successfully keeping his often divisive and divided cabinet colleagues in line.9 This assertion is most often made without any significant evidence, as in most of the cases where mediation seemed critical—the Army Mutiny, the defection of the National Group, the departure of J. J. Walsh in 1927, and the potential merger with the Farmers’ Party—Cosgrave signally failed to prevent rupture. The

The Treaty and the Revolutionary Inheritance

25

difficulty of subsequent historians in pinning down Cosgrave’s positions on a variety of specific issues, from tariff reform to army autonomy, has led to a sometimes-misleading characterization of him as the quintessential moderate, both pre- and post-Treaty.10 The formidable Kevin O’Higgins was Cosgrave’s deputy for much of his early governmental career. O’Higgins came from a professional family, with his father a successful rural doctor who had purchased land in County Laois. Educated as a lawyer at University College Dublin (although he never practiced), he had a self-admitted history of underachievement and drift before the revolution. After being jailed for various antirecruiting and antigovernment activities, he was co-opted into the cabinet informally as assistant minister for local government during the revolution, gaining a reputation for intellectual acuity and organizational ability. He was sworn into the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) but never had any significant military role either during or after the revolutionary period. He was briefly minister for economic affairs in 1922 before settling into the Home Affairs/Justice portfolio for the rest of his life.11 He also took a considerable interest in foreign affairs, assuming the role of minister of external affairs for a few weeks before his assassination in 1927. O’Higgins was a witty, incisive, and sharp-tongued debater and often spoke for the government in the Dáil. He did not suffer fools gladly and remained obsessed throughout his career with the perceived perfidy and dishonesty of de Valera during the crucial period leading up to civil war. O’Higgins’s championing of the various public safety bills as well as his defense of the government’s execution policy during the civil war—in particular his apparent foreshadowing of Erskine Childers’s execution in a Dáil speech and his defense of four extralegal reprisal executions in December 1922— led the republican journal An Phoblacht to christen him “one of the most blood-guilty Irishmen in our generation.”12 Supporters and opponents alike tended to see him as the strong man of the Free State government and as a rather grim, unbending figure who ruthlessly pursued political opponents. Regan placed O’Higgins at the center of the counterrevolution, attributing to him a Machiavellian political sense and a consistent desire to elevate the interests of fellow university-educated, upper-middle-class elites. A recent biographer has been more favorable in his judgment, seeing O’Higgins as one whose youthful revolutionary impulses were moderated by actual experience in government and as someone generally committed to ecumenism and healing the divisions within Irish society.13

26

The Treaty and the Revolutionary Inheritance

Richard Mulcahy was the senior military figure in the Treatyite regime. Mulcahy was a postal clerk from Waterford whose initial desire to become a physician was sidetracked by his involvement with the revolution. Mulcahy participated in one of the few large-scale engagements of the Easter Rising, an attack on a police barracks at Ashbourne, Co. Meath. After being freed from prison, Mulcahy remained involved with the Volunteers, serving as chief of staff for the Anglo-Irish War and generally siding with Collins in disputes with Austin Stack and Cathal Brugha. Mulcahy shared a common clerkish officiousness with Collins but lacked his friend’s exuberance and charm. After 1916 Mulcahy never again served in the field, spending the rest of his military career behind a desk as he moved from chief of staff to commander in chief and minister for defense. Mulcahy was also a proficient Gaelic speaker who was passionately committed to the ideal of an Irish Ireland. Maryann Valiulis, in her biography of Mulcahy, sought to position him somewhat between anti-Treatyites such as de Valera—who Mulcahy despised and blamed for the civil war—and less “Gaelic” Treatyites such as O’Higgins and Cosgrave. Valiulis wrote, “Mulcahy’s position is more accurately represented by the terms middle class, Gaelic League, Sinn Féin, Volunteer, IRB, and also pro-Treaty.”14 Ernest Blythe was the sole northern Protestant among the Cumann na nGaedheal leadership. A pre-Rising recruiter for the IRB, Blythe wrote a violent article for the organization’s paper in 1913 arguing for the shooting of policemen. He was also a lifelong Irish language enthusiast. He had a minor position in the revolutionary government before becoming minister for local government and then minister for finance in the Free State. Blythe was sharp-tongued and presided over deeply unpopular austerity budgets. He initially wrote memos critical of Collins’s northern policy and claimed to understand his fellow northerners better than his cabinet colleagues did, but he rarely attempted to speak for his Protestant coreligionists as the Cosgrave government adopted several Catholic social policies in the 1920s. The remaining figures of note were Patrick Hogan, Patrick McGilligan, and Desmond FitzGerald. Because of their rather lofty class status and university educations, Regan lumped these men together with O’Higgins as a sort of haughty, Anglophile elite at the heart of the government. Hogan was a Galway landowner and lawyer who parlayed a minimal involvement with Sinn Féin before the revolution into a somewhat surprising appointment as minister for agriculture in 1922, supposedly at the instigation of Joseph McGrath. Hogan received a lot of criticism from republicans for his

The Treaty and the Revolutionary Inheritance

27

perceived lack of a war record and from smaller farmers for his ministry’s apparent favoritism toward larger farmers and grazers. Even more than O’Higgins, Hogan often seemed to mock revolutionary shibboleths—he and Blythe both claimed that the Free State was superior to a republic, for example—and he was never a particularly popular figure. Patrick McGilligan was another northerner, albeit a Catholic. He had been expelled from his golf club in 1916 for wearing a Sinn Féin emblem, and his residence was used as a safe house during the revolution, but other than that he had a fairly undistinguished war record.15 Having served as a secretary to O’Higgins and as a memo writer for the Treaty plenipotentiaries, McGilligan was chosen to replace McGrath as minister for industry and commerce in 1924 and took over for the assassinated O’Higgins as minster for external affairs in 1927. Wordy and erudite, McGilligan piloted the Shannon Scheme through the Dáil as well as defended the government’s record at the imperial conferences and on external affairs more generally in the face of hostile Fianna Fáil questioning. Desmond FitzGerald, unlike Hogan and McGilligan, did have a significant revolutionary pedigree. An IRB and Irish language activist who often worked with Blythe before the Rising, he fought in the General Post Office (GPO) and worked in publicity after his release. He was minister for external affairs until 1927 and then took over the Defense portfolio for the government’s remaining five years. FitzGerald was also a professorial type, taking an academic interest in issues of Catholic theology and morality. He had the reputation of being more interested in such questions than in his ministerial duties and was already being overshadowed in the External Affairs portfolio by O’Higgins as early as 1924. These Cumann na nGaedheal leaders, among other pressing tasks, had to decide which revolutionary institutions to preserve and which revolutionaryera personnel should continue to function within those institutions. Not surprisingly, they equivocated on this issue, continuing some revolutionaryera institutions and personnel while discarding others. However, institutions and people were not rejected simply because they were revolutionary in origin, and neither were they kept solely for that reason. This caused difficulties between the government and both the army and the Cumann na nGaedheal political party itself, with the government frequently accused of passing over revolutionary participants in favor of former British officials, officers, and sympathizers. This issue cropped up most notably during the Army Mutiny, and also during the creation of a merit-based civil service. Cumann na nGaedheal party leaders emphasized that revolution and state

28

The Treaty and the Revolutionary Inheritance

building were different—but not oppositional or disconnected—tasks that required different skill sets. They claimed that Irish politicians, bureaucrats, and officers should be selected on abilities, not on history. The Irish Independent summarized a 1927 O’Higgins speech as follows: “They [the government] did not want to be returned out of gratitude for what they did in the past, which should only be regarded as an indication of future service. . . . He thought there should be no such thing as gratitude in public life.”16 While admitting that some men and organizations had served the nation well in the past, Cumann na nGaedheal leaders claimed that this did not necessarily mean that they were well-suited for positions in the government. Implicit in this argument is an assumption that the kinds of people necessary and valuable in making a revolution were not the same kinds of people necessary in that revolution’s aftermath: the tasks of creating havoc and of state building were not the same. This was not a repudiation of the revolution and its goals but, instead, an assertion that voicing ideals was a separate task from putting them into practice. This attitude also stemmed from a concern with making the new Free State into a meritocracy. Sinn Féin had taken a stand for meritocracy, but this proved controversial to implement after a successful revolution.17 In fact, the government’s disdain for jobbery, motivated both by ideals and revulsion against the politics of the old Irish Party, was one of the major points of contention between the Cumann na nGaedheal elite and the rank-andfile party organization. Ernest Blythe took particular pride in this, claiming later that it cost votes but resulted in a clean government: “I think there are few countries where there is a better standard of public morality, or where the Government can boast of cleaner hands in all respects than the present Government. As a matter of fact, a great deal of support has been lost to the Government because it would not descend to the policy of jobbery and favouritism that a lot of people expected. If we had been looking only for electoral advantages we could have got them by doing things that we did not think were in the best public interest.”18 He made the same point in a 1927 election speech: “No Government in the world was cleaner than the Free State Government. In no Government was there less jobbery or corruption. All appointments were made by competitive examination and on merit alone, and the Government had absolutely no control over them.”19 The government faced a similar struggle with the revolutionary-era institutions they inherited. Preserving the Dáil was never seriously questioned

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until Fine Gael dabbled in corporatism in the early 1930s, although republicans frequently challenged whether the Free State Dáil was legally and morally the successor of the revolutionary Dáil. Nevertheless, nearly all Irish revolutionaries were committed to parliamentary democracy and the existence of an elected parliament. In retrospect, the most significant institutional innovation from the revolutionary years was Collins’s creation of a Ministry of Finance out of a variety of Dublin Castle departments.20 The government also had to decide what to do with other revolutionary-era institutions, most notably the Dáil courts and the army.21 Invoking the revolution, whether its ideas, personnel, or institutions, also created political dangers for Cumann na nGaedheal politicians, particularly given the methods that were often used during the revolution to elevate those ideas, personnel, and institutions. Any attempt to cite the revolutionary legacy, while still standing for law and order and suppression of republicanism, tangled Cumann na nGaedheal politicians in logical and moral difficulties. In general, the government had to explain why tactics used in the revolutionary period were no longer valid after 1921. The difference, for Cumann na nGaedheal leaders, was the legitimacy of the government. The Treaty, and the election that followed it, bolstered the legitimacy that Treatyites believed they had received from the revolution. Tactics used against the British were legitimate because the British colonial state itself was illegitimate. Conversely, the same tactics used against the Free State were illegitimate because the government itself was legitimate. In pinpointing the source of that legitimacy, the Free Staters invoked the revolution itself, the Treaty, the Irishness of the government, the elections held under the Free State, and the availability of an electoral recourse to oust the government. In explaining this difference, Cosgrave fell back on the creation of democracy in Ireland, that there was “no right of rebellion, . . . none whatever” against a government sanctioned by the majority of its citizens. He also noted that arresting dissenters under an Irish law was different than the repression of the Volunteers “under an Act passed by some other Parliament, over which we had no control and in the making of which we had no voice.”22 This distinction between the lack of legitimacy of a foreign parliament and the complete legitimacy of an Irish parliament was crucial to Cumann na nGaedheal. Patrick Hogan cited this in criticizing civil war land seizures, arguing that “we lived for one hundred years under a foreign Parliament. We lived for one hundred years under a Parliament that made laws for this country, not according to the popular will, not according to the interests

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of the country, but according to the interests of an alien class. If we had a grievance there was no use going to a Parliament where Irish interests were completely swamped by interests which were practically diametrically opposed, and we had to do certain things, though there was a good lot in the Land Campaign that I never liked. We had to do certain things and had to ask people to do certain things and we had to authorise certain illegalities.”23 In making this argument, Cumann na nGaedheal leaders essentially claimed that a British coercion law during the colonial period and an Irish coercion law under the Free State were completely different, and that governmental actions were not automatically illegitimate just because the British had previously done something similar. In response to a Labour deputy’s objection to paying taxes that might fund the suppression of republicans by the Free State government, O’Higgins said, “Deputy Davin in his statement failed to take stock of the very radical alteration that has taken place. It is not now a question of a particular law imposed by force upon the people. It is a question now of the Government elected by the people’s Parliament, responsible to the people. . . . I think that in these, as in other matters, that people catch on to ideas that were current in the past, and attempt to apply them now, when in fact they are inapplicable, and when in fact the whole position is radically and fundamentally altered. The argument that objections which were perfectly valid objections in the past are equally applicable now is unsound.”24 This is the tightrope Cumann na nGaedheal had to walk in dealing with the revolutionary legacy. The party could not deny that the activities of the revolution were valid, but they had to prevent the further use of such activities as political tactics, lest Ireland become ungovernable. The changed context wrought by the Treaty, which O’Higgins called “a very radical alteration,” was a critical component of this argument. The civil war complicated this task but also provided an opportunity for Treatyites to differentiate themselves from republican opponents. Much has been written on the civil war, with participants and historians coming to significantly different conclusions as to its origins and fundamental character. John Regan strongly rejects the notion advanced by Treatyites that the war was to preserve democracy, arguing that there were significant antidemocratic tendencies on both sides.25 Regan also, at times more subtly than others, depicts it as a class war, a distinction that has been minimized by, among others, Tom Garvin and Michael Farry.26 Bill Kissane follows Regan in arguing that the war resulted in the triumph of some variety of Irish Party liberalism over the more radical aspects of Sinn Féin.27 Jeffrey Prager’s

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analysis posits the civil war as resulting from the weakness of civil society. According to Prager, the Irish public sphere was too weak to mediate between two competing traditions within Irish nationalism, which he identified as the “Irish-Enlightenment” and “Gaelic-Romantic” traditions. The former espoused the more “rational” viewpoint of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and the latter was more emblematic of nineteenth-century Romanticism.28 Tom Garvin follows this schematic broadly, while also framing the civil war as a struggle for democracy, albeit one in which both contending sides frequently expressed contempt for the electorate. Garvin credited “the technical virtuosity displayed by the pro-Treaty leaders in putting together a new, democratic and generally law-bound state,” without overstating their own commitment to democracy or the ease with which they created such a state. As Garvin wrote, “Irish democracy was founded by unenthusiastic and rather authoritarian democrats, who combined within their minds an almost hysterical acceptance of electoral democracy and a rather bossy paternalism that contradicted their rhetorical democratic convictions.”29 Garvin also depicted republicanism as a residue of what David Miller called the “public band” tradition of male quasi-militarized secret societies in Ireland. These “public band” members believed themselves to be a moral and political vanguard whose advanced nationalism substituted for as-yet-unenlightened popular opinion. The civil war was thus a collision between pro-Treatyites’ majoritarian notions of popular sovereignty and anti-Treatyites’ assumption that sovereignty was held in trust for the nation by advanced nationalists.30 Garvin’s work, while not altogether laudatory toward Free Staters, definitely stigmatized republicanism as elitist, antidemocratic, emotional, and, at least initially, struggling to adjust as more formal institutions of civic power replaced their self-proclaimed leadership role.31 Joe Lee summed this up rather succinctly: “The cause [of the civil war] was the basic conflict in nationalist doctrine between majority right and divine right.”32 According to this argument, republicans, having been a noble minority for so long, faltered in their immediate adjustment to a post-independence political culture. To claim the revolutionary mantle, Treatyites had to counter the republicans’ frequent assertion that they were the real revolutionaries and that the civil war was their attempt to preserve the gains of the revolution. As a result, Treatyites argued that the causes of the civil war were decidedly nonrevolutionary: either natural processes in a postrevolutionary and postcolonial society or revelatory of particularly nasty character flaws in republicans. In voicing these claims, pro-Treaty figures attributed the civil war to some

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combination of causes, including antidemocratic feeling, personal pique, disease, economic deterioration, and a general rise in postrevolutionary and postcolonial lawlessness and excitement. The various explanations of what Treatyites perceived as anti-Treatyite malfeasance were deployed simultaneously, sometimes in contradictory or at least inconsistent ways. The overall impression, though, is that these diagnoses of civil war created a narrative in which Treatyites were the heirs of the revolution and anti-Treatyites were in revolt against its basic principles. The most consistently deployed aspect of this strategy was the framing of the civil war as a struggle between democratic and antidemocratic forces. Cumann na nGaedheal politicians often argued that representative democracy and parliamentary sovereignty were at the heart of the revolutionary project and claimed that republicans’ apparent unwillingness to accept the people’s verdict on the Treaty indicated their hostility to this key revolutionary principle. The equation of the revolution with democracy was so powerful that republicans also generally defended their civil war actions in democratic terms, often making rather technical arguments against the legitimacy of the Third Dáil or offering alternative readings of the 1922 and 1923 general elections. Leading political republicans may have offered different interpretations of democracy—Tom Garvin has called this “republican moralism,” with republicans acting as a vanguard in opposition to the majoritarian democracy of the Treatyites—but rarely attacked the underlying principles of parliamentary democracy directly.33 This trope was established early, even before the Four Courts was shelled in June 1922. O’Higgins put the point most succinctly in May, as civil war loomed: In the course of the debate yesterday, or the day before, we were asked: “Is this Treaty of yours worth civil war?” Perhaps it is. The Treaty confers, in my opinion, very great benefits, very great advantages, and very great opportunities on the Irish people and I would not declare off-hand that it is not worth civil war. But if civil war occurs in Ireland it will not be for the Treaty. It will not be for a Free State versus anything else. It will be for a vital fundamental, democratic principle—for the right of the people of Ireland to decide any issue, great or small, that arises in the politics of this country. Never before in Ireland by Irishmen has that right been challenged. That right is sacred. That right, in my opinion, is worth defending by those who have a mandate to defend it. We have a representative character here. From that comes our authority; from

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that comes any power we have; from that comes any moral strength in our position or in the things we do. In so far as we carry out the will of the Irish people, we have authority; if we flout that will, we have none.34

In making the argument that Irish nationalism was fundamentally democratic, and that at root the revolution was about creating an Irish democracy, Arthur Griffith attempted to place the revolutionary mantle on Treatyites, while associating anti-Treatyites with tyranny and autocracy: “The man who stood up at any time against the English Government on the grounds of democracy and the right of the people, and that now . . . would stand up to say to the people that they must not determine for themselves, is as great an enemy to the Irish people as any English Government ever was. He is a greater enemy, because he dons the habiliments of patriotism to conceal the weapons of tyranny.”35 Cosgrave made a similar point: “Is the Treaty worth civil war? The question arises immediately: who is the sovereign authority in any country? If any section or minority in any country says ‘We are going to have civil war,’ where does the majority come in? . . . Is there to be government by majority or is there to be government by autocracy? It is not a question of whether one thing is worth civil war or not. It is a question of whether the people have a right to elect a Government and if they have that right has that Government the right to call upon the people to support them?”36 Treatyites continued to play this card throughout the civil war itself, claiming an unassailable democratic mandate from the 1922 election and emphasizing the revolutionary-era combination of Irish nationalism with mass democratic politics. A Provisional Government memo from mid-July 1922 asserted that “the Irish Army, therefore, is fighting for the same principle as that for which we fought the British: the right of the Irish People to be masters in their own country, to decide for themselves the way in which they will live, and the system by which they shall be governed. For that principle they have made, and are prepared to make, further sacrifices. . . . They have died and are suffering that the people of Ireland may be free.”37 Freedom, in this case, was defined by majoritarian democracy rather than in any broader economic or social sense. Treatyites read anticolonialism and self-determination as synonymous with democracy: revolt against a selfgoverning and free Ireland was thought to be inherently antidemocratic. As Regan and others have pointed out, though, this privileged a particular definition of democracy over others.

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Patrick Hogan raised the same issue in a letter to the Labour Party in August 1922: “I am again to remind you that the issue at stake is not whether Parliament should meet this month rather than next, but whether Parliament is to exist in this country. The demand of the men now in arms against the Government is, in effect, that Parliament should surrender to them the authority which it holds from the people; that force and not a majority should rule.”38 Hogan wrote this letter to explain the decision to again prorogue parliament: so, in this case, Treatyites even invoked democratic values as an explanation for postponing the installation of actual democracy. The civil war made this promotion of majoritarian democracy something of a sacred trust. As Kevin O’Higgins succinctly put it in 1923, “We will not betray democracy to the petrol can.”39 Some anti-Treatyites, of course, made this argument all the easier for Treaty supporters, with Liam Lynch’s infamous comment that the people were sheep to be driven anywhere at will being particularly useful. Treatyites called attention to this apparently antidemocratic sentiment in their election propaganda, again pounding away at anti-Treatyites’ lack of democratic credibility.40 In this interpretation, therefore, the civil war was explained as a result or a manifestation of antidemocratic tendencies or a deficient understanding of democracy by anti-Treatyites. At other times, Cumann na nGaedheal politicians blamed the civil war on crime, specifically distancing republican activities, and the people who perpetrated them, from the idealistic struggle of the revolution. This argument was particularly voiced after August 1922, when the civil war had changed from something that at least resembled a conventional, if small-scale, conflict, to a purely guerrilla struggle. Michael Collins, in a letter to Cosgrave in August 1922, referred to the “outbreak of crime” in the country, specifically noting rumored anti-Treatyite plans to assassinate members of the Provisional Government.41 A few months later, in defending the first four executions of republicans, Ernest Blythe clearly conflated republicanism and crime: “So much terrorism has arisen in the country that there is no such thing in reality as a Republican movement. There is a definite movement of anarchy. People who are doing their deeds and committing their crimes in the name and under the cloak of Republicanism are for the most part criminals; people who are out to grab property that is not theirs; people who are out to enforce their will upon the majority, heedless of the rights of their neighbours; people who cannot settle down to ordered life, and who desire to maintain the sort of conditions in which they have power, and

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in which they can go about exercising authority throughout the country; people who have debts to pay and hope to avoid paying their debts.”42 Here, political and criminal motives are the same. Eoin MacNeill, in defending more executions, pithily said: “It is not a civil war; it is a criminal war.”43 Patrick Hogan summed up the civil war by saying, “We know that crime was committed on a wholesale scale during the last year, every conceivable form of crime.”44 Not surprisingly, O’Higgins used this sort of language quite a lot, both publicly and privately. A note written to Mulcahy in September 1922 observed, “In three fourths of our area it is becoming less and less a question of war and more and more a question of armed crime.”45 A long memo from January 1923 developed this point further. O’Higgins wrote, “We are dealing with anarchy under cover of a political banner,” and argued that “only a very small proportion of it [opposition to the government] is due to genuine dissatisfaction with the Treaty. Only a very small proportion of it is a struggle to secure a particular form of government, as against another form.” Instead, O’Higgins cited “greed and envy and lust and drunkenness and irresponsibility” as primary factors driving the civil war. He then connected this to sovereignty: “We must appreciate the fact that the problem is psychological rather than physical; we have to vindicate the idea of law and ordered government, as against anarchy.”46 O’Higgins also referred to the “criminal conspiracy against the State” by republicans, a statement that was literally true, given the rather broad notions of criminality introduced under the Public Safety Acts, but was designed to slander republican motives and character.47 Finally, he called the civil war “the most heinous and disgraceful campaign of crime that ever disfigured the pages of this country’s history.”48 O’Higgins also added his own particular iconoclastic wrinkle to this line of argument, repeatedly claiming that the men committing most of the violent acts in 1922–23 were not republican veterans of the Anglo-Irish war but were instead cowards and ordinary criminals who had been too scared or intimidated to act out while the British ruled Ireland. He called them “those ruffians who never, nine-tenths of them, never handled a gun until the British evacuated the country.”49 He further elucidated this argument later in the year: “Deputies know that people who profess to be unable to bring their proud souls under to the settlement or compromise at which we have arrived with the British were able in the past to bring their proud souls under to British occupation, to British administration of this country, and to bring not only their proud souls but their proud bodies under the bed when

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the British were ‘rampaging’ through the country. That is aggravating. But there is recognition of the fact that there is a tendency in most men to run amok when they think that the sun is shining for the law breaker. . . . And so we have had anarchy, crime, lawlessness.”50 Later in the same speech, he referred to republicans as men “who merely drifted around the country playing the ass for the last two years.”51 O’Higgins continued to make such accusations for the rest of his life, particularly in rebutting hecklers during stump speeches. Blythe, too, remained wedded to the notion that the civil war was a criminal endeavor. In a 1971 letter to Lord Longford, Blythe noted, “Enquiries I made recently indicated that only about half the men executed [by the Free State in 1922–23] were idealists or men of principle. The remainder were bank robbers or the like carrying on under the cloak of patriots.”52 The nature of such enquiries was left to Longford’s imagination. Again, republicans were separated from the high motives of the revolution and reduced to ordinary criminals who lacked sufficient courage to commit their crimes under the colonial regime. Cumann na nGaedheal fears were exacerbated by the notion that this apparent crime wave, much of which was directed against property, was a harbinger of social revolution. O’Higgins spoke several times about how the civil war was “a disintegration in the social fabric.”53 Earlier he told the Dáil that “the threads and ties which bind society, ties which bind the ordered fabric of this State, are strained to their snapping point.”54 Such references would be more overtly tied to communism and class warfare during the later years of Cumann na nGaedheal government, but the seeds of this rhetoric were planted early. Cumann na nGaedheal speakers, particularly O’Higgins, wanted to deny the ability of civil war guerrillas to wrap themselves in the mantle of the revolution by referring to their activities as “crime,” but they also wanted to convince the Irish people that the potential consequences of this crime wave were catastrophic and would push the revolution in directions never intended by its initiators. Cumann na nGaedheal politicians also frequently blamed the civil war on de Valera, as part of a general attempt to diminish the reputation of the man who was unquestionably the most prestigious Irish revolutionary leader remaining after the deaths of Collins and Griffith. Weakening de Valera, and ascribing his actions to jealousy or pride rather than revolutionary fervor, obviously could serve to increase the revolutionary credibility of Cumann na nGaedheal, the leaders of which did not otherwise possess the political stature of de Valera. This was a particular obsession for O’Higgins, who

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consistently thought he could prosper politically by pointing out de Valera’s logical and historical fallacies.55 O’Higgins wrote in 1922 that “the long fellow has a lot to answer for.”56 He also called de Valera “the man who pressed the button for anarchy, the man who pressed the button for a crime wave unprecedented in this country.”57 The civil war was, to O’Higgins, “anarchy deliberately preached, callously preached, preached by one who had the full measure of the guilt that would attach to a person who would attempt to create such conditions in the country.”58 O’Higgins even joked about his tendency to blame de Valera, telling the Dáil on the introduction of the Censorship of Films Bill, “I am not amongst those who attribute all our present troubles to the Cinema. I do not know whether there was any cinema when Mr. de Valera was young, and I do not know whether he was much addicted to frequenting cinemas when he was not young.”59 Other Cumann na nGaedheal leaders followed suit. Hogan argued that the civil war was started “by one who said he was not a doctrinaire republican—who stated in the hearing of a good many members of this Dáil that Ireland should not be asked to face a Sherman’s ride for the Republic—who has tried to plunge this country into destruction just to save his own face.”60 Richard Mulcahy believed “Dev had failed as a leader during the vital four years from 1918 to 1922.”61 This line of argument tended to characterize rank-and-file republicans as misled by de Valera’s perfervid rhetoric into believing they were fighting for a republic that would cure all Ireland’s ills. O’Higgins in early 1923 said, “Hundreds of young men through the country, young fellows in their teens, are being made the dupes of one man’s vanity. He calls them out in the name of the Republic. Some of us know the irony of that.”62 Statements from republicans such as Austin Stack, who told a friend “I was ready to commit suicide the moment Mr. de Valera let us down,” only fueled Treatyite belief that de Valera had an unusual hold on his fellow republicans.63 Of course, the notion that the Irish were easily led by demagogues had a long history, stretching at least back to the rebellious days of 1798 and continuing on through the nineteenth century with the careers of Daniel O’Connell and Charles Stewart Parnell.64 Cumann na nGaedheal leaders also, at times, claimed that a postrevolutionary period of disorder was a necessary and expected reaction to the exhilaration of the revolution. This was what Kevin O’Higgins, quoting Catholic scholar Hilaire Belloc on the French Revolution, called “a reversion to the normal, a sudden and violent return to those conditions which are the necessary bases of health in any political community.”65 Already,

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during the war, O’Higgins wrote, “I fear these times will have more than a passing effect on those who are in close touch with the crude horrors that occur from time to time.”66 This kind of violence led to a civil war caused by “men who had not cleared the blood from their eyes.”67 The effect, according to O’Higgins, spread to the entire country. In characteristically gendered language, he described the civil war as “a stage of national hysteria” in the country’s life.68 This echoed a claim he had made a week previously: “Men’s minds are high strung and hysterical, and we must, simply as human beings, and in a rational way, realise that there is going to be a pretty ugly aftermath to this whole business, and that it will take this country some time to settle down with a general acquiescence in the reign of law.”69 Desmond FitzGerald wrote that “the strain, the sacrifices, the enthusiasm and exaltation of that struggle [the Revolution] set up an abnormal state of mind among a certain proportion especially of the younger folk whose experience of life meant little to them before the War Era of 1914 began.”70 O’Higgins at least believed this to be a quite normal postrevolutionary phase, calling it a “reaction from the high standards and selflessness which prevailed rather generally during the conflict with the British.”71 Whether or not they believed these postrevolutionary attitudes were normal—and claims of their inevitability sat uneasily with simultaneous Cumann na nGaedheal attempts to blame de Valera personally—Cumann na nGaedheal leaders thought that such attitudes created a significant difficulty in the construction of a law-bound state. These attitudes also highlighted a Cumann na nGaedheal belief that the revolution had been a period of high-mindedness and moral exaltation, from which Ireland had subsequently fallen. This notion of an Eden-like fall framed much of Cumann na nGaedheal rhetoric about the state of Ireland in the immediate post–civil war months. At times, diagnoses of these attitudes invoked medical language, with Cumann na nGaedheal leaders claiming that anti-Treatyites suffered from illness or mental imbalances. Republicans were not revolutionaries, in other words, but were merely mentally ill. This, too, often had a gendered component, and was part of a wider Treatyite project to feminize their republican opponents. At the outset of the guerrilla phase of the civil war, Cosgrave told the Dáil that republicans were people “whose mental balance is bad.”72 O’Higgins said that the country was not “a stage or platform whereon certain neurotic women and a certain megalomaniac kind of man may cut their capers.”73 A week later, in defending the executions of Rory O’Connor and others without trial, he castigated the “silly neurotic women” and “silly

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neurotic young boys” who were fueling republicanism.74 Mulcahy also called Irregularism “madness” in the Dáil.75 Crane Brinton, in his famous analysis of revolutions, wrote, “We shall regard revolutions as a kind of fever,” and argued that a Thermidor came naturally to postrevolutionary societies, like a convalescence after a fever.76 Cumann na nGaedheal used this language quite often, although the “fever” referred to was generally the civil war and not the revolution itself. O’Higgins told an audience at Dun Laoghaire in 1923 that “the body politic of Ireland is sick—the poison of anarchy has raced through its veins and after a feverish year there has set in a lethargy—mental, spiritual and physical— which we cannot afford to view with equanimity.”77 Eoin MacNeill used similar language, telling the Dáil after Childers’s execution, “In certain diseased cases of the body it is necessary to amputate.”78 MacNeill later said, referring to the ongoing troubles, “It is a disease, but a disease of the body politic, a disease of the community.”79 The cure for this, according to O’Higgins, was that the government needed to “put a firm, cool grip on this fever-stricken land.”80 The length of the recovery period waxed and waned, depending on the party’s assessment of the current situation in Ireland. O’Higgins was already saying in 1925 that “the country is not sick but convalescent—physically, mentally and morally convalescent, and her need is peace—peace and hard work. Such evils as are pointed to as the evidence of deep-seated disease are merely the remnants of a trouble which has passed its crisis, a trouble which has left the patient weak and shaken no doubt, but the last traces of which are rapidly disappearing from the system.”81 It suited O’Higgins at this particular time, celebrating the third anniversary of the creation of the Free State, to emphasize recovery and stability. Others were not so sanguine. In the wake of O’Higgins’s assassination, Patrick McGilligan referred to Fianna Fáil as “carriers” of illness and claimed the country was plagued by “a great many foul, hideous microbes of thought.”82 Using this language of disease made Cumann na nGaedheal into the doctors, a position of expertise, status, and respect. It also implied a degree of hope—no one ever said the disease was fatal—while still conveying the potential gravity of the situation. Cumann na nGaedheal leaders also used the language of morality to explain the civil war, arguing that conditions had been allowed to develop because of moral lapses by the Irish people, and especially by republican leaders. This diagnosis had the advantage of turning republican claims of moralism on their heads. Republicans tended to associate the republic with

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a higher moral status, similar to that accorded to the Jacobin republic, and often painted their own struggle in moralistic terms, as one of right versus wrong. Free Staters, instead, saw the civil war as a result of selfishness and destructiveness, a failure of morality and community spirit. This was another continuation, of sorts, of a revolutionary theme. Sinn Féin rhetoric during the revolution generally had a very moral tone, with scorn frequently poured on the Irish Party for being corrupt, selfish, greedy, and immoral. Treatyites used this same language, but applied it to wayward republicans and, at times, to the entire country. The latter examples echoed, consciously or not, the complaints of Pearse and others that the country had gone soft in the decades before the war, losing its sense of Irishness, communal spirit, and independence. This kind of argument played into the religiosity of men such as W. T. Cosgrave. His graveside oration after Arthur Griffith’s funeral painted a particularly dark moral tone: “Within the last few months of his life he [Griffith] looked out upon the moral desolation which, for the time being, darkened his country and stained its name both at home and abroad—a moral desolation not merely in the ordinary acceptance of the term in which people think of dishonesty and disregard of individual rights, of reckless murder and general insincerity, but also the moral desolation in a blindly dishonest outlook and attitude toward the national position and the effect of the nation’s Treaty of Peace.” Cosgrave admitted that Griffith “died a sorrowful man” because of the civil war, and would have died “a broken-hearted man” if not “for the greatness of his heart and the magnificence of his mind.”83 Cosgrave later said, defiantly, “At this moment [September 1922] this country is suffering from a lack of moral courage. . . . If this Dáil does not do anything else except to electrify the country into a state of moral responsibility it will have done some good, even though the Irregulars get us five minutes after we have done that much.”84 Cosgrave also referenced the “moral degradation” that had been taking place “for a very considerable time.”85 After paeans to the heroism and self-sacrifice of the Irish people during the revolution, the tone changed as the civil war dragged on. Ernest Blythe, always a delighted iconoclast, said, “The first step toward progress is a clear recognition of the fact that, instead of being a race of super-idealists whose misfortunes are due entirely to the crimes and blunders of outside enemies, we are an untrained and undisciplined people with practically everything to learn of the difficult business of organising national life on a stable basis.”86 Hugh Kennedy, the Free State attorney general, privately said worse:

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“I believe we are an inferior race, temperamentally unfit and no effort can save us. We are a mean people, theatrical and narrow, posers and humbugs, ungrateful and malicious, a race of ‘saints and scholars’ without real religion or real education. There are fine fellows and fine women too but they can do nothing but sweat in vain before they are stoned and then shot. They’ll get monuments thirty years after.”87 O’Higgins argued that the civil war— and republican leaders in particular—had unleashed these latent tendencies toward disobedience and disorder. He told the Dáil: “Now this is a world of facts, and we have to face them, and we face the fact that throughout this country within the last year, the moral standard has been lowered and there has been such a wave of degradation that many people have lost all rudder and compass to guide them in matters of right and wrong; they have thrown the moral law to the winds, the law of God as well as the law of man.”88 O’Higgins also spoke of the “moral disintegration” of the country, and a “disintegration of the national fibre.”89 Mulcahy, as the guerrilla war began in the fall of 1922, judged that “the whole moral tone of the country is very bad” and used that as an explanation for outrages in the army, as “the Army is no better than the country.”90 Rather than a particularly selfless band of idealists, as the Volunteers had been previously portrayed, Mulcahy now depicted the army as no better or worse than the general population from which it was drawn. The civil war was thus linked to a breakdown in the moral fabric of the nation, a situation that would have to be righted if the body politic was to survive. As O’Higgins put it, the country was being menaced politically, economically, and morally by “idealists with guns.”91 Kennedy and Blythe attributed this breakdown to the inherent weaknesses and foibles of the Irish people, tendencies that had been liberated by independence and self-government. There were less pessimistic explanations though. Many Cumann na nGaedheal politicians saw the lawlessness of the civil war as essentially a postcolonial moment, the predictable, if not inevitable, result of centuries of colonial resistance to the institutions of government. Several historians have noted that there would most likely have been resistance to any form of Irish government established in 1922, even if the Treaty had been more widely accepted by the Irish political and military elite.92 Fewer, though, have highlighted the anticolonial nature of this phenomenon. Joseph Curran, for example, noted that “centuries of alien rule had made the Irish indifferent or hostile to government,” but he did not emphasize that Cumann na nGaedheal leaders were aware of this problem and often made it the centerpiece of their explanations for the civil war.93

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On the one hand, colonialism had given the Irish inadequate political apprenticeship and experience in government. Kevin O’Higgins highlighted the slow process by which the British administration in Ireland had been “greened,” leaving few options for ambitious educated Catholics: Until the Treaty came into operation the Irish Catholic laity as a whole were denied effectively political experience in their own affairs. A subject race is very carefully excluded from the higher spheres of administration by the dominant foreign caste, and though Irish Catholics did make their way at the sacrifice of their principles or as members of an upper Catholic middle-class bye-product of the garrison these were, to the National credit, exceptional cases. . . . Much of the cream of the country simply earned their passage to America and emigrated. The Catholic layman in Irish public life was until 1917 in the circumstances either a recreant, a minor official, an emigrant or in rebellion against an illegitimate state of government. Such an environment may stimulate fine virtues of self-sacrifice and sincerity but it starves the genus of the creator and social organizer.94

In a 1923 lecture to the Cumann na nGaedheal party, Professor John Marcus O’Sullivan, later minister for education, identified the same problem: “We are not . . . endowed more richly than other nations with political virtue; such endowment is the result of long political training, and that training we have not had.” O’Sullivan cited in particular the greater apprenticeship in self-government possessed by the American colonists prior to their revolution.95 Where Blythe and Kennedy attributed such behaviors to the inherent weaknesses of the Irish character, O’Sullivan blamed it on a lack of experience. O’Higgins made a similar point in a 1924 speech at Oxford, claiming that the Irish civil war was the quite expected result of a revolution in a colonized, underadministered, and undergoverned region: “A people emerging from a period of revolution were thrown upon their own resources, unaided by any fabric of administration. . . . Who will say with any confidence that a similar situation in France, in Italy, in America, even in England with its long tradition of sober responsible citizenship, would not produce substantially similar results.”96 To a mostly English audience, O’Higgins blamed the Irish chaos on colonialism and the lack of a civic tradition, for which Britain was apparently responsible. The civil war was then perfectly understandable, and not really a peculiarly Irish problem at all, at least in this rendering.

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This particular effect of colonialism applied mostly to the elite, or at least to middle-class people who had some ambition to serve in government. Other colonial legacies affected, at least in theory, the entire population. The major difficulty was that resistance to government had become both valued and common in colonial Ireland, and the transition to a society based on respect for and obedience to law was not to be easy. In this same Oxford speech cited above, O’Higgins conceded that the civil war was “reinforced by all the waywardness of a people with whom by dint of historical circumstances a negative attitude had tended to become traditional.”97 These historical circumstances, presumably, were colonial. He previously made this point in a speech at Bray in 1923, noting that “for centuries, their [the Irish people’s] outlook had been negative and destructive. They had got to change that, and develop a positive and constructive attitude.”98 The Treaty, then, changed the status of Ireland but had not automatically changed the deeply rooted attitudes of a colonized people. The change in these attitudes, O’Higgins conceded, would not come overnight: “Back through the ages we have had a traditional outlook on law and government which no reasonable man expects to change in five, or seven, or even ten years. That attitude of protest, that attitude of negation, that attitude sometimes of sheer wantonness, and waywardness, and destructiveness, which is very evident at the moment, has been to a large extent a traditional attitude on the part of the Irish people.”99 This is, of course, a heavily politicized argument. O’Higgins was both promoting his party as the constructive party, as opposed to the destructiveness of the republicans, and also removing his government from any responsibility for the civil war, blaming it instead on centuries of history, colonialism, and a nebulous national character. However, it remains interesting that a government that frequently preached selfhelp and personal responsibility still managed to invoke the colonial legacy in explaining the events of 1922–23. A key aspect of this argument centered on one of the factors raised by O’Higgins: respect for law. Minister for Local Government James Burke put this rather colloquially in his New Year’s message for 1927: “Not the least of the difficulties that confronted the Government when taking office was the ‘agin’ the Government’ state of mind which, as a result of seven centuries of alien rule, had become the normal state of mind for Irishmen.”100 O’Higgins emphasized that the “negative attitude which we adopted towards the machinery of administration in this country when it was not ours, and was not in any real sense responsible to the people,” needed to be changed,

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although he admitted that “it will not disappear in a couple of months or a couple of years.”101 Mulcahy noted this lack of civic virtue, and he too blamed it on British rule. In notes for a 1923 speech titled “Citizenship/The Burden of Freedom,” Mulcahy mused on “the shallow outlook of the masses, the rawness of our democracy, and the rareness of those civic virtues which are essential for selfgovernment. A large number of people had the vaguest of notions as to the machinery and powers of the Government they supported, and this vagueness led to indifference and apathy.” His prescription was that “Cumann na nGaedheal must deliberately lead the way in the effort to restore to Irish life that sense of dignity, public and private, which the policy of England and all her propagandists had done so much to destroy.”102 This is where the proTreaty party came in: it would do what the sterile language of the Treaty could not, and that was to revive the Irish public sphere. Eoin MacNeill predictably found a way to bring such discussions back to de Valera, crediting “centuries of subjection and the absence of a tradition of civil liberty and responsibility” with instilling in the Irish people a desire to be led by a “big chief ” or a “boss.”103 Often, this lack of civic virtue was seen as a reflection of the “slave mind” in Ireland. This was a concept that both sides liked to invoke, anti-Treatyites to explain the Irish people’s apparent acceptance of a “British” Treaty, and pro-Treatyites to account for the people’s civil war misbehavior and lack of patience with democratic institutions. O’Higgins told a Bray audience in 1923 that the slave mind compelled Irregulars to believe they could bring down the government: “The slave mind operating said, ‘these are our own people; they are contemptible; they are weak. Let us have a whack at them.’”104 Hogan said of opposition to the Treaty, “The real reason was that the slave was in their bones, and they hated to see Irishmen running the country.”105 O’Higgins blamed the entire civil war on this phenomenon: “We have no real conception of freedom, no real conception of independence. . . . If we had we would be dignified enough to appreciate what democracy means, and to resent more savagely and fiercely than we do the claim of any wretched minority to dictate to their fellow citizens at the point of the gun. It is the slave drop in us, the slave mind lingering in our midst, which makes us bear that thing with the equanimity and complacency with which we have borne it.”106 His denigration of the Irish people was only somewhat disguised and moderated by an invocation of the colonial legacy. Partially overcoming these colonial legacies was, according to Cosgrave, one of

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O’Higgins’s greatest achievements: “From disorders, the combined result of long misgovernment, revolt and revolution, in a few years’ time, under his direction, arose a new and stable edifice of public order and public peace.”107 In addition to using the civil war to break the connections between republicans and the revolution, the government also had to place the Treaty in a revolutionary context, as the compromising and unrepublican nature of the Treaty was frequently raised by republicans in attacking it. The civil war changed Treatyite attitudes toward the Treaty, converting the conditional, pragmatic, and at times lukewarm support for the Treaty into something of an article of faith. Fighting for the Treaty throughout the civil war, and having colleagues and friends die, hardened support among many Cumann na nGaedheal stalwarts. Discussion of how the Treaty had been extracted from Ireland under duress, as well as the evident disappointment with some of the Treaty’s more imperial terms, largely disappeared from Treatyite rhetoric by the late 1920s. Cumann na nGaedheal leaders certainly worked behind the scenes to maximize Ireland’s status under the Treaty and to minimize some of the document’s obvious shortcomings. But in public, criticism of the Treaty definitely quieted. Acceptance of the Treaty became a litmus test for participation in the Free State, as envisioned by the oath, and the Treaty gradually became a key hub of the Cumann na nGaedheal political position. In fact, having been denied access to the legacies of many of the revolutionary martyrs by republicans, Cumann na nGaedheal instead began to stake its legitimacy on the potential of the Treaty to eventually encompass the major goals of Irish nationalism. They emphasized that the Treaty had changed the situation in Ireland irrevocably. This did not necessitate abandonment of the goals of the revolution but, instead, their achievement through political means in the changed context of post-Treaty Ireland. This new context meant that Irish nationalists had to use the powers granted by the Treaty to create a Gaelic state, alter Ireland’s socioeconomic reality, and expand Irish sovereignty. They also began to deemphasize ideology and abstractions and emphasize instead the practical benefits flowing to Ireland from the Treaty. This was both a reaction to republican attempts to monopolize the revolutionary legacy as well as an admission of frustration with republican attempts to delay the implementation of the Treaty. The dangers in this policy were already apparent by the mid-1920s. Cumann na nGaedheal’s platform often degenerated in the public mind to what Eoin MacNeill called “constructive nationalism.”108 The absence of principles did not always play well with a body politic used to high-minded

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ideals tinged with a hint of Anglophobia. The entry of Fianna Fáil into the Dáil in 1927 compounded this problem and undercut Cumann na nGaedheal’s potentially potent self-definition as the party of constitutionalism and politics. As the 1920s progressed, Cumann na nGaedheal supporters continued to see the Treaty as fluid and flexible but also often seemed to rigidly stand on its admittedly bad points as a means of distinguishing themselves from their civil war opponents. Despite this danger, the Treaty became central to the creation of a governmental discourse that was presented as transformative, forward looking, and potentially redemptive. Kevin O’Higgins said that after the Treaty, the Irish needed to trust “evolution rather than revolution for the attainment of our goals, and the Treaty was the symbol and vehicle of that evolution.”109 Initially, the Treatyites had accepted the Treaty pragmatically and with significant reservations. Desmond FitzGerald said during the Treaty debates, “It has also been generally understood here [during the debates] that a Treaty is a thing which is made for eternity. It is no such thing. It is well recognised that a Treaty exists as long as it suits two parties to keep it.”110 O’Higgins expounded on this early in the Third Dáil: Now the position, as I see it, is that the Irish people regarded a certain state of facts with which they were confronted—a certain state of circumstances in which they found themselves—and, deliberately making their choice, as they were perfectly entitled to make their choice, they have taken this Treaty as the best thing they could take in the circumstances of the time, and not believing very much in their prospects of getting better. Now I hold—and I think in what I am going to say now I am expressing the mind of a great many people throughout the country—that in the case of a Treaty signed under circumstances and conditions like that, the position is simply that at any moment in the future the majority will of the Irish Nation can publicly and absolutely without dishonour repudiate that Treaty if they consider it wise to do so—if they consider it advisable to do so. If, weighing the pros and cons of the situation, they are prepared to take the consequences of doing so, therefore in our opinion at any rate, the majority will of this Nation is at all times sovereign.111

O’Higgins also said that Ireland would be quick to repudiate the Treaty, and possibly even return to war, should the British government violate its provisions: “Our attitude in such a condition of things would be quite simple. There will be nothing complex about it; and certain little fishes who have

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been straining themselves to talk like whales since last December might have an opportunity of showing their form.”112 Even the evolutionary path allowed by the Treaty was ultimately proof that the document could be superseded and discarded. As O’Higgins said, “To my mind, the men ‘of little faith’ are those who speak and think of their Nation as if it were some dead thing that could be wrapped up for all time like a mummy in a bit of parchment called a Treaty. The Irish Nation is a living, growing organism, whose development can not be stayed by a formula, nor cease with the full stop of a document.”113 Others spoke more positively of the Treaty. Cosgrave was one of a few who, following Griffith’s line, spoke rather glowingly of the Treaty during the initial debates. Cosgrave said, “To my mind, when I first saw this instrument, it appeared that there were potentialities in it undreamt of in this country up to this time.”114 Eamon Duggan, a Treaty signatory, said, “I say under the terms of that Treaty that if the Irish people cannot achieve their freedom it is the fault of the Irish people and not of the Treaty. I have more faith in Ireland than the people who put forward the other point of view.”115 Blythe remembered later in life that he was “in favour of the Treaty from the moment it was signed,” and Eoin MacNeill, writing in 1932 with a degree of hindsight, claimed that he realized when he first read the Treaty that it “implied a great deal more than it expressly stated.”116 Gradually, hesitant and conditional support for a flawed Treaty was replaced by a firm determination to carry out its terms and a growing assertion that the Treaty had not undermined Ireland’s status at all. Cosgrave said in 1923, “Every single syllable of every agreement that we made with the British I will carry out in the spirit and the letter; but I will not accept from any person the insult that we have given away anything.”117 Blythe said the same thing in 1925 after the secession of some dissidents from Cumann na nGaedheal: “I need hardly assure you that in regard to National Principle Messrs. Byrne, Ó Máille and Co. have nothing to teach us. We know what most of our critics do not, the full extent of our powers and rights under the Treaty and how to make use of them. . . . We are not lowering the flag, not from the National Ideal, not neglecting the National tongue.”118 Patrick Hogan, during the debates over the constitution in 1922, cuttingly argued it was time to quit whining about the faults of the Treaty: “I was present, unfortunately, at all the [Treaty] debates in the Dáil last January, and I got tired listening to everyone getting up, saying what a magnificent Republican he was, and how it pained his heart to have to take the Treaty,

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and how he remained awake at night thinking about it, but that he would take it all the same. It reminds me of children crying after sugarstick they lost. We took this Treaty. We know its limitations, and there is no occasion to be going about day after day, exposing our robes. We took the Treaty. . . . It is merely unworthy of the Nation or the people who represent the Nation, to be crying about what we lost and what we did not get.”119 A Cumann na nGaedheal handbill from 1924 was headed by a quote from Griffith praising the Treaty as the answer to Ireland’s problems: “People of Ireland, hold fast to the Treaty. It is your economic needs; it is your political salvation.”120 This is precisely what Cumann na nGaedheal did as it evolved into an organized political party: it held fast to the Treaty. Upholding the Treaty was presented to the electorate as both a means of salvation and a point of pride. Abandoning it would be dishonorable and demonstrate that Ireland was not ready to take its place among sovereign nations. By the end of his life, O’Higgins had already discarded his argument that the Treaty had been signed under duress, saying in 1926, “The Treaty was signed, whether under duress on the one side or under duress on both sides, we need not pause to haggle about.”121 The early assertion that the oath had been swallowed “at the cannon’s mouth” was replaced with a rather cavalier statement that neither side got all it wanted out of the Treaty, which is, of course, true of nearly all diplomatic negotiations. The benefits flowing from the Treaty—practical, tangible benefits—were stressed to a greater degree than its defects. This was perhaps natural for a sitting government, but it still had consequences. Gradually the quotidian superseded, or at least equaled, the heroic in Cumann na nGaedheal rhetoric. This was a core problem Cumann na nGaedheal had to face—how to draw on some of the idealistic rhetoric of the revolution without making the government seem a failure for not making such dreams real. O’Higgins presided over this transition. He said in 1923, “Ideals are very good things in their own way but there is a duty on idealists, and I think we possibly had a lesson in that direction here, to keep their feet on the ground and not to float away in the upper ether.” Later in that same speech, he favorably referenced what he called Griffith’s “practical idealism” and “constructive idealism.”122 Many Cumann na nGaedheal leaders tried to keep alive the rhetoric of the revolution while recognizing the realities faced by the Free State. Republicans, on the other hand, were presented as idealists without any grasp of reality, “emotional” button pushers whose ideas lacked practicality, pragmatism, and a chance of success.

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The increasingly central place of the Treaty in Cumann na nGaedheal rhetoric led to significant problems between the leadership and the political party. When challenged, Cumann na nGaedheal leaders tended to cite support for the Treaty and its constructive potential as what differentiated them from the republicans and to threaten dire and calamitous changes should the Treaty position be jeopardized. This attitude was adopted whether those doing the questioning were republicans or disgruntled Treatyite elements. At a contentious meeting with the Cumann na nGaedheal Standing Committee in October 1924, O’Higgins demanded, “We must clear our own minds as to whether we stood on the Treaty or were ready to throw it over at short notice.”123 His favor clearly rested on the former proposition. O’Higgins also wrote to a restless Roscommon Cumann na nGaedheal branch, telling it that any threat to withdraw support for Cumann na nGaedheal—in this case over Blythe’s reductions in pensions—would just lead to “strengthening those whose policy is to break the Treaty.” He then queried “what prospect the pensioners would have if the Treaty was broken. The party which supplied itself with funds by taking the pension money from post offices and mails will, no doubt, have their answer ready.”124 O’Higgins had made a similar threat eighteen months before, telling Cosgrave, in connection with de Valera’s cease-fire proposals, that allowing the republicans to enter the Dáil without taking the oath would “jeopardis[e] the important benefits of the Treaty position.”125 To emphasize the potential of the Treaty and the bankruptcy of their opponents’ opposition, Cumann na nGaedheal leaders frequently contrasted the constructiveness of their own movement with the perceived destructiveness of republican actions and thinking. To Cumann na nGaedheal speakers, this clearly established the differing pre- and post-Treaty context. This theme originated during the initial Treaty debates, particularly with Collins, who frequently noted that Treatyites wanted to “get on with the business” and work for Ireland rather than endlessly talk and debate. In frustration, Collins told the Dáil shortly after the Treaty’s passage: “The people are already regarding us as a laughing stock; and people are getting impatient at our talking here day after day. If we are going on this way much further the people will come in and turn us out; or they will ignore us and we can sit on here and talk as much as we like.”126 Collins again complained the next day that “we must see by now that we have talked long enough without doing anything constructive,” a sentiment that Cosgrave echoed six weeks later in the face of what he perceived as republican obstructionism

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toward the Treaty: “We ought to get away from this nonsense and get to business instead of mumbling about words.”127 Republicans, on the other hand, were characterized by Treatyites as destructive. In an article provocatively titled “Mexican Politics,” O’Higgins wrote, “the attitude of the anti-Treaty leaders is degenerating more and more into a purely negative and purely destructive one.”128 Once the civil war started, he again described republicans as “the men who are hacking the face of their motherland, with no constructive programme, with nothing but a negative destructive programme.”129 O’Higgins also depicted Childers— and, after Childers’s execution, de Valera—as the arch-destroyer. Before Childers’s capture, O’Higgins told the Dáil that “his [Childers’s] programme is a negative programme, a purely destructive programme, and it will be victory to him and his peculiar mind if he prevents the Government coming into existence under the terms of the Treaty. . . . He has no constructive programme, and so he keeps steadily, callously and ghoulishly on his career of striking at the heart of this nation, striking deadly, or what he hopes are deadly, blows at the economic life of this nation.”130 This republican destructiveness was constantly compared unfavorably with Treatyite construction. Hogan said, “When you are out for destruction, anything is good enough. Destruction is easy, it is irresponsible. But construction is not.”131 At best, this highlighted the government’s achievements. But it also redefined patriotism and sacrifice in a quite different way than had been current in Irish political culture. It also assumed that one’s position on the Treaty was revelatory of one’s character, as opposition was equated with a love of destruction or a skill at tearing down existing institutions. Hogan exposed the rather practical nature of his political philosophy by telling an election meeting “he did not know what patriotism meant except running the country prosperously.”132 The same day, O’Higgins told another meeting, “They wanted to put before the people the idealism of progress, and development, and nationalism, as against the decadent idealism that took concrete form in the burning of houses and wrecking of bridges and railways.”133 This was a significant change in Irish nationalism, which generally thrived on a healthy amount of idealism and vague promises. That sort of rhetoric was now frequently dismissed by Cumann na nGaedheal leaders as empty, dangerous, emotional, irrational, and meaningless. Rather than inspiring, transcendent, and heroic, Irish nationalism was often depicted by Cumann na nGaedheal as, in O’Higgins’ words, “the grim continuity of this struggle and the grim upward rise of a submerged

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race.”134 Self-sacrifice was subtly redefined to be less heroic and more unpleasant, a necessary evil. As support for the Treaty among what Regan calls “the Treatyite elite” hardened, acceptance of the Treaty as it stood became a litmus test for membership in Cumann na nGaedheal. The dynamic was that behind the scenes or in negotiations with the British, Cumann na nGaedheal leaders pushed for a rather expansive reading of Ireland’s rights under the Treaty, but reacted defensively when pressed publicly for similar action. Public questioning tended to lead to determined defenses of the Treaty, or dire predictions of the consequences of abandoning it. Instead, the Cumann na nGaedheal leadership caste repeatedly extolled the virtues of slow and patient working of Ireland’s new freedoms. The dangers of this attitude were illuminated by Eoin MacNeill during a contentious meeting between the Executive Council and the party’s Standing Committee in late 1923: “The necessary distinctive policy may take time to evolve, but the real question was what we should put before the people as an inducement to join. The Treaty issue was worn out, and empty watch words were not enough.” MacNeill’s answer to this concern, though, echoed what his Executive Council colleagues had been saying for the past year: “Our only distinctive line was that of constructive Nationalism, with the power to carry out our programme; other parties were negative.”135 This was perhaps a meaningful distinction in 1923, but became less so as the decade wore on, and it particularly lost potency after the formation and entrance into the Dáil of Fianna Fáil. Once de Valera and company accepted parliamentary politics, however hesitantly, this distinction dissolved, as both major parties could, in theory, take power, form a government, and enact policies. Once Cumann na nGaedheal was no longer the only party willing to wield power, the difference between it and Fianna Fáil became more focused on specific polices, at which point Cumann na nGaedheal’s unpopular liquor, budgetary, and civil order policies became more damaging to its reputation. The party could also no longer play the trump card of being the only entity that could get things done. The way forward was outlined in a policy statement issued by Cumann na nGaedheal after the 1924 defection of the National Group: “Recent events, both without and within the organisation, make necessary a clearer and more detailed statement of policy, which would have the double effect of preventing further secessions and of showing the country some immediate benefits from the Treaty. The maintenance of the Treaty position will for

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years depend on its being upheld by a united and well-organised popular movement; but such a movement will be impossible, and rightly so, unless those who stand for the Treaty can show that it provides solid advantages for the people, while showing no tendency towards weakening the National tradition.” The idea was to continue to emphasize the Treaty but also to provide a constructive policy that would demonstrate its tangible benefits. The Treaty was still necessary to the party, as it was “clear that neither the Party nor the Organisation as a whole are homogeneous in regard to policy except on the question of the Treaty.” The problem came in finding agreement on the policies to be pursued: “But in our organisation the common basis usually present has not yet been found or stated. It should be an immediate task to find and formulate such elements of policy as will serve to give a common basis to those who support the Treaty.”136 By the end of the 1920s, the Treaty was central to Cumann na nGaedheal understanding of the gains of the revolution and was offered up as one of the guarantors of Irish sovereignty and status. This was quite a contrast from 1921, when Treatyite support for the document was often lukewarm or conditional, and the Treaty was frequently defended as a necessary compromise, the best that Ireland could get, or a flawed document that was preferable to renewed war. The civil war, though, changed that position. The Treaty, and the state it set up, became the key difference between Treatyites and their political opponents, a difference over which significant blood was shed. As such, the Treaty rose in importance until it seemed to take precedence over other issues separating Irish political parties and became, in fact, a prerequisite for participation in the Free State’s political system. Cumann na nGaedheal set out to demonstrate that the Treaty was the chief mechanism that could deliver on Ireland’s revolutionary promise. Constructive evolutionary nationalism became the objective for Cumann na nGaedheal, and the Treaty was the means through which gains could be achieved. In private, Cumann na nGaedheal members often stood for a generous reading of the document and fought England behind the scenes on rather trivial issues in order to widen or demonstrate that sovereignty. But in public, the Treaty was sacrosanct, as defects or ambiguities were rarely admitted. This inversion of the usual Irish nationalist electoral strategy, and the pursuance of what one sympathetic observer called “good works done by stealth,” would prove electorally fatal in the long run for Cumann na nGaedheal.137 The pursuit of sovereignty, a Gaelic state, and democracy were all goals that tied back directly to the revolution, but gradually they all became entangled with

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the Treaty itself in Cumann na nGaedheal rhetoric. It was not that Cumann na nGaedheal turned its back on the revolution so much as it was that they linked the revolution unambiguously with the Treaty, a pairing that lost electoral force as the Treaty receded into the past and the disappointments of the 1920s pushed to the surface.

2 Security, Order, and Sovereignty

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or the new Treatyite government in 1922, the demonstration of sovereignty internally through the rule of law and the establishment of order was as important as the projection of sovereignty externally. Historians have focused extensively on Cumann na nGaedheal’s law and order policies, which form the heart of later depictions of the regime as counterrevolutionary. For example, Diarmuid Ferriter and John Regan each blamed Cumann na nGaedheal’s electoral decline on an unpopular and repressive security policy. Regan specifically claimed that Cumann na nGaedheal increasingly relied on its ability to preserve order as compensation for its “ideological shortcomings” and intellectual torpor.1 The implication, at least in Regan’s work, is that the party lacked any strong ideological connection to the revolution and, faced with that deficiency, chose to cover it by appealing to a middle-class sense of order, security, and the protection of property. Its appeal, in other words, was to the most basic functions of government. In contrast, Marie Coleman observes that Sinn Féin’s takeover of the Irish administration, which often receives less attention from historians than does the IRA, was “central to the success of the revolution, as it made Irish self-government a fact in the lives of many ordinary people.”2 What remains underexplored are the aspects of the revolution that were drawn upon by Cumann na nGaedheal leaders in framing and building the institutions of the new state. Regan at times seemed to assume that the creation of postrevolutionary institutions was inevitably counterrevolutionary, an analytical framework the breadth of which severely minimizes its utility. All successful revolutionaries must eventually consider a postrevolutionary 54

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settlement, and the Treatyites were no exception. The goal for most revolutionaries, in broadest terms, is to establish institutions that honor the rhetoric and ideology of the revolution while still creating a functioning state. This chapter, then, explores how Cumann na nGaedheal leaders conceived, defended, and explained the emerging institutions of the new state, particularly those devoted to the maintenance of order, and how they frequently cited the postrevolutionary, postcolonial, and Irish contexts in which these institutions were developed.3 The revolution most definitely bequeathed a rhetorical legacy to Cumann na nGaedheal, as the party’s policies had to be fit within a broad revolutionary framework—ideas such as Gaelicization, self-determination, democracy, the primacy of agriculture, an independent foreign policy—on which pro- and anti-Treatyites agreed in general terms, although not in particulars. Working within that legacy, the Treatyite government blended the rule of law, state formation, and post- and anticolonialism into a general law and order policy that was presented to the Irish people as having Irish roots and as being a response to specifically Irish postrevolutionary and postcolonial conditions. Kevin O’Higgins was central to this aspect of Treatyite activity. Regan wrote that O’Higgins was the “controlling influence” of the Treatyite state.4 As minister of home affairs (later justice), he presided over the building up of a new court system as well as over the extraordinary coercive measures passed in pursuit of order. He also took the lead in asserting the government’s right to protect itself from internal enemies, defending a number of repressive Public Safety Acts in the Dáil. He also was a fierce advocate for executions, his defense of which made him a hated figure among republicans and undoubtedly contributed to his 1927 assassination. Ironically, the most infamous executions that he defended publicly—the extralegal reprisal executions of O’Higgins’s friend Rory O’Connor and three others in December 1922—were initially opposed by him within the Executive Council and marked the only time in his public career that he broke down and was unable to finish a Dáil speech. Although he would have hated the comparison, O’Higgins in one sense was similar to de Valera, as a rigid and dogmatic public persona often concealed much more flexible and realistic positions articulated privately. The creation of permanent institutions was obviously a key component of the formation of an ordered state. The first major task was the crafting of a constitution, from which all other institutions would derive their legitimacy. As D. H. Akenson and J. F. Fallin argued in their seminal article on

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the constitution’s genesis, “It is difficult to overestimate either the importance of the constitution, or the difficulties facing the provisional government.” Initially, the pro-Treaty leadership had high hopes for the constitution, as Collins in particular believed it could narrow the gap between Treatyites and anti-Treatyites.5 He convened a drafting committee that he nominally chaired but rarely attended, and this committee ended up producing three drafts, two of which were then amalgamated and altered by the Executive Council. Significant negotiations with the British also followed concerning both the process by which the constitution was to be ratified and the details of the constitution itself. It rapidly became clear to the Irish that the British government believed any Free State constitution would have to receive Westminster’s approval, a condition that was not laid out in the Treaty. Eventually, the British were persuaded to ratify the Treaty in March 1922 and then reserve formal approval of the constitution until it was completed.6 Once the questions of process were settled, the negotiators turned their attention toward the constitution’s substance. On 2 June 1922, the Irish cabinet was told that the British government had rejected the constitution as “that of an independent Republic rather than that of a State such as was provided for in the Treaty.”7 In addition to demonstrating the bankruptcy of Collins’s strategy of writing a republican constitution that did not openly violate the Treaty, this rejection created some serious political difficulties for Treatyites. Having the British appear to dictate terms of the constitution gave weight to republican claims that the independence offered by the Treaty was a sham. It also put Treatyites up against their repeated promise to republicans that any constitution would be published before the election, scheduled for later in June. Eventually, the dictates of time and the pragmatism that characterized most initial Treatyite politics militated for a compromise with the British. Collins was a reluctant convert, to say the least, but he, too, eventually acquiesced. In a note probably intended as a draft of an election speech, Collins complained, “Things are appearing in the Constitution now which it is possible to swallow only with the utmost hardship. Yet, they must be swallowed if anything at all is to be saved from the wreckage.” He also noted specifically, “It is not easy to swallow the ‘King, Dáil and Seanád.’”8 However, Irish negotiators, as in December 1921, accepted these provisions, and the final Irish constitution included an oath of allegiance and multiple references to the king. When it came time to present the constitution to the Dáil, Cosgrave told legislators that there were certain clauses that were agreed upon with the British and behind which the

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government reluctantly had to stand. He explained these clauses as unfortunate but necessary.9 O’Higgins later explicitly vowed that the government would resign if any of these clauses were rejected by the Dáil. In so doing, O’Higgins said that if deputies wanted to remove those clauses from the constitution, they could do so, but that the current government would not take responsibility for such actions. The goal was to demonstrate to Dáil deputies that the government considered these compromises distasteful but absolutely necessary. The cabinet delegated the task of piloting the constitution through the Dáil to O’Higgins, a decision that was never explained publicly. This elevated O’Higgins’s profile significantly and increasingly made him the parliamentary voice of the government. Introducing the constitution, O’Higgins admitted it was not “the Constitution that a great many here, and a great many throughout the country, would wish to introduce.”10 But O’Higgins defended its substance, if he was perhaps a bit unhappy with its forms: “The Constitution is one which I hold to be a strict but fair interpretation of the Treaty. Had circumstances here been other than what they were, I do believe that we could have got a more pleasantly worded Constitution; but I do not believe that in any important point of substance we could have got a better Constitution than we in fact got.”11 Blythe, predictably, took a point of view less accommodating to those uneasy with the Treaty settlement: “I do not think that this is a Constitution which requires to be introduced with an apology. This Constitution, in my reading of it, is an interpretation of the Treaty, and, to my mind, the Treaty is not a matter requiring apology. I regard the securing of the Treaty as a victory.”12 The nuts and bolts of the constitution have been covered elsewhere, most notably by Akenson, Fallin, and Leo Kohn, and need not be rehearsed in their entirety here.13 It guaranteed the basic civil rights and liberties standard to most liberal democratic regimes in Europe and enshrined a majoritarian parliamentary regime centered on the Dáil and the cabinet, now styled the Executive Council so it could have a president. Members of the legislature’s upper house, the Seanad, were chosen in order to privilege Ireland’s Protestant elite, the result of a gentlemen’s agreement made between Arthur Griffith and Unionist leaders in early 1922. The drafters also included some provisions intended to prevent the development of a strict two-party system of the kind they imagined existed in England.14 The various safeguards guaranteeing the role of the king and the trappings of imperial membership were inserted in the constitution at the behest of the British government,

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leading to much disquiet from the Dáil. The Treaty was ultimately attached as a schedule to the constitution, a device that prevented yet another lineby-line debate on the Treaty but still highlighted its central place in the revolutionary settlement. Although initially ambivalent about some of its imperial provisions, Treatyites would point to the constitution frequently throughout the 1920s as evidence of Ireland’s genuine freedom and as a means of creating the foundation necessary for further reforms. For O’Higgins, it was important that the people judged the constitution after they had seen it in action: “The Constitution is, after all, the mechanics of government, and the people will have to see these mechanics at work before they alter that traditional outlook of theirs, and before they grasp the real fact that the Constitution puts them definitely in the saddle in Ireland.”15 The constitution was therefore both a means of civic education and an ultimate corrective to what O’Higgins saw as the people’s natural reaction to the long colonial period. Cosgrave, reflecting after his fall from power, noted that the constitution’s successful functioning in fact depended on the growth of a civic spirit. He wrote: “The Constitution enacted is of real importance. But the Constitution is rather the plant or machinery of the factory; and however up-to-date, suitable and efficient the machinery, the success of its working depends on the skill and adaptability of the operatives.”16 Republican opponents, on the other hand, tended to focus on the monarchical trappings in the constitution, which they saw as foreign impositions that the Irish never should have accepted. Historian Dorothy Macardle voiced this view in her republican-leaning work The Irish Republic. After praising the “Irish” aspects of the constitution that were “of a fine, advanced and democratic character,” Macardle criticized “the British injections, provisions destructive of sovereignty, restrictive of liberty, insufferably humiliating to any people with a claim to nationhood.”17 Republicans also claimed that the inclusion of the oath in the constitution denied them a chance to participate in the Dáil. The formal passage of the constitution through the Dáil was intended to enshrine the rule of law in the country. Treatyite leaders understood this as a difficult task and often cited Ireland’s colonized history and its tradition of resistance to governmental authority as major hurdles that had to be overcome. The fact that these particular Cumann na nGaedheal leaders had encouraged such resistance during the revolution made it all the more imperative that they find a convincing justification for obedience to the law in a society that had tended to tolerate threats to life and property

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when such threats were made in the name of resistance to outsiders. The postcolonial nature of this problem was cited repeatedly by Cumann na nGaedheal leaders, seeking to both explain and correct the perceptions and manifestations of Irish lawlessness. Desmond FitzGerald, in a press release from early 1923, summed up the combination of revolutionary, colonial, and international factors that conditioned Irish disorder: “Among all the wrongs and evils inflicted on Ireland by Dublin castle, not the least was this, that the people were forced, generation after generation, to resist the only law and government that existed, until resistance and negation became their chief political tradition. Then came the Great War, with its disturbing effects on the public mind throughout the world. Close upon its traces came the final and terribly intense stages of the Irish revolutionary struggle.”18 In his funeral oration for Kevin O’Higgins in 1927, Cosgrave invoked the same theme, blaming Ireland’s problems on “the combined result of long misgovernment, revolt and revolution.”19 The process by which this history could be overcome was understood by Treatyite leaders to be a gradual one. In attempting to explain the revolutionary changes to the Irish people, members of the government constantly stressed that the law of the land was no longer British but was made and endorsed by Irish representatives. This invocation of popular sovereignty was a common Treatyite refrain during the government’s years in power and foregrounded both the successes of the revolution and the Treatyites’ perceived electoral supremacy over anti-Treatyites. From the moment of the Treaty’s passage, and because it had been ratified by the revolutionary Dáil, pro-Treatyites tended to see the Dáil as the ultimate manifestation of Irish popular sovereignty and the central institution in Cumann na nGaedheal’s state building. Kevin O’Higgins, in an address delivered at Oxford, said, “Two conditions I submit attach to a people’s right to the fullest selfgovernment—a desire on their part to undertake their government and a fitness for that responsibility.”20 The government’s primary task in its early years was to enable those two conditions, emphasizing both the potential of Ireland’s newfound sovereignty and the need to create sufficient civic spirit to take advantage of it. The linchpin of the Cumann na nGaedheal program was selfdetermination, also a key idea invoked by Sinn Féin leaders during the revolutionary period. Richard Mulcahy told his son that “the driving force behind his separatist ideas was self determination.”21 Seán Milroy, a longtime Sinn Féin activist, called self-determination “the principle upon which

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we fought the whole of the by-elections since 1908, since 1916.”22 Upon arriving on his American mission in 1919, de Valera added, “I am in America as the official head of the Republic established by the will of the Irish people, in accordance with the principles of self-determination.”23 The movement for Irish independence drew on this concept of self-determination, which formed a critical part of the postwar “Wilsonian moment.”24 The right of self-determination was usually framed in terms of popular sovereignty, particularly once the Treatyites surmised that a majority of the Irish people supported the Treaty. Collins observed in May 1922 that “there is a principle involved . . . which is a greater principle than Republicanism or any other ism. It is the right of the people to govern themselves. It is the principle of government by consent of the governed. If there is civil war, it will not be for a Republic, it will not be for the Treaty, it will simply be to prevent the people expressing their will.”25 Patrick Hogan, citing Collins, said there was one “principle on which the Republic rests, and that is the principle of ‘government by the consent of the governed.’” O’Higgins claimed that “mankind has found no surer rudder or base of guidance in difficult phases than the free will of the community democratically expressed.”26 According to Cumann na nGaedheal, the best way to obtain the consent of the governed was through elections. The majoritarian definition of democracy identified by Tom Garvin as fundamental to the Treatyite outlook partially explains the general importance placed on elections.27 This position was in part pragmatic: without elections, ascertaining the will of the people was quite difficult. Cosgrave said in 1927 that “some of the most onerous of the decisions we took were taken solely for the purpose of vindicating the right of the majority to rule.”28 Patrick Hogan told an election meeting that “the Government Party were the real Republican party, because they had obtained for the people the only freedom worth talking about—the right of the majority to rule without fear or favour.”29 Winning acceptance of majoritarian democracy, and the popular consent it implied, was thus the first task for Cumann na nGaedheal. All other revolutionary reforms would be nullified if this principle of popular sovereignty were not accepted. As O’Higgins said, “You cannot build where foundations are challenged.”30 The emphasis on elections and mandates meant that popular sovereignty became synonymous with parliamentary sovereignty. This was not an easy connection to make in the Free State because of a combination of general postcolonial and specifically Irish factors. First, the legitimacy of the Dáil was

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murky, given that it was a self-proclaimed, one-party body that had never been recognized by the British government. The unclear status of the Irish Provisional Government, along with difficulties over the June 1922 election, in which Collins and de Valera agreed to run a coalition slate of pro- and anti-Treaty Sinn Féin candidates, gave republicans ammunition to question the legitimacy of the Free State Dáil. Republicans also raised concerns about whether the Second Dáil had ever been properly dissolved and whether the new Third Dáil was merely a provisional parliament or a constitutional convention rather than the proper successor to the Second Dáil. Republican abstention from the Third Dáil only added to the problem, as did Ireland’s long history of resistance to authority derived from the colonizing power. The task of asserting parliamentary sovereignty was made more difficult in the wake of a general disillusionment with democracy that spread across the continent after the First World War. As O’Higgins noted, the 1920s were a time when democracy was reeling and “fascism and Bolshevism fought over its prostrate body.”31 O’Higgins recognized this same difficulty in another speech, observing: “While we in Ireland are engaged in laying broad and deep the foundations of a democratic State, on the Continent many peoples are turning in other directions. I am inclined to agree . . . that all these other roads—like so many of the roads built by the British in the west of Ireland—while mostly inviting to the view, come to an end in the middle of a bog.”32 The Dáil thus had a practical as well as a theoretical tarnish. Free Staters, particularly O’Higgins, sought to remove this tarnish. To him and many of his colleagues, the Dáil was the centerpiece of the new Ireland they were trying to build. The supremacy of parliament, in this case, was more important than any particular laws that parliament would pass. Its supremacy had to be established over the army, local government, political parties, and, ultimately, the wishes of the British government. This was an enormous task, made all the more difficult by anti-Treatyite abstention from the Dáil and by the complex nature of some parliamentary business. It was also a task that many deemed dull and unheroic. As Garvin wrote, “The Dáil . . . also asserted the claims of a parliamentary and civic order which was humdrum and quotidian compared with the romantic and heroic order which the IRA represented in the minds of many young men.”33 Once the Third Dáil convened in September 1922, Treatyite leaders repeatedly emphasized the supremacy of parliament. Hogan said, “The issue at stake is whether Parliament shall be the supreme authority in the

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country to control all sections and all interests, armed or unarmed.”34 Cosgrave defined this more broadly: “What has got to be asserted in this country is not the mere term, the supremacy of Parliament. It is the supremacy of the people’s right to live their lives in peace, to possess whatever little they may have, to own a security that is the security of a free people, without interruption by any armed despot with a revolver in his pocket or a bomb in his hand.”35 Establishing the centrality of the Dáil was a necessary first step to achieving any of the other goals of the revolution. As O’Higgins told the Trinity College Historical Society, “Here in Ireland we have to vindicate the first attributes of formal democracy, such as Majority Rule and Parliamentary Authority, before we can even begin to consider the next stage.”36 This would necessarily be a slow process, a situation Cosgrave acknowledged in his speech to an increasingly restless Cumann na nGaedheal party organization in 1925: “We can only remind those who have left our ranks, because they feel that we have not moved with sufficient haste, that the task of building is slow. We must be secure in our foundations, we must be scrupulous in our choice of material, our work must be thorough, we must be satisfied that our edifice will stand the test of time, that it will not be marred by hasty and imperfect workmanship.”37 This notion of parliamentary sovereignty being foundational, and the building metaphor that often accompanied it, was a hallmark of Cumann na nGaedheal rhetoric. The idea was to contrast the constructive work of the Dáil and of the governing party with the destructive work of republican guerillas. O’Higgins also invoked building repeatedly, including during a 1923 Dáil session: “We have been building, or endeavouring to build, for the last year. There was a good deal of wrecking, a good deal of wantonness, crime and irresponsibility, and, to a large extent, we were placed on the defensive. Even on the defensive we have been endeavouring to build, endeavouring to lay the foundations for the future peace and stability of the country.”38 Republican destructiveness was held up as an excuse for the slowness of the pace of construction. In fact, Cumann na nGaedheal’s whole identity became linked with this construction/destruction binary that the party sought to portray, with Mulcahy even identifying the party as the “practical and effective side of the great national movement which was come down from 1916 until now.”39 Here again, the Treaty split was positioned as revelatory of both character and fundamental outlook. To O’Higgins, the fact that people looked to an Irish parliament for answers was a significant gain from the revolution. The fact that many of

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these problems were, as Garvin pointed out, quotidian and boring, was to O’Higgins a sign of parliamentary health: “Dáil Éireann has spent long evenings arguing as to whether eggs should be stamped at the farm or by the dealer and butter graded at the ports or in the creameries. We are threatened with a cattle-breeding bill for the current session to complete our downfall into gross materialism.”40 O’Higgins’s mocking celebration of “gross materialism” was an attempt to demonstrate to an English audience that Ireland was settled and emerging out of the chaos of civil war and getting back to ordinary legislative business as opposed to “special powers.” This emphasis on the Dáil’s routine achievements demonstrated the institution’s potency and the absence of British limitations on its powers in practice. It also lowered the population’s expectations somewhat after the heady days of revolution. This elevation of parliament to the central state institution in some ways sat uncomfortably with Cumann na nGaedheal’s oftenexpressed belief in the limited powers and scope of government, but it was understandable given the challenge to parliamentary sovereignty during the civil war. Once parliament was established, other institutions had to be created by law. Some of these institutions had been inherited from the British colonial system and had to be modified or re-created to emphasize the new postindependence state of affairs. The court system was a particularly important aspect of this project. The courts had been thrown into disarray by the revolution, as the boycott of British courts and the creation of Irish arbitration courts was one of the most tangible and successful manifestations of the Sinn Féin philosophy.41 These courts were informal bodies, presided over by local Sinn Féin elites and charged with making decisions based more on fairness and common sense than legal precedent. The Free State government’s decision to wind up and replace these Dáil courts generated great controversy. The government felt that the informal Dáil courts functioned acceptably during the revolution but would not have worked as permanent institutions. As the minister responsible for the courts, O’Higgins had to answer most of this criticism and in so doing tried to walk the same line as the government had done with revolutionary personnel: praising past service while lamenting some of the potential effects of wholesale adoption of revolutionary-era expedients. By the summer of 1922, the two highest levels of Dáil courts had already been abolished, and both Ernest Blythe and Patrick Hogan had proposed the later abolition of the district and parish courts.42 Nevertheless, the courts’

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replacement with a more formal system had to be attempted with caution. Once the Dáil reconvened in the fall of 1922, O’Higgins praised the revolutionary work of the courts but claimed that these could not be permanent institutions.43 The next year, in a long speech defending the Dáil Courts (Winding Up) Bill, he again described the Sinn Féin courts as “an improvised system of justice . . . forged more as a weapon against the British administration in exceptional times and exceptional circumstances than as a definite system which would meet and answer the needs of normal times.”44 The argument was that the courts were suitable in the context of the revolution, when many Irish people were united against the British, but not in the midst of the moral and violent descent into disunity and civil war. More practically, republicans had attempted to use the Dáil courts to win writs of habeas corpus on behalf of republican prisoners interned without trial or charge. After praising the activities of the courts during the revolution—“these Courts for a period did very useful service. That period I place in the summer of 1920”—O’Higgins criticized their activities after the Truce: “These Courts, which had certainly a useful record when they appeared first, . . . reappeared after the Truce only to be made the channels and the vehicles of corruption and abuse, and only to be used by people not in search of justice, but as an obstruction to justice.”45 The problem, according to O’Higgins, was that the Courts were useful when the population was united but became harmful once division set in. The elites chosen to preside over Sinn Féin courts had “a hold over their communities and an influence in their communities which was useful for a period, for a period during which their communities were knit together by the bond of common resistance to British administration. I submit that these Courts had within themselves, by their very nature, the elements of dissolution. They were essentially occasional, and they could never have been adopted or adapted to meet the requirements of a normal situation. Further, you had this, unfortunately, that the movement which threw these Courts up was split from top to bottom; you had the poison and the bitterness of that split circulated into every hamlet and into every home in the country.”46 O’Higgins fit this in with the general Cumann na nGaedheal narrative of a people coming down from the moral high of the revolution to the rather less exalted position of the civil war: “The Dáil Courts had a period of glory and a period of usefulness, but that glory and that usefulness sprang very much from the self-imposed discipline of the people at that time, from the exaltation of the people of that time, from the selflessness which permeated

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them. I think it would be a very unsafe thing to say, judging from that entirely different set of circumstances, that such Courts, set up now in a different set of circumstances, would have the same success or the same utility.” O’Higgins assumed that a postcolonial people needed to have discipline imposed after the discipline provided by a common enemy disappeared. The authority of the Dáil courts was in many ways personal, not institutional, dependent on the esteem in which the amateur judges were held. Such extrainstitutional authority was not possible, according to O’Higgins, after the civil war had largely destroyed the ability of any political figure to command the respect of both sides in the dispute. Mary Kotsonouris wrote that O’Higgins “launched an extraordinary attack on the courts” and that “the more O’Higgins was challenged on the facts, the more irrational and vindictive he became.” She claimed that the short-term cause of this may have been O’Higgins’s hatred of, and irritation with, George Gavan Duffy, a reluctant Treaty signatory and chief critic of the Provisional Government in 1922 and early 1923, who argued vociferously for the Dáil courts. In the larger picture, though, Kotsonouris saw the winding up of the Dáil courts as the manifestation of a broader retreat from revolutionary principles.47 While there is a heavy dose of self-preservation in O’Higgins’s tearing down of the Dáil courts, as such courts could have undermined the entire Free State strategy of holding republicans without trial, this is also a good example of the party’s difficult engagement with the legacy of the revolution. Past service had to be lauded without becoming the definitive template for future action. In the short term, the government fell back on the existing structures of the British courts that had been boycotted and rendered ineffective during the revolution. In September 1922, O’Higgins announced to the Dáil that the old county courts were going to function again until the government decided on a permanent court system. Anticipating criticism, O’Higgins said, “Let there not be that prejudiced criticism about British Courts. We should try to grow out of that. We should try to grow up as a nation and try to develop the capacity for looking facts in the eye and admit them. These are not British Courts. There are no British Courts in Ireland at present.”48 In early 1923 Cosgrave charged a special committee with proposing a new Irish judiciary. In his initial letter to the committee, Cosgrave called the British courts “a standing monument of alien government” that had usurped “the laws and institutions till then a part of the living national organism.” There was “nothing more prized among our newly won liberties than the

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liberty to construct a system of judiciary and an administration of law and justice according to the dictates of our own needs and after a pattern of our own designing.”49 Despite these admonitions, the Courts of Justice Bill that passed the Dáil in May 1924 established a court system very similar to that inherited from the British, staffed by experts and full of ceremonial pomp. Even though Hugh Kennedy’s quixotic attempt to have judges wear “Gaelic” multicolored robes was dismissed, Cumann na nGaedheal leaders did identify some key differences from the British system.50 Blythe approvingly noted the presence of salaried and trained district judges instead of amateur resident magistrates and justices of the peace, seen as a particularly inequitable manifestation of the old system. O’Higgins appointed some court clerks who had served the old regime but also took care to find district justices who knew Irish, particularly in Irish-speaking regions.51 And once the courts began to function, O’Higgins introduced a bill removing the king’s name from the juror’s oath. In so doing, he again drew a contrast between the old system and the new: “The courts that existed here under the British administration were, from the point of view of the vast majority of the people, prejudiced. . . . They were the courts of the stranger. They were courts that were part and parcel of an administration that was not here with the will of the people. . . . And so we fashioned here a new system giving a good deal of consideration to what we considered to be the needs of the people; what we believed to be the real reform for the country.”52 The pro-government newspaper The Star also highlighted the strengths of the system created by the 1924 Courts of Justice Bill, arguing that the judges stuck to the law instead of editorializing about conditions in the country as British justices had tended to do during the colonial period.53 The judicial system was an example of an institution set up under the Free State that clearly differed from comparable revolutionary institutions but still was presented as the fruit of the struggle for independence, and as a suitable replacement for the structures of the old regime. The most controversial and difficult functions the courts had to undertake was the suppression of agrarian and political violence, as these longstanding Irish problems were least amenable to solution through ordinary court operations. This was a lesson from the colonial period, as Irish revolutionaries, activists, and juries frequently thwarted the regular operation of British courts against those accused of politicized crimes. As a result, the Cumann na nGaedheal government passed a number of short-term measures intended to assist the courts in prosecuting these complex cases. The

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first, the 1923 Enforcement of Law (Occasional Powers) Act, granted subsheriffs wider rights to employ temporary bailiffs for the enforcement of court decrees and also gave greater latitude to subsheriffs for the immediate sale of goods seized from defendants. These sales could now legally take place within twenty-four hours and outside of the county of seizure, presumably to avoid local disturbances or boycotts. The costs of the seizures and sales were also added to the overall judgment due the court. These provisions, which O’Higgins admitted were “drastic,” gave defendants with unpaid judgments little time or means to challenge the seizures.54 O’Higgins, as minister for home affairs, defended this bill in two ways. First, he called it a necessary corollary to the establishment of the rule of law. Tracing the defiance of court orders back to the late colonial period, O’Higgins noted that “the bailiff, as a factor in our civilisation, has not been particularly active or particularly effective of recent years.”55 O’Higgins also linked this situation to the lack of respect for parliamentary authority: “The writ of this Dáil may be running with a limp in certain counties at the moment. We intend it shall not be running with a limp in three or four weeks time, and against all the matters that signify a breakdown of the idea of law, or that are symptoms of the possibility of a breakdown of the idea of law in the minds of the people, we will take the strongest action.”56 Once again, Cumann na nGaedheal leaders emphasized the connection between the rule of law, the authority of the courts, and the Dáil that authorized those institutions. The breakdown of law was seen as a crucial legacy of the colonial era, and the revolution was equated with, or at least connected to, the establishment of a system of Irish law enacted by an Irish parliament and enforced by Irish judges. Somewhat paradoxically, though, O’Higgins also presented this policy as merely a common-sense extension of what had existed before, criticizing Labour leader Thomas Johnson for “thinking, or pretending to think, that the Bill is some revolutionary measure, that hitherto there existed in this country a statute or a convention that people shall not pay their debts; and that we had come along blundering, like young bulls in a china shop, with this startling proposal that people shall pay their debts. . . . You would think that such a thing as a seizure by an Under-Sheriff was unknown in this country before I had an evil brain-wave and framed this Bill.”57 The Enforcement of Law Act was renewed in 1924, and O’Higgins again connected this to the symbolic status of the law, saying, “The execution of court decrees is the ultimate act of Government. It is the vindication of

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the legal right of the individual citizen as against his neighbour.” O’Higgins warned: “The machinery of the law is the modern substitute for the stone axe. . . . You have to get used to the idea that the mere negative destructive attitude regarding courts and public officials . . . is not going to make for ordered progress here and is not going to make for decency of life here.”58 The restoration of the bailiff would then enable Ireland’s transition to the postcolonial rule of law. Also in 1923, the government introduced the first of what would be several Public Safety Acts. This first act gave the minister of home affairs the power to arrest and detain offenders without trial and set out a series of rather harsh punishments for those convicted of offenses loosely related to the civil war, such as arson, looting, theft, or illegal possession of weapons. The idea, according to O’Higgins, was to bridge the gap between conditions of war and peace. As O’Higgins told his Executive Council colleagues in April 1923, “As soon as the state of war in the country was definitely ended, the special powers enjoyed by the military with regard to search, arrest and detention of civilians would have to be replaced by somewhat similar powers exercised for a limited period by the Civil Authorities.”59 The government was concerned that the Irish courts would more seriously consider habeas corpus requests from republican prisoners when a state of overt war no longer prevailed in the country.60 Returning to the theme of insufficient civic spirit, O’Higgins also cited the increasing refusal of juries to convict prisoners passed through the ordinary civil court system, a situation which “shows that we have yet some way to go before we arrive at proper standards of civic duty, the duty that lies towards the State from the citizens, corresponding to the duty that lies from the State towards the citizens.”61 When the bill was presented to the Dáil, the section that initially received the most comment was that which prescribed the penalty of whipping or flogging for those convicted of arson or robbery under arms. The initial draft made this a discretionary sentence, but the Executive Council amended it so as to make it mandatory unless there was a compelling medical reason to waive it.62 O’Higgins admitted it was a retrograde act but claimed that the offenses were retrograde as well. As the bill made a rocky passage through the Dáil, including at least one all-night session devoted to criticism of its provisions, the main thrust of these attacks focused on the ongoing detention of prisoners without trial, even as the civil war had come to a close. To defend this bill, the government argued its need for certain unpleasant things—such as whipping and detention—in times of threat to the state

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and generally urged the Dáil to trust the discretion of the government. O’Higgins complained, “Deputies have insisted on talking as if the position here were what it was four or five years ago. . . . The whole Executive machinery of this country is responsible now to the people of the country, through the people’s representatives. There is not a single phase or aspect of administration which you are not entitled to raise, question and criticise here.”63 Although methods of resistance that were legitimate in 1920—such as hunger strikes and guerrilla attacks—were deemed illegitimate in 1923 by Cumann na nGaedheal because of the advent of popular sovereignty, the same government also held that corrective measures need not be ruled out solely because the British government had previously used them against the Irish. The drawn-out passage of this bill clearly irritated and wearied the government, particularly O’Higgins, who was generally defensive and even more caustic than usual during these debates. At one point, he referred to George Gavan Duffy’s proposed amendments as “expressions of stupid malignity.” Having been told that was unparliamentary language, O’Higgins uncharitably amended the phrase to “not very clever malignity.”64 He reacted particularly strongly to charges that the government was reactionary, retrograde, feudal, or generally authoritarian. He admitted that the measure, and the policies required to suppress civil war violence more generally, involved “the sacrifice of some finer feelings of our own. You see we have had to outrage in the execution of our responsibility certain of our feelings. Deputies know that. They know we have had to arrest and imprison and even execute people who were our friends and who were our comrades. . . . [T]hat was not a pleasant task for us.”65 When O’Higgins desired to renew the act six months later, he admitted he was doing it “not with gusto, not with any particular zeal for passing a measure which admittedly offends against certain general principles which ought to obtain if we had a normal ideal situation in the country.”66 This attitude additionally played into a common Cumann na nGaedheal self-image as selfless heroes discharging unpleasant tasks for the sake of the Irish people. After 1924 the government entered somewhat of a period of calm, at least in terms of military threats to its existence. Provisions of the 1923 Public Safety Act were allowed to lapse, but the government did pass a Treasonable Offences Act in 1925, which permanently criminalized rebellion against the state and was designed to supersede the ad hoc Public Safety Acts and to direct offenders to the regular courts. The act also banned

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membership in organizations that claimed to be the government or the army of the state, a provision that in essence banned the IRA Army Council, further meetings of the “Second Dáil,” and various republican pseudogovernmental organizations. In consequence of O’Higgins’s notion of civic duty, the act also created the felony offense of misprision of treason for those who did not divulge potentially treasonous activities of others. This, according to O’Higgins, was “the corollary to the individual’s rights as against the State. It embodies the State’s rights in regard to the individual.” In deflecting Thomas Johnson’s criticism of this bill, O’Higgins invoked Johnson’s socialist conceptions of community: “The Deputy [Johnson], on other occasions, is the first to advocate the idea of the solidarity of the community that we, one and another, are members of, and that the individual has responsibilities beyond himself and beyond his family.”67 Cosgrave defended this treason bill as Irish and, as such, a desirable substitute for preexisting British legislation on the same subject: “Under the laws of this State, passed by the representatives of the people, there will be power to bring those people to justice—to the people’s justice; not under an Act passed by some other Parliament, over which we had no control and in the making of which we had no voice. . . . [Republicans] would like to be prosecuted under Acts that were passed in another country by another Government—like it very much. The crown of martyrdom cannot rest on their heads as long as we have a measure passed by our own representatives, in our own Parliament, which will make them responsible for such acts.”68 The bill passed, but “had a very bad reception even among strong Government supporters.”69 This was evidence of a trend that worked against Cumann na nGaedheal in the long run: The population supported extreme measures in defense of order during wartime, but as soon as conditions seemed to normalize, such support waned rather rapidly. The constitution, Dáil, and courts were designed to install the rule of law in a postcolonial nation where disrespect for the law had become widespread. In addition to this long-term goal, however, the government also had to establish order in the present, and this required the creation of institutions with more immediate and rapid coercive power, namely the police and the army. The civil war aside, this was a massive task, as Ireland was in the throes of significant political and agrarian disturbances. As a result, the creation of a new police force was seen as a key priority for the Provisional Government in 1922. The revolutionary legacy in terms of policing was less complex than that of the army, as nearly all involved admitted that attempts

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to set up a republican police force during the revolution had completely failed. The Provisional Government created an Irish Civic Guard in February 1922, but the force faced immediate problems. A pro-Treaty TD, Michael Staines, was put in charge and was told to recruit, in order of preference, current members of the IRA, current Irish Republican Police, members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) who had resigned for patriotic reasons, civilians, and former RIC who had stayed in the force.70 It was the presence of the latter group that caused the most difficulty, as some of the IRA recruits were suspicious of the ex-constables, a suspicion that was encouraged by anti-Treatyites.71 According to O’Higgins, many of the pre-truce RIC men who were taken into the ranks of the Civic Guard had been screened by Collins personally and presumably had been friendly to his operations during the revolution. This fact was either not known or not accepted by many of the rank-and-file recruits, however.72 Tensions within the new Civic Guard spilled over into mutiny in May 1922, when men at the Kildare training barracks refused to allow Staines to enter the facility.73 After weeks of fairly delicate negotiations, a settlement was negotiated that established a commission of inquiry into the disturbance. That commission eventually concluded that the mutiny had been caused by anti-Treatyites trying to stir up trouble in the force as well as by genuine concerns about the presence of ex-RIC men in the Guard.74 Collins himself blamed some of the problems on the troubles with the wartime Republican police. He said in early August 1922, “We are not in a position to repose confidence in the effectiveness of the Civic Guard as a body to maintain ordinary law. . . . It is not necessary for me to illustrate this by pointing to the wretched Irish Republican police system, and to the awful personnel that was attracted to its ranks.”75 Ultimately, the government decided to disband but not disperse the Guard, allowing some of the former recruits to reenroll in the reconstituted force.76 In the interim, a Citizens Defence Force was formed to guard government buildings, and the army was expected to take on policing functions, leading to a conflict between Mulcahy and O’Higgins, as Mulcahy generally did not believe the army had the time, training, or personnel to successfully undertake policing duties.77 Staines resigned in August and was replaced by Eoin O’Duffy in September. O’Higgins invoked the democratic foundations of the new state in writing to the reconstituted Guard in the police journal Iris an Gharda: “The internal politics and political controversies of the country are not your concern. You will serve, with the same imperturbable discipline and with increasing efficiency any Executive which

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has the support of the majority of the people’s elected representatives. Party will, no doubt, succeed party in the ebb and flow of the political tide. New issues will arise to convulse the Nation. . . . You will remain steadfast and devoted in service of the people and of any executive which it may please the people to return to power. That is the real meaning of Democracy— Government of the people by the people through their elected representatives. It is the only barrier between mankind and anarchy.”78 Acting on a recommendation from the commission that investigated the mutiny, O’Higgins confirmed the risky decision that the new police should be unarmed, in contrast to both the RIC and the initial Civic Guard. This time, recruitment came from veterans of the army, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), the Protective Force, and the Citizens Defence Force.79 The men from the CID proved particularly difficult, coming as they did from this notoriously uncontrollable body.80 In May 1923 O’Higgins reported that less than a third of the CID men could be taken into the ordinary police, while more than a third were “hopeless and would have to be got rid of.”81 Mulcahy preferred that the Garda also recruit from former military police, as many of them were slated for demobilization.82 O’Higgins stopped the recruitment of ex-RIC men in 1923 until a commission could be set up to adjudicate whether or not those men had in fact resigned from the Constabulary for patriotic reasons. Ex-IRA men continued to make up the majority of the force until 1925.83 Regardless of the personnel chosen, O’Higgins wanted the Garda “by their tact, forbearance, and general dealings with the public [to] convince them of the benefits which follow from the voluntary rather than from the enforced obedience to the law.” O’Higgins also asked recruits to use “wise discretion” so that “it is not necessary that every trifling offense should be followed by a prosecution which, instead of convincing, will only irritate.”84 It seemed as if this gamble worked, as the Garda became an accepted facet of Irish life. O’Higgins boasted in 1923 of “350 stations of Civic Guards who were the servants of the Irish people in the upholding of laws made by the representatives of the Irish people in their own Parliament,” a change that “was so big, it had come so suddenly, that it would take the people some time to realise what was summed up in Arthur Griffith’s dictum, that ‘the country is yours for the making; make it.’”85 The unarmed policeman turned out to be a significant plank in Cumann na nGaedheal’s law and order platform, as it showed the state’s sovereignty without necessarily openly parading its naked coercive power. After

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the murder of two policemen in late 1926, O’Duffy proposed to O’Higgins that the Garda be armed. In making this argument, O’Duffy referenced the difficult transition from Ireland’s colonial past. He claimed that because the Irish people had become used to blaming their problems on an outside entity and seeing all manifestations of authority as representative of the colonial power, the people “have directed their main attention toward the destruction of the normal institutions of civilised Government. . . . The net result being that to-day we possess a carefully trained and well-developed distructive [sic] outlook and ability, while our constructive facilities are numbed and undeveloped.” O’Duffy concluded that progress could not be made until the Irish people possessed “even an elementary appreciation of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.”86 O’Higgins rejected this request, believing that the virtues of unarmed police still outweighed the dangers, and there was apparently escalating tension between O’Duffy and his minister in the remaining months of O’Higgins’s life. Garda pay remained an outstanding problem. The Garda had initially started with the same salaries that the RIC received during the war, a rate that had been raised so as to entice people to stay in the force. By 1924 that proved untenable for the budget-conscious Free State, and reductions were put in place that more or less continued for the remainder of Cumann na nGaedheal’s time in power. As late as September 1931, the Department of Finance was circulating dire internal memos predicting across-the-board cuts in state spending, including police pay and pensions.87 Despite the low pay, the police eventually shouldered nonpolicing duties as well, including enforcing laws and standards regulating livestock breeding, food, and drugs; inspecting weights and measures; collecting agricultural data; issuing firearms permits; and reporting on tax delinquents.88 The Garda also became involved with their communities in less onerous ways by taking part in Irish language classes, participating in athletic competitions, and learning Irish song and dance.89 By the end of Cumann na nGaedheal’s decade in power, the police were increasingly integrated into their communities and had become a pillar of the Free State’s internal stability. The creation of a National Army was a much more overtly troublesome issue, as the army proved a more difficult institution to reconcile with the revolutionary past, and tension between the military and the civilian government had deep revolutionary roots. The army’s loyalty to the Dáil had been somewhat tenuous during the revolution, and the conditional nature of that loyalty was one of the critical factors leading to civil war in the summer

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of 1922. The new National Army was created as the government’s military arm, asserting and protecting the sovereignty of the Free State against republican challengers. Despite much talk of subordinating the military to the civilian authority, the government, struggling to function at the outset of the civil war and with the death of Collins, almost immediately began devolving powers to the army. On 27 September 1922 it introduced a resolution that allowed the military to detain persons taken in arms; participating in arson, looting, or attacks on private property; or attacking Free State military forces. The army was also authorized to try detainees in front of military tribunals, so long as one member of the tribunal had “legal knowledge and experience.” The tribunals had the right to inflict a variety of punishments including the death penalty.90 O’Higgins later told the Dáil that these powers were necessary because the state could not meet the burden of proof needed to convict many of the prisoners but said, “I recognize that in conditions of war, when the existence of a State is menaced, that words such as ‘lawful’ go to the wall and that the niceties of legal proof disappear.” The solution was to “stand sheer on the State’s right when its existence is menaced to arrest or detain any citizen or citizeness.”91 Maryann Valiulis has argued that Mulcahy hoped that by monopolizing lethal force, the army could prevent undisciplined retaliation against republicans by individual National Army soldiers.92 Although initially showing forbearance, within two months the military started to use its powers of execution. When the first four republican prisoners were executed on 17 November 1922, O’Higgins defended this action in terms of popular sovereignty. The men, O’Higgins said, were executed for “refusing to recognize the sovereignty of the majority will of this Nation.” After explicating the ways in which the government had tried to settle this peacefully, O’Higgins continued: “There is something greater than the Treaty at stake here. The life of the Irish Nation as a Nation, the life of the Irish Nation as a democratic organism, is at stake. The whole question as to whether it is to be a Nation in the future governed by constitutional principles, or whether it is to be a mob dictated to by an armed minority was at stake.” Cosgrave also invoked popular sovereignty, saying that republicans “would not have victory without the consent of the people of this country.” The goal, according to Cosgrave, was to make republicans in arms “acknowledge the will of the people.” He concluded, “Every sensible person in this country must admit, if the country is to succeed, there must be ordered government.”93 The election of 1922 was given the same status by

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Free Staters as the elections of 1918 and 1921 had been by Sinn Féin during the revolution: as an infallible indicator of the will of the people. Of course, republicans also claimed popular sovereignty as a justification for their actions, pointing to the establishment of the Republic in 1916 and its ratification by the people in 1918, as well as the limited nature of the mandate bestowed by the 1922 elections owing to British interference and the broken electoral pact. The difference here was not so much between revolutionary and counterrevolutionary visions as it was between different—and obviously self-interested—definitions of democracy and alternate measures used to ascertain the will of the people. The establishment of the Dáil and the suppression of republicanism were presented as related facets of the same task. Similar themes were emphasized in the wake of Erskine Childers’s execution. Patrick Hogan claimed that the death of Childers demonstrated that no man was above the law. Hogan mentioned the colonial legacy, claiming that republicans had the “avowed intention, published time and time again, of bringing the English back here.” He also invoked popular sovereignty and majority will: “We believe further that, apart from the Treaty, there can be no progress, no constructive work and no decent civilisation built up in this country, except on the principle that the majority will of the country rules.”94 Richard Mulcahy also alluded to the colonial legacy in explaining the lack of public trials: “If we were a country in a different state of organisation, it might be possible to make a trial of such people a more elaborate matter; and if we had a greater general legal education, or a greater education generally, we might allow ourselves to go deeper into . . . a matter such as this.”95 Ireland, just emerging from a long period of foreign rule, had no such luxury. On 8 December four republicans were executed by the military without trial as a reprisal for the assassination of Treatyite TD Sean Hales the previous day. When this was announced to the Dáil, the Labour opposition, reacting to government defense of previous executions, attacked them in ways that targeted Treatyite preoccupations. Thomas Johnson, who had conceded the need for the earlier executions, said the government’s first major action after the formal inauguration of the Free State on 6 December was “utterly to destroy in the public mind the association of the Government with the idea of law. I am almost forced to say you killed the Free State at its birth.”96 Labour TD Cathal O’Shannon, after oddly asserting that the four executions were worse than the deaths of twenty thousand Communards in 1871, said, “There is not a Dominion in the British Commonwealth in

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which a thing like what happened this morning could happen—not a single one of them.” O’Shannon also invoked the hated Irregulars: “You have struck a harder, bigger, worse blow this morning at the Free State than all the Republican gunmen could strike.”97 O’Shannon’s analogy to the other dominions was designed to assail those Treatyites who often cited the dominions as guarantors of Irish freedom. Treatyites responded again by linking the executions to representative government and popular sovereignty. O’Higgins explained, “It was done deliberately, . . . in the belief that only by that method would representative government or democratic institutions be preserved here.” Seán Milroy said, “When Seán Hales was struck down there was something more than the assassination of that Deputy—there was a blow at the whole basis, the principle, the institutions and the fabric of civilised government in this country.” O’Higgins also noted that “when one strikes at a man of representative character one strikes at the people who gave him his mandate and who invested him with his representative character.” O’Higgins also cited Cicero’s words that, “while the existence of this nation is at stake, there can be but one code—though it sounds a grim code . . . ‘Salus populi suprema lex.’”98 O’Higgins was forced to defend the executions in the Dáil even though he was apparently the last minister to assent to the executions, and Rory O’Connor had been a personal friend.99 Cosgrave, when his turn came to speak, highlighted Seán Hales’s revolutionary record, calling him “one of the most inoffensive members of this Dáil, a man who had done great service during the war, and who entered the war with a hurley stick—a hurley stick was his first weapon.” Cosgrave also said that the government was preparing to exercise clemency to all remaining prisoners subject to military trials, but reversed course after the murder of Hales.100 Of course, this is not to say that the Free Staters were correct in linking the executions to popular sovereignty but rather to highlight the utility or necessity they perceived in doing so. Although the executions generated significant criticism at the time, and the four reprisal executions made at least Cosgrave, O’Higgins, and McGrath uncomfortable, members of the government continued to defend the policy.101 By the close of 1922, the executions had at least temporarily stopped attacks on Dáil deputies, and the civil war had devolved into a series of smaller-scale guerrilla engagements. Nevertheless, the army’s role in the new state remained controversial, with disputes having crystallized around two general areas of concern: the ongoing role of the army in protecting civil

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order and the personnel decisions made by the army leadership. These issues directly invoked the revolution, as the creation of ordered government, often against internal opponents, is one of the main tasks of any postrevolutionary state. These issues also involved bodies such as the IRB and the army that had direct, if not unambiguous, roles in the revolution but whose powers were less clear in postrevolutionary times. The first issue had been brewing for some time. During the civil war, Mulcahy portrayed the army as only reluctantly accepting responsibility for civil order, a stance that echoed that of the IRA during the revolution.102 Speaking at the opening of the Third Dáil in September 1922, Mulcahy said that the army would willingly give up its policing duties once the civil machinery began to function normally.103 Some ministers, particularly O’Higgins, interpreted Mulcahy’s reluctance as either incompetence or unwillingness to engage former comrades. Again and again, most notably during the first months of 1923, O’Higgins called on the army to assist the civil power in asserting itself and criticized the army when the restoration of order in the countryside moved more slowly than he demanded. One of the issues that immediately caused difficulty was that of agrarian violence. Since at least the time of the Ranch War, there had been growing calls, particularly in the west of Ireland, for the breaking up of large ranches and their redistribution in smaller parcels to landless men. The Irish Parliamentary Party and Sinn Féin had each tried to support rhetorically the goal of land division, while occasionally supporting extralegal processes in pursuit of this goal. During the revolution, the Sinn Féin leadership in Dublin proclaimed its support for eventual land redistribution, although roundly condemning cattle driving and other illegal occupying measures as means to that end. The Dáil set up a Land Bank in 1919 to facilitate the purchase of land by its occupiers and the following year established arbitration courts for the adjudication of land disputes, although the goal was not so much immediate redistribution as it was to force the agitation into quasi-legal channels.104 Despite these efforts, the land issue continued to crop up in the first postTreaty months and increased the tension between the military and civilian authorities, as some civilian ministers thought the army was doing a poor job of securing rural areas, while the army leadership thought it was being asked to undertake what was essentially a policing function. Patrick Hogan, the minister for agriculture, told the Dáil in early 1922 of economic distress and starvation in the west of Ireland and claimed that the large-scale

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drainage, housing, and road schemes that could help the west required “settled Government, and a Parliament that can legislate.”105 Once that parliament was established, Hogan promised that a land bill would be one of its first endeavors.106 The chaos of the civil war obviously provided further cover for land agitation, a trend that increasingly worried members of the government. Hogan wrote a lengthy memo on land seizure in December 1922, citing increases in cattle driving, illegal occupation of land, destruction of walls, and the seizure of livestock. Noting that “the ‘land for the people’ is almost as respectable an objective as the ‘Republic’ and would make a much wider appeal,” Hogan argued that ordinary civil courts would have difficulty convicting agrarian offenders because of a lack of willing witnesses and the population’s general sympathy with the offenders. The problem was particularly acute because it imperiled Hogan’s planned land act, as tenants who believed themselves able to seize land would be unwilling to accept any kind of settlement involving purchase. Hogan concluded, “It is quite impossible to deal with the question under the Ministry of Home Affairs as an ordinary criminal matter. The English tried it here for twenty or thirty years. I saw their measures in operation myself and they were utter failures.” Hogan’s proposed remedy was twofold. The first was a public statement in the Dáil that a land bill would soon be introduced and that “there is not the same need for force as when the English Parliament was dealing with it.”107 In addition, Hogan recommended the use of military force in the form of special flying columns to confiscate cattle that had been seized unlawfully. After the latter idea was endorsed by O’Higgins, these columns were created, and civilian ministers believed them to be a success. Hogan claimed that they had nearly eradicated the problem in Galway, and that if other counties could be similarly handled, the countryside would be calm enough to accept the pending land bill.108 O’Higgins later noted that these special columns “carried out programmes of work drawn up for them by informal County Committees of Order consisting of the District Justices, the State Solicitor and the Civic Guard Superintendent. . . . These County Committees might be regarded as to some extent a decentralization of Government and the Special Infantry Companies became the Executive Arm.”109 The goal was to use the military as a means of finding extralegal solutions to the land war, while still promoting the ultimate use of legal mechanisms to solve the issue. In the midst of these troubles, O’Higgins wrote a lengthy memorandum for submission to a planned conference on army-government cooperation.110

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After again linking much of the disorder to opportunism and criminality, O’Higgins claimed that while the army was able to hold towns, it made little attempt to control the countryside. O’Higgins urged the cabinet to “forget the terms ‘Government’ and ‘Army,’ ‘Civil’ and ‘Military,’ and remember that we are, all of us, simply a body of men out to vindicate the idea of ordered society and the reign of law.” Taking the problem at its most basic—a disregard for the law and the machinery of government—O’Higgins wanted the government and the military to work jointly in enforcing the rule of law, arguing that “full and even impressive military protection should be afforded in the enforcement of [legal] decrees, and that static outlawery, such as illegal possession of land, should be promptly and sternly dealt with.” By early 1923, then, Mulcahy was aware of concerns from colleagues that the army could not or would not completely stamp out anti-Treatyite militancy, and frustration that the civil war was dragging on long after military defeat of the anti-Treatyites seemed certain. On 27 March 1923 the Executive Council met to consider the state of army-government relations. O’Higgins, in particular, was concerned that his newly constituted police force was being placed in hopelessly violent and lawless situations. There was growing unease within the cabinet about the lack of reliable communication from the army as well as frequent reports of outrages committed by Free State troops against republican prisoners. O’Higgins was encouraged throughout the crisis by rather alarmist reports written by Police Commissioner Eoin O’Duffy, who was as inclined as O’Higgins to blame the problem on military inactivity.111 O’Higgins’s father had also been killed in February by republican raiders. Mulcahy seemed blindsided by the criticisms of the army voiced at this meeting and came away believing that some of his colleagues felt that the army had made insufficient progress in finishing the civil war and that it was working at cross purposes with, and at some distance from, the civilian government.112 The implication in much of the criticism was that the army’s leadership was not on board with the aggressive prosecution of the civil war desired by civilian ministers. Mulcahy’s response to this criticism was to have the Army Council—himself, Quartermaster-General Seán O Murthuile, Chief of Staff Seán MacMahon, and Adjutant-General Gearóid O’Sullivan—resign as the Army Council, although none resigned their commissions as officers or their specific positions within the army hierarchy. O’Higgins immediately saw this as a relatively cynical invitation for “Ministers with their hands and their heads full with the affairs of their own particular departments and Executive Council affairs generally . . . to see what

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they could effect.”113 Mulcahy, on the other hand, asserted that this was an attempt to demonstrate civilian control of the army, and told Cosgrave that “the Exec Council must take the opportunity at once to secure the control over the army they allege they are deprived of.”114 Blythe, MacNeill, and Cosgrave also spoke about the importance of civilian control at this meeting, although Cosgrave, whom Mulcahy considered an ally throughout, tempered his comments by noting that “the Army is being looked to do more a Government job than an Army job.”115 The Executive Council ultimately decided to reject these resignations, curtly ordering the Army Council to remain in place.116 It seemed as if nothing had changed, but O’Higgins later asserted that the Executive Council thereafter took a more active role in military affairs through the end of the civil war.117 Mulcahy was less confident than O’Higgins that something positive had resulted, and he composed multiple memoranda about the military, constitutional, and personal implications of this dispute.118 What Mulcahy took from this was that certain members of the government—O’Higgins and Hogan, presumably—were hostile to the military for a variety of personal and professional reasons. The following week O’Higgins again suggested the replacement of the Army Council.119 He also apparently threatened to resign as minister for home affairs and take his proposals directly to the Dáil. Historians have generally not recognized the constitutional ramifications of this quarrel. In short, O’Higgins’s assertion of army incompetence in February and March 1923 threatened to provoke a constitutional crisis rooted in a divided Executive Council. This was particularly dangerous for a new postrevolutionary and postcolonial government with no experience of a transfer of power. In the weeks leading up to the 27 March Executive Council meeting about army-state relations, there were already jurisdictional issues between the various executive departments headed by ministers. In February O’Higgins, as minister of home affairs, had written to the general officer commanding in Athlone regarding a complaint that the military there had seized cattle without an order from the civil courts. The issue was solved to O’Higgins’s satisfaction, but Mulcahy objected to O’Higgins contacting an officer without going through either the Ministry of Defense or the army hierarchy, both of which were headed by Mulcahy. Mulcahy signed his objection as commander in chief, not as minister for defense.120 The stakes were raised when O’Higgins continued to press the issue of military incompetence, despite Mulcahy’s assurances that all was well. The evidence for this comes primarily from Mulcahy’s scrawled notes of

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meetings, which are difficult to decipher and laden with ambiguous abbreviations. However, what is clear is that there were concerns that O’Higgins would force a conflict with the president and that Cosgrave might find himself in the minority within his own cabinet. The constitutional implications of this for the existence of the government and the position of the president were potentially significant. If Cosgrave was in the minority on this issue, that would leave a difficult situation. Cosgrave tended to support autonomy for Mulcahy over the army, but it was not clear that he could or would do so against the wishes of the majority of the cabinet, and Cosgrave apparently worried that he could not constitutionally remove a single minister without having the entire Executive Council resign. According to Mulcahy’s notes, someone (probably Cosgrave) said that “the matter was more serious than he had thought earlier, and again that the Constitutional position was very difficult. That the position of Vice-President was particularly strong and that, in his opinion, the Constitution gave no opportunity of getting rid of any Minister except by the resignation of the President.”121 Another unresolved question was whether a majority on the Executive Council could force the president to resign if he was in opposition to them. The constitution was silent on this, stating only that the president was nominated by Dáil Éireann, and that he then chose his ministers as a bloc. The council was collectively responsible to the Dáil, and the vice president acted as president if the president resigned, at least until the Dáil could choose a new president. Because of this ambiguity, Cosgrave worried that “the general matter was very serious. . . . There was apparently going to be a definite break in the Cabinet. . . . There would probably be a majority against the President, and that the Constitutional position would be very difficult.”122 This issue was particularly troublesome because Cumann na nGaedheal’s majority within the Dáil was wholly artificial. In normal circumstances, Cosgrave could have resigned, been reelected as president, and chosen a new cabinet. But that tidy solution could be jeopardized if anti-Treaty Sinn Féin decided at any time to enter the Dáil. In the end, O’Higgins stayed within the cabinet and did not press the issue to a public division at any point during 1923, but there were significant constitutional issues beneath this interministerial tension. Personnel was the other major question complicating the creation of a permanent military. There were two related facets of this particular difficulty: the perceived role of the re-created Irish Republican Brotherhood, and the alleged favoritism in the army. Both of these facets were tied clearly

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to the revolutionary legacy. The IRB was a secret oath-bound organization that had been in existence since the 1850s but had lapsed into inactivity by the end of the nineteenth century. Revived in the early 1900s, members of the organization played a key role in planning the Easter Rising. Collins used IRB networks to reanimate physical force nationalism after the failed Rising and, by the time of his death, was head of the IRB’s governing Supreme Council.123 On the eve of the revolution, the connections created by the IRB provided another link between officers who otherwise might have been more atomized within the army’s rather loose and informal command structure. During the revolution, membership in the IRB still bestowed some status within the revolutionary hierarchy, but whether the IRB had any more tangible effects on revolutionary decisions is not clear.124 Vows of obedience notwithstanding, though, the Supreme Council was unable to prevent the splintering of the organization over the Treaty. Most IRB brothers seem to have concluded initially that the organization’s remaining strength died with Collins, yet another casualty of the Treaty split. In 1923 some senior generals decided to revive the IRB within the Free State army. The anti-Treatyites had allegedly attempted to co-opt the organization and failed, but the process had alarmed the Free State’s military leadership and led some to urge the reanimation of the IRB to keep it out of anti-Treatyite hands. Mulcahy did not admit to being the prime mover in this process but claimed that he responded to senior officers who brought him their concerns.125 Mulcahy recognized that the Free State government’s involvement in a clandestine republican physical force organization was problematic and potentially antidemocratic, but his assessment at the time was that, while it was not particularly wise “from the point of view of effective national development” to have the “persons connected with the present Government” parties to this project, it would be good for them to “control its moulding and development” in order to channel it toward constructive and unarmed purposes and to provide a means by which “the best persons on the Irregular side [could] get out of the difficulties they had got into.”126 Mulcahy saw this as a means of concluding the civil war as decisively and harmoniously as possible. Mulcahy conferred with senior Free State officers and IRB brothers on 4 June and 7 June 1923 and then called a meeting with some of his Executive Council colleagues on 10 June. The purpose of this meeting, according to its military participants, was to reassure certain government ministers, particularly O’Higgins, that the revived IRB would not be a threat to the

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government and that this revolutionary organization could be successfully translated into a postrevolutionary context.127 The meeting was attended by Mulcahy, Sean Ó Murthuile, Sean MacMahon, Cosgrave, O’Higgins, and MacNeill. Some of the personnel involved from the government were peculiar choices. MacNeill was not a key figure in government business, and O’Higgins, while an increasingly important figure and a former IRB member, was hardly sympathetic to the military in general or Mulcahy personally at this juncture. Two other members of the Executive Council with IRB histories, Desmond FitzGerald and Ernest Blythe, were excluded. FitzGerald was upset by his exclusion, surmising that he was left out because “I was known to be cantankerous and somewhat of an impossibilist in Army matters.” On the other hand, Cosgrave was there because he was head of government but also because Mulcahy saw him as an ally. During the February 1923 crisis, it was Cosgrave to whom Mulcahy explained himself and expressed the ruffled sensibilities of the Army Council. At this meeting, Mulcahy announced the plans to revive the IRB, although the details of that announcement were the subject of subsequent disagreement among participants. Mulcahy said that the use of the IRB to facilitate republican dumping of arms was put to the meeting “as a proposal,” but “the fact that the organisation existed and had been brought into alignment with the present constitutional position was put before them [the ministers at the meeting] as an accomplished fact.” Mulcahy and Ó Murthuile believed that the ministers present accepted this revival.128 O’Higgins disagreed vehemently with Mulcahy’s take on the meeting. O’Higgins claimed that he had come to Mulcahy during the earlier February crisis with his suspicions that the IRB was being reformed and that Mulcahy had denied this, which O’Higgins saw as a manifestation of Mulcahy’s lack of openness with his colleagues. Before the meeting, O’Higgins told Mulcahy that despite his prior IRB membership, he believed that the IRB had outlived its utility and that its revival “would be bad for the country, and particularly bad for the Army.” Mulcahy, according to O’Higgins, acknowledged these concerns but wanted O’Higgins to hear him out nevertheless. As for the events of the meeting itself, O’Higgins characterized the IRB proposal as something that was “put up as a project, as a tentative proposal for the future,” and that he expressed his “complete and profound disapproval.” O’Higgins mocked Mulcahy’s steadfast assertion that the ministers present had approved of the IRB plan: “One would almost think by Deputy Mulcahy that he had come along to this meeting and said: ‘We have

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re-organised the Irish Republican Brotherhood within the National Army, and the National Army is in a fair way to become an IRB machine,’ and that the reply of the Minister [O’Higgins] was: ‘That was a very happy thought of yours, and you have done quite well.’” O’Higgins, instead, said that he expressed “very vigorous and very emphatic opposition,” condemning the proposal as “one that would inevitably react on the Army, one that would tend to sterilise the Army, to rot discipline and efficiency.” O’Higgins compared this situation to the Tammany Hall political machine, “to which the members of the Dáil would become the merest puppets.” O’Higgins came away from the meeting worried that “a situation was developing in which the Army would not be unequivocally and without reserve the instrument of the people’s will.” Cosgrave claimed that he could not remember particular details but said, “My recollection of that interview is that not one of the three Ministers was in favour of the continuance of that organisation in the Army. That is putting it in the mildest possible fashion, that nobody was satisfied amongst the three Ministers that it was serving any useful purpose for it to be continued. . . . [N]ot one of them supported it in any way.” For O’Higgins, this was a fundamental issue of civilian control over the army and the need for postrevolutionary politics to be open and democratic rather than conspiratorial and insurrectionary. The latter style was acceptable in colonial times, but not afterward. From his perspective, Mulcahy claimed that the reintroduction of the IRB would actually further democracy, both by bringing a cleaner end to the civil war and by co-opting a potentially antidemocratic organization. Cosgrave did not emphatically take a side and later presented the dispute as one of little importance to him or to the state. Rumors of the IRB’s re-formation also irritated those facing demobilization in 1923 and 1924. The Irish Republican Army Organisation (IRAO), a loose fraternity of veterans with pre-Truce IRA service, believed that those with such service were being passed over for retention, while those with IRB ties or British army experience were more likely to be continued. Liam Tobin and Frank Thornton, representatives of the IRAO and eventual coauthors of the ultimatum that touched off the 1924 mutiny, met with Mulcahy and Cosgrave in June 1923 to complain about the administration of the army. After accusing Mulcahy of being “disloyal to Collins’ outlook,” the officers said that “the Army was rotten, that the position of the Army at the present time was that there were 40% of the men in it ex-I.R.A. men. 10% were ordinary civilians who were never anything but hostile to the I.R.A. and that the

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remaining 50% were ex-British soldiers.”129 Mulcahy walked out of the meeting, observing later that no commander in chief should be expected to listen to that sort of insulting language. While Mulcahy faced criticism for ignoring revolutionary heroes, he also was charged by civilians with favoring that very constituency. The 1923 Kenmare incident was a particularly acute example of this dilemma that generated significant tension between Mulcahy and O’Higgins. This involved three officers of the Free State army in County Kerry accused of assaulting the daughters of a local physician, Dr. McCarthy. O’Higgins and others charged that the local Free State commander there, Paddy Daly, covered up the episode. This came a few months after the Kerry command had also been accused of killing eight republican prisoners by deliberately blowing them up with a land mine. This apparent indiscipline and rogue behavior infuriated O’Higgins, who saw it as another example that “went to the root of things” and showed that “there was never at any time impersonal discipline in the army.”130 Regan attributed O’Higgins’s concerns about this incident to the fact that the attack was made on a family similar to O’Higgins’s own, as O’Higgins’s father was also a rural doctor.131 But there was much more to this than class affinity. A trained, albeit nonpracticing, lawyer, O’Higgins believed a prima facie case had been made against the officers and wanted court-martial proceedings launched.132 He claimed that this opinion was shared by the army’s judge advocate general, who asked O’Higgins to “give the Kenmare case a back-shove,” as it was being covered up.133 Mulcahy referenced Daly’s past revolutionary history as a partial justification for declining the case: “I was not prepared lightly and on no evidence, to place him in a degrading position of answering to a low charge.” One of the “varying circumstances” listed by Mulcahy was Daly’s service on the Treatyite side in the opening days of the civil war as well as his affiliation with Collins during the revolution.134 To O’Higgins, Mulcahy’s judicial philosophy was unacceptable. By August 1923, when Cumann na nGaedheal was fighting an election, O’Higgins was upset at both the allegations and the subsequent cover-up, particularly when those who could have testified against the alleged attackers were suddenly disciplined over an outstanding charge.135 O’Higgins thought that the army needed to be governed by law and evenhanded discipline, not by past records. For Mulcahy, the situation was more complex. Perhaps he was unsympathetic to the accusers, but he was definitely mindful of Daly’s record

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and the difficulties of managing the army during the civil war. Mulcahy believed that pre-Truce officers of Daly’s stature were vitally necessary, whatever their faults, to maintaining the credibility of, and the discipline within, the fledgling National Army. As Mulcahy wrote, “It is simply a continuance of political madness to think that you are going to organise Defence Forces that will be stable and that will have the necessary National prestige for its officers around ANY group of officers supplanting the present G.O.C.s [General Officers Commanding].” Such officers had been necessary, for example, to authorize the executions.136 The army needed veterans, and while Mulcahy did not want to give total precedence to veterans as the IRAO would have liked, neither did he want a wholesale purge of vital and high-ranking field officers. Mulcahy, rightly or wrongly, did not view such an attitude as antidemocratic or militaristic but, instead, as a necessary short-term nod to the realities of postrevolutionary Ireland. O’Higgins thought, on the other hand, that such an attitude struck at the heart of civilian control of the military and undermined the desired postrevolutionary meritocracy. On two separate occasions he threatened to leave the government over the Kenmare cover-up. As the election loomed in August 1923, O’Higgins wrote to inform Cosgrave that he would not join any future government if the Kenmare scandal was not dealt with “in a perfectly clean straight way.” O’Higgins could not “accept the position that any political exigencies could excuse us in condoning an outrage of that kind” and thought that “many people both in the Army and outside it regard it as a test case. . . . The decent disciplined officers and those who are neither decent nor disciplined are watching this case closely, realising that it is going to ring the death-knell of either discipline or banditry.”137 Cosgrave apparently thought enough of this threat to circulate O’Higgins’s letter to Mulcahy.138 Once the issue formally came before the Executive Council after the election, O’Higgins protested again. The Executive Council decided to have the attorney general advise them about whether to prosecute, and they turned over all the paperwork to Hugh Kennedy. O’Higgins dissented—unusually noted in the official minutes—arguing that the officers should be threatened with a court-martial. He “found no support amongst the other members of the Council” for his position, however.139 Kennedy decided there was insufficient evidence to proceed against the accused soldiers, believing that the daughters were not credible witnesses. He invoked many class stereotypes in making this finding:

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[The complainants] are not city people and their mentality as witnesses and generally must be considered in the light of their own history and environment. We all know the type of Catholic bourgeoisie which existed in Irish country towns and villages under the British regime. . . . This group had distinctly British leanings because of its social aspirations and reached through the Protestant grocer to attain an occasional smile from the county family. When during the war conditions following in 1916 British Military were scattered throughout the country, their officers, however temporary, were cultivated by the ladies of this social type. It is humiliating to have to confess that when the “Black and Tans” and the Auxiliaries followed in their train, many of the girls of this social stratum were easy associates. . . . It seems clear that the McCarthys were of this type. . . . Officers of the National Army have been in many cases the butt for people of this kind.140

Kennedy admitted that the girls’ hair was greased—a “shameful outrage”— but did not find the girls’ identification of the three officers as the perpetrators credible. He also doubted the flogging as there was no record that the girls required medical or surgical attention, although having a doctor for a father perhaps may have mitigated their need for such ministrations. Blythe remembered that O’Higgins stormed out of the cabinet meeting upon hearing Kennedy’s opinion and claimed that he was leaving the government. Cosgrave warned him not to take any papers with him, and O’Higgins missed the next several cabinet meetings before reappearing without explanation. Blythe also noticed that “the whole incident left Kevin with somewhat stronger feelings against General Mulcahy,” feelings that undoubtedly conditioned O’Higgins’s handling of the mutiny.141 The incident was resolved when Cosgrave wrote to Dr. McCarthy and told him to use the ordinary criminal law if he wished to initiate prosecution, effectively washing the army’s and the government’s hands of the matter.142 Sean Ó Murthuile recalled that the Kerry officers were not court-martialed because of a “technical infirmity in the Defence Forces Act” and that the military leadership had nothing to do with that decision.143 Regardless of the reasons for the failure to prosecute the case, the whole conflict raised again the critical issues of military-civilian relations as well as the relative weighing of revolutionary service and merit in determining army decisions. After simmering throughout 1923, these issues came to a head in the Army Mutiny of 1924, which cast doubt on the government’s attempt to restore order, establish civilian control, and institute the rule of law. The

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events of the mutiny have been covered before, most notably by John Regan and Maryann Valiulis. Regan believed that the mutiny and its aftermath represented the triumph of O’Higgins and his “conservative-consolidationist” wing of the Treatyite party over the “nationalist-republican” wing represented by men such as McGrath and Mulcahy. Regan wrote that “Kevin O’Higgins found himself waving a fond goodbye to his ideological opponents during the course of 1924, as they abandoned strongholds it might have taken years to remove them from had they decided to stay and play a more astute game.” This also marked, according to Regan, the “failure of Treatyite republicanism” and the collapse of Collins’s stepping-stone argument.144 Valiulis’s biography of Mulcahy depicted the mutiny in a similar light, although with less emphasis on the rise of O’Higgins. She too argued that Mulcahy had failed politically, mostly by keeping his colleagues in the dark about military activities, but observed that he already was in the minority in the Executive Council after Collins’s death, and the events of the mutiny just made that obvious to Mulcahy himself. The whole drift of events after Collins’s death led to a rise of a leadership class that was “conservative, anti-army, [and] not terribly committed to the ideals of a Gaelic Ireland.” These men, particularly Cosgrave and O’Higgins, “seemed more willing to mould the new state in the image of British society—with token gestures thrown to those who clung to the old ideals.”145 John McCarthy also portrayed the mutiny as revealing a deeper split within the Treaty regime but characterized it as between the old Collins clique, members of which expected to receive some benefit from their participation in the revolution, and those within the government more committed to meritocracy and ecumenism.146 These views have considerable merit, although Valiulis overstated the Britishness of the Cumann na nGaedheal leadership, and Regan’s attempt to overlay a class element on this conflict (to him it marked the emergence of the dominant, university-educated O’Higgins, McGilligan, Hogan troika) fails to convince. In general, though, there has been too little focus on how participants on the government side attempted to fit their arguments within rhetorical frameworks conditioned by and inherited from the revolution. In fact, nearly all sides invoked the revolution in grounding their positions, which if nothing else shows the importance of the shadow cast by the revolution. The mutiny was a series of events centering on the government’s directive to reduce dramatically the size of the army after the conclusion of the civil war. The way in which this was done, intersecting as it did with the

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plan to re-form the IRB and the apparent disregard for past IRA service in making decisions on demobilization, stirred up significant disaffection within the army. This led to tension between “Old IRA,” or IRAO, elements in the army and the Army Council, with members of the Executive Council taking sides in this struggle. Mutineers frequently invoked their service to the revolution as justification for their actions and demands, and ministers such as O’Higgins depicted their policies as part of an attempt to restore order, create meritocracy, and assert the authority of an elected civilian government. These issues all had revolutionary origins. The point is not whether the government’s actions in the mutiny were correct but, rather, the ongoing revolutionary framework in which the mutiny took place. In January 1924 Mulcahy received word that Old IRA officers were planning to desert with weapons and then put an ultimatum to the government. Mulcahy wrote a memorandum outlining what he knew and gave it to Cosgrave, who then discussed this with him in a meeting at Portobello barracks on 13 January. Mulcahy accused Joseph McGrath, the minister of industry and commerce, of fostering, or at least failing to discourage, this dissent and fretted that the situation could lead to another civil war. In defending his actions, Mulcahy outlined his vision as minister for defense and commanderin-chief: “My policy is to provide an Army—an efficient Army—bearing in mind the material from which the present Army has grown, and the necessity and the possibility of utilising the older roots of the Army, but it is no part of my conception of my policy to keep in the Army men who are unfitted for it, who, when they had the opportunity of doing any work, did not do it, or did it badly, and who have not the proper attitude with regard to discipline.”147 Mulcahy was clearly aware of the difficulties here: he had to respect the personnel who made the revolution, while still creating a modern, efficient army that could weather a change of government. Obviously concerned about the developing situation, Cosgrave met with McGrath and Mulcahy on 26 January, getting them to agree that there should not be separate organizations within the army.148 It is not clear from Mulcahy’s notes whether this was an agreement on the ideal case or a commitment to action. But the meeting did not forestall action on the part of some members of the Old IRA, who presented their ultimatum on 6 March. The letter claimed that the government was not following Collins’s mantra of using the Treaty as a stepping-stone to a republic and that the Army Council was mishandling the demobilization of the army. The mutineers wanted a better national attitude from the government and

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the replacement of the Army Council. At the core of the appeal was a belief that the wrong people were being chosen as career officers in the downsized army and that those with pre-Truce records were being passed over. The government responded quickly by condemning both the document and its authors. As the mutiny unfolded, a total of ninety-two officers resigned from the army and another fourteen deserted their posts, some of them absconding with munitions as well.149 Mulcahy and the Army Council reasonably thought some of the mutineers might have taken refuge with McGrath as the crisis broke, and so, perhaps less reasonably, they ordered a raid on McGrath’s home on 8 March. A military raid on the home of a civilian minister raised all sorts of constitutional issues, particularly since the rest of the Executive Council seemed to be unaware of this order. The crisis came to the attention of the Dáil on 11 March when McGrath decided to resign his ministry, disavowing the mutineers’ actions but not their frustration. In resigning, he cited the raid on his house as well as the “absolute muddling, mishandling and incompetency on the part of a Department of the State,” a reference to Mulcahy’s defense department. In response, Cosgrave invoked the government’s need to protect the gains of the revolution: “It constitutes a challenge which no Government could ignore without violating the trust conferred on it. . . . The attempt, such as it is, is not against a particular Government; it is a challenge to the democratic foundations of the State, to the very basis of Parliamentary representation and of responsible Government. As such, it is the concern of every Deputy, of every party, and of every citizen.”150 Cosgrave’s statement elided several obvious truths. For one, the ultimatum was directed against Cosgrave’s particular government, accused of being insufficiently republican and deficient in its evaluation of personnel. In addition, if it was the duty of every deputy and every citizen to fight the mutineers’ demands, the government’s secrecy over the issue for nearly a week was unhelpful. Nevertheless, the government seemed resolute in taking a firm hand with the mutineers and attempted to arrest them following the ultimatum. Overnight, the situation changed. The Cumann na nGaedheal party held a meeting the evening of 11 March, at which McGrath charged Mulcahy with re-forming the IRB. Mulcahy chose not to defend himself in this forum.151 McGrath received support from the party rank and file at this meeting, as he would continue to do over the next year after he left the party and formed the National Group.152 At the meeting, it was apparently decided that the mutineers could retract their statement and then receive exoneration for

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their actions, although the exact nature of that exoneration later became a matter of dispute. On 12 March, in what was to be his last appearance in the Dáil for nearly two weeks, Cosgrave made two important announcements. The first was that the mutineers had disavowed any attempt to undermine civilian authority. A 12 March letter from Tobin and Dalton, read to the Dáil, claimed that in issuing the ultimatum, their “sole object” was “exposing to the Government and the representatives of the people what we consider to be a serious menace to the proper administration of the Army.” Having brought the matter to the proper authorities and to the public, they closed by saying they wished only for the army matter to be fixed, and they denied any desire to set up an alternate authority or to overthrow civilian control of the military.153 Cosgrave also announced that a Committee of Inquiry, which he initially characterized as a secret cabinet committee, would be formed to look into the administration of the army. The government promised to consult McGrath in the setting up of this committee. At this point, Cosgrave and the government decided to go a bit easier on the mutineers, probably because of the support for them expressed at the party meeting as well as Tobin’s willingness to retract publicly the threatening portion of his previous letter. Growing antipathy to Mulcahy, particularly from O’Higgins and Hogan, may have been a factor too. At any rate, it appeared that Cosgrave had decided to give McGrath’s position a more favorable hearing and to leave Mulcahy twisting in the wind. The announcement of the inquiry named its subject as “the administration of the army” and did not contemplate, or at least did not specifically mention, inquiring into the indiscipline of Tobin, Dalton, and the other mutineers. As Regan argued, the government at this point also wanted to keep McGrath quiet, since his criticism of the army could rile up the Dáil, the non–Cumann na nGaedheal members of which were already rather suspicious of the army.154 After Cosgrave made his announcements to the Dáil, significant discussion ensued, generally of a character that the government wanted to avoid. The meaning of McGrath’s resignation was repeatedly queried, although Cosgrave said that McGrath merely stated his intent to resign and was still the minister under the constitution. Patrick Hogan, in turn, dismissed any talk of constitutional implications, noting that two or more ministers disagreed frequently across the cabinet table and that mere disagreement did not imply constitutional crisis. Thomas Johnson, the Labour Party leader, twice alluded to the constitutional issues raised by a minister’s resignation:

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the same issues that Cosgrave and Mulcahy had been concerned about a year previously but were seemingly being swept under the rug now. He said, “We may not be satisfied that the Executive Council, minus a member whom the Dáil assented should act on that Council [McGrath], still retains the confidence of the Dáil.” Johnson also warned: “The Executive Council is not responsible to the Party Meeting. . . . Much of this trouble has resulted from a failure to recognise responsibility to the Dáil as distinct from responsibility to the Party.” Johnson accused the government of insufficiently asserting the supremacy of the civil authority, and he concluded by invoking anti-Treaty Sinn Féin: “The policy of abstention is only a little further removed from the policy of silence in the Dáil.” This was hitting Cumann na nGaedheal where it hurt: claims of parliamentary supremacy and civil authority were at the heart of Cumann na nGaedheal’s interpretation of the revolutionary legacy. Cosgrave refused to divulge further details about the inquiry, offering up the rather inadequate excuse that he had not yet discussed the details with his colleagues. Cosgrave wound up the debate, but O’Higgins made the lengthiest statement from the government benches, and Hogan said that O’Higgins was speaking for the cabinet. O’Higgins had also been critical of the Army Council but for different reasons than Tobin and other officers, and he could not directly countenance an open attack on the authority of the government. His speech, surprisingly, was conciliatory and moderate. Instead of speaking in absolutes, as was his wont, he instead highlighted the complex origins of the mutiny and the context provided by a new and not yet firmly established state. O’Higgins began with an admission that the constitutional and political issues raised were difficult ones. While there was no admission that the resignation of one minister forced the resignation of the entire Executive, he did acknowledge that the dispute between Mulcahy and McGrath put the rest of the Executive Council in a quandary: “We have no personal, direct, intimate knowledge of the affairs of each of the Departments. We accept the account given to us by the responsible head of a particular Department, and, I submit, must so accept it, in the absence of very definite evidence, and very definite proof almost, to the contrary. . . . When there is between two members of a body that constitutionally has collective responsibility, a definite clash of view, a definite conflict of statement, the position of the remaining members is difficult.” O’Higgins confessed that the document submitted on the 6th by Tobin and Dalton appeared to be essentially the same challenge thrown down by the Four Courts garrison.

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However, O’Higgins then maintained, echoing Tobin’s retraction, that the mutineers had not intended to challenge the civilian authority but believed they could not take their complaints through normal military channels because of the defects in Mulcahy’s leadership. This was both condescending toward the mutineers, depicted as too stupid to realize the treasonous nature of their own document—Cosgrave described them as “people who are not accustomed to writing what you would call official documents of that sort”—and unsupportive of Mulcahy. O’Higgins oddly backed off his previous insistence on meritocracy, noting that it was hard to discipline the army because “many of those men can say to the State: ‘The State was founded largely because of our efforts, and largely because of our sacrifice.’” While observing that “it would be strange if we were slow or negligent in vindicating the supremacy of the people and the authority of Parliament,” O’Higgins also asserted that “there are situations in which even a Government, or even a Parliament cannot afford to be doctrinaire.” He compared the mercy exercised against the mutineers with the similar mercy exercised in 1923 when untried republican prisoners were released back into the general population. O’Higgins certainly did not run from the fact that the state was created as a result of military resistance to British authority. Nor was the response to the mutiny an attempt to hide the revolutionary origins of the state. O’Higgins also returned to a frequent Cumann na nGaedheal shibboleth: the revolution was about popular sovereignty, and vindication of that right was the supreme goal and charge of the government. Insofar as the mutineers threatened popular sovereignty and parliamentary authority, they had to be squelched. The difference came in determining whether or not the mutiny was ultimately a threat to parliamentary authority. On 11 March it was announced as such, but on the next day O’Higgins backed away from that assertion. On 13 March the Dáil met briefly to ratify a few outstanding bills. Cosgrave was not present. This was the beginning of his retirement from illness, which would last until he returned to the Dáil on 25 March. According to a chronology provided by O’Higgins, the Executive Council met several times over the intervening week to deal with the situation caused by the mutiny. They chose the personnel for the inquiry and resolved problems with Eoin O’Duffy’s appointment as general officer commanding for the Irish Army, granting him the additional title of inspector general. Cosgrave was not completely inactive during this crucial week, although he was not present at the Executive Council meetings or the Dáil. On 17 March Cosgrave wrote a letter to McGrath laying out the terms by which the mutineers could surrender

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and receive some form of amnesty. They had to return their stolen arms and turn themselves in by 20 March, after which they would be held under “open arrest” (i.e., not confined). Mulcahy issued a version of that letter as a memo to the members of the Army Council, implying that the army leadership approved of, or at least accepted, Cosgrave’s letter. This letter noted: “I have been in consultation with the Minister for Defence and General O’Duffy on the matters which you raised with me this morning.”155 Cosgrave apparently met with McGrath while on his sickbed and then wrote a note to Mulcahy requesting a meeting with him and O’Duffy. The note is hard to decipher, but appears to read: “I am laid up just now but to save any complications I consider it wise to have a short consultation at once.” On the back of the note Cosgrave wrote, “Pending the consideration by the Ex. Council of the letter and situation generally, I would strongly recommend calling of rading, etc.”156 Presumably, the last phrase should read “calling off raiding,” but that is not the only reading that could be made. It is hard to see Cosgrave and O’Higgins working at cross purposes here. Cosgrave laid out the terms of a compromise, and O’Higgins had already spoken in favor of compromise in the Dáil on 12 March. Hoping to catch some of the mutineers, Mulcahy and Gearóid O’Sullivan ordered a raid on Devlin’s pub on the night of 18 March. McGrath claimed that the raid was timed to take place immediately before O’Duffy received the formal grant of his military authority, while the Army Council and commander in chief still had the power to strike at their enemies.157 Valiulis, in her biography of Mulcahy, argued that the mutineers were actually planning a coup and that Mulcahy acted to prevent damage to the state or its ministers.158 Consultation with O’Duffy was apparently impossible, as he was in Monaghan and could not have been reached quickly enough to enable the raid.159 When the raid took place, McGrath and several others rushed to the scene, ostensibly to prevent bloodshed. McGrath, or someone close to him, also contacted O’Higgins and MacNeill, seeking their intervention.160 Blythe and FitzGerald, the remaining two members of the Executive Council, were again ignored. Violence was averted, but there was a definite sense among the mutineers and McGrath that the raid had undermined the agreement reached with the president on the previous day. The Executive Council, meeting without Cosgrave the following morning, agreed.161 Mulcahy then withdrew from the meeting. The remaining members of the Executive Council—O’Higgins, FitzGerald, Blythe, and MacNeill—decided to ask for the resignations of the Army Council. O’Higgins

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was careful to say they were being asked only to resign from their administrative posts, not their commissions. The rump Executive Council also decided that Mulcahy’s resignation should be sought but believed that request should come from the president for constitutional and political reasons. Blythe and FitzGerald were sent to Cosgrave’s house to get his approval of the removal of the Army Council, which they received, and to inform him of the recommendation about Mulcahy.162 The official cabinet minutes noted that Cosgrave “signified his approval.”163 Mulcahy preempted the discussion by offering his resignation if the Army Council were to be fired. O’Higgins, in explaining these actions, took full responsibility for them. He had “in a sense, primary responsibility for the action,” because Cosgrave’s physician had ordered him to be insulated from public business, and “interviews, correspondence, or even telephone messages, were to be avoided as far as possible.”164 In defending the recent actions, O’Higgins explained that the mutiny had crystallized long-standing suspicions within the Executive Council that “this particular personnel was not the personnel to deal with a mutinous revolt. . . . These men had been too long in their positions, that something in the nature of a sense of proprietorship was springing up.”165 In making this argument, O’Higgins again placed the whole situation in the context of the revolution and of revolutionary goals as he understood them. He admitted that neither side was fully right in the handling of the situation and that a mutiny could not be dealt with entirely straightforwardly in a newly established state that was the product of recent armed revolution. He later referenced the fact that the army had to bow to popular sovereignty: “We feared that a situation was developing in which the Army would not be unequivocably and without reserve the instrument of the people’s will, expressed through the Dáil and the Executive Council responsible to the Dáil.”166 O’Higgins nevertheless paid tribute to the service provided by the fired Army Council to the revolution, again refusing to denigrate the revolution and the men who had fought for it: The officers whose resignations from certain administrative positions have been asked for have done great service to this country, great service for the people of this country in the past. There is recognition of that; there will always be gratitude for that, but in national affairs one has to accept it that it is not by the water that has passed that the mill is turned, and in this whole matter, as in other matters, the country must realise that it is impossible to carry on administration on the basis of swopping records: that there can be advertence

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to past service in public matters only to the extent to which that past service may be considered to give promise of useful public service in the future. In political affairs, in national affairs, from the very nature of the case there can be no such thing as gratitude, qua mere gratitude.167

O’Higgins rejected the notion that the government appeased the mutineers in refusing to back Mulcahy’s strong law and order stance. He claimed he could “blow that interesting fiction sky-high,” but he would not want to do so “because the citing of those cases would be discreditable to the country.”168 The reference presumably was to the Kenmare case. O’Higgins furthered his argument for the subordination of the military to the civil power by tarring both the Mulcahy and McGrath factions as secret societies, jockeying for private interests and goals. Responding to Mulcahy’s call for a vote of censure against the government in the wake of his resignation, O’Higgins said, “We stand in the dock now because we did not allow the national position to be bedeviled by a faction fight between two letters of the alphabet.”169 O’Higgins further blamed the IRB for the army’s perceived leniency toward republicans and overly lengthy mopping-up operations, as he thought “IRB policy demanded that the Irregular snake be scotched rather than killed.”170 Hogan argued that the mutineers had to be treated lightly because the army hierarchy was also organizing a secret society, weakening the government’s position in dealing with the mutiny.171 The position of O’Higgins and his allies was once again that they were looking out for the national interest, while the other participants were concerned only about their smaller factions. The various sides in this dispute were all jockeying over their relationship to the revolution and its ideals. The mutineers cited Collins’s vision of the Treaty as a stepping-stone to the goals of the revolution. Mulcahy played a common Cumann na nGaedheal order-and-discipline card, arguing that mutineers could not be tolerated, especially since they seemed to be espousing principles close to those of republicans. O’Higgins, speaking for the government, pressed for clear subordination of the military to civilian authority and for the creation of an autonomous state that was not subordinate to other potential sources of power. Each side claimed revolutionary legitimacy and some connection to revolutionary ideals. The government did not attempt to camouflage the revolutionary origins of the state. The state’s military origins were in fact frequently cited in justification of the Executive Council’s leniency toward the mutineers.

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The mutiny also marked the last significant entry of the army into politics. After the events of March 1924, O’Duffy as GOC continued to send periodic reports to the government containing a combination of intelligence information and (probably unwanted) political advice. O’Duffy urged “constructive and positive policies” to win back support that was slipping away to the anti-Treatyites and managed to find space to complain that he had not been given a raise when he took on the GOC position in addition to his job as head of the Garda.172 Once O’Duffy resigned in early 1925, though, the army leadership was routinely ignored by the Executive Council, and its political advice became far less overt. The appointment of Peter Hughes, a green grocer with no military experience, to replace Mulcahy as minister for defense was a clear signal that civilian views would take precedence over military advice. It was also unpopular within the party and a slap in the face to the military establishment.173 The reconstituted postmutiny Army Council did not have the prestige of Mulcahy’s group, and its missives were largely ignored by the Executive Council. A carefully reasoned memorandum from the Council of Defence to the Executive Council in mid1925, inquiring into which of several defense strategies the army should pursue—including conducting an independent defense, working with Commonwealth forces, or focusing on internal security only—was not even dignified with a formal reply.174 The army leadership groused about this lack of reply and urged the pursuit of an independent defense policy at the upcoming 1926 Imperial Conference.175 The chief of staff, Peadar MacMahon, continued to send confidential intelligence reports to the Executive Council after O’Duffy’s resignation, but there is no evidence that these reports were thought particularly remarkable by the government.176 The post-mutiny army also continued with the reduction in size that had sparked the mutiny in the first place. The army had significantly lowered its numbers after the civil war ended in 1923, but the expiration of many 1922 enlistments meant that it was 5,300 men under strength by the fall of 1924. A recent recruiting drive had brought in 200 recruits per week, a number that was less than the number of men receiving discharges. The result was that “the Army is 721 men less than it was when recruiting opened.”177 O’Duffy had earlier expressed concern that many potential recruits were unqualified, and he remained “very much opposed to admitting undesirables of the loafer or corner-boy type.”178 This echoed the IRA’s noted hostility to “corner boys” during the revolution and IRA members’ resentment toward British attempts to characterize them in this way.179

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After O’Duffy’s tenure, the number of soldiers in uniform continued to fall. The government desired 10,000 soldiers and 4,500 reserves in 1926, with the understanding that the men would be broadly trained to facilitate “rapid and efficient expansion in time of need.” The army leadership found this target ridiculously low, believing at least 25,000 soldiers and reserves would be necessary for a serious defense of the country against internal enemies and 100,000 to repel an outside invasion.180 The government offered voluntary (1928) and mandatory (1929) severance packages to officers willing to demobilize and continued to dramatically cut army spending. From a peacetime high of 16,382 officers and men in March 1924, the army declined to just under 5,800 officers and men and 7,700 reserves by 1932. Military expenditure fell from £3 million to £1.2 million during that same period.181 The army did send a number of officers to train with the American army at Fort Leavenworth in 1926, and it set up a military college in Ireland in 1930, but there was no question that the army retained a much lower profile after 1924 than it had during the civil war.182 In Peter Hughes’s New Year’s message to the nation for 1927, he praised generally the selflessness of the soldiers, but the most specific achievement he could mention was the army’s “display at the Horse Show and its achievements in other realms of international sport.”183 When Cosgrave again took an interest in army matters in 1931, it was to inquire whether some officers might be interested in playing polo with the All-Ireland Polo Club, the members of which were deeply worried about the sport’s postindependence decline.184 The decline of the military’s political power did not necessarily signal the complete normalization of conditions in the Free State. Just as the state seemed to be stabilizing in 1926 and 1927, a handful of dissident republicans, acting without orders from any sort of centralized body, assassinated Kevin O’Higgins near his home in Booterstown. This led the government to rapidly pass another Public Safety Act that amplified its power against suspected dissidents. Even though the government had been building the institutions of the Free State for over five years, there was still a sense among government ministers that those institutions, in their normal operation, were insufficient to see the state through a period of a crisis. Blythe initially defended this new Public Safety Act as the product of an Irish government: “Coercion by the British Government applied to the majority of the Irish people is one thing; coercion applied to a criminal minority in the interests of the ordinary Irish people is quite another thing. People say that the Public Safety Act was more drastic than any Act the

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British ever passed. I do not know whether it was or not, but it ought to have been. The British could afford to have years of turmoil here and it did not matter. No Irish Government could afford to have years of turmoil, and it was up to us to take more drastic steps than the British Government might have thought it necessary to take.”185 While as a theory on civil liberties this leaves something to be desired, it is interesting that Blythe waved the green flag: a putatively unpopular measure was defended on account of it being somehow “Irish.” Blythe also referenced the colonial-era suspicion of authority in defending the police and observed that Ireland, unlike Britain, was not yet culturally ready for the English notion of a single village constable.186 A government election poster from 1927 explained away the Public Safety Act as rather benign: “No law-abiding citizen has anything to fear from the Public Safety Act. This Act was designed to put an end to the criminal activities of a small section, who have for five years been secretly preparing to destroy the State and plunge the country back into the ruin and desolation of 1922.”187 Ex–Army Council member and Cumann na nGaedheal TD Gearóid O’Sullivan said, rather bluntly, “Those who feared the Public Safety Act were not fit to live in this country, or should not be allowed to, because they were either murderers or potential murderers.”188 So the act was defended as necessary to suppress republican gunmen, who were depicted as fewer in numbers but still capable of at least working for a return to 1922 conditions. But the act was more of a threat than a functioning piece of legislation. Minister for Justice James FitzGerald-Kenney admitted in 1928 that only four people had been arrested under the Public Safety Act, none had been convicted, and none were still detained.189 In fact, when de Valera introduced a bill in November 1927 to repeal the Public Safety Act, Blythe admitted that “the passage of this Act was due to and arose entirely from the assassination of the late Minister for Justice. I believe that since that time conditions have altered substantially and that alteration is substantially for the better.”190 After initially trumpeting the 1927 Act in the Dáil, the members of the government were often, although not always, a bit more circumspect on the campaign trail. This was a complex issue: the government clearly wanted credit for the restoration of order but did not want to be seen as the curators of a police state. In general, “Shadow of the Gunman” posters notwithstanding, the government was often aware of the danger of decoupling law and order from the revolution and from a positive program. Further republican attacks on the Garda and on jurors, as well as the government’s paranoia about the perceived rise of communism in Ireland,

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led to the passage of the even more sweeping 1931 Constitutional Amendment Act, which re-created military tribunals for political crimes and gave the government wide authority to ban publications and organizations. The defense of this rather draconian legislation followed a similar pattern as that found in 1927. Patrick Hogan claimed that Fianna Fáil’s antigovernment rhetoric was exploiting Ireland’s colonial tradition of resistance to government and ignoring the changes that had taken place in the country since the Rising. In so doing, according to Hogan, de Valera was also acting as if the Free State regime was similar to the wartime British martial law regime: “Who was Hamar Greenwood? An Englishman who was a Chief Secretary here and the representative of a foreign Government here. Does the Deputy still keep up the humbug that President Cosgrave is an Englishman, or that I am an Englishman, or that my authority or President Cosgrave’s authority or the authority of the Executive Council was the authority of Hamar Greenwood?”191 This 1931 amendment was also defended for its Irishness. The Cumann na nGaedheal newspaper The Star defended it as fully acceptable by the standards of most European countries and charged critics with being Anglophilic: “A frame of mind to be guarded against is the idea that the existence of such an enactment as the recent Act is a blot on the country. Such an idea could only occur in the minds of people so steeped in Anglicism that any departure from English constitutional practice seems to them calamitous. The internal history of England is peculiar to itself. An examination of the codes of all other European countries shows that there is no hesitation elsewhere in putting into force stringent measures against enemies of the State.” The same issue of The Star also noted that the five officers on the military tribunal each had pre-Truce service.192 In connecting the acts to the revolution and to non-Britishness, the government attempted to legitimize repressive measures in the name of protecting Irish sovereignty and life. Cosgrave again, rather predictably, defended this bill as necessary “if the will of the majority of the people is to prevail,” and he later, undoubtedly a little overenthusiastically, called the bill “the best Bill that has been introduced into this House since it first sat. . . . It will enable us for all time to get rid of a conspiracy against democracy, against religion, against authority, and it will give us an opportunity of ensuring that God’s commandments will be obeyed in this country.”193 Some of the nuance present in Cumann na nGaedheal’s earlier defenses of law and order was clearly lost by this time.

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The government emphasized the creation of institutions in the Free State but did not assume that such institutions were themselves sufficient to create order. To complete this task, the Cumann na nGaedheal government also sought to nurture a new sense of civic virtue in Ireland. This was assumed to be critical to the state’s ability to emerge from the long colonial shadow. Despite the government’s frequent invocation of individual rights and property, the civic spirit that it sought to cultivate was depicted as Irish, communal, and voluntary. There was considerable tension between this emphasis and other aspects of the Cumann na nGaedheal self-image. The party constantly boasted of the creation of parliamentary sovereignty as the ultimate gain of the revolution but also spoke the language of limited government. The idea seemed to be that parliamentary government was important because it was the fount from which all other political activities came, but it also was limited by and complementary to the people’s own activities. The latter emphasis is a continuance of the old Sinn Féin mantra of self-reliance and self-respect. There also was tension between Cumann na nGaedheal’s language about the individual and the collective. At times party elites spoke the classically liberal language of individual rights and at other times the language of collective action and civic spirit. Most Irish revolutionaries, Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil alike, drifted back and forth between the language of a paternalistic state and that of individual self-reliance and grass-roots activism. In the summer of 1922 Collins mused that “something much more than restoring peace is needed,” and he desired that “civil pride and responsibility would be restored, re-awakened, and developed.” Collins mixed this with Sinn Féin notions of self-reliance: “The people themselves will become actively interested in the new life of the nation; they would realise with everincreasing clearness that it depended on them—upon them as a community and upon them as individuals.”194 The theme of political renaissance would be frequently repeated by Collins’s Cumann na nGaedheal successors, although at times it clashed with their deep suspicion of the quality of some of the ideas bubbling up from the grass roots. O’Higgins believed that “liberty means responsibility, in the first and last analysis.” This responsibility existed toward the state and toward fellow citizens. O’Higgins explained that because of the long colonial past, the Irish often confused liberty with license: “It is an historical truism that a people enslaved for a long period are apt to lose the full use of their political faculties. The faculties of resistance and agitation are over developed at the expense of powers of organisation

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and exact capacity. It takes a Nation just liberated some time to realise the responsibilities and duties connoted by its new status, and within the Nation it takes the normal individual a very long time to perceive that national freedom does not mean endless holidays for himself.” The problem was that “the civic sense is feeble in Ireland. Citizens do not consider that they have concrete duties beyond their families. They have not the slightest compunction in neglecting their liabilities to the State.”195 Mulcahy also bemoaned the lack of communal spirit in Ireland: “There is so little public spirit evinced at present. . . . Everybody minds his own business and many people take their little bit when it comes their way.”196 At times, this lack of public spirit was connected with opposition to Cumann na nGaedheal, both in terms of juries refusing to convict republican political offenders and in the practice of “howling like a frenzied lunatic” to drown out speakers at public meetings.197 Cumann na nGaedheal took the creation of a civic spirit as one of its most crucial tasks, one that would create the deepest transformation in independent Ireland. In defending the need for this transformation, O’Higgins invoked Patrick Pearse: Unless there is a spirit of charity, a spirit of decency, a spirit of civic responsibility inculcated here, the efforts of the Government to set up a firm and stable administration will not avert that collapse of the social and economic fabric which seems imminent. It is a matter for the people themselves, and not for any selected body of people, but for all the people, facing facts, to do the best thing for the Irish nation under the circumstances that have arisen. Padraig Pearse was right when he said that every man and every woman in Ireland carries the Irish nation in his or her heart, and, so far as any man or woman in Ireland departs from decent standards of citizenship the whole nation suffers proportionately, and the whole nation is let down proportionately.198

There are certainly class-tinged notions in the reference to the collapse of the social and economic fabric, but there is also a deliberate echo of the Irish revolution in the person of Pearse and also in the rhetoric of Sinn Féin. O’Higgins told the first Cumann na nGaedheal convention to “obey your law,” and “it was the truest form of self-respect to obey and support the law, for there was no law in existence now that had not the sanction of the people’s Parliament.”199 This kind of rhetoric also distanced the government from responsibility for Irish failures, placing the responsibility on the Irish people instead. At the

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1924 Cumann na nGaedheal convention, Eoin MacNeill lamented the tendency to look to government as the source of redress of all evils: “This condition of dependence on the Government must be replaced by an attitude of self-help which would grow with greater experience of liberty. The greatest national resource was the people themselves, whose aim should be to work through the Organisation to create an active spirit of local nationality.” Other speakers at this convention hit this same Sinn Féin note. Cosgrave observed that “no ten or twelve men could carry the country. It was the duty of every citizen to contribute his quota, live within his means, and support home-made goods.” Patrick Hogan added, “the Treaty left us no excuse if we failed to compete with first-class nations.”200 This reflected, at least in part, a sense of weariness and fatigue setting in amongst the members of the government but also a desire to reanimate grass-roots support through familiar Sinn Féin rhetoric and through the intriguing concept of “local nationality.” O’Higgins’s New Year’s message to the nation in December 1926 echoed this, observing that “national effort is but the sum of individual effort.”201 The means of civic education were often left vague, although it was often implied that this transformation would come about through experience and a psychological acceptance of the reality of Irish freedom. To that end, the government constantly emphasized the Irish nature of the law and the parliament and attempted to educate the population on the differences between Irish law, which could be respected and obeyed, and British law, to which resistance had been encouraged. O’Higgins at the outset offered up the referendum and initiative processes as means for the civic education of the population, but Cumann na nGaedheal dropped those provisions once Fianna Fáil threatened to use them against the oath and other aspects of the revolutionary settlement.202 The overall goal for O’Higgins, though, remained a country where “the people were obeying the law because they knew it was their own law.”203 The other side of this emphasis on self-reliance was a corresponding inability to continue blaming everything on England. Cosgrave, opening the initial Free State Dáil, announced, “There is now no reason why blame should be shifted on the British or any other government blamed if we do not succeed.”204 At times, these attacks on Anglophobia turned into critiques of the Irish people, particularly in the context of the civil war, such as when O’Higgins told a Dun Laoghaire audience that “there is not one of these problems that has not been multiplied tenfold by our own folly.”205 But at least initially, there was a desire to break the Ireland-as-victim mentality and

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replace it with a Sinn Féin sense of self-reliance, responsibility, and duty to the greater good. This strategy echoed the communal spirit of self-negation and antimaterialism of much of the Irish revolution. Cumann na nGaedheal frequently invoked both the colonial legacies that promoted lawlessness and the correspondingly greater need to promote civic virtue and collective responsibility in such a state. The emphasis on law and order and self-reliance was a critical aspect of Cumann na nGaedheal propaganda in the immediate postrevolutionary years. The civil war revealed a number of deficiencies in the Irish polity, some caused by colonialism and some of more recent vintage, and Cumann na nGaedheal sought correctives that were based in the revolutionary tradition and conducive to the stability of the new state. The primary emphases that developed were the Irish parliament as the ultimate source of Irish authority, the superiority of civilian authority to military, and the creation of a civic and communal spirit that would replace the modes of resistance common in colonized societies. Cumann na nGaedheal continued to deploy such rhetoric in the late 1920s and up through the elections of the early 1930s, but with significantly less success. The emphasis on law and order played much better during the dark days of civil war, when the fabric of Irish society and the infant state seemed genuinely under threat to many, than it did at the end of the 1920s, when most Irish people did not seem to think that the activities of Fianna Fáil and other republicans marked an equally unwelcome and dangerous challenge to the revolutionary project. Nevertheless, that failure should not completely distract from the Cumann na nGaedheal attempt to create civic virtue in Ireland, an endeavor that the party’s leaders linked to the revolution. In 1931, as the end of his government loomed, Cosgrave looked back across his decade in power and concluded, “What has the average man in the street got out of his independence and self-government? A sense of civic responsibility. . . . That above everything. An emotional and spiritual satisfaction that cannot be measured. A restoration of belief in himself and his ability to conduct his own affairs. A government that can quickly and sympathetically deal with the problems peculiar to himself and his country.”206 Obviously, a majority of Irishmen and Irishwomen disagreed with Cosgrave’s assessment of the revolutionary legacy, as evidenced by the electoral dominance of Fianna Fáil for the next sixteen years, but that statement contains the major props of Cumann na nGaedheal’s revolutionary project: selfreliance, civic spirit, and parliamentary sovereignty. Those were at the heart of Cumann na nGaedheal’s revolution.

3 The Promotion of Irishness

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rnest Blythe’s pro-Treaty speech to the Second Dáil pledged his allegiance to a Gaelic state, while noting the difficulties involved in such a creation: “I stand for a Gaelic State. I realise the difficulties that are before us in arriving at a Gaelic state. I know how far Anglicisation has gone in this country. I know the close relationship there must be between this country and England in any circumstances on account of Trade and Commercial interests.”1 Many Irish revolutionaries invoked this desire to create a Gaelic state in the wake of the dismantling of the British colonial apparatus, and they saw this creation as central to the success of the revolutionary project. Patrick Pearse’s call for an Ireland that was “not free merely, but Gaelic as well; not Gaelic merely, but free as well” was taken as a serious charge by most Sinn Féiners. In the various historiographical debates about the ideology of the revolution, most historians have agreed that Gaelicism was a critical component. Michael Laffan concluded, for example, that “insofar as Sinn Féin had an ideology and wished to transform Ireland and the Irish people, its ideology was linguistic nationalism.”2 Michael Hopkinson similarly identified a “resistance to British cultural influences,” and John Regan listed “gaelic state, national unity, self-determination and arguably conscription,” as the “ideological politics of the revolutionary period.”3 The problem, for historians and for Cumann na nGaedheal, came in defining what precisely was meant by the “Gaelic state.” Historians have generally left such claims unremarked upon, and the “Gaelic” elements beyond the language that were to make up the new state have been underanalyzed. Charles Townshend and Philip O’Leary are exceptions to this. Townshend 105

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wrote that “the recovery of the Irish language would enable the nation to find authentic ways of remodelling every aspect of life—from law through economy to architecture,” although he does not really follow up on this insight in a short introductory essay.4 O’Leary’s Gaelic Prose in the Irish Free State discusses debates in the 1920s and 1930s about whether “Gaelicness” (Gaelach) meant something beyond a facility with the language and concluded that most writers at the time believed it to be something more than that, often pointing to other cultural practices or perceived Gaelic modes of thought.5 Speaking on financial estimates for the department of education, Eoin MacNeill said, Deputy McGoldrick suggested that the reason for causing Irish to be taught in all the schools was to lead up to the Gaelic State. I am sorry Deputy Figgis is not in his place. He is the only person that I know in this assembly who knows what the “Gaelic State” means. For my part, I have not the slightest idea of what is meant by the “Gaelic State.” If it means a political state of affairs that existed in Ireland a thousand or two thousand years ago, well, I will not follow either Deputy Figgis or Deputy McGoldrick in proposing to set it up again, not because such a state of things had not many admirable points and many virtues in its own time, but simply because a thousand or two thousand years have passed.6

Despite this skepticism expressed by one of Ireland’s foremost medieval historians and Irish language enthusiasts, it is often taken for granted by historians that “Gaelic” meant something tangible, but the notion is too often conflated with the language question, when in fact most revolutionaries’ definition was significantly more expansive. There were some who identified Gaelic with pre-British and others who identified it simply with notBritish, basically defining “Irish” or “Gaelic” as a recognition of the different conditions that existed in Ireland as compared with Britain. Viewed in such terms, Cumann na nGaedheal’s program to create a Gaelic state was much broader than is usually credited. Efforts to revive the language were definitely central to this program and were seen as crucial to other aspects of it. But in addition to resuscitating the language, Cumann na nGaedheal also tried to create a specifically Irish economy and an Irish politics. Here, the point of reference was not so much the preconquest period—no one seriously considered using cattle as currency or reinstituting the high kingship—but instead the postcolonial situation. The goal was to create an economic and

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political system that recognized Irish difference from England and took account of specifically Irish conditions such as the country’s rural nature, political immaturity, and long colonial past. Cumann na nGaedheal’s efforts to create an Irish state have to be analyzed in the context of its attempts to create new linguistic, economic, and political models. The language question became the centerpiece of debates over the Irishness of the new state, as the language had become an easy shorthand reference for the demarcation of cultural separateness from England. Many deputies justified their support for the Treaty by invoking the freedom Ireland would soon possess to put governmental power behind the drive to revive Irish. Pádraic Ó Máille, a fervent supporter of the language movement, said, “Under this Treaty you have the one last chance of saving the Irish language.”7 Gearóid O’Sullivan lamented that the Dáil could not even discuss the Treaty in Irish and that “all our thoughts have been controlled, have been directed by the English outlook, the English language, by the English sovereignty.”8 Even Kevin O’Higgins, who generally remained aloof from the language movement, spoke glowingly during the revolution about Irish, claiming that the Irish language could distinguish Ireland from the mental and spiritual rot in England: “Ask yourself if you have not here a country [England] in the grip of a moral leprosy and reflect that you are chained by the bond of language to that leper.”9 Such references were crucial to a generation of revolutionaries who had imbibed Pearse’s “The Murder Machine” and other condemnations of the British educational system. Invoking the Irish language, or the desire to reconstitute and further Irishness, was another way for Treatyites to demonstrate their fidelity to the key principles of the revolution and to unite many Sinn Féiners possessing otherwise diverse views on social and economic questions. But early Treatyites meant something more than just the language when they summoned the Gaelic state, and there were frequent references that went beyond just the language. Cosgrave, in an early session of the Third Dáil, stated, “The Parliament must resuscitate the Gaelic spirit and the Gaelic civilisation for which we have been fighting through the ages and all but lost.”10 Patrick Hogan, not generally considered a language enthusiast, mused, “I hope we are not going to slavishly copy England. I hope we have some Gaelic social and economic ideals.”11 A Cumann na nGaedheal fund-raising appeal from 1924 even promised an Irish fiscal system.12 Michael Collins mused on the subject of Gaelicism frequently during the last months of his life. He wanted to extend the Gaelic nature of the state into

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the political realm, and he lamented that the growing divisions within Ireland had prevented the achievement of a Gaelic constitution: “A few months ago we could have got a Constitution on practically definitely Gaelic lines. . . . I believe we could have got a Gaelic Constitution based on the fact of our freedom and our general authority, that the British would have had to acquiesce.” The nature of this Gaelic constitution was difficult to pin down, other than the fact that it would not be British: “Our position should have been what I so often emphasised, that we did not care a rap what the language [in the Constitution] was, so long as the British had definitely cleared out, had ceased interference in fact with our affairs. That as, and when, we were becoming free to do so we would make out [sic: our] own Gaelic Constitution.” In this vision, the “Gaelic Constitution” seemed to be one free from British interference, and “Gaelic” was simply Collins’s shorthand for “notBritish.” Recognizing that any such changes would have to run deeper than the constitution, Collins extended this definition to the general Irish aesthetic: “Even still it is not the Treaty, nor the Constitution, nor the language in which things are expressed, nor the names Irish or English, that certain things are called, that can restore our Irish Nation, our Gaelic outlook, etc. We still have this in our hands, and there is still a chance to get rid of the Selfridge-Whitley standards of our cities, and the ghastly dreariness of our Urban and Rural areas.”13 Another Collins memo stated, “We want a Government based on distinctive Irish thought. We want a modern edition of our old Gaelic social polity—a thing that grows up with ourselves and grows naturally out of our own Irish character and requirements.”14 The problem was that few went beyond these general prescriptions. Kevin O’Shiel’s Weekly Bulletin attempted to explain the Gaelic state to skeptical northerners but also, perhaps, to anxious revolutionaries: Now the term Gaelic in its primary significance simply means Irish. But it may also be understood to imply a recognition of the fact that the predominant, if not overwhelming, strain in the composition of the Irish nation is the Gaelic or Celtic. This is as true of North-East Ulster as it is of any other part of the country. The Ulster Scot is probably of purer Celtic race than say the Wexfordman. . . . This does not mean that full privileges of citizenship will be confined to those of pure Gaelic blood, for no such persons exist today. It does not mean that the “Brehon” laws will be restored in their entirety as the common law of Ireland, although it is quite possible that they contain valuable legal principles worthy of investigation by our legislators. It does not mean that any

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attempt will be made to hinder the march of progress by restoring any obsolete social usages or to move back the clock to the period of the Táin Bó epic. But it does mean a wholehearted recognition of the fact that Ireland is a “mothercountry.” . . . Severe criticism has frequently been made by opponents of Irish union regarding the movement for the saving of the Gaelic language from extinction. But if the main foundation of the national life is the culture and traditions of our Gaelic forefathers it is surely a pious work to preserve that medium which most intimately gives expression to that life and culture. More than 90 per cent of the place-names even in the Six County area are Gaelic. Belfast, Derry, Aughrim and Enniskillen are Gaelic names and can only be understood by means of Gaelic. Most of the peculiar Irish idioms and turns of expression in the English both of Ulster and the other provinces are translations of Gaelic idioms. Even the brogue and the Northern accent can be traced to that source.15

This ambiguity is precisely why the notion of the Gaelic state needs to be interrogated by historians. Cumann na nGaedheal received significant criticism, both from contemporaries and later historians, for being insufficiently Irish or Gaelic, categories that need to be analyzed rather than merely repeated. This is not to say that the criticism was unfair but, rather, to study the differing notions of Gaelic identity at play in these disputes. Reaching back to a preconquest past had the desirable effect of purging English influence from the island but obviously offered little in terms of practical suggestions for a new government. What was meant by a Gaelic bureaucracy, constitution, or fiscal system was, to be generous, undertheorized in the 1920s. The new state could use Gaelic or preconquest symbols to demonstrate its Irishness, as it did on numerous occasions, but the notion of the Gaelic state was more than a symbolic invocation or empty wordplay.16 Cumann na nGaedheal leaders, in attempting to project and defend the Gaelicness of their state, portrayed it as one that took account of Irish realities—including some, such as the language, that predated the conquest— rather than merely imitating England. The language was certainly of critical importance for the development of a Gaelic state. Cosgrave told an American audience in 1928: “We have a sacred duty to those who went before us and those who will come after us to do all that lies in us to revive the Irish language and to fashion our national outlook and our national character through the medium of our language.”17 To set a good example, the pro-Treaty party initially placed a fair

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amount of emphasis on the use of the language. At an early meeting of the pro-Treaty deputies in March 1922, “it was the unanimous opinion of all present that as far as it would be possible the Irish language should be kept in the forefront.” The meeting than suggested that Irish-speaking candidates, organizers, and speakers be chosen “as far as possible,” an emphasis that was “important from a party point of view, in addition to being important from the point of view of the Language.”18 Some local Sinn Féin clubs echoed this call, and the pro-Treaty election committee prioritized the issuance of Irishlanguage electoral materials.19 When the Treatyites decided to form a political party, the motion called for a “Political Organisation” that would “work through the Treaty towards a united and distinctively Gaelic Ireland.”20 The original policy program for what became Cumann na nGaedheal included provisions “to carry on the National Tradition” and “to preserve and foster the National Language, literature, games and arts and every element of the National culture and custom which tend to give Ireland distinction as a Nation.”21 The Irish language election materials had little initial impact, as noted by the party’s Propaganda subcommittee: “The demand for Gaelic handbills is not as great as they would wish, and that even the Irish speaking districts are not sending for them.”22 The General Election committee responded by deciding “to instruct them [the propaganda committee and party election organizers] to make an effort to push the gaelic handbills.”23 Two years later, the party’s Standing Committee also worked with the Gaelic League to plan Irish language classes and promote them through local Cumann na nGaedheal cumainn.24 Obviously, education would be critical to the revival of the language. Blythe remembered that the new government “immediately began to employ the machinery of state to reverse the process of linguistic change,” citing efforts to put Irish in the schools, teacher training programs, the courts, and the civil service.25 Initially, Cosgrave, as minister for local government in the Provisional Government, passed a motion that local governments should have the authority to strike rates to fund Irish language teaching.26 Minister for Education Michael Hayes told the Dáil in April 1922 that eighteen county councils had levied a penny rate to fund Irish language instruction and that Irish was being taught for at least an hour each day in every primary school possessing an Irish-speaking instructor. That same report also noted that prizes were being given out to secondary schools for encouraging the use of Irish, and Irish classes and textbooks were being offered to those schools presently without Irish instruction. The report glowingly tied

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this whirlwind of activity to the Treaty, noting that “more progress has been made this year in the schools and elsewhere than during the whole period of the Gaelic Revival Movement.”27 The governmental power bestowed by the Treaty, according to Hayes, could achieve what the extragovernmental revival movement could not. The party was still proclaiming the achievements of an Irish education after the civil war ended. A fund-raising circular from late 1924 lauded “much preparatory work” that had been done to “co-ordinate, democratise and Gaelicise” the education system.28 O’Higgins, responding to criticism from local party activists, said that the recent belt-tightening was not jeopardizing the government’s commitment to Irishness: “The Government will endeavour to place the country in a sound position economically, and . . . it does not believe that this involves any sacrifice of National ideals. The Government will also endeavour to build up a sound Irish education in the fullest and highest sense, and does not believe that this will involve any restriction of economic progress.”29 Eoin MacNeill, shortly before his resignation as minister for education, listed the department’s goal as “a conservation and a building up of the particular type of civilisation which is suited to the genius of the people of this country and concurrent with their traditions.” MacNeill then more clearly identified those traditions with “the land of Ireland and the great agricultural industry on which for generations to come the economic life of the nation will be based,” mentioning that the Department of Education would cooperate with the Departments of Agriculture and Industry and Commerce on various development schemes.30 This is one of many examples of the conflation of Gaelicism with agrarian life, as the centrality of farming was seen to demarcate clearly the Irish experience from that of Britain. There was some short-term success in making education more Irish: 50 percent of primary teachers had reasonable proficiency in Irish by 1926, but as late as 1931 only 30 percent could effectively teach in that language, and only 4 percent of national schools were using Irish as a medium of instruction.31 Blythe was similarly pessimistic after the 1926 census, noting that it dramatically overestimated Irish speakers by mistaking minimal competence for fluency. He estimated that less than one-tenth of the population could actually speak Irish and only half of those people actually used it as their primary language. Despite the fact that “all political elements of any account in the State are committed” to reviving Irish, the program was faltering because of the “age-long alien presence and . . . economic influences resulting from foreign rule.”32

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For those who had already passed through the school system, the Cumann na nGaedheal government tried to ensure the greater dissemination of Irish language texts, an initiative that had the added effect of subsidizing those authors writing in Irish. For example, Blythe proposed government grants to those starting an Irish-language periodical or newspaper, as he felt that many Irish citizens who shied away from books in Irish may read newspapers or shorter pieces.33 He also suggested a competition for historical writing in Irish, an idea first proposed by Richard Mulcahy in 1924.34 Interestingly, none of Blythe’s suggested topics—including the histories of the Gaelic League, the post-Parnell Irish Party, the agricultural co-operative movement, Fenianism, and Sinn Féin—extended past 1919, as the minister presumably sought to keep recent political controversies out of the Irish language material.35 Education minister J. M. O’Sullivan did not share Blythe’s sense of urgency about this issue, as he did not respond to Blythe’s letter on this matter for nearly seven months. When he finally bothered to respond, O’Sullivan observed that his Advisory Committee on Irish Publications wanted to alter the suggested procedure, as “it would be very difficult if not impossible to find writers with the necessary knowledge of Irish who possessed also the ability or judgment necessary for the writing of a history worthy of publication, and who would find time for the research such a work would require.”36 O’Sullivan’s position as a professor of modern history at University College Dublin undoubtedly conditioned him to look skeptically on amateur history. The government eventually received nineteen applications for the nonfiction works. A subcommittee decided to award full grants to eight authors but “desired it to be put on record that they were by no means fully satisfied with any of the proposals recommended by them. They felt that if they were to insist on a high standard of merit in the books projected, they would be unable to put forward any of the names, . . . and it was from the desire that the Scheme should not be a complete failure that they suggested the eight names mentioned.” The full committee ultimately decided that only two works on O’Connell would be fully funded, with smaller grants to a few other authors, as “it would be better that the Scheme should fail altogether than that persons not fully capable should be commissioned to produce books of the kind suggested.”37 In 1926 the government created an Irish-language publishing house, An Gum, but its endeavors were not as successful as enthusiasts had hoped. Blythe complained that An Gum books were not reviewed in the daily press, and he wanted the Stationery Office that advertised An Gum publications

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to also secure reviewers for the books instead of relying on the authors to do that themselves.38 Blythe also fretted that translated An Gum works were not competitively priced compared with English language versions of the same text and that the government lacked sufficient editors for Irish language works, leading to a backlog of titles awaiting editing. By the beginning of 1931, An Gum had published thirteen translations of non-Irish works, with an additional forty-three in the midst of the translation process and sixtyeight fully translated but as yet unedited. Forty-six original compositions in Irish had been published by An Gum up to that point, but “many of these have been mere booklets,” and sixty-seven were awaiting editing. Blythe complained that “until we have about a hundred times as much reading matter as is present available, there will be little hope that any individual reader, even one with the most catholic tastes, will find much to interest him in Irish.” Without the hiring of additional editorial staff, it would have taken six years for An Gum to issue the manuscripts it already had in hand.39 This once again shows the very practical hurdles that often impeded the progress of the Irish language in the new state. State employees were also targeted by the government’s attempt to revive Irish. Tim McMahon has found that the Gaelic League had particular appeal to so-called “black-shirted” workers, including teachers, civil servants, and clerks.40 As such, the government should have had an easier time Gaelicizing its employees than it in fact did, although the failure was not always caused by a lack of governmental effort. A major push was directed at the police force. The government announced in November 1922 that Irishspeaking districts should be policed by Irish-speaking Garda.41 O’Higgins, when formally reconstituting and refounding the Garda in 1923, noted “the Civic Guard have been taking part freely . . . in Gaelic Athletic activities, and I am glad to say are almost foremost in their eagerness to learn the national language.”42 O’Higgins also supervised the drafting of regulations for the Garda requiring all candidates to pass a specialized examination in Irish, either as part of their application process or as part of a university course of study.43 Notwithstanding O’Higgins’s apparent sympathy, the person who took the lead in promoting the Irish language within the Garda was its commissioner, Eoin O’Duffy. A 1923 memo from O’Duffy proposed that Irish language knowledge become one of the most significant portions of the Garda’s cadet examination. To put this in perspective, Irish language— along with Irish history, arithmetic and English—was worth 200 points in the scoring system, weighted more heavily than “Elementary Principles of

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Law,” “Law of Evidence,” and “Reading Aloud,” each of which were worth a mere 150 points. O’Duffy further elaborated that “a fair knowledge of Irish will be looked for” and that candidates would have to translate passages from Irish into English and from English into Irish.44 In 1924 Pádraic Ó Máille commended O’Duffy for his “magnificent work for the language” within the Garda but complained that there were still non-Irish-speaking Garda in Gaeltacht areas. O’Higgins responded that they had made Irish language classes available as a part of Garda training, that Irish language competence was now part of the promotion standards, and that preference was given in recruiting Irish-speaking candidates. The problem though, was that “it is not so easy to get a sufficiency of Irish-speaking candidates and Irish-speaking applicants for the Garda Síochána who are otherwise suitable. When the Ministry of Education are able to create a supply for the demand that problem will be got over.”45 Several years later, Cosgrave admitted that the Irish language battalion in the National Army was similarly underenrolled.46 Undaunted, O’Duffy continued to press the language issue, part of his general habit of writing lengthy, boastful, and alarmist memos to an increasingly skeptical government. A 1929 example began by lamenting the fact that the Executive Council had failed to respond to his previous memo, written nearly two years earlier, and then claimed that there were at present 295 Garda fluent in Irish, and another 600 who could attain fluency with a bit more study. To bring up the level of Irish in the force more generally, O’Duffy set forth two proposals: to have cadets serve several months in the Gaeltacht, or to use the “Linguaphone Gramophone Course of Irish Lessons,” for which O’Duffy thoughtfully provided the budget-conscious Executive Council “rock-bottom quotations” for price. All of this training was necessary because, according to O’Duffy, within five to ten years most young Irish men and women will wish to speak Irish, making “the performance of his duty . . . extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the non-Irishspeaking Guard.”47 A later memo echoed this, concluding that policemen needed to understand “the tide has definitely turned and that, in future, the tendency will be to regard the bilingual policeman as the more efficient and to send the uni-lingual policeman to the backward Stations.”48 When the government’s belated answer criticized O’Duffy as overly optimistic, he responded that he did not consider Irish to be a sufficient qualification for Garda members, and did not want to compromise the integrity and efficiency of the force by recruiting otherwise unqualified Irish-speaking applicants. O’Duffy also noted that 285 Garda units organized voluntary Irish

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classes at police stations and that translators were also producing a dictionary of technical terms needed for policing.49 The government was obviously interested in increasing the knowledge of Irish within the Garda but was in no particular hurry to do so, particularly if it involved a perceived sacrifice of the quality of policing. O’Duffy, while in charge of the army, also had tried to make it more Irish, seeking to have regiments named after famous Irish soldiers and forcing officers and men to learn about their regimental patrons. This would prove to the country that “our Army is something more than a third rate imitation of the British Army dressed in green uniforms . . . [and also would give] our troops some higher ideal to fight for than the Pay Envelope.”50 The government also sought to improve the level of Irish in the civil service, although even Eoin MacNeill decided that it would be unwise to write into the constitution regulations on the government’s use of Irish and English.51 Nevertheless, some elements within the government did try to prod the civil service into greater use of Irish, and into becoming more “Irish” in outlook generally. There were, however, significant problems in realizing these goals. Article 10 of the Treaty stipulated that the Free State would be liable for the retirement benefits of any pre-1922 Castle employees it discharged or who voluntarily retired as a result of the change in regime.52 The government was trapped between a rock and a hard place: it could not afford a wholesale replacement of “British” officials in Ireland and was charged with profligacy and cronyism when it attempted to do so on a smaller scale. Keeping such officials, however, left the government open to charges that it was too anglophilic. Michael Tierney, a government supporter, told the Cumann na nGaedheal Standing Committee in 1924 that “our fiscal and financial system and the recruitment of the Civil Service were English in substance and tone and unsuited to this country.”53 This kind of language, leveled at the Ministry of Finance with particular frequency, posited Irishness as related to political loyalty and a lack of prerevolutionary service to the British government. There were few plausible ways to address such concerns, even had the government taken them seriously. As Blythe explained to the Dáil in 1923, the government had to get rid of some former Castle officials in order to restore public confidence, but as few as possible to avoid financial meltdown. As the government never tired of pointing out, the costs were also far less than those associated with the civil war. Blythe said, “Remember, it would not take very many Mallow viaducts or very many mansions [burned by the anti-Treaty IRA] to meet the whole cost of these

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discharges. If we did try to use the old officials whom the people were against we would have caused a continuance of the campaign of destruction that would have cost us a great deal more. . . . We discharged men with regret and reluctance, and only when we felt that the public interest demanded it.”54 Even though nothing much could be done about civil servants inherited from the British, Irish language ability was mandatory for all new civil servants after 1925.55 However, even among this group, levels of Irish fluency were very low. Blythe admitted as much in 1929 when he issued regulations on the use of Irish in the civil service, understanding that “the use of the language in the Service must largely depend on the rate at which the further recruitment of staff possessing a knowledge of Irish progresses.” Despite this handicap, Blythe directed that letters in Irish from citizens should always be replied to in Irish, job openings should be listed bilingually, and listings for those positions requiring significant Irish should be posted in Irish only. Officials in Irish-speaking districts were to use Irish in carrying out their duties, and, in a presumed attempt to educate the public, “forms used for the acknowledgement of communications should be printed in Irish only. Other common forms, . . . with the nature of the contents of which the public are by custom acquainted, . . . should, as far as practicable, also be in Irish only.” Blythe stressed that those who passed their Irish examination to obtain a civil service job should continue to expand their knowledge of the language after gaining employment.56 Despite these efforts, officials lacking decent Irish proficiency were often passed on their language examinations. The Selection Committee for the civil service post of junior translator was surprised by “the comparatively low standard of knowledge of Modern Irish Literature, particularly Modern Irish Prose, possessed by the candidates, some of whom were University Graduates in Celtic Studies.”57 Blythe was also disturbed by the standards, particularly those for the oral examination. After complaining to the chairman of the Civil Service Commission, Blythe went to observe oral tests himself. The observation led him to conclude that the “standard in their examination was abysmally low.” He recognized, however, that this was in part the result of a vicious circle: otherwise desirable candidates had to be given a pass in oral Irish to get them into the civil service in the first place, and then the standard had to be kept low subsequently to avoid failure at the end of their probationary period. The only way to rectify this “measure of injustice” would be to raise entrance standards and thus bar otherwise qualified people from these jobs. Blythe concluded that the candidates’ “knowledge

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and command of Irish was so poor that if they succeed in obtaining appointments, it is certain that at the end of their probation examiners will be driven to keep the standard shockingly low in order not to be forced to throw them on the streets.” Blythe recommended that “it would be better definitely to abandon all oral tests than to carry on as at present. Nobody ever fails in spoken Irish except a dud who would never under any circumstances come within hundreds of places of getting an appointment. . . . Positive harm results by reason of the fact that the holding of oral examinations in which everybody is bound to succeed must tend to bring oral proficiency into contempt in the eyes of students.”58 The government also took steps to place candidates with decent Irish who did not do well on the civil service examination into the chronically underenrolled Irish language battalion in the army. Blythe even suggested to Minister for Defence Desmond FitzGerald that the state pay the expenses of failed civil service candidates who spoke Irish to return to Dublin for examination by the military authorities.59 For the always-frugal Blythe, the willingness to pay expenses demonstrated the lengths to which he would go to promote the use of Irish in the civil service. The use of Irish by the government faced another hurdle: the typeface in which Irish language materials should be set. Various extragovernmental organizations opposed a switch to Roman typeface, including the Gaelic League and the national school teachers.60 Blythe, however, was a consistent advocate of Roman type, seeing Gaelic type as “a handicap which the Irish language in its debilitated condition cannot afford to carry. Adherence to the old script has in the past tended to restrict the use of Irish in newspapers and in business.”61 Blythe converted to the cause of Roman type while editing a Sinn Féin paper in Skibbereen in 1918 and frequently advocated the adoption of Roman type.62 He wrote to various printers and publishers to convince them to switch to the newer typeface, citing Atatürk’s linguistic reforms in Turkey as well as Patrick Pearse’s earlier editorship of a paper with Roman type.63 This issue combined Blythe’s desire to promote the language with his inherent tendency to frugality, as switching to Roman type would save the government money on typewriters and other printing costs as well as making the language more accessible. Blythe also decided in 1929 that all Department of Finance communications in Irish should be printed in Roman type.64 Other members of the cabinet, even those interested in the promotion of Irish, did not share Blythe’s enthusiasm. The cabinet decided in 1927 that secondary school books could still be printed in Gaelic type (at greater

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expense) if there was an attempt to get each author’s consent to printing in Roman type, and if at least one out of every six books was printed with Roman characters.65 There also was an amusing dust-up between Blythe and the Ministry of Justice, which wanted to use Gaelic type on official notices from the film Censorship Board. Blythe refused the request—and that he was even asked indicates the tremendous sway that Finance had over other departments—but conceded that “the words ‘Saorstát Éireann’ may be printed in Gaelic characters if the Ministry of Justice so desires.”66 Justice forwarded this on to Mulcahy, the minister for local government, in the hopes that he could use his stature to rein in Blythe. As the Justice official drily noted, “The concession accorded in respect of the words ‘Saorstát Éireann’ loses much of its value from the fact that these words do not occur in the document.”67 Mulcahy agreed to take up the fight, but the ultimate resolution is not evident from his files.68 Blythe acknowledged that some believed typeface to be a party political issue. He told the minister of education, “Some of these who are strong Elizabethans [those who favored Gaelic type] hope that if there were a change of Government they might be able to get the policy which has been pursued on this matter reversed.” Blythe then expressed his optimism regarding Cumann na nGaedheal’s future: “Although we know that there is no likelihood of such a change within the next seven years, I should like nevertheless to have the Roman type brought into use generally.”69 Blythe also told a book publisher in 1932 that “as soon as the General Election is over he shall be very glad to discuss with you the question of Roman type.”70 Little did Blythe suspect that after the 1932 general election he would actually have quite a bit more free time on his hands. The problem of the Gaeltacht, the Irish-speaking region of the Free State, became an object of political contention, as the government’s unwillingness to pay for the implementation of many of the ideas in the 1925 report of the Gaeltacht Commission became central to its opponents’ cultural criticisms of Cumann na nGaedheal. This region was obviously crucial to any revival of the language and was generally recognized as such by members of the government and party, but there was no clear consensus on how best it could be nurtured. Some focused on creating economic opportunities in the Gaeltacht—modernization, for lack of a better word—while others wanted to preserve it in its presumed archaic, and thus Irish-friendly, state. The fundamental question, one that Cumann na nGaedheal never resolved, was whether economic modernization could be decoupled from the use of the English language.

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Mulcahy’s motion to form an investigative committee on the Gaeltacht passed the party’s National Executive unanimously in late 1924. This commission, which Mulcahy subsequently chaired, was initially supposed to promote or mandate the use of Irish by state officials in the Gaeltacht as well as improve the economic status of the region. The commission’s official charge, issued by Cosgrave, proclaimed, “The Irish people as a body recognise it to be a national duty, incumbent on their representatives and their government as on themselves, to uphold and foster the Irish language, the central and most distinctive factor of the tradition which is Irish nationality.” It continued, “We recognise also that the future of the Irish language and its part in the future of the Irish nation depend, more than on anything else, on its continuing in an unbroken tradition as the language of Irish homes.” Cosgrave also recognized the dual mandate of the commission: “These [Gaeltacht] districts are known to coincide more or less with areas of rural Ireland which present an economic problem of the greatest difficulty and complexity. The language problem and the economic problem are in close relation to each other, and your Commission is asked to consider both together.”71 Commission members fanned out across the region, interviewing locals, studying infrastructure, and holding hearings. Garda units counted Irish speakers in their districts. The eventual report catalogued various problems in the Gaeltacht, focusing extensively on infrastructure, economics, and governmental entities such as schools and police. Two particular areas of concern were the poor performance of Gaeltacht schools and the frequent use of English by local governmental officials. The schools were minimally effective because of the long distances students had to travel to attend them, the poverty of the families in the region, and the lack of secondary or university opportunities in the Irish language. As the report noted, “An outstanding defect in the present position of Primary education in the Gaeltacht is that it leads nowhere. It has no clear aim or objective; it does not pave the way to Higher education; it bears no direct relation to local life; and it can hardly be said to pave the way to employment in industrial or commercial life.” The schools also used English too often, in large part because the teachers were insufficiently proficient in Irish, and there were too few Irish school textbooks. Gaeltacht schools were often neither agricultural schools, nor vocational schools, nor university preparatory schools, but were just places for students to spend time until the required number of years passed. As for local officials, Irish was not often enough made a priority: “It has

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been made plain by official witnesses that the chief responsibility of the present administrative authorities is efficiency of administration. These authorities have an undefined sentimental attitude in the matter of the National language, and they claim to have always kept the language in mind, and to have done their best for it under the circumstances, but they do not regard it as part of their duty to issue instructions as to its use.” Here, the government’s desire for cheap and efficient administration was hindering its desire to revive Irish. In addition, Irish-speaking officials were not easy to find, and those who were dispatched to the Gaeltacht often ended up lapsing into English for ease or clarity. The report concluded that the use of English for governmental business would eventually lead to the greater use of English as the everyday language in the Gaeltacht regions. The role of the government was therefore seen as critical. The commission suggested first and foremost the increased use of Irish in Gaeltacht schools and the hiring or training of teachers with greater fluency in Irish, as “the preservation of the Irish language depends largely upon the immediate disuse of English as a language of instruction in the schools of the Gaeltacht.” Present teachers who could not achieve fluency in Irish within three years were to have their contracts terminated or be removed to non-Gaeltacht schools. The commission also depicted existing schools as “small, depressing, in bad repair, insanitary, and poorly equipped with desks and seats” and recommended improvements. They also proposed an expansion of the free hot meals program and better textbooks. The commission also urged the transfer of Irish-speaking policemen and officials to Gaeltacht regions as well as the creation of an Irish-speaking brigade in the National Army, members of which could presumably be stationed in Gaeltacht posts. The commission also wanted to mandate the use of Irish for government business by officials capable of speaking in Irish. Such officials should use “English only with persons who do not know Irish.” The officials, in so far as possible, should be communicated with by their superiors in Irish as well. The government should also replace anglicized place names with their Irish originals, as “the anglicisation of Personal and Place names has influenced very greatly the decay of the spoken language.” Underpinning all of these proposals was a series of economic recommendations, seen as vital for the maintenance of the Gaeltacht and the prevention of further debilitating emigration. In general, the commission recommended the redivision of land into economic holdings, proffering of grants and loans for the construction of better housing, the resettlement in other Irish regions

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of landless families from the Gaeltacht, and the “provision of a complete system of education bearing on home life and farm management, and directed to the creation of settled and comfortable social conditions.” This included plans for the revival of the fishing and handicraft industries in the regions. These proposals, if implemented, would have effectively trapped the Gaeltacht population in agrarian life, and they demonstrate the perceived tension between modernization and language preservation in the Gaeltacht. Despite calls for the clergy, professions, press, and commercial leaders to assist in the revitalization of the Gaeltacht, the tenor of the report made it clear that the main impetus would have to come from the government. Unfortunately, “the Commission [was] unable to estimate the financial effect of putting its general recommendations into place.” This proved to be the rub. Many of these recommendations were put into effect: Blythe exerted pressure for government officials in the Gaeltacht to use Irish, the Ministry of Justice supported the plan to move Irish-speaking policemen into the Gaeltacht, the creation of an Irish language battalion in the National Army was approved by the Ministry of Defence, and the Land Act continued to redivide holdings in the congested districts, albeit without the requested “definite preference” for Irish-speaking families. Many of the other provisions, however, were deemed too costly and were either ignored or pushed into the distant future. The government hoped that its piecemeal record of implementation, along with its genuine concerns about thrift and balanced budgets, would be enough to stave off criticism from those who considered it insufficiently Irish. Nevertheless, the report of the Gaeltacht Commission, and the government’s record on the Irish language more generally, became a significant electoral factor in 1927. Patrick Hogan, speaking for the government, reacted defensively to such charges, claiming that shoring up agriculture in the Gaeltacht was a necessary precondition to any other sort of reform, and that once land purchase was completed and agriculture made more efficient and standardized, then the government could turn its attention to revitalizing other aspects of the Gaeltacht. Hogan characteristically concluded with a statement that the government did not believe in simply spending money solely to give the impression of activity.72 Once again, Hogan identified agricultural modernization as a precursor for all other activities and implied that rurality was a key component of Irishness. Blythe summed up these concerns to the Dáil in 1928, observing that the problems of the Gaeltacht were connected to the problems involved in finding qualified Irish speakers for the civil service:

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If the whole body of the national teachers had been able to impart instruction through Irish, if they had been fully qualified, we would have had what would be a comparatively simple problem. But they were not. If one looks for anything, for the doing of anything in Irish, . . . the number of fully qualified people is very small. All sorts of works are being held up and delayed because there are not the people who have had the training to do them. The speaker from the Gaeltacht had no chance of getting on. He may have had brains but he had not the opportunity of getting the education and the training. So in all aspects of language work, the shortage of fully-qualified people is a thing that is very keenly felt. . . . There is no doubt that the expenditure of money can be of value, but the matter, in my opinion, could not be solved merely by the expenditure of money.73

These attempts to revive the language were obviously crucial to making the state “Irish” and thus distinct from Britain, and amplified the most widely agreed-upon marker of Irishness. The government also attempted to promote Irishness in ways that would be more immediately visible to internal and external audiences, focusing on symbols and pageantry. The government moved to make the “Soldier’s Song” an official anthem in 1926, used the tricolor as the state flag, and, most controversially, removed the king from the coinage, replacing him with a harp and a variety of Irish animals. These symbols, according to Ewan Morris, gave legitimacy and stability to the new state and reminded audiences of its independence.74 The regime realized the connections between sport and identity, and understood that sport had been a key way that British values had been spread to the colonized Irish.75 To counter this, the government promoted the Tailteann Games every four years starting in 1924. The games were supposed to be an Olympiad for the Irish diaspora, with ancient Irish games combined with more modern activities such as motorcar races. The effort put behind the Tailteann Games echoed that made by the Gaelic Athletic Association, the founders of which had realized that sport was one of the key ways that British values were spread to colonized nations. The government loaned, rather than gave, money to the games’ organizers, and members of the government attended the opening ceremonies and a number of the other functions. J. J. Walsh, the organizer of the games, claimed that their precedent was Celtic funeral games held in Meath in the preconquest period. Once they began, though, the most popular events for spectators proved to be motorcycle and motorcar races rather than the traditional Irish

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games.76 The games also had associated artistic and literary competitions designed to call attention to Irish artistic achievements and at which the government attempted to create “a consensus based around artistic and cultural representations of Ireland and the Irish.”77 Cumann na nGaedheal also attempted to create an Irish economic system. In this case, “Irish” was generally taken to mean “not-British,” as the main plank of this Irish economic system was a recognition of the fact that Ireland was a fundamentally agrarian country, one that was built on hard work and a willingness to be satisfied with, as de Valera put it, frugal comfort. This idea, inherited from the revolution and specifically from Arthur Griffith, was that a free Ireland would feature agricultural prosperity, the transfer of land to its actual occupiers, and enough small-scale industrial or handicraft production to make Ireland less dependent on British imports. As a result, an Irish economy would be constructed as the antithesis of England, with less commercialism, materialism, and industrial blight. As Piaras Béaslaí told the Second Dáil, “We can make it [the Free State] a great and glorious land, the home of a fine Gaelic culture, of a highly developed agricultural system that will rival Denmark; with industries developed perhaps as some people advocate, on co-operative, non-capitalistic lines.”78 Eoin MacNeill spoke of connecting education to agriculture, which would be the basis of economic life for generations to come.79 Ernest Blythe observed that Irish industrialization would start with industries closely linked with agriculture: “We know that this country is an agricultural country. We know that agriculture must be our main cry for the future and for the present, but we also must find some way of stopping the continual tide of emigration which has been going on. We must find other activities and other opportunities for the young people of the country who cannot find a livelihood in agriculture. We must aim at doing what we can to develop those industries, particularly those industries that are directly or indirectly related to agriculture, and for which the country is fitted.”80 Making Irish synonymous with agrarian was a key way to distinguish the Irish situation from that of Britain. This was to be partnered with the creation of an Irish taxation system. Although there were calls for an Irish fiscal system in the wake of the revolution, the exact meaning behind this was often left vague. For Blythe, as minister for finance, an Irish fiscal system would be one with generally lower rates of taxation and spending. Blythe told the Dáil in introducing his budget in 1924 that “we last year adopted the British scheme of taxation which

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we found, without any alteration. That system of taxation had been devised without any regard to the special needs and conditions of this country. We are now setting about adapting that system and altering it to suit the requirements of the Saorstát.”81 The Cumann na nGaedheal obsession with lower taxes stemmed in part from the revolutionary-era argument that Ireland had been historically overtaxed and that, as Blythe said, “The systems of taxation which this country has lived under in the past have had a great deal to do with its economic backwardness.”82 This was another argument frequently made by Arthur Griffith. The problem with invoking the Griffithite legacy was that the question of tariffs continued to be problematic within Cumann na nGaedheal. The construction of a tariff wall around Ireland, of course, was one of the central components of Griffith’s economic program. A number of vocal supporters of Griffith’s tariff policy within Cumann na nGaedheal—including Seán Milroy and Minister for Posts and Telegraphs J. J. Walsh—repeatedly criticized the government about its lack of a tariff policy, as did the Labour Party.83 On the other side, Patrick Hogan argued that free trade was absolutely necessary for Irish agriculture to thrive. The fundamental concern was that Irish agriculture’s main customer was Britain, which was also the major threat to any nascent Irish industries. Any tariffs directed against British manufactured goods could possibly lead to retaliation against Irish agriculture, a scenario that played out during the 1930s. The Cumann na nGaedheal party remained divided on this issue throughout its history, with Hogan’s views usually prevailing in the Executive Council and some grumbling over this emanating from the party rank and file. There was often a thinly disguised class element to this dispute also, as it was assumed by opponents that the free trade policy benefited large export-based cattle and dairy farmers and did little to create jobs for landless men. The government’s response was to stall.84 Blythe initially blamed the civil war for the government’s lack of progress on the tariff question.85 More ominously, at least from the point of view of Griffithite Sinn Féiners, Blythe also indicated that the government was not unwaveringly committed to tariffs. Behind the scenes, the government was deeply divided on this issue, but publicly, Blythe merely told the Dáil that “the Government takes up no doctrinaire attitude on the question of Free Trade and Protection. It regards the matter as one of expediency which may be variously decided in different circumstances.”86 He later summed up the divisions:

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We are not prepared, on the one hand, to recommend anything approaching a general tariff, with the substantial rise in the cost of living which would inevitably follow, bringing other and serious economic problems in its train. Neither are we prepared to let the industrial drift continue, and content ourselves with preaching efficiency and the virtues. After careful consideration we have decided, as the best means of dealing with the situation which exists, to recommend to the Dáil the imposition of certain duties which will give us a limited but sufficient experiment in the use of a tariff for the stimulation of Irish industry. By the end of a year we will have a clearer idea of the efficacy and all the reactions of protection as applied to Irish conditions than could ever be obtained by mere discussion and speculation. Actual experience will teach us what fiscal policy is suited to our conditions.87

An Irish economy, therefore, did not mean returning to some time-tested precolonial system but rather the careful study of current Irish conditions so as to create a path of development different from that of Britain. The industries chosen to receive tariff protection were boots, shoes, soap, candles, candy, glass bottles, and commercial motor bodies. To ensure that the resulting rise in prices would not result in a higher cost of living, particularly for workers, the government correspondingly lowered the duty on tea. The next two years saw more incremental implementation of tariffs, and increasing criticism from within the party and from the dissident National Group that left Cumann na nGaedheal in 1924. William Sears, an associate of Minister for Posts and Telegraphs J. J. Walsh, said that the 1926 budget marked an abandonment of Sinn Féin principles and was instead along “the lines practically of the old British budget.”88 Anticipating such criticism, Blythe’s 1926 statement on the budget had announced the creation of a nonpartisan tariff commission to adjudicate individual tariffs. Citing the ongoing agricultural slump, as well as the limited data available from the earlier tariff experiments, Blythe argued that the time was not ripe for radical economic experimentation. In moving the second reading of the tariff commission bill in June 1926, Blythe extravagantly promised, “We have said good-bye to doctrinaire free trade.”89 Speaking to the motion, O’Higgins defended the government’s economic policy and rebutted a charge from Professor Magennis that the government was hostile to industrial development. O’Higgins said that Magennis “ask[ed] the Dáil to believe that the policy of the Executive Council was to maintain this country in a purely

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pastoral condition.” O’Higgins denied this: “There never has been any such policy before the Dáil. It is not for the sake of maintaining this country in a purely pastoral condition—simply the producer of flocks and herds—that we have entered upon the Shannon Scheme, for instance, and decided upon a very considerable expenditure on that scheme. . . . There is every desire and every intention to foster industrial development here and that policy has been announced again and again.”90 In endorsing the proposed tariff commission, O’Higgins cited its status as a committee of experts: “The fact stands that, without any Tariff Commission, we have imposed tariffs on more than 50 per cent. of the imported produce into this country other than agricultural produce. That can scarcely be described as ‘doctrinaire free trade,’ and it scarcely denotes any inveterate hostility to the idea of development along the lines of protection. But because we are cautious, because we wish to have a full and complete and scientific examination of any further tariff proposals, the Deputy, at some length, indicts us as people engaged in some sinister conspiracy against the wellbeing of the country and of the people.”91 This invocation of technocracy and expertise was a common Cumann na nGaedheal tactic, particularly as the decade continued. This strategy operated at two levels. On the one hand, Cumann na nGaedheal wanted to emphasize its status as the party of government, the only politicians with actual experience running things. Second, the government also justified its rather deliberate pace by claiming that it only made decisions after all the facts were gathered. The implication here was that Cumann na nGaedheal was both apolitical—relying on committees of experts from the field rather than on career politicians—and deliberate, working for the good of the country rather than for short-term political gain. Fianna Fáil members were characterized as inexperienced politicians who based policy statements largely on political concerns or untested theories. Economic questions, according to Cumann na nGaedheal leaders, were sufficiently complex as to necessitate appeals to experts rather than to political shibboleths. Anyone advocating across-the-board protection was either woefully inexperienced, naïve, or an ideologue. The invocation of experts would limit the reach of tariffs, while still allowing the government to claim its fidelity to the notion of protectionism. As Cosgrave said repeatedly in the run-up to the first 1927 election, “Our policy is frankly a protectionist policy, but we have no intention of imposing indiscriminate tariffs.”92 This also brought the government up against the legacy of Arthur Griffith, and O’Higgins attempted to both honor Griffith and move away from this

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aspect of his thought: “I think I had, and have, as much respect for the late Arthur Griffith and his memory as the Deputy [who had criticized the government on tariffs], and that I will not be misunderstood when I say that the propagandist political writings of any man cannot be accepted simply as revealed truth, requiring no further investigation, something that must be accepted for ever as beyond question, beyond doubt, beyond the need of examination.”93 Cumann na nGaedheal’s entire postrevolutionary strategy was predicated on the notion that some of the slogans and policies and mantras from the revolution could be embraced, while others were, quietly or noisily, discarded. The memory of the revolution, as well as its prime movers, should be honored. However, the revolution need not be taken as a whole, and all of its guiding ideas need not be implemented. This assertion rested in part, as O’Higgins said, on a realization that many of the slogans and writings of the revolution were propagandistic more than programmatic or prescriptive. The problem for Cumann na nGaedheal was that a good portion of the Irish electorate took some of those revolutionary slogans and positions more seriously than some leading party members, resulting in a substantial disconnect by the late 1920s between Cumann na nGaedheal and the electorate. There also was a significant class element to this debate, in which Cumann na nGaedheal again came out looking as if it was favoring wealthy (and Unionist) interests. The government’s free trade policy certainly benefited rich graziers, a class that had been the object of the Ranch War and hardly a favorite among revolutionaries in western counties. The government also reduced the estate tax and what was called the “super-tax” on the wealthiest taxpayers, again leading to charges that it was favoring the wealthy. Blythe hoped that a lower tax rate on the wealthy could free up investment capital for Ireland as well as halt, or even reverse, capital flight from Ireland in the wake of the Free State’s creation. In Blythe’s own pleading, “If we could only induce one millionaire to come here to die, the advantages would be very great.”94 Cumann na nGaedheal would remain vulnerable to this charge for the remainder of its time in power. The Irish electorate had been told by Sinn Féin that colonialism was responsible for most of Ireland’s manifest economic ills. The revolution, and by extension the Treaty, would bring prosperity and economic growth to Ireland. While the Treaty did bring economic self-determination to Ireland, that power was used in the service of austerity budgets and reductions of benefits. Sinn Féin visions of an independent

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Ireland with overflowing coffers, plentiful natural resources, and a growing population quite obviously never came to fruition—and perhaps never could have—but to an electorate used to such claims, the weaning process was difficult and turbulent. Finally, the government claimed to build a specifically Irish political system, one that would both differ significantly from the British two-party system and also replicate the politics of the revolutionary period. Historians have analyzed Cumann na nGaedheal’s inability to create a consistently functioning party machine as well as the frequent complaints of distance between the party’s grass roots and its governing elite. However, there was more to the government’s perceived failure to cultivate a viable organizational infrastructure than simply the arrogance of power, abandonment of the revolution, or poor political calculation. The weaknesses of the Cumann na nGaedheal party organization, and the elites’ distance from that organization, instead derived from ideas embedded in the Irish revolutionary movement: the twin desires to re-create a “national party” and also to have a “national” government that was above the political fray. In this case, Cumann na nGaedheal suffered in part because of its adherence to the ideal of unity handed down by Sinn Féin and also because of a desire to promote Irish solutions to Irish problems. As Michael Collins noted, “Party politics may pass in a strong flourishing country. To our country undergoing a re-birth politics, in the modern sense, threaten death or at least disaster.”95 The government worked on many fronts to create an “Irish” political system. The elements of the British system that Cumann na nGaedheal most wanted to avoid, at least initially, were the two-party system and the cronyism it engendered. The point of reference for the latter was most often the old Irish Party, which was often put up as a foil to Cumann na nGaedheal’s state-building activities. Simply put, the government wanted to speak for the nation and, at least at the outset, avoid the language of party. Given the problems Irish revolutionary movements had with dissension and infighting in the past, this near-obsession with unity is certainly explicable. “Party” and “faction” were clearly dirty words, just as they were in the American and French revolutions, connoting crass material or sectional interest. ProTreatyites, left to make a variety of pragmatic arguments defending a Treaty that clearly fell short of Irish revolutionary dreams, had a more difficult time accessing a moral rhetoric than did republicans. The creation of a political party that described itself as “national,” and the creation of a government that purported to remove itself from the day-to-day business of running the

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party, was part of a larger attempt by Cumann na nGaedheal elites to retain or reclaim the moral discourse that had been lost with the acceptance of the Treaty. Frequent references to a “national party” also distinguished Cumann na nGaedheal from its opponents within the Dáil, making it a “party of government” that was above the sectional fray. The attempt to form a national party was a key part of this program, as it gave the party a certain political gravitas, a link to the revolution, and a challenge to anti-Treaty Sinn Féin’s claim to speak for the Irish nation. The Cumann na nGaedheal leadership were committed ideologically and pragmatically to building a national party, their definition of which frequently led them to believe that they needed to stay aloof from party business, local politics, and, in particular, patronage. This meant that few of the original Cumann na nGaedheal leaders were terribly interested in the mechanics of party organization. Instead, they tried to re-create the ostensibly united movement that drove the revolution from 1918 forward. The rhetorical denunciation of patronage also served to separate the Cumann na nGaedheal government from the Irish Party, associated in the revolutionary mind with corruption, inefficiency, self-interest, and graft. This concern with unity stemmed from the revolutionary period. Sinn Féin was initially formed as a coalition of various advanced nationalist groups in 1907–8 and then resurrected as a similarly all-encompassing umbrella organization after the Rising, a resurrection that was sealed by de Valera’s famously ambiguous compromise at the 1917 ard-fheis about the organization’s republican aims.96 The party constantly reiterated its desire to speak for the nation as a whole, a tactic that was common in revolutionary situations, particularly postcolonial ones, but was particularly important in Ireland given that the British government was emphasizing the plight of the Unionist minority. This meant that Sinn Féin could not appear to favor one element of the nation over another for fear of alienating more support or appearing sectarian. A 1918 Sinn Féin electoral statement claimed, “Sinn Féin stands less for a party than for the Nation. . . . It cannot, as such, have a programme for labour any more than it can have a programme for capital.”97 One of Ernest Blythe’s election pamphlets from 1918 similarly reads, “Sinn Féin is knitting all sections of the Irish people, because it is marching along the broad road to freedom.”98 At the outset of the Treaty debates, de Valera similarly asserted, “I am not doing party work and have nothing to do with party or faction work. I am working purely in the public interest in the widest sense.”99

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Open divisions of opinion would also seem to be an entry point for “politics,” and so Sinn Féin political leaders resolutely tried to minimize these and constantly asserted the unity of the Irish polity. Even during the Treaty debates, most deputies continued to praise the perceived unity of the revolution and to lament the discord over the Treaty. In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, such attitudes were seen as statesmanlike and conciliatory. Those charged with fostering disunity were also charged with the sin of playing “party politics,” a highly loaded accusation. De Valera told the Dáil in March 1922 that “we hear a lot about party methods—party is gone mad here.”100 Anti-Treatyite Count Plunkett later charged that Mulcahy had lost his judgment “through Party passion” and was thus unable to realize that he was “slandering the cause to which up to a few days ago he had devoted his life.”101 From the other side, Kevin O’Higgins’s Civil War and the Events Which Led to It, under the heading “Party Intoxication,” argued that Erskine Childers’s “normally orderly and logical mind” was “under the influence of the baneful spirit of party” and “badly intoxicated with the spirit of party.”102 Cosgrave, when de Valera was again proposed as president after the passage of the Treaty, told the Dáil to “get away from the page of party politics and the page of party suspicion and the page of party speeches and realise that this nation did not elect us to go on with this nonsense.”103 Both sides accused their opponents of having the “party spirit,” which separated them from the purportedly apolitical national movement during the revolution. The idea of a national movement was also contrasted with the perceived factional squabbling, corruption, and inefficiency of the old Irish Party. Despite recent research indicating that the grassroots Irish Party was more radical than previously suspected, with significant continuity between Irish Party and Sinn Féin elites at the local level, Sinn Féin persistently tried to define itself in opposition to the degenerate, compromising, and enfeebled Irish Party.104 More specifically, the Home Rulers were perceived as factional and petty, as the memory of the Parnell split—and to a lesser extent, the rebellions of Tim Healy and William O’Brien—loomed large over the revolutionary Dáil. Facing the imminence of a split over the Treaty, several deputies referenced Parnell directly. J. J. Walsh pointed out, “None of us can gain anything by going back to the Parnellite split or the Redmondite split.”105 Donal O’Callaghan said, “The people of the country, even those who desire the Treaty ratified, are still keener about avoiding the return of days of internal divisions and party turmoil.”106

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The result was that “party,” the normal vehicle for conducting political business in the early twentieth century, became a political insult. This certainly reflected wider European trends, as a younger generation rejected the discredited party politics of their elders. Even during the Anglo-Irish war, this contempt for politics was reflected in the disdain with which the Sinn Féin party organization was treated by many IRA men and in the disrepair into which that organization fell once the IRA campaign and the Dáil government increased their activities.107 The task of Cumann na nGaedheal leaders was to translate this revolutionary-era disdain for politics and factions into a strategy that would allow them to win elections and control parliamentary debate without being seen as openly promoting the interests of the party over those of the nation. In other words, they had to create an Irish party that was not similar to the old Irish Party and that would not fall prey to the evils of party politics. Cumann na nGaedheal elites attempted to separate rhetorically and actually their government from party politics in several ways. First, most members of the Executive Council eschewed involvement in the activities of the Cumann na nGaedheal party organization. Cosgrave initially was particularly keen to do this, as he was desperate to be seen as a leader of the nation. As a result, he did not take the presidency of the Cumann na nGaedheal party. Eoin MacNeill, one of the least active ministers, was chosen instead and signed its fund-raising appeals. O’Higgins wholeheartedly agreed with this separation, saying in late 1924, “We had not yet come to the point in our evolution when the President of the Executive Council could sign an appeal for Party purposes.”108 Mulcahy, one of the few ministers to take an active role in the party organization, disagreed with this tactic and feared that it would look like party and government were at odds. He told Cosgrave in a 1923 meeting, shortly after the formal founding of Cumann na nGaedheal, “that it was a very great departure from our traditions that the Executive of the Political Party would not have on it the principal members of the Government.”109 Mulcahy pleaded with Cosgrave to reconsider this state of affairs, but to no avail. The government had made it quite clear that Cosgrave was to be considered the leader of the nation, not the leader of a party. This was emphasized by Eoin MacNeill in seconding Cosgrave’s first nomination as president of the Executive Council in September 1922: “My view of the Irish government, under present conditions, or under any future conditions, is that no matter what its condition may be, when it becomes the Irish Government .

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it is not the Government of a party, it is the Government of the nation; it is responsible to all sections of the nation, and that every party, every section, has an equal right to exercise its influence, its controlling influence, its criticizing influence upon the Government.”110 Cosgrave’s above-party status was frequently highlighted during his 1928 tour of America. Desmond FitzGerald, writing the introduction to a book commemorating the tour, reminded readers that Cosgrave spoke “as the Head of a State, not as a Party Leader.”111 Most of the Executive Council believed Cosgrave’s presidency of the Cumann na nGaedheal organization would have reduced his stature. This was thought particularly important in a postcolonial situation such as Ireland’s, where respect for government had been undercut by generations of colonial rule. Additionally, the government tried to re-create a national movement, free from sectional bias and divisive partisan splits. A press circular was issued in the fall of 1922 requesting that reporters refer to the Provisional Government as the “National Government,” and such concern with seeming “national” persisted throughout the life of Cumann na nGaedheal.112 Cosgrave’s speeches to the new Cumann na nGaedheal political organization emphasized again the lack of party motives. At the first, abortive meeting intended to found the political party, Cosgrave said: “The organisation was not being formed to keep the present Government in power, but to preserve the national ideals from the onrush of vested interest. The Government were looking for nation builders.” Another account of the same meeting reported that “President Cosgrave emphasized that the government was not behind the proposal” to found a party.113 That initial party conference was cut short by the assassination of Sean Hales and the subsequent reprisal executions, but Cosgrave returned to the same themes when the party was relaunched in April 1923: “With the country’s position as a nation now recognised, there would naturally be a good deal of breaking up of parties. Sectional interest would occupy the attention of individuals, but what were needed were men who would view the situation, not from any sectional standpoint, but from the point of view of the nation, seeing how what was best for the whole country could be co-ordinated into one policy aiming at the political and cultural development of the country.”114 Two prominent Cumann na nGaedheal supporters refused public offers to run as Farmers Party candidates in 1923, citing the need to keep a national party.115 This concern with being a national party, and speaking the language of nation, had revolutionary origins. In proposing Cosgrave as the first

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president of the Executive Council under the Free State, Mulcahy linked the pro-Treatyites back to the now-fractured Sinn Féin: “The National Party that was the strength of the work of the past few years too has been broken, but a sufficiently large section of it still holds together. . . . We have left to us a very great national responsibility, a national duty, to see that that National Party shall strengthen itself, shall solidify and recover its old national strength, to pull the Country through this crisis in the same way as the broken Party has pulled itself together and stood by the liberties of the Country in its own particular crisis.”116 Mulcahy’s speech combined a link to the old Sinn Féin “national” movement with the “getting on with the business” attitude adopted by Collins and the Free Staters in the wake of the Treaty split. While Mulcahy recognized that the Sinn Féin organization had fractured, he still believed a “national party” could be rescued from the wreckage. Having abandoned the name Sinn Féin to anti-Treatyites, Blythe thought that calling the pro-Treaty party “An Cumann Naisiunta/The National Party” would both emphasize the type of politics that the pro-Treatyites wanted to practice and relate the new party back to Sinn Féin. The name “Cumann na nGaedheal” was chosen over “An Cumann Naisiunta” by a 19–16 margin at the party’s initial conference.117 The “national” focus of Cumann na nGaedheal also served the practical purpose of reiterating that the government’s authority was broad and national and consequently should be obeyed. This, of course, had to be stressed because of the anti-treatyites’ apparent disdain for the perceived will of the majority with regard to the Treaty. Cosgrave highlighted this at his inaugural speech at the Griffith-Collins cenotaph in 1923: “The crown of these two beloved lives will be the paramount rule of a united people in this land—united in individual obedience to the authority of the whole, however sections may differ in political programmes or dissent from majority judgment as to what is wisest and best for the nation at a particular time.”118 The claim to be “national” was an important plank in the attempt to restore order and emphasize governmental sovereignty in the wake of the Treaty vote. Cumann na nGaedheal’s relentless promotion of itself as a “national party” also served to distinguish it from its major opponents within the Dáil, the Farmers’ and Labour Parties, both of which could be dismissed as “sectional” interests. The party’s 1923 “Address to the Nation” maintained that “it is of prime importance that the programme shall have a wide national aspect embracing objects befitting the whole people of Ireland rather than that

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sectional interests, no matter how powerful and influential they may be, should take precedence of national needs in the early legislation of the future.”119 A North Dublin election flyer from 1927 similarly proclaimed that “the policy of the government is broad in conception, National in character, solicitous only for the common good. On every issue it has taken decision unflinchingly thereby courting unpopularity with strongly entrenched interests.” Another 1927 handbill said that Cumann na nGaedheal “stands for the interests that are common to the whole Irish Community, and that Community includes the Labourer as well as the Farmer, the Trader as well as the Professional Classes. . . . There is a place in the movement for all. Cumann na nGaedheal is not anti-Farmer, it is not anti-Labour, it is NATIONAL.”120 Thus Cumann na nGaedheal claimed a willingness to stand up to sectional interests, while implicitly portraying its Farmers and Labour opponents as hostage to their particular constituencies. Cosgrave told the 1925 party convention: “We have the great advantage of being bound to no special class in the community. We embrace them all and we strive for them all. We have in our ranks the farmer, the labourer, the distributor, the clerk, the producer, and the consumer.”121 While this strategy of emphasizing the language of nation over that of class or section promised to hearken back to the heady revolutionary days of Sinn Féin, it also contained several hazards. To appear to be an Irish national party, Cumann na nGaedheal had to appeal to a variety of non–Sinn Féin interests and then incorporate those interests into the party. This was motivated, depending on one’s view of Cumann na nGaedheal, by either a genuine desire to make the party more broadly representative or by the electoral calculations of a party that had already lost the republican vote and was facing an increased challenge by the mid-1920s from right-leaning groups such as the National League. The former view is supported by John McCarthy in his depiction of O’Higgins as ecumenical.122 O’Higgins told a 1924 press conference that the Treaty party had always intended to reach out to a broader constituency than Sinn Féin and that “there is no desire to maintain the Cumann na nGaedheal organisation as a special preserve of the particular Treaty section of Sinn Féin.”123 In defending the accommodation of Unionists in the new Constitution—a policy initially agreed to by Arthur Griffith—O’Higgins said, “We now know no political party. We have taken quite definitely a step forward in our evolution toward the completion of nationhood. . . . We will have to think more of the movement as a Nation and less on terms of party lines and bitterness.”124

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Cumann na nGaedheal often made a special effort to reach out to the wealthier professional social stratum. An April 1922 meeting of the proTreaty Propaganda Subcommittee noted that promotional materials would be sent out to clergy, builders, landowners, and solicitors.125 A 1925 funding appeal “should be sent out to all such persons as Peace Commissioners, District Justices, State Solicitors, Barristers and Medical Men and a judicious selection of the clergy.”126 Granted, this was a desperate appeal for funds for the several 1925 by-elections and so, obviously, skewed toward wealthier members of society. Desmond FitzGerald told the Standing Committee that the “organisation should include all elements—new and old,” and Mulcahy comprehensively asked “business men, law men, poets, journalists, doctors, professors, moralists, sociologists, psychologists, teachers and instructors of men of all kinds” to join the national movement.127 The Free State newspaper The Star in 1932 aimed at “the clergy, teachers, professional men and intelligent business people and farmers,” clearly abandoning unintelligent farmers and businesspeople to the ministrations of other parties.128 O’Higgins pithily summed up this attitude in 1923 by saying, “Old friends would be lost, but new ones would arise.”129 Such electoral strategies obviously caused some disquiet within the party. Mulcahy worried in 1922 that an ecumenical approach was premature “while the political atmosphere is as it is.”130 Clearly, the leadership felt defensive, as Blythe felt the need to reiterate in 1925 that “we are trying to bring into our ranks men who in the past held political views different from our own. But we are not lowering the flag, not from the National ideal, not neglecting the National tongue. We are simply inviting them to their places in our ranks and promising them fair play and equality of opportunity.”131 The goal, as Patrick Hogan claimed in 1928, was “to make every man in this country an Irishman, and it is positively disgusting to listen to sectarian and sectional attacks.”132 Despite the stated ecumenical intentions, the inclusion of ex-Unionists in the party was obviously resented, and there were fears that this was detracting from the “Irishness” of the postrevolutionary state. This issue particularly arose regarding positions in the army or civil service and in the handing out of state contracts, for which it was often claimed that ex-Unionists or nonrevolutionaries were favored.133 On leaving Cumann na nGaedheal, Sean Milroy charged the government with pandering to ex-Unionists, a message echoed by the party’s Standing Committee in 1924: “In general, it is complained that those who won the fight have not done well out of the victory,

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whereas, the pro-British ascendancy who lost the fight have done disproportionately well and got a new lease of life from the Free State.” The Standing Committee also referred to appointments as “perhaps the sorest question of all” and said that “in parts of the country it is openly recognized that to be connected with Cumann na nGaedheal is in most cases a handicap and in many cases a complete bar to appointments, preferments or even a fair deal in Land or Compensations.”134 Blythe characteristically maligned the complainers: “The agitation about officials arose from disappointed job-hunters, or those who failed to get promotion. The whole thing was only bunkum and the product of interested motives.”135 Here again, the commitment to meritocracy left the government open to charges that it was less Irish. Cumann na nGaedheal leaders also hoped to use the constitution to insulate the government from the party spirit, proposing a novel system of extern ministers designed to make the government free from party. This proved to be one of the constitution’s most contentious aspects when debated in the Dáil. These proposals initially emanated from Hugh Kennedy, who warned that working the Treaty and protecting the emerging state from anti-Treatyite wreckers could further the unfortunate development of rigid party discipline in Irish politics. Kennedy wrote: “If for instance the Treaty Party succeeds in obtaining a majority it will have to formulate, in addition to its pro-Treaty policy, a complete program on all matters of internal Government, and it would be impossible to divide a party on any of these issues without running a risk of danger to the Free State. This will have the effect of either forcing the Free State Party to an extremely cautious policy on which it would be able to insure a fixed majority at all times, or it will have the effect of forcing all supporters of the Free State to acquiesce in policies which they may disapprove of, for fear of risking the existence of the Free State itself.”136 Kennedy argued that a system of extern ministers, who were responsible for some aspect of internal affairs but were not necessarily members of the Executive Council or even the Dáil, could circumvent this problem. His memo explained: Under our proposals a minister for education would formulate his education plans with due regard to the probable support he could receive in the House as a whole, and without regard to the wishes of the House on external affairs. As soon as his plans were complete he would submit them to the whole Executive Council, who would report to the House, both majority and minority opinions of the Council with regard to the proposals. The House would then proceed

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to consider the Bill knowing that its decision would not involve the fall of the Government. . . . By this means it would be quite possible for a House pledged to support . . . the maintenance of the Treaty and of the Free State, to, at the same time, adopt proposals for education which might be made by Mr. De Valera or any of his supporters.137

This system allowed for free votes on “internal” issues, meaning that rigid party discipline would not be necessary, as every vote would not be a referendum on the existence of the Free State. Kennedy’s memo finished with a flourish, inviting republicans to work with the Treatyite government.138 Under this scheme, the republicans—assuming they did not reject the validity of the parliament itself, a development that Kennedy did not anticipate— could work with the Free Staters on internal policy without compromising their opposition to the external relations with Britain set up by the Treaty. This would also allow the Executive Council to deal with Britain from a position of strength, without having to worry constantly about being overturned in the Dáil on internal matters. Kennedy’s draft was chosen as the working draft for the constitution and was debated clause by clause by the Provisional Government. Members of the government disliked some aspects of Kennedy’s proposals, while generally agreeing on the desire to eliminate or reduce party politics. Patrick Hogan thought this plan for extern ministers would not work given that Ireland already had the party spirit. Hogan thought an executive council of four members “in a short time would develop into a more dangerous and more powerful Executive than the present Executive in England” and pointed out (presciently) that Finance would control every other minister. His solution was to have a coalition executive council “proportionately representative of the House,” which would serve for a three-year term no matter how many votes went against it in the Dáil. The initiative and referendum processes would prevent this from being antidemocratic.139 Cosgrave voiced a standard condemnation of party politics and also warned that the four-person executive council would be separated from the people and thus antidemocratic.140 When the altered draft of the constitution was first presented to the Third Dáil in September 1922, O’Higgins explained the system of extern ministers. By this time, Kennedy’s proposals had been amended so that there would be anywhere from four to eight extern ministers chosen from outside the Dáil who would not become members of the executive council. O’Higgins defended this system as one that distinguished Ireland from Britain, allowed

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the state to retain the services of those who differed from the executive council on the Treaty or other broad policy directions, and made allowances for the plethora of small parties that would result from elections conducted according to a system of proportional representation. He admitted that having extern ministers was “a proposal that strikes our minds which have been so much turned upon the British system strangely.” O’Higgins then explained that the executive council would be responsible for broad matters of policy—“the large issue of Treaty or no Treaty, or a thing like that”— while other ministers could be chosen solely on their merits and would not have to resign if the government fell over some larger issue of policy. O’Higgins denied that this particular constitutional provision was designed solely to include anti-Treatyites and instead concluded that it “was devised with a very real desire to get away from the British Party system.141 O’Higgins maintained that a greater number of free votes would lead to the Dáil becoming a more rational, deliberative, and thoughtful legislative body than its British counterpart (one can read the first ten years of Dáil debates in order to judge the perspicacity of this prediction). O’Higgins also claimed that the government needed expertise and that allowing it to choose ministers from outside the Dáil would tap into a deeper talent pool. In making this point, he invoked Ireland’s colonial inexperience with selfgovernment: “We have not been governing ourselves for a very long time, and we have not been running our own departments, and it will take us a very long time to build up anything like an efficient Civil Service machine that the older established governments have at their disposal. It would be very important and very valuable if it became possible to select Ministers solely on the basis of their peculiar fitness for their office, and not on the basis of political service or perfervid rhetoric that they may have poured out on the platform.”142 O’Higgins also reiterated the now familiar condemnations of party government, explaining that the extern ministers would facilitate a multiparty Dáil, without the attendant instability and chaos that went along with such situations in postwar France and Italy, a “state of affairs . . . not at all suited to the needs of an infant State endeavoring to go forward on a course of reconstruction.”143 The Provisional Government was itself split on the specific details of these proposals, and significant opposition to them arose when they were put to the Dáil as a free vote, leading to two separate votes on extern ministers going down to defeat. The main thrust of the complaints was that the extern ministers, not being members of the Dáil, would therefore not be

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representative of the people. Even government supporters, notably future minister for defense Peter Hughes and longtime Sinn Féiner Sean Milroy, abhorred the proposals and eventually forced alterations to them. There was also a fear that the extern ministers would themselves become entrenched bureaucrats, since a negative vote on one of their bills would not remove them from office. Alternatively, it was possible that the ministers would be so weak as to have their departments run by permanent prerevolutionary civil servants. Milroy believed this would be the case, particularly given the precariousness of the Irish revival and the immediate lack of trained bureaucrats with an “Irish” outlook. He then cast Cosgrave as an Irish Diogenes, looking for an efficient administrator, and feared that Cosgrave would necessarily have to look to the old Castle servants for such trained bureaucrats.144 After a Dáil committee failed to alter the existing plan in a way that could carry the majority of the Dáil, the government was forced to scale back its ambition. In fact, the extern ministers finally chosen (the most important of whom was probably Patrick Hogan as minister for agriculture) came from the Cumann na nGaedheal party, which in effect meant that the extern ministers were simply junior ministers without cabinet standing. In part, this was because the first crop of extern ministers were chosen on the day of the announcement of the reprisal executions of Rory O’Connor and Liam Mellowes, and the Labour Party wanted to dispense with parliamentary business as quickly as possible that day so as to debate the wisdom of the executions. By 1926 the government was admitting that the system was a disappointment, and a committee was considering the removal of that clause from the constitution.145 In 1927 Cosgrave nominated the whole ministry as members of the Executive Council, effectively doing away with the extern minister designation and concluding that “the Extern Ministry proposal was not a workable one.”146 Nevertheless, the whole episode, particularly Kennedy’s original conception of the extern ministers, demonstrated that the government was seriously trying to avoid the appearance of British party politics and to create an Irish political system. Cumann na nGaedheal wanted to construct a version of politics where the extern ministers represented a grand coalition of forces and groupings in the Dáil or a way of bringing professional nonparty expertise into the service of the government. Again, “politics” was downplayed in the name of the depoliticizing discourse of “expertise.” The argument here is not that the Cumann na nGaedheal national policy was wise: the party’s declining electoral fortunes after 1923 were at least partially related to its ecumenism. However, there was more to this than

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mere courting of the wealthy. Cumann na nGaedheal’s claim to be a “national party” was an attempt to re-create the success of revolutionary-era Sinn Féin, to make the party rise above the morass of “politics” and “party” in order to monopolize its claim over the emotionally and symbolically resonant language of nation, and to take into account Ireland’s specific history and perceived postcolonial inability to handle normal party politics. The party’s leaders went to great lengths to denigrate such politics, even to the extent of unwisely ignoring their own political organization, and self-consciously appealed to those who had not been part of the national movement in the past. They also tried to promote themselves as a technocracy presided over by an executive council protected from the vicissitudes and quagmires of day-to-day politics. Certainly, these strategies acquired more urgency with the rise of anti-Treatyite sentiment in the later 1920s, but they were pursued fairly consistently from the beginnings of the Treatyite regime and were an outgrowth of the revolutionary fetish for unity and disdain for politics. The irony was that the very policies that Cumann na nGaedheal tried to promote as continuities from the revolution, and as national in scope, led to the party successfully being depicted as antinational or pro-British by republican opponents. In this case, it was Cumann na nGaedheal’s fidelity to some of the principles of the revolution, in an attempt to regain the national ground, that played a role in causing the party’s ultimate political demise. Whether reaching back to precolonial times or trying to create a modernity that sprung from Irish rather than English conditions, the Free State government tried to create a state that was definitively Irish. In so doing, they attempted to enact reforms in the areas of language, economics, and politics. This cultural independence was a key plank of their defense of the Treaty. Despite the old gibe that they painted the mailboxes green and did little else, there was a significant amount of effort that went into Gaelicizing the state. There was no real blueprint for this, as the nature of a “Gaelic” state was not immediately clear, and the word was often rather uncritically used as shorthand for “not-English.” But the creation of an Irish state was one of the major gains promised by the Treaty and became a key component of Cumann na nGaedheal rhetoric and policy.

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embership in the British Empire was obviously one of the most difficult aspects of the Treaty for Irish nationalists to accept, and the fallout from this dominated the Dáil’s debates in December 1921. The broader imperial and international dimensions of the Treaty often get minimized in discussions of the Treaty debates, though. While Irish revolutionaries were understandably obsessed with the nature of the Irish connection to Britain, they were also aware of the wider imperial context in which this connection existed. In fact, the discussion of this imperial context was often very sophisticated, and deputies took a keen interest in the origins, constitutional status, and practices of other dominions. Having listened to just such a discussion during the early Dáil debates on the Treaty, a frustrated Michael Collins exclaimed, “If we [the plenipotentiaries] are expected to be constitutional lawyers and to know how all free states in the world came into existence, now is not the time to tell it.”1 This was a period that one historian has recently dubbed “the Wilsonian moment,” during which the idea of self-determination was “at the center of the discourse of legitimacy in international relations.”2 The Irish declared their independence and founded their Dáil in the midst of this “moment,” when the world seemed on the verge of reorganization along Wilsonian lines. This appeared to be a potentially fruitful time for anticolonial nationalism, “not just due to the emergence of revisionist powers like the United States and the Soviet Union, but also, perhaps no less importantly, due to the establishment, for the first time, of international institutions and norms that allowed, indeed invited anticolonial nationalists to challenge colonial 141

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powers in an external arena, circumventing and thereby weakening the imperial relationship.”3 Faced with defending an oath of allegiance, a royal executive, and a governor general, all of which were anathema to Sinn Féiners, Treatyites took refuge in one of these international institutions, the British Commonwealth. They pointed to this loose imperial body as both an agent of eventual evolutionary liberation and a bulwark against a potentially domineering metropole. In defending the commonwealth, Treatyites had to walk a fine line between emphasizing Ireland’s difference from other regions of the empire while still claiming that Ireland’s status was similar enough that it could share in the constitutional advances of the other dominions. Starting with the Treaty debate and continuing into the 1920s, the debate over Irish difference did not revolve around Irish inclusion in the metropole, as does much current historiographical debate. Nor was Cumann na nGaedheal willing, for obvious reasons, to reduce the long struggle of Irish nationalism to a species of dominion nationalism. They repeatedly asserted, as did their republican opponents, that Ireland was different from the other dominions by virtue of geography and race. They took care to emphasize that Ireland was not a settler colony peopled or governed largely by Britons but was instead a “nation,” a loosely defined and sloppily used term to be sure, but one by which Irish nationalists generally meant an entity with a history, language, and culture distinct from Britain. More than this, Ireland was a mother country that generated a worldwide diaspora. After the Treaty’s passage, leading Cumann na nGaedheal statesmen sought to expand the parameters of Irish freedom by exploiting the ambiguities inherent in dominion status, while trying to obtain a formal definition of rights sufficient to appease those at home deeply suspicious of Britain’s intentions. Key leaders of the Irish Party had always ensured that the position of a Home Rule Ireland within the empire remained, in Paul Townend’s phrase, “swathed in ambiguity.”4 However, it was more difficult to preserve this ambiguity in the face of a Treaty that aspired to fasten Ireland to that empire. Free State leaders, then, had to preserve ambiguity while not directly negating the provisions of the Treaty. Free Staters’ thinking on Ireland’s status was animated by the tension within two binaries: similarity/difference and precision/ambiguity. For political and personal reasons, Cumann na nGaedheal politicians could not simply replicate John Redmond’s position and argue that Ireland had a true affinity for the civilized values of the British Empire, nor did most of them believe that. On the other hand, constant railing against Britain, a tactic

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frequently employed by the generally more Anglophobic republican opposition, seemed to Treatyites futile and undignified, particularly for members of a government anxious to make the transition from revolutionaries to statesmen. Instead, Cumann na nGaedheal had to convince a skeptical electorate, and an often skeptical Dáil, that not only was the commonwealth a useful vehicle for the expansion of Ireland’s status but it also brought some positive good to Ireland. They attempted to do so by characterizing the commonwealth as an agent of liberation, an anti-imperial imperial structure, and by pushing relentlessly to get maximum freedom out of the Treaty. In so doing, they connected with and attempted to preserve revolutionaryera anti-imperialism, without cultivating what O’Higgins called “lousy futile Anglophobia” or encouraging the repudiation of the Treaty.5 Ireland was long excluded from most imperial scholarship.6 Even the “New British History,” which aimed at being more inclusive of non-English histories within the British Isles, had difficulty incorporating the Irish situation into broader “British” histories.7 The imperial dimension of Irish history has received considerably more attention in recent years from Irish historians, a welcome departure from Irish historiography’s frequent insularity. Much of this debate revolved around whether Ireland was truly a colony or was part of the metropole. Sinn Féiners generally had no problem answering this question: they certainly did not believe Ireland was part of the imperial metropole (although some did occasionally recognize the complicity of the Irish in British empire building), but neither did they often use the term “colony” to describe Ireland. A colony, to them, implied a settler colony without a separate national history or tradition, and so Irish nationalists spent much of the Treaty debate and afterward denying that Ireland was a mere colony. However, this did not stop them from asserting that they were oppressed and ruled against their will, as other colonies were. In fact, they tended to claim that Ireland had been oppressed to a greater degree than other regions of the empire because of the proximity of Ireland to Great Britain, the degree of Anglicization caused by that proximity, and the long duration of English presence on the island, a time span that dwarfed the relatively short time the British were active, for example, in the interior of Africa. Historians have recently analyzed the nature and existence of Irish antiimperialism, particularly in the late nineteenth century. Stephen Howe denied that there was any significant or sustained Irish nationalist anticolonialism.8 Simon Potter blamed this on the Irish people’s lack of awareness

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of imperial issues, arguing that “for most of the nineteenth century, and during the early twentieth century, anti-colonial rhetoric did not resonate with Irish audiences, largely because knowledge of empire was limited.”9 John MacKenzie noted that few newspapers “sought to set Ireland in a wider and explicitly imperial context,” with the Freeman’s Journal remaining largely aloof from questions of empire, and the Irish Independent evolving a proimperial stance by the outset of the First World War.10 On the other hand, D. W. Harkness called Ireland “an alert, small nation with a long civilisation and a distinctive anti-imperial history.”11 Paul Townend’s recent work also discovered significant and sustained Irish nationalist anti-imperialism in the late 1870s, a period in which “imperial questions moved closer to the centre of Irish politics on a variety of levels, and did so in ways that were not ambivalent about the nature of the connection.”12 Anti-imperialism was a powerful thread in much nationalist rhetoric from the late nineteenth century forward and was certainly a crucial part of the ideology of the Irish revolution. Revolutionary-era anti-imperialism was thus something that Treatyites could not just cast aside. Having staked their political careers on the acceptance of a Treaty that put Ireland within the empire, they needed to find a middle ground between trumpeting their inclusion in the empire and grousing about the commonwealth being a thoroughly oppressive body. Sinn Féin’s anti-imperialism, as well as its willingness to set the Irish revolution in an international context, built upon a long prewar history of such activity. Deirdre McMahon wrote that the Home Rule debates generally “illuminated the anomalies of Ireland’s domestic and imperial position and highlighted the differences between Ireland and England.”13 Some Home Rulers, such as the maverick F. H. O’Donnell, wanted Ireland to represent the interests of other subjected peoples at Westminster. Michael Davitt also spoke sympathetically of subject peoples, particularly the Boers, although not generally of the Africans themselves.14 The Boer War, of course, unleashed a variety of Irish pro-Boer sentiment, just as the Zulu war had two decades earlier. According to Patrick Maume, even pro–Irish Party newspapers followed this line and “rejoiced in British defeats.”15 Arthur Griffith, who cut his journalistic teeth writing about the Boer War, started his new paper United Irishman with the phrase “Live Ireland—Perish the Empire,” which he attributed to Henry Grattan and called the “watchword of patriotism.” He also attacked the “civilizing mission” of the British Empire: “We submit that the civilization is narrow and selfish which opens a market for the

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sweat-produce of home centers; the civilization which sees nothing noble or heroic in a man’s belief in his right to freedom; the civilization which, with the gloating wild-eyed vengeance of the tiger, degrades, defiles and outrages the tomb of a man who died unconquered [a reference to the Mahdi in the Sudan], the civilization which only sees in the dusky millions an increased percentage for home investments. . . . For the advance of this civilization, with all its money-grubbing, meanness, treachery, soullessness, and lofty scorn of all but its own ideas, we trust, and we are convinced, the bulk of Irishmen will never lift a hand. No! Ireland and the Empire are incompatible.”16 A series of early editorials condemned British policies toward the Boers and also emphasized the amount of money Ireland was forced to contribute to British imperial entanglements.17 Griffith did note, however, the vast numbers of Irishmen who served the British Empire: “Wherever the British flag flies, the Irishman is found. Let him be found in the future, under whatever standard, the active enemy of British imperialism. . . . For the present we will but say and repeat that an Ireland leading the world against the bloody, rapacious and soul-shivering imperialism of England—an Ireland gaining in strength and growing more Irish in the struggle—an Ireland to which the oppressed of the British Empire can look as their leader and their champion—it is within the power of Irishmen to create.”18 Among many Irish nationalists there was a sense that the Irish fight was (or at least could be portrayed as) something broader than Ireland itself, and this led to shows of support for groups such as the Zulus, Afghans, and Boers who were engaged against the might of the British Empire. This pattern altered somewhat with the ascension of John Redmond to the chairmanship of the reunited Irish Party. Redmond, though genuinely committed to greater Irish freedom, was an unabashed imperialist and clearly saw Ireland as part of the imperial metropole.19 Redmond’s vocal support for the British effort in the First World War was largely predicated on his belief that Ireland and Britain shared a similar western European liberal culture and that the war could help to end the enmity between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, and between Irishmen and Englishmen more generally. Redmond’s apparent reconciliation of Irish nationalism with empire and his genuine belief in an Anglo-Irish union could not stand the strain of a long and increasingly unpopular war, or the British decision to postpone the implementation of Home Rule. Additionally, recent research has indicated that Redmond’s vision of the empire and the Anglo-Irish relationship was not shared by most rank-and-file Irish nationalists. Michael Wheatley’s

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work has shown that even otherwise loyal Irish Party members under Redmond persisted with the Anglophobic and anti-imperial tropes of Parnell’s time and that there was a growing gap between Irish nationalist opinion on the ground and the leadership in London. This disconnect predated the war but increased as the war dragged on and Redmond’s support for it seemed more incongruous with Irish freedom. Wheatley wrote, “Although virtually all Home Rulers expressed loyalty to their leader, only a minority sympathized instinctively with the conciliation that he advocated. The passive ‘background noise’ of day-to-day nationalist political rhetoric was suffused instead with a vocabulary of heroic struggle, suffering, grievance, injustice and enemies.” Elsewhere, Wheatley detailed the “deeply pervasive Anglophobia” that was a part of nationalist rhetoric on the ground.20 Sinn Féin, as it did on so many issues, chose to make itself clearly distinct from the Irish Party on the issue of imperialism. Gone was any talk of a “union of hearts,” replaced with a frequently reiterated belief that Ireland was a historic nation, equal if not superior to other European nations, and certainly superior to other parts of the British Empire in terms of nationality. At its first open meeting in January 1919, the new Dáil Éireann issued the “Message to the Free Nations of the World” proclaiming Irish difference from England: “Nationally, the race, the language, the customs and traditions of Ireland are radically distinct from the English. Ireland is one of the most ancient nations in Europe, and she has preserved her national integrity, vigorous and intact, through seven centuries of foreign oppression.”21 This distinction based on language, culture, history, and race was returned to again and again during the revolutionary years. The Irish Bulletin, a propaganda newsletter largely for foreign consumption issued by the Dáil’s publicity office, claimed that “England and Ireland, so far from being offshoots from a common stock were absolutely distinct races of which Ireland was the more ancient, with distinctive languages, cultures and traditions.”22 Distinguishing the Irish from the English was an obvious move for Sinn Féin, but it was more complicated to decide where the case of Ireland fit in an international context. Given that the Paris Peace Conference was ongoing, and the world was apparently about to be remade according to the wishes of the Big Four, this question assumed greater urgency than usual. There was a natural tendency to compare the Irish struggle to the American revolutionary war, particularly in speeches and pamphlets geared to an American audience. This linked the Irish to another successful anticolonial revolution and to the principles that President Woodrow Wilson was supposedly

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promoting in Paris. De Valera told his American audiences: “The conditions in Ireland today are exactly those of your revolution. There is the same conscienceless invasion of the liberties of the people, the same brutal attempt to stamp out in blood a spirit that is not sufficiently accommodating to accustom itself to the shackles of slavery.” American crowds, as well as American politicians, were told that the solution to the Irish crisis was for America to recognize the Irish Republic, a decision for which Sinn Féiners also sought a precedent in American history. De Valera again said that “the immediate recognition of the Irish Republic would be in strict accordance: (1) with American History and the spirit of American institutions, [and] (2) with the definite diplomatic tradition of the United States. . . . The United States owed their independence in large measure to the fact that that independence was recognized by France, Holland, and other countries, long before the struggle with England had been brought to a close.” De Valera also referenced America’s rather speedy recognition of the Latin American republics and gave his audience several quotes from Jefferson in favor of recognition of fellow republican governments. He also frequently referenced the American constitution and President Wilson’s stated war aims. Shared republican solidarity and principles, as well as a shared hostility to overt imperialism, were supposed to bind the Irish and American republics together diplomatically. The problem was that the British government also made American analogies, generally ones far less favorable to the Irish. Lloyd George said on several occasions that the Irish situation was similar to the attempted secession of the Confederacy, which the American government had resisted with force. He said, “I want to say this to our American friends: Mr. de Valera is putting forward the same claim, in exactly the same language, as Mr. Jefferson Davis.”23 Sinn Féin realized that it had to refute this charge, as the money raised in America was critical, and American diplomatic pressure could force Britain into a compromise settlement with Ireland. Irish references to the American Revolution and constitution were designed to push the frame of reference back to the American Revolution rather than to the American Civil War. An article written by Frank Gallagher for the Irish Bulletin claimed, “The [civil war] analogy is false both in essentials and in detail. There can be no question of secession on the part of the Irish people who have always denied the right of the British government to rule Ireland. . . . The Southern states of America had freely accepted the Union and sought subsequently to withdraw from it. There the word secession has some meaning. But Ireland

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cannot secede or claim to secede from the British Empire for the simple reason that she never acquiesced in inclusion in it and never admitted that she was part of it.” Gallagher then invoked the American Revolutionary War as the more appropriate example.24 He closed his piece by citing an Irish racial difference from the American colonists, something that in the view of many Sinn Féiners did not destroy the American analogy but strengthened the Irish case for self-determination: “There is however one difference. Those who revolted against British tyranny in America were for the most part British colonists, many of them born in England and owing a real allegiance to the English king. Their national tradition was the tradition of England. They did not possess a distinctive language, culture, [and] a national tradition (as Ireland does) dating back far into the past and impelling them to the reestablishment of an ancient nationhood.”25 As the negotiations between de Valera and Lloyd George heated up in 1921, the Bulletin devoted a whole issue to refuting the parallel with the Confederacy, again pointing to the racial and cultural similarities between the North and the South in the United States, as against the clear differences between the British and the Irish. The issue also claimed that the true parallel to the American Civil War was Ulster’s attempted secession from Ireland. This is why de Valera stressed that Ireland was one nation and not two, so as to avoid giving Ulster national status and thereby giving unionists access to the same arguments about national self-determination that were being used by Sinn Féin. Admitting deep racial or cultural differences with fellow Irishmen in the north undermined the bulk of Sinn Féin’s arguments for independence. The assumed racial identity of the Irish, however, complicated Sinn Féin’s attempts to draw analogies between Irish resistance and that of other regions of the British Empire. Irish whiteness could not be questioned without damaging Ireland’s claim to independence in the eyes of Americans and Europeans. Erskine Childers, in a letter to The Times in 1919, wrote, “Ireland is now the only white nationality in the world (let us leave coloured possessions out of the discussion) where the principle of self-determination is not, at least in theory, conceded. . . . Ireland, the last unliberated white community on the face of the globe.”26 Analogies to the free white-settled regions were also tricky. At first glance, it would seem that South Africa would be the most apposite analogy, as there were cultural and linguistic differences between the Boers and the English, a history of resistance to colonial rule, and even a recent wartime rebellion against continuing imperial ties. However, there were several problems with this analogy from Sinn Féin’s point

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of view. For one, the British government frequently drew parallels between Ireland and South Africa, claiming that the Union was an example of seemingly incompatible peoples brought together in harmony under British tutelage. Even more damagingly, though, any appeals to other white-settled regions of the empire implied that Ireland, too, would be happy with similar dominion status, and that was something that few Sinn Féin leaders would admit publicly. De Valera, in defending his refusal to be a Treaty plenipotentiary, threw out the American baby with the South African bathwater: “He asked them to leave analogies out of the question. Nothing disgusted him so much as introducing analogies when there was no analogy there. Their position was totally different to that of the American States or South Africa, and let them deal with plain facts.”27 If South Africa was problematic for Sinn Féin, then the other dominions were more so, as they were seen as English settler colonies, lacking the linguistic and “racial” differences that Sinn Féin believed distinguished the Irish. On the other hand, too close an association with nonwhite regions also risked weakening the Irish cause. Historians have divided on how significant such associations were to Sinn Féin.28 De Valera had a fair amount of contact with, and from, Indian nationalist groups in America, receiving an engraved sword and Irish Liberty bond from the Hindustan Gadar Party leaders in San Francisco, for example. He also spoke to an Indian Freedom Dinner in February 1920.29 He chose his words carefully for that speech, starting with a flourish, “Patriots of India, your cause is identical with ours,” and comparing the rapacious effects of British imperialism, particularly in the visitation of famine on each country. However, de Valera also made clear that the Irish people were role models for the implicitly less advanced colonized peoples: “We ought to have no difficulty in understanding the troubles of the people of India, and they, in their turn, should have no difficulty in understanding those of the people of Ireland. They should find in the story of Ireland’s struggle against Britain much also that will be of value to them. I commend a careful study of that story to our Indian friends here tonight.” De Valera then delineated the major difference between Ireland and India, elevating the Irish struggle to a more noble and heroic plane than that of India: “Conditions in India and Ireland are, no doubt, in many respects dissimilar, as I pointed out at the start. Ireland is a small nation within easy striking distance of the center of Britain’s power; India is, in numbers, a mighty nation and far removed. These different conditions suggest different tactics.” De Valera finished with a sweeping statement of solidarity with

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colonized peoples, saying, “We of Ireland and you of India must each of us endeavor, both as separate peoples and in combination, to rid ourselves of the vampire that is fattening on our blood, and we must never allow ourselves to forget what weapon it was by which Washington rid his country of this same vampire. Our cause is a common cause. We swear friendship tonight; and we send our common greetings and our pledges to our brothers in Egypt and in Persia, and tell them also that their cause is our cause.” De Valera’s speech was then translated into various Indian dialects and distributed in pamphlet form to Indians in the United States and back in India.30 Several months later, as he was preparing to return to Ireland, de Valera turned down an invitation from the Friends of Freedom for India to speak at their convention, lamenting that “I would like by my presence to symbolize the fact that India’s fight for freedom is regarded by us as fundamentally the same as our own, both by account of its general nature and that we have the same enemy.”31 In addition to de Valera’s engagement with the Indian cause in America, the Dáil and its official envoys also cultivated contacts with other colonized peoples, although generally in a cautious and tentative way. In 1919 Seán T. O’Kelly, the Dáil’s representative in Paris during the Peace Conference, contacted delegations from other parts of the British Empire. He was instructed to do so by de Valera, but this touched off a minor controversy in Dublin, where some worried that his actions weakened the Irish claim to nationhood. An early dispatch from Paris assumed a position of Irish superiority over other colonial and dominion delegations: “We have been so far acting in an advisory capacity to the Egyptian and S. African delegations, who look to us for aid and assistance in drawing up their documents and presenting their claims etc., to the conference and the press.”32 In June 1919 O’Kelly clarified to the cabinet that he “would like to assure you that whatever action we took in regard to the working arrangement with the Egyptians and South Africans was taken with full knowledge of the relative strength of our case. I do not expect much to come from our consultations with either of these people. We can be of much more service to them than they can be to us.” He concluded that “we have at all events laid the foundations of a working arrangement with them which may help them and us in the future and which if it doesn’t give us much material help or support, may be of advantage from a moral standpoint.”33 Cabinet Secretary Diarmuid O’Hegarty responded by instructing O’Kelly, “The Ministry are averse from identifying Ireland’s case with that of the other victims of the Empire. . . . Of course

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they have our full sympathy and any mutual assistance that can be rendered without definitely aligning our position with theirs is very desirable. We note that you understand our views regarding this matter. It is undoubtedly correct that resolutions denouncing England as the arch-tyrant at international meetings would be damaging to England, but we think they would be less helpful to us in the eyes of the world, than definite demands for the recognition of Ireland’s elected government.”34 De Valera was already in America at this point, so the views stated probably were those of Collins, Cosgrave, or Griffith, as Brugha, Stack, and Plunkett were not usually disposed to rein in anti-imperial declarations. But the cabinet was clearly worried that association with other colonized peoples could sully the Irish case for self-determination, either by implying Irish equality with such peoples, thus undermining the “European-ness” of the Irish, or by linking the Irish with denunciations of England perceived to be too radical or too sweeping. Both possibilities threatened to undercut sympathy for the Irish cause abroad, particularly in America, where de Valera was attempting to win formal recognition of the Irish Republic, and in Paris, where an Irish-American delegation was trying to negotiate with President Wilson. Perhaps the cabinet was also sensitive because this issue had already come up in a usually quiescent Dáil. Responding to a question from Alec MacCabe, Minister for Foreign Affairs Count Plunkett said, “[The Irish] were working in harmony with the other subject nations of the British Empire, but great care was being taken that the cause of Ireland was not jeopardized in any way.” Arthur Griffith then chimed in, “There was no alliance between India, Egypt and Ireland. They were working in co-operation, but the Dáil was the only body competent to make alliances.”35 Griffith’s quote seems telling, as the cabinet was not generally concerned about running roughshod over the Dáil, and so there must have been a particular sensitivity to criticism on this issue. The issue arose again in 1921 as the Anglo-Irish conflict moved closer to a truce. In March 1921 the cabinet conceded that it was “useful to keep in touch with” the Indian Revolutionary Committee and later authorized Patrick McCartan to spend £100 entertaining a visiting Egyptian nationalist delegation, although McCartan was also directed to “consult with the President [de Valera] as to his attitude toward the delegates.”36 In instructing Robert Brennan on the duties involved in being undersecretary of foreign affairs, de Valera wrote, “Pay particular attention to the subject peoples of the British Empire e.g. India, Egypt, etc., and also to the self-governing Dominions. As regards the latter, all movements towards independence or

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towards a Federation in which the representatives of Great Britain would be on an equality with the other parts of the Empire should be noted.”37 Two months later, de Valera included the Scots and Welsh in such advice. Inching toward his later idea of external association, though, de Valera warned, “We will need a delicate touch in handling anything of this sort, because we must make it clear that it is as an external to the British system that we are acting, and that we are dealing with these countries as if they were also nations independent of England.”38 Dermot Keogh wrote that “the leaders of the post-1916 Sinn Féin movement were very modern in their appreciation of the value of diplomacy and propaganda.”39 They also realized that for their propaganda to be successful, they had to place their revolution in an international context and present it as more than just an Irish issue. Ireland was, after all, a small European backwater, relatively unimportant worldwide other than perhaps for its diaspora. Sinn Féiners clearly saw their revolution as different from those movements led by either settlers or nonwhite peoples, but they saw enough similarities in their anti-English revolt to accept sympathy from other colonized or formerly colonized peoples. This was a difficult line to walk, one that became more difficult as the truce led to a settlement based, at least in part, on dominion status for the twenty-six counties. When the Dáil sent five plenipotentiaries to London in October 1921 to attempt the negotiation of a settlement, their task was, in Lloyd George’s words, “ascertaining how the association of Ireland with the community of nations known as the British Empire may best be reconciled with Irish national aspirations.”40 The Irish, of course, preferred a republic, but failing that, aimed to win as much independence for Ireland as possible. Once again, this necessitated putting Ireland in an imperial and international framework increasingly dominated by the question of dominion status. The Irish wanted to gain the same rights that had evolved de facto in other dominions, while still clinging to the belief that the Irish situation differed substantially from that of the other dominions because of considerations of geography and race. These arguments would be a major part of the tortuous negotiations in London. After a long and convoluted exchange of letters between de Valera and Lloyd George over the preconditions to negotiation, the Irish plenipotentiaries finally left for London in October 1921. The basics of their negotiating position—which was very much controlled by de Valera in Dublin, at least until the final days—were foreshadowed during the first meetings of the Second Dáil in August. The Irish proposed what later would be termed

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external association, an idea that originally came from Erskine Childers and was then modified and explicated by de Valera and John Chartres, a lawyer advising the Irish plenipotentiaries. External association basically involved the British recognizing Irish independence as a republic, and the Irish government would then (the sequence was important to the Irish) freely choose to associate with the empire/commonwealth on issues of common concern such as defense and foreign policy. De Valera told the Second Dáil when it assembled that “an association that would be consistent with our right to see that we were the judges of what was our own interests, and that we were not compelled to leave the judgment of what were our own interests or not to others—a combination of that sort would, I believe, commend itself to the majority of my colleagues.”41 In an attempt to pacify the British, Chartres later proposed that Ireland recognize the king as the head of the association.42 De Valera may have been correct in thinking this compromise could have placated a number of otherwise stalwart republicans, although Brugha was ambivalent and MacSwiney was vocal in opposition, but it was rejected consistently and repeatedly by the British throughout the negotiations. De Valera upset his own delegation by ordering them to propose external association again in early December, and Collins refused to do so, considering it futile and embarrassing to continue to raise the subject. External association was premised on the assumption that Ireland was a nation, a principle that Sinn Féin had enunciated repeatedly during the revolution in order to elevate the Irish case.43 As a sovereign nation, Ireland could reasonably participate in or associate with the British Commonwealth. As a subordinate colony, at least according to de Valera, Ireland could not willingly submit to such an indignity. The British were clearly fearful of an independent and resentful Ireland on their doorstep, and external association did not seem to them sufficient guarantee against this concern. To meet this concern, the Irish negotiators pledged Irish neutrality in any future European war, claiming this would be the best defense against any opportunistic European country using Ireland as a back door to an invasion of Britain. This pledge, from the Irish point of view, had the advantages of assuaging British security concerns as well as emphasizing Irish sovereignty and measured distance from the empire. Much like external association, Irish neutrality was a shrewd and potentially farseeing proposal that had absolutely no chance of being accepted by the British government, given the history of the First World War. The Irish were left with, more or less, an offer of status similar to that of the other

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dominions. Rejecting that offer posed great risks for the Irish delegation. On the one hand, excessive derogation of the status of the dominions could undercut support for the Irish cause there. This had already been threatened in the summer of 1921 when the most prominent South African statesman, General Jan Smuts, counseled de Valera to accept Lloyd George’s tentative offer of dominion status, calling it an insult to the other dominions for Ireland to reject it. Smuts found this particularly offensive because the South Africans had too fought a war against Britain and then had to swallow an unpalatable peace offer.44 In addition, dominion status could be perceived by the Irish people as a generous offer—particularly since Lloyd George had publicly denied such status was on the table as late as 1920—and the British could then appeal over Sinn Féin’s heads to the Irish electorate. Collins realized this sooner than many of his colleagues. When the cabinet met in July 1921 to consider the initial British offer, de Valera recorded Collins’s view as “Mick: step on road—not important—free Dominion a step—document will set country against us,” although Collins then apparently followed that up with some rather ambiguous statements, leading some to question whether he was in favor of accepting dominion status.45 Regardless, it seems as if Collins was at least aware that the war-weary Irish people as a whole, generally less republican than many Sinn Féin stalwarts, would accept dominion status if it was put before them in a plebiscite. That consideration continued to weigh on Collins’s mind as the Treaty negotiations came to a close in December. Patrick McCartan, a Sinn Féin envoy to the Soviet Union, came to the same conclusion in June 1921: “If the British Government threw a genuine measure of Dominion Home Rule at us and virtually said ‘take it or leave it’ we might be compelled to operate it as many of our people might consider it more than they had ever hoped for in their lifetime. In such a case we would have to accept it or run the risk of splitting the people again into fractions.” McCartan opined, however, that such a scenario was “not probable” and “one with which we were not likely to be confronted,” implying that any British offer would be for something less than “genuine” dominion status.46 Sinn Féin’s objective was to derogate the British offer without completely alienating the other dominions or denigrating their status. This returned Sinn Féin to the frequent conundrum of how to distinguish Ireland from other places in the empire without either weakening the Irish case or offending other imperial peoples. The strategy decided upon during the negotiations was to deny that Ireland was being offered genuine dominion status

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and would never in fact be given the same status as other dominions. This allowed Sinn Féiners to criticize the emerging British proposals without belittling the status of the other dominions. Seeking to disarm the initial British peace proposals, de Valera summed up these objections to the newly constituted Second Dáil in August 1921: It is said that we are offered the status of Dominion Home Rule, that Ireland is offered the status of the British Dominions. Ireland is offered no such thing. That very phrase “Ireland is offered Dominion status” contains two falsehoods. According to that, where is Ireland? There is no Ireland. There are two broken pieces of Ireland, and these two broken pieces are offered this so-called Dominion status. It is not Dominion status. Ireland could never—because of geographical facts which we are supposed to ignore—in the nature of things be offered such a thing as the status of Dominion Home Rule, because that status depends upon the fact that Australia and Canada and South Africa and the rest are not neighbours of Britain. We are neighbours of Britain, and that is a geographical fact you have to take into account.47

Lloyd George had initially come to the same conclusion about the importance of geography, allegedly telling William Martin Murphy in 1918 that Ireland could not be “given powers the colonies possessed a thousand miles from our shores.”48 Some Sinn Féin leaders, in particular Erskine Childers, pointed out that Britain’s demand for access to Irish ports and naval facilities also made the Irish status different from that of other dominions, concluding that such British terms “indirectly show the fundamental difference between the modern position of a Dominion and the position which Ireland would occupy under the Conditions laid down in the British proposals.”49 At the fateful cabinet meeting of 3 December 1921, interpretations of which later caused so much strife among Sinn Féin leaders, Childers told Robert Barton that the defense clauses in the proposed Treaty were such an infringement on Irish status that they would cost the Irish the support of the other dominions on questions of status.50 The Irish inability to secede from the empire also was cited frequently as an indicator of Ireland’s subordinate status. De Valera cited this in a 1921 newspaper interview: “Without the right to secede the British Dominions would not be what they are—free partners in the British Empire. The test of their status is their right to secede.”51 As a result of these potential reductions of status, the Irish plenipotentiaries demanded more specific guarantees from Britain than were given

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to the other dominions. What could be trusted to evolution and de facto conditions in the other dominions could not be trusted to similar forces in Ireland. The Irish Bulletin laid out this position in the summer of 1921, in preparation for the pending negotiations: “‘Equality of status, with the right to secede’ represents to the British Dominions freedom as they understand it. We express freedom in a different way and can never reach it by the road they have traveled. On the one hand we cannot secede from a union never sanctioned by our people, on the other hand our proximity to England, in contrast with their distance, warrants the demand for international guarantees against aggression from England which have long become unnecessary for them.”52 John Chartres said that Ireland would require an “express guarantee” that the king’s power would not function in Ireland, in part because of Ireland’s geographical position.53 The Irish were already demanding much more specific language regarding Ireland’s rights, a position that would be taken up by anti-Treatyites after the Treaty was ratified. In the later stages of the negotiations, the Irish were even willing to trade Irish naval rights in exchange for greater protections for Irish sovereignty: We acknowledge a reasonableness in the desire of the British Government for certain Naval facilities in Ireland differing from those which they receive from Canada or the other Dominions. The propinquity of the two islands is a fact that must be recognised in arranging a just and permanent settlement, and we have recognised it in this matter. Equally it must be recognised on the other side that the same propinquity imposes on us a necessity for safeguarding our independence which does not arise in the case of the Dominions. The Crown, thousands of miles away, will never menace the Dominions with its powers. The Crown, close at hand to Ireland, would form a constant menace of the kind, and the object for which both sides have striven—the satisfactory ending of the long conflict between the two nations—would not have been achieved.54

Pro-Treatyites tended to put more emphasis on the first part of this statement, anti-Treatyites on the second part. The British response to the Irish demand for specificity was the so-called Canada clause, inserted into the Treaty late in the negotiations. An early version of this clause was shown to Arthur Griffith, whom the British perceived as the most likely to sign any agreement, on the 16th of November, and this suggestion was taken up in a memo by John Chartres on the 29th.55 In their proposal, the Irish delegates specifically envisioned the possibility of Ireland

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evolving beyond the status of the other dominions—Ireland’s status was defined as “in no respect less than” that of the other states—but the final Canada clause actually gave a much more specific guarantee of equality with Canada. Article 1 of the Treaty gave Ireland “the same constitutional status in the Community of Nations known as the British Empire” as Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. The final wording of the Canada clause, inserted as Article 2 of the Treaty, was “Subject to the provisions hereinafter set out the position of the Irish Free State in relation to the Imperial Parliament and Government and otherwise shall be that of the Dominion of Canada, and the law, practice and constitutional usage governing the relationship of the Crown or the representative of the Crown and of the Imperial Parliament to the Dominion of Canada shall govern their relationship to the Irish Free State.”56 Canada, as the oldest and most advanced of the dominions, was thought to be the most apt comparison for Ireland. Once the Treaty was signed, the relationship between Ireland and the empire became a central component of the Treaty debates and came to define the differences between the two sides. There has been a fair amount of analysis of the Irish concerns with the oath, the governor general, the royal veto, and other such imperial remnants, but relatively little work on how those positions revealed starkly different conceptions of the empire. AntiTreatyites, in general, saw Ireland’s situation as not analogous to any other imperial region and demanded special safeguards for Ireland because of its historical and geographical differences from the rest of the empire. In many ways, anti-Treatyites deployed and built on many of the arguments used by Sinn Féin during the revolution and the Treaty negotiations as well as the relatively long tradition of anti-imperialism within Irish nationalist politics. Pro-Treatyites, on the other hand, also realized that Irish nationalism had historically engaged with anti-imperialism and that they could not afford to wholly abandon that approach if they hoped to remain politically viable. As a result, they adopted a strategy that recognized the need for concessions to Britain and acceptance of the Treaty, while still framing their arguments within as much of the Sinn Féin tradition as they could salvage. This dispute revealed a deep gulf in perceptions of the empire. Anti-Treatyites tended to perceive the empire as wholly and fundamentally evil, an exploitative entity from which Ireland needed to distance itself. Pro-Treatyites thought the empire could be rehabilitated somewhat as an anti-imperial entity, through the institutions of which Ireland could continue on its antiimperial path.

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In attacking the signed Treaty, anti-Treatyites focused on the continuing ties that bound the proposed Free State to Britain, generally ignoring the question of partition. They also concentrated on the relationship between Ireland and the empire, which they saw as deleterious to Ireland’s future development. This assessment assumed, among other things, that the British Empire was a fundamentally oppressive institution, membership in which transferred a portion of the responsibility for that oppression to the Irish. The most direct statement of this position came from socialist anti-Treatyite Liam Mellows, who criticized the empire in strong terms during the Treaty debates: We have always in this country protested against being included within the British Empire. Now we are told that we are going into it with our heads up. The British Empire stands to me in the same relationship as the devil stands to religion. The British Empire represents to me nothing but the concentrated tyranny of ages. You may talk about your constitution in Canada, your united South Africa or Commonwealth of Australia, but the British Empire to me does not mean that. It means to me that terrible thing that has spread its tentacles all over the earth, that has crushed the lives out of people and exploited its own when it could not exploit anybody else. . . . We are going into the British Empire now to participate in the Empire’s shame even though we do not actually commit the act, to participate in the shame and the crucifixion of India and the degradation of Egypt.57

Mellows touched on all the major themes here: the empire as a site of evil, the empire as defined by the exploitation of nonwhite peoples, and Irish participation as implicating them in the empire’s sins. Others hit similar points, emphasizing that the Treaty appeared to give Ireland’s consent to imperial membership, which increased Ireland’s moral responsibility for the empire. Daniel Corkery said in the Dáil, “If we go into the British Empire we will go in there as a prop to hold up a rotten Empire.”58 Sean Etchingham evocatively predicted post-Treaty Ireland would be “a bow window in the western gable of the British Empire.”59 Joseph MacDonagh said, “The British Empire has stood for every rotten thing in the history of the world. The history of the world has shown practically that wherever the British Empire is, there you have cruelty, you have oppression of every description. By the Treaty Ireland will take part of England’s public debt as well as England’s oppression of every subject nationality under her sway.”60

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In addition to condoning participation in a criminal empire, the Treaty also failed to guarantee Ireland dominion status, at least according to antiTreatyites. Erskine Childers took the lead on this argument, just as he had during the Treaty negotiations. Childers’s oft-quoted memo “Law and Fact in Canada” delineated this position near the end of the negotiations, and he expanded on this point during the Treaty debates. Childers wrote, “Calling Ireland a ‘Dominion’ would not ensure to Ireland the constitutional rights of a Dominion. All the legal controls now obsolete in the Dominions could be enforced in Ireland. There could be no guarantee to the contrary.”61 Plenipotentiary Robert Barton agreed with Childers at the 3 December cabinet meeting, claiming that the British proposals “would not give Dominion status.”62 Once the Dáil began debating the Treaty, Childers noted that the Crown itself may not have retained many independent functions but that the British government still could and did act through it, and that was what Ireland should fear: “Never forget to associate these two things [the Crown and the British Government] together. The King, a constitutional King, has in fact very few functions having power, but he acts through a ministry which does wield power. Wherever you see a King of England acting anywhere throughout his dominions, behind him lies the British authority.”63 In his first public session speech, Childers strongly stated, “It should be understood clearly by Dáil Éireann—by all here—that this Treaty does not give you what is called Dominion status.”64 In defending this point of view, Childers frequently cited the defense provisions of the Treaty as conditions that other dominions did not have to suffer, and that they interfered sufficiently with Ireland’s sovereignty so as to negate many of the freedoms the Treaty purportedly granted. During his public speech against the Treaty, Childers again ran through the list of restrictions on Ireland’s ability to undertake its own defense: “I need not say that no such conditions or limitations attach to any dominion, least of all Canada. Canada is absolutely free to defend her own coast, to raise her own naval forces and military forces, and . . . Canada has a real and genuine share in the decision of those great questions of foreign policy, and on peace and war upon which the destiny of a nation depends. Ireland under this Treaty will have none.”65 In addition, there was a fear that those Crown privileges and powers that had been allowed to lapse in the other dominions would not lapse in Ireland. Dr. Francis Ferran, anti-Treaty TD from Sligo, put this most succinctly: “Have we forgotten—we in Ireland—have we forgotten how often has England dug deep in the debris

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of centuries for obsolete weapons against the Irish people? She has never used them against Canada. It will be poor satisfaction afterwards, when Ireland is stabbed through the heart, to say that the weapon was rusty, obsolete, antiquated.”66 Some of this was simple Irish distrust of any document signed by England, filtered through historical memories of the Treaty of Limerick and the Act of Union. But other criticism focused on the shortcomings of the Treaty itself. In short, republicans did not accept the Canada clause as a sufficient guarantee of British noninterference, and discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of this clause took up much time in the Treaty debates. One republican, David Ceannt, began his speech by complaining, “I have been listening for the last few days to so many quick-change artists that I cannot be sure whether it is in Canada or in Ireland I am standing.”67 A few republicans, in attacking the clause, denied that Canada was in fact independent. P. J. Ruttledge disagreed that pro-Treatyites had proven Canada’s de facto independence, pointing at the British appointment of Canada’s governor general as evidence of Canada’s subordinate status. Most republicans, however, did not directly question Canada’s status, either out of tacit recognition that Canada had been allowed de facto independence or out of a tactical desire to retain dominion support. Instead, they denied that Ireland would ever receive that status, clause or no clause. Childers pointed to geography and history as the key determinants in Ireland’s continuing subjugation: You speak of Canada, the conferring on Ireland of Canada’s status. Imagine that Ireland is on a par with Canada in regard to these powers. What is Canada? Half a continent. The closest part is nearly 3,000 miles from Britain, and the furthest part 7,000 miles, a great, immense nation, absolutely unconquerable by England, and, what is even more important, attached to England by ties of blood which produces such relations between them that there is no desire on England’s part to conquer—two great factors, the distance which renders Canada unconquerable and the blood tie. Canada has a real share in these great questions unquestionably. What is the position of Ireland? After 750 years of war, lying close up against the shores of her great neighbour, what guarantee has she, what equal voice can she have in the decisions of these questions, with England actually occupying her shores, committing her inevitably, legally, constitutionally and in every other way to all her foreign policies and to all her wars?68

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Childers elaborated later in the speech: Let there be no mistake, under the terms of this Treaty the British Government is going to be supreme in Ireland. It is useless again to refer to Canada. Canada is 3,000 miles away. . . . It is useless for the Minister for Finance [Collins] to say certain things are necessary because Ireland is nearer England, and at the same time to say that Ireland would get all the powers of Canada which is 3,000 miles away. These two proposals are contradictory. The Governor-General in Ireland will be close to Downing Street. He can communicate by telephone to Downing Street. He will be in close and intimate touch with British Ministers. Irish Ministers will be the King’s Ministers; the Irish Provisional Government that under this Treaty is going to be set up, within a month would be the King’s Provisional Government. . . . And the King and the Government behind the King would be barely 200 miles away, and capable of exercising immediate control over what is done in Ireland.69

This was in essence the same position that the Irish had presented in London, a demand that Ireland be given specific guarantees of sovereignty because of its proximity to Britain. This interpretation hinged on a fundamental distrust of Britain, one that the language of the Canada clause—which republicans perceived as too vague—could not overcome. Childers laid this out carefully in “Law and Fact in Canada,” the gist being that Canada’s status de facto was superior to its status de jure. While Childers conceded that Canada would be allowed this disjunction, Ireland would not, and would be held to the harsher de jure status where the Westminster parliament and the Crown still wielded power. He wrote, “Take the legal position and the constitutional position [of Canada]—the Law and the Fact—in turn, remembering that in Ireland, lying close to English shores, there would be nothing to prevent legal controls being enforced, and the Law made the Fact.”70 Republicans also claimed that Ireland would not have dominion status because of its history. They saw the dominions as settler colonies, largely peopled by those who wished to retain a connection with Britain. The Irish, on the other hand, were not an offshoot of Britain, as were the Canadians or Australians, but were a colonized people who had maintained their separation from the colonizers. This separation was often expressed in racial language. Seán T. O’Kelly told the Dáil during the Treaty debates that “a Dominion status is honourable in the case of Canada and Australia. Canada is free because she wills to be united with England, and Canada and Australia

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and New Zealand are in the great majority peopled by Britons. Ireland as a Dominion is not free because she does not will to be united to England or to the British Commonwealth. . . . And, moreover, Ireland is not peopled by Britain. Ireland is the old historic Celtic nation that for so many centuries had struggled for her existence and her national ideals next door to [Britain].”71 Erskine Childers invoked a similar point, emphasizing that Canada was “attached to England by ties of blood which produces such relations between them that there is no desire on England’s part to conquer.”72 Austin Stack reiterated this claim: “It is easy to understand that countries like Australia, New Zealand and the others can put up with the powers which are bestowed on them, can put up with acknowledgments to the monarch and rule of Great Britain as head of their State, for have they not all sprung from England? Are they not children of England? Have they not been built up by Great Britain? Have they not been protected by England and lived under England’s flag for all time? What other feeling can they have but affection for England, which they always regarded as their motherland? This country, on the other hand, has not been a child of England’s, nor never was.”73 Republicans followed the pattern set during the revolution in pointing to Irish nationhood or the existence of a separate Irish race as factors differentiating Ireland from the other dominions as well as militating against the British allowing Ireland de facto independence as they had the other dominions. This line of argument was troublesome enough in the case of Canada (as many Canadians were of French descent) but completely fell apart in cases such as South Africa, where many settlers were not of British ancestry. Indigenous populations of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, or South Africa, who similarly would have perceived themselves as a different “race” than their conquerors, were almost completely left out of Irish analogies and Irish thinking on the dominions. That rather large caveat notwithstanding, O’Kelly and others did raise an important point: freedom required consent. Republicans argued that Ireland could never be truly free as an involuntary member of the empire, and that freedom could never exist within a framework of coercion. The Irish tendency to write indigenous peoples out of their references to other dominions again raised the vexed question of the relationship between Irish nationalism and nonwhite regions of the empire. The Irish clearly did not want to be too thoroughly connected with peoples widely perceived as inferior, as evidenced by the frequent invocations of “Mexican democracy”— meaning chaos, assassination, and instability—as something that the Irish needed to avoid. The Sligo Champion (a pro-Treaty paper) worried in 1922

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about “a state that will compare unfavorably with Mexico at its worst or the least desirable of the Central American Republics.”74 Alec MacCabe said during the Treaty debates that anti-Treatyite tactics had the “dead certainty of creating Mexican conditions in this country.”75 When republicans proposed to reelect de Valera as president two days after the Treaty’s passage, Ernest Blythe said this would bring about chaos, and Michael Collins interjected, “Mexican politics.”76 Kevin O’Higgins, during a debate over giving additional emergency powers to the army, worried, “We bid fair to be classed with the nigger and the Mexican, as a people unable to govern themselves.”77 Republicans were more likely to voice sympathy with nonwhite peoples during the Treaty debates. Seamus Robinson asked the Dáil, “Are we going to give our moral or immoral support to England in her efforts to crush Egypt and India, which countries have given us the sincerest form of flattery by imitating us? For my part I would give no support to any attempt at association with England, either politically or economically, while she is suppressing with brute force any people—much less such splendid peoples as the Hindoos and Egyptians.”78 Irish revolutionaries frequently referred to Indians as “Hindus,” either through an identification with the Hindu-dominated Indian National Congress or out of ignorance. Countess Markievicz thought that Irish capitulation harmed other anti-imperialist groups in the empire: “I saw a picture the other day of India, Ireland and Egypt fighting England, and Ireland crawling out with her hands up. Do you like that? I don’t. Now, if we pledge ourselves to this oath we pledge our allegiance to this thing, whether you call it Empire or Commonwealth of Nations, that is treading down the people of Egypt and of India. And in Ireland this Treaty . . . binds us to stand by and enter no protest while England crushes Egypt and India. And mind you, England wants peace in Ireland to bring her troops over to India and Egypt. . . . The army is to hold itself faithful to the Commonwealth of Nations while the Commonwealth sends its Black-and-Tans to India.”79 Harry Boland spun this situation slightly differently, claiming that the deteriorating situations in India and Egypt meant that Britain was bluffing in threatening to restart the Irish war. Boland did not want Ireland to “buttress up the British Empire” by giving in to British demands and signing the Treaty.80 Thomas Derrig also stated that Ireland’s international position and reputation as an anti-imperialist epicenter would be harmed if the Treaty were to be accepted.81 Republicans thus used notions of similarity and difference to attack the Treaty in an imperial framework. Irish difference from the other dominions

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was repeatedly asserted, a difference based on race and geography. The other dominions were admittedly de facto independent, but they were generally portrayed by republicans as willing partners in the empire, content with preserving a subordinate relationship to Great Britain. The white settlers of British descent in each of these colonies were presumed to control the polity of the dominions, a situation envisioned differently than the one in Ireland, where the wishes of the descendants of English and Scottish settlers were generally disregarded by Sinn Féiners. The reasons for this difference were not always specifically articulated but presumably had to do with the fact that Ireland was a traditional nation, racially distinct from England, whereas the people displaced elsewhere in the empire by English settlers were clearly racially distinct from those settlers, in the nineteenth-century sense of race, but were equally clearly, to Sinn Féiners, not historic nations. This is why the argument for historic nationhood was so important to republicans: it distinguished Ireland’s case from that of the Maoris. While republicans did occasionally claim solidarity with oppressed nonwhite peoples, those peoples were outside of the dominions, and the Irish claim of nationhood explicitly or implicitly wrote nonwhite peoples in the dominions out of the Irish frame of reference. Republicans wanted to establish Irish difference from settlers in the dominions, without necessarily implying Irish similarity with the indigenous peoples in those dominions. Pro-Treatyites had, in a sense, a much more difficult task. They had to portray the Treaty as something other than a capitulation and do so without abandoning completely the rhetorical strategies and debating positions established by Sinn Féin during the revolution. The imperial context was a particularly tricky one for Treatyites, as the Treaty more clearly put Ireland within the empire than did de Valera’s more ambiguous Document No. 2.82 The vast majority of pro-Treatyites possessed enough political savvy to realize that they could not suddenly embrace the empire, at least not if they hoped to retain some sort of viable political career in postrevolutionary Ireland. The frequent attacks by Sinn Féin on the Irish Party meant that proTreatyites also could not openly associate themselves with the discredited positions and rhetoric of that party and its leadership. Obviously, enthusiastic advocacy for the empire would have been political suicide with the majority of Irish voters and would have gone against the core beliefs of many pro-Treatyites. If they wanted to continue to be seen as consolidators of a successful revolution, and to speak to the same constituencies that had supported them during the revolution, they needed to retain a connection with

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revolutionary-era anti-imperialism while still denying the force of republican arguments that the Treaty was a vehicle for British imperialism. ProTreatyites too spoke the language of similarity and difference, although they tended, at least post-Treaty, to see at least some analogies between the Irish situation and that of the other dominions. First, Treatyites had to debunk the argument from geography, an argument that the Irish plenipotentiaries, including Collins and Griffith, had themselves made during the London talks. The Treatyites’ major line of argument was that the Canada clause effectively answered the argument that Ireland would never be given its full share of rights, and that it had been included in the Treaty specifically to stipulate that Ireland’s location would not result in fewer rights than Canada had. Griffith, always quick to attack Childers, immediately criticized Childers’s geographical discussion, saying that it had been Childers himself who had written some of the wording of the Canada clause: “We went to the conference, we fought upon it, and we got it put in. Now Mr. Childers comes along and tells you it means nothing. . . . I say that argument from beginning to end is utterly dishonest. . . . The phrase ‘constitutional usage’ was coined by Mr. Childers and now he gets up and denounces his own phrase.”83 Other deputies used humor to undermine Childers, an easy target for such an attack because of his often grim demeanor. Collins joked that Childers, in his speech, “did not regard the delegation as being wholly without responsibility for the geographical propinquity of Ireland to Great Britain.”84 Michael Hayes similarly observed, “I listened to him [Childers] very carefully and the idea I got—it may be a misunderstanding—but the impression left upon me was this, that he was indicting the historic Irish nation for having chosen this island for its habitation instead of some island in the Pacific.”85 Months later, Sean Milroy sarcastically observed, “Of course we would have a different constitution and a different Treaty if England was not where she is. In fact, we would not require a Treaty at all if England were at the bottom of the sea.”86 More seriously, Treatyites tried to claim that republicans’ belief in the importance of Ireland’s location was incompatible with their support for de Valera’s alternative to the Treaty, derogatorily called Document No. 2 by Treatyites. Patrick Hogan raised this point first a week into the debates: “I heard the ‘proximity’ argument used also and used in the most extraordinarily confused sense. The ‘proximity’ argument apparently applies to this Treaty, but to nothing else. If the delegates brought back a Treaty on the

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lines of the recognition by England of an isolated independent Republic the ‘proximity’ argument would be there, and there in full.”87 Eoin MacNeill echoed this, observing that Childers’s argument was “perfectly good and valid,” but “would apply with equal force to an independent Irish Republic.”88 Alec MacCabe linked this concern to earlier imperial history: “How we are going to get an Irish Republic set up further away from England’s door than an Irish Free State I do not know; but I know this, that distance did not save the South African Republics, even though one of them was in external association with the Empire, when England chose to attack them.”89 Blythe echoed this while also challenging Childers’s expertise: “The main part of his argument was not of a constitutional nature at all, and not the sort of argument in which he could claim to have any sort of particular authority. He was arguing that the British would not keep to their terms of this Treaty, but of some other Treaty that might be signed.”90 This was the crux of the issue: Ireland needed to ensure that Britain would not continue to prey on its island neighbor. No one thought that the Canada clause was itself sufficient guarantee, but Treatyites thought it was a significant assurance of Irish independence. The geographical proximity could not be eliminated, but its effects could be minimized through the Canada clause as well as by other paths such as the League of Nations and the British Commonwealth. Promoting the Canada clause was an obvious strategy for Free Staters, but one that entangled them in their own complicated revolutionary legacies. On the one hand, few Irish citizens probably thought of Canada terribly often, and the course of Canadian history was not a central reference point of Irish political rhetoric. Treatyites, in invoking the Canada clause as one of the centerpieces of their defense of Irish status, had to assert that Ireland would get Canadian rights without making the politically problematic assertion that Canada—a settler nation, according to most Irish nationalists—was somehow equal to Ireland in history, tradition, and status. In other words, Canadian status for Ireland was held up as a goal or a model, but any other analogy between Ireland and Canada was usually denied. During the Treaty debates, several pro-Treatyites claimed equality of status with Canada as one of the centerpieces of the Treaty. Griffith, already on the defensive, said in his opening speech at the private session, “Ireland is as free as Canada and Australia. . . . That Treaty gives Ireland an equal status with England, Canada or any country in the Commonwealth and places them on an equal level.”91 Cosgrave said, “My interpretation of it [the Treaty] is that in this commonwealth or association each of the members

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is equal; and if that be wrong, I think we will find ourselves in the company of some distinguished constitutional lawyers.”92 This kind of invocation of constitutional experts quickly lost its luster, though, as deputies tired of lengthy legalistic explanations, and the rhetoric was toned down more overtly to that of the “plain man on the street.” Eoin MacNeill removed the law experts from the equation by stating that “political thinkers” in the dominions believed each to be truly independent and co-equal.93 Michael Hayes asked, “If a nation exercising full legislative and executive rights is not free, I don’t know what freedom is.”94 These claims expanded after the Treaty’s passage, as the Free State leaders tried to use the constitution to guarantee equal status with Canada. O’Higgins had already argued for the centrality of the phrase “constitutional usage” in the Canada clause, claiming that it trumped or negated the word “law” earlier in the clause and thus answered Childers’s argument put forth in Law and Fact in Canada.95 In the final stages of the constitutional negotiations, the Provisional Government decided “in the event of the British representatives insisting on insertion of the letter of Canadian law in the Constitution, the Irish representatives should insist that the practice obtaining in Canada be also explicitly embodied in the Constitution.”96 This was in response to a hardening of the British position on the Canada clause—a change that Free Staters continuously attributed to increasingly bellicose and Anglophobic republican posturing—during the months between the signing of the Treaty and the outbreak of the civil war.97 Collins also bemoaned this turn of events: “All they [republicans] have succeeded in doing, by means of the constant reiteration of their Pecksniffian principles and doctrines is to get us advertised more and more emphatically as part of the wretched Empire. They have forced us back to a position where our only refuge was the practice and usage of Canada, not our own true position. Our real refuge should have been our distinct nationhood.”98 The fact that Canada was often the centerpiece of Free State defenses of the Treaty was portrayed by Collins as a necessary evil, a fallback position forced on Treatyites by republican opposition. O’Higgins stayed with the Canadian line of argument when he first presented the new draft constitution to the Free State Dáil in September 1922. In so doing, he explained both the values and potential demerits of the Canada clause: “In that Article of the Treaty the British were entitled to insist on the law as it is in Canada. Equally under that Article we were entitled to have the law modified, and in certain instances cancelled and neutralised, as in Canada, by practice and constitutional usage; and, going through this

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Constitution, you will find that whenever one side stood upon the law and said, ‘The law in Canada is so-and-so,’ we have in each case modified and corrected the acerbity of the law by setting out fully and clearly the usage and practice.”99 The Treaty forced its adherents to walk a difficult line regarding the empire. On the one hand, the Treaty clearly put Ireland within the empire, a condition that no amount of rhetoric could obfuscate. The empire, then, could not be presented as an evil entity, as it frequently had been in Sinn Féin rhetoric, but neither could Cumann na nGaedheal return to a Redmond-style embrace of the empire for fear of losing revolutionary credibility. As a result, Cumann na nGaedheal depicted the empire as a collection of sovereign dominions, each concerned with protecting the sovereignty of the others. The Canada clause in the Treaty explicitly gave the Irish a vested interest in dominion sovereignty, and the other dominions had an interest in protecting Ireland from the nearby metropole. The rhetorical creation of an anti-imperial empire was Cumann na nGaedheal’s way out of this potentially difficult dilemma. Free Staters were clearly worried that abandoning the argument from difference would be politically damaging, as it risked jettisoning Ireland’s claim to historic nationhood and metropolitan status. No one wanted to depict Ireland as a settler colony. At the outset of the Treaty debates, Collins aggressively asserted that Ireland would be “making our own precedents” and not just blindly following Canada.100 Patrick Hogan claimed that Ireland was actually “a long step in front of the most forward and powerful nation in the British Commonwealth of Nations,” a reference presumably to Canada.101 While taking advantages of Canada’s advances was acceptable, no one wanted to be seen as dependent on Canada. The distinctions drawn between Ireland and the other dominions continued during the early years of the Free State, with Treatyite politicians returning to standard Sinn Féin rhetoric depicting Ireland as a mother country and a historic nation, as opposed to the “settler colonies” that made up the rest of the commonwealth. As always, this elided many complicating factors by identifying the dominions entirely with their British settlers and, for the most part, ignoring the Boers, the French Canadians, and the various indigenous peoples in dominion territories. But it was designed to satisfy an Irish electorate used to hearing of Irish difference and uniqueness. Early in 1922 George Gavan Duffy, as Dáil minister for foreign affairs, wrote a memo outlining Ireland’s diplomatic situation. After offering up the diplomatic achievements of Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa as models for

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Ireland, Gavan Duffy than dismissively added, “I do not wish for a moment to compare this ancient Irish Nation to these new countries—which until recently were mere Colonies of Britain.” He then finished by saying, “But if these Countries are on the point of placing their Ambassadors in the capitals of the World to proclaim their sovereignty and to exercise it fully it is surely essential that Ireland should be adequately represented too.”102 Although Gavan Duffy resigned his ministerial position in the summer of 1922 and continued to have differences with the Cumann na nGaedheal government, this memorandum anticipated a key Free State strategy for placing Ireland in the empire. Hugh Kennedy was one of the architects of this position, in his capacity as legal advisor, constitutional drafter, Cosgrave speechwriter, and attorney general. He argued that because Ireland had not been a settler colony, British common law did not automatically run there.103 In his later introduction to Leo Kohn’s pro–Free State work The Constitution of the Irish Free State, Kennedy wrote that Ireland “claim[ed] intrinsic nationhood and sovereign statehood (unlike the colony-Dominions).”104 Kennedy also noted that the word “Dominion,” which was of biblical origin, had been chosen originally so as not to offend the Americans with a more overtly monarchical word (“Kingdom of Canada”) and connoted inherent sovereignty: “It meant, not the Dominion of Britain, but the Dominion of the Canadians themselves. . . . ‘British Dominion’ does not mean . . . any subordination. It means the dominion of the occupants of what had been these British territories over their own territories and within their own territorial limits. It means and implies absolute sovereignty.”105 James Douglas, a colleague of Kennedy’s on the Constitution Committee, echoed this, writing that Ireland “had not become a British Dominion. Ireland is another Country, and her nationality and her sovereignty are not of recent growth.”106 To buttress this special status, Ireland’s status as a mother country was also invoked. Cosgrave’s initial speech to the League of Nations made this claim, as did Darrel Figgis in the Dáil.107 The position here was paradoxical: Free Staters claimed at times that dominion status was honorable and offered significant potential for Irish growth but also that Ireland was not a dominion, possessing a history and degree of freedom that belied any such claims for dominion status. So Ireland both was and was not a dominion, as the situation warranted. Thomas Johnson, the Labour Party leader, pointed out this tension in the Free State position to the Dáil during a 1924 debate over foreign policy:

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Notwithstanding a good deal of popular use of the term, I think we are not justified in speaking of Saorstát Éireann as one of the British dominions. “Dominion,” though perhaps it has its new meanings in the Commonwealth of Australia and the Union of South Africa, has, as a matter of fact, a suggestion about it of domination—of superior authority. While I think it is true that these States, as well as Canada and New Zealand, have grown out of the Dominion status and the Dominion stage, representing an improvement upon the older Colonial status, we have never rightly been termed a Dominion; we should not be termed a Dominion, and it is unwise and retrogressive on the part of any authority in this country to speak of the Saorstát as a Dominion. . . . There is nothing in the Treaty, and nothing in the Constitution, to justify us in speaking of Ireland as a Dominion. Undoubtedly our position is novel and without parallel, but none the less important and strong. I assert that the position of Saorstát Éireann is not that of a Dominion, but that which its name implies, a Free State representing a mother country, equal in status with Great Britain also as a mother country.108

Desmond FitzGerald, as minister for foreign affairs, responded, “I may say that I agreed with practically all that has been said by Deputy Johnson.”109 After 1922 Ireland’s historic nationhood and metropolitan status were thus invoked to differentiate Ireland from the other dominions, while dominion precedent was put forward as an acceptable model for Ireland to follow. Canada was frequently the model to be emulated because of its perceived aggressiveness in shaking off the shackles of dominion status. As Free State legal advisor John J. Hearne put it in a 1929 memo: “Canada was thus chosen as the model for the new Irish state because she of all the dominions had outgrown her status and her constitution.”110 In addition to pursuing notions of Irish difference, the Free Staters also continued to deploy antiimperial rhetoric despite accepting membership in the empire. This tactic reflected the considerable ambivalence toward the empire felt by many Free State leaders as well as a belief that these Sinn Féin echoes would resonate with a population used to anti-imperial rhetoric. Anti-imperialism also gave Free Staters a moral component to their argument and fit imperial membership within the perceived Irish tradition of resistance and struggle. Debunking that myth of long-term Irish resistance was one possible path, and a few Treatyites tried this. Gearóid O’Sullivan, for example, said that the Irish had been the greatest anglicizers in history: “We, the Irish people, have been Empire builders for England all over the world. . . . We have shot down

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troops who attempted to secure freedom from that Empire. . . . The Irish people collected customs for the British Empire all over the world; the Irish soldiers shot down Indians in the Punjab.” O’Sullivan finished on a more hopeful note, observing that accepting the Treaty was actually more antiimperial than rejecting it: “The Minister for Labour, I think, objected to our association with England because England oppresses Egypt and India. I have already said that there are many Irishmen at present oppressing India; and if Ireland accepts this Treaty the opinion of the Irish people on British rule in India and in Egypt will be expressed—not as it is expressed at present by Ireland shooting down those people, but by the representatives of the Irish people speaking at the Councils of the League of Nations or at the Imperial Conference.”111 Alderman Corish, in his speech for the Treaty, similarly noted: “[A republican TD has said] if we were to associate with the British Empire that we would be responsible for the crushing of the Indians and Egyptians. Now I hold that under the present state of affairs we are far more responsible, because we are sending the Connaught Rangers, the Munster Fusiliers, the Dublin Fusiliers, and Leinsters and the other Irish regiments into India and Egypt year after year to crush these peoples, and we are doing this under the Republican Government.”112 This was one way of addressing the issue, but castigating voters for past misdeeds was perhaps not a strategy guaranteed to endear Treatyites to those same voters. Instead of harping on Irish sins, most Treatyites chose to depict membership in the empire as itself an anti-imperial act. In part, as O’Sullivan argued, this was because Ireland’s new status would give it a more prominent stage from which to condemn imperialism. J. J. Walsh made a similar point, claiming that the Irish fight was still something to be emulated by other colonized peoples: “Have we abandoned them? Take your memory back to August last. How much fighting had you in Egypt and India in those days? And how much today? It is not disaster but success, and it is the success of the Irish Free State which has made the position in India and Egypt which you find today.”113 More directly, though, the history of the commonwealth was read as an anti-imperial history, with the various dominions depicted as struggling, sometimes singly and sometimes in tandem, against the metropole. Irish membership in this body would increase this sense of struggle, as it was assumed that the anticolonial and revolutionary Irish would take the lead in furthering and coordinating the resistance of the dominions to the metropole. Gone was the Redmondite discussion of an empire held together by

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common values, economic prosperity, or a shared mission, and in its place was posited an empire held together through mistrust and hostility toward the metropole. This was an empire that Ireland could join with its sense of history and resistance intact. In pursuit of this goal Treatyites introduced the commonwealth as a body that would guarantee the Treaty against British perfidy or encroachment, in order to appease a Dáil and an Irish polity deeply suspicious of Britain and to harmonize Ireland’s inclusion in the empire with Treatyites’ emphasis on Irish sovereignty. This position had been initially established in a memo from the Irish plenipotentiaries in London during the negotiations. That memo proposed “that Ireland shall be recognized as a free State, that the British Commonwealth shall guarantee Ireland’s freedom and integrity, and that the League of Nations and the United States of America shall be invited to join in that guarantee.”114 Six weeks later, Griffith appropriated this argument in his first defense of the Treaty to the Dáil, telling his colleagues that the “guarantee Ireland has now for her security against England is the joint guarantee of Canada, Australia, and the Dominions. Any invasion of our rights is an invasion of theirs.”115 Alec MacCabe made this argument in public session, claiming that the dominions would support Ireland’s attempt to join the League, and if England tried to block this application, “in their own interests the British Dominions will have something to say about it.”116 Eoin MacNeill believed that the Treaty granted Ireland complete sovereignty, and that “in placing that construction upon the Treaty . . . we should certainly have the support of South Africa, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, for it is to their selfish interest that that construction, and that construction only, should be placed upon these terms.”117 Collins, in his first public speech for the Treaty, admitted “I know that it would be finer to stand alone, but if it is necessary to our security, if it is necessary to the development of our own life, and if we find we cannot stand alone, what can we do but enter into some association?” He then outlined the substantial benefits he saw to that association: “Our association with those places [the dominions] do give us, to some extent, a guarantee. . . . England dare not interfere with Canada. Any attempt to interfere with us would be even more difficult in consequence of the reference to the ‘constitutional status’ of Canada and South Africa. They are, in effect, introduced as guarantors of our freedom, which makes us stronger than if we stood alone.” He also said that British occupation of the ports was less dangerous because of the other dominions: “If there was no association, if we stood alone, the occupation of the ports might

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probably be a danger to us. Associated in a free partnership with these other nations, it is not a danger, for their association is a guarantee that it won’t be used as a jumping-off ground against us.”118 O’Higgins too invoked the League as a guarantor, claiming it would be “the Court” by which Irish claims of Treaty infringement would be judged.119 Free Staters continued using this argument throughout 1922 as they moved toward a constitution and the consolidation of the Free State, although Collins worried that the civil war had undermined Ireland’s standing with the other dominions. He wrote that Britain would have had to acquiesce in a constitution favorable to Ireland because “if they had challenged it, then Canada and the other nations of the commonwealth would almost certainly have supported our interpretation of their actual position. Might have been glad that the issue would have been raised by a strong respected united Ireland. Here again it is a case of having shown our weakness, and now probably not one of the nations of the Commonwealth will be in the least anxious to be associated with us in any constitutional question.”120 But these fears seem to have been quickly assuaged, as O’Higgins again referred to the benefits of the commonwealth in defending the new constitution to the Dáil in October 1922: “You have set down here that this business was to be carried out in accordance with the law, practice and constitutional usage of Canada, and you get from this position that if there be any attempt to claim a right here that is a challenge to Canada and to every other Dominion, and you get that kind of joint interest and joint protection because of the common challenge that you would not get if you stood on your own footing.”121 Free Staters also continued to invoke the League of Nations as a guarantor against further imperialism. Another memo written by Collins shortly before his death cited the importance of the League in aligning Ireland with the emerging antimilitarist movement: “As a member of this Group, Ireland’s representatives on the authority of the people of Ireland will adjust international relations and promote harmony and peaceful intercourse among all friendly nations. This would be done by the machinery of Conference, a modern substitute for armed alliances and predatory Imperialistic Wars. By taking this position under the Treaty, Ireland can make the best of it by taking an important part in this World movement. Absolute isolation is practically impossible—indeed, it is difficult not to say that it is undesirable. And the true old Irish tradition was of an independent distinctive Irish Nation at harmony with and in close trading, cultural and social relations with all

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other friendly nations.” Collins, attempting to be ecumenical, concluded this thought with the observation that “this is in accordance also with Labour’s international ideals.”122 P. S. O’Hegarty, a longtime Sinn Féin and IRB activist, wrote a memo in late 1922 urging the government to accelerate its timetable for applying for League membership. Again demonstrating a nationalist obsession with Irish difference, O’Hegarty advised: “Ireland’s position is unique. By virtue of our special history, our special position, we can not only lead the British Dominions in an anti-Imperial policy against the British Empire, but we can, through the League, organise the small Nations in a Small Nations League against the Empires. . . . We can become a pivot for Europe and for America as well.”123 The Free State paper United Irishman, seeking to bolster the electoral fortunes of Cumann na nGaedheal in the waning days of the civil war, also characterized the Irish fight as an anti-imperial one and implied that the same fight continued under the Free State. An editorial said the revolution “typified the struggle of the outraged and oppressed against the methods of modern imperialism. It was the struggle of civilization against barbarism, of justice against brute force, of national honour against imperial corruption.”124 The same paper also stated, “Ireland was one of the first nations in Europe to pit the spirit of nationalism against the material forces of armed imperialism. She was fighting the cause of nationalism before Bruce gained the victory at Bannockburn.”125 The editors also gave significant coverage to dominion advances, including the fact that each dominion signed and approved the Treaty of Versailles individually and that the Canadian government concluded an independent treaty with the United States.126 A writer also promoted the League as an anti-imperial body while derogating the status of mere dominions: “Outside the League of Nations the Irish Free State is little more than a Dominion; within the League it is a nation whose political independence is guaranteed by the other members.”127 The anti-imperial empire was also invoked in the early maneuvering over the boundary with Northern Ireland. The Weekly Bulletin, the newsletter issued by the Free State’s Northeastern Boundary Bureau, claimed that Northern Irish intransigence in appointing a Boundary Commissioner was hurting all members of the commonwealth, not just the Free State. The first issue of the Bulletin asserted that “the final test of the importance of the Belfast Parliament must be its value to the whole Commonwealth.”128 A later issue attacked Sir James Craig by invoking commonwealth citizenship: “Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, Canada and New Zealand

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constitute a Commonwealth of co-equal nations which is strengthened by the strength and weakened by the weakness of each constituent entry. In standing for a policy which tends to diminish the power of one nation of the Commonwealth, Sir James Craig is standing for a policy inimical to the well-being of the Commonwealth as a whole.”129 This charge was repeated a few issues later: “Henceforth the nations of the Commonwealth will develop as separate organisms within a family of nations whose health will depend on the health of each member. Any infringement of the rights of one member will be resented by all. A policy which tends to weaken the organic strength of one member will tend to weaken the strength of the Commonwealth as a whole. The circumstances of the various nations differ in many respects, but the principle of free organic development can be trusted to bring them into harmony.”130 Private communications from Kevin O’Shiel, the head of the Northeastern Boundary Bureau, also invoked dominion solidarity, offering up more practical reasons: “Our particular wooing of the dominions is of course due to the fact that it must have a big effect at the Imperial Conference. It should not be too difficult to get Dominion opinion overwhelmingly behind us on this matter, as they will be directly concerned both because of analogous problems of a similar nature (e.g. Rhodesia, Newfoundland) and because of the power of the Irish in these countries.”131 O’Shiel also argued that the boundary issue should be arbitrated before the Imperial Conference and the League if not resolved to Irish satisfaction.132 Ernest Blythe, frequently the iconoclast, said in 1928 that Ireland had greater security within the commonwealth than it would have as a republic.133 This bluntness would certainly not have been welcomed in 1922, even within the pro-Treaty lobby, and was hardly welcomed in 1928 either. However, Treatyites did argue, in a much more nuanced fashion than Blythe, that supranational bodies such as the British Commonwealth and the League of Nations conveyed definite advantages to Ireland. Essentially, Treatyite statesmen argued that Ireland could use those bodies to protect and advance its independence but in so doing had to argue that membership in those bodies could be deemed an anti-imperial act and that Irish presence in the commonwealth and League would further the revolutionary cause of anti-imperialism. The rhetoric and positions of the revolution could not be abandoned so lightly. Neither could the notion of Irish difference. Free Staters tended to argue that Ireland was different from other dominions and invoked the standard reasons of race and history in so doing but claimed

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there were enough similarities that Ireland would be able to benefit from the advantages won by other dominions. Ireland was never analogous to them, but Ireland could develop along a similar trajectory. These arguments had to walk a fine line between continuing the anti-imperialism of the revolution and selling the real advantages of the Treaty to a skeptical Irish public.

5 A Dominion in Name

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nitially, pro-Treatyites were so concerned by the internal split with republicans that foreign affairs took a back seat. Cosgrave told a cabinet meeting in June 1922 that “our foreign affairs, other than commercial, would be a matter of no importance.”1 Earlier that year, Collins had told Lloyd George that he was not terribly interested in external affairs, as Ireland had sufficient work to do in getting its own affairs settled.2 Presumably, Cosgrave and Collins each exempted Anglo-Irish affairs from their comments, as it would be difficult to imagine that subject being put on a back burner at any stage of the Free State’s development. Nevertheless, the desire to neglect foreign affairs continually arose in the early years of the Free State, and there was significant criticism in the Dáil of the existence of a Ministry for External Affairs, often from the budget-conscious Farmers’ Party. Farmers’ Deputy Heffernan proposed in late 1923 to merge the Department of External Affairs with the President’s Department. This was primarily to effect financial savings, but Heffernan also noted, “We should concentrate on internal rather than external affairs, and that, except on matters arising out of our trade relations, it is rather inadvisable that we should devote so much attention and place too much emphasis on our connection with outside countries as to establish and maintain a separate Ministry for that purpose.” Denis Gorey, the leader of the Farmers’ Party, said, “Outside the Dáil, and amongst the plain men of the street, it [External Affairs] will be known as a Ministry of very little utility and a Ministry purely for finding jobs for somebody.” In response, Minister of External Affairs Desmond FitzGerald said, “I daresay there are people who wish to go back to 177

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the status or lack of status implied by the Home Rule Bill of 1914. This is now a sovereign nation, and it has to do with other countries. We cannot separate ourselves from other countries, and if we were utterly cut off from other countries, Deputy Gorey and the party he represents would be the first people to suffer.”3 The amendment to extinguish a separate external affairs department only lost 49–27, one of the closer votes in a Dáil stripped of its major opposition party. Irish diplomacy developed in the 1920s in an atmosphere of indifference or hostility to the concept of foreign affairs, a lingering suspicion of the nature of the Anglo-Irish relationship under the Treaty, and a class-tinged contempt for lavish diplomatic receptions and conferences. Nevertheless, the Cumann na nGaedheal government did stake out an often aggressive foreign policy that maximized Ireland’s sovereignty and expanded its visibility abroad. The Cumann na nGaedheal government used a number of strategies to pursue its foreign policy goals during the 1920s. The first was the continued use of arguments from similarity and difference. Irish statesmen remained concerned with asserting Irish uniqueness, or at least asserting policies stemming from Ireland’s particular geographic position. Second, as Michael Kennedy has pointed out, Irish diplomacy worked on three interrelated stages: bilateral Anglo-Irish relations, the British Commonwealth, and non-Commonwealth nations, with which the Irish usually interacted through the medium of the League of Nations. Despite interest in the League, Irish diplomacy remained primarily focused on the relationship with Great Britain, and more often than not used the League and the commonwealth as a way of increasing or making more evident Irish independence from Britain. Finally, Cumann na nGaedheal diplomats and statesmen exploited a certain tension between precision and ambiguity in conducting foreign relations, particularly Anglo-Irish relations. Despite the fact that the AngloIrish relationship was now governed by a formal agreement for the first time since the Act of Union, it soon became clear that the Treaty was a more flexible and ambiguous document than perhaps intended. The Free Staters realized rather quickly that they could exploit the unwritten rules of the commonwealth, as well as the slippery language of the Treaty, in order to extend Irish sovereignty. Ambiguity had always helped Irish nationalists appeal to a broad Irish spectrum. As noted in a Department of Justice memo from 1929, after the Treaty both British and Irish leaders “had to conciliate angry and excited followers. In this frame of mind vague and ambiguous language which could do no practical harm was used to cover the points upon which

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immediate agreement could not be secured and upon which, in fact, the happiness and prosperity of either side did not immediately depend.”4 Treatyites did in fact see the virtues of ambiguity, particularly when that ambiguity allowed them to expand Irish sovereignty without unnecessarily alienating the British government. Advice along these lines was tendered to the Free State government by Irish Party veteran Tim Healy, who, upon reading an early draft of the 1922 Constitution, wrote, in probably an unconscious echo of his old rival Parnell, What is wanted is dry unassailable frigid technique, which can’t be quarreled with by either Carson or de Valera, but which by its generality imports [possibly sic: imparts] and attracts the utmost sovereignty without saying so. This can be done more effectively by vagueness than by assertions. Not definition but looseness is what is needed, provided the looseness favors Irish construction or interpretation hereafter. What we need is to conserve every liberty we enjoyed under England, but to take power to amplify or change ad lib if it seems good to us. Width and scope instead of precision dower a legislature. We need vagueness instead of definition. . . . You can by sheer silence guarantee the exercise of the grossest forms of mis-spelling or Druidic incantations or false chronology, that ignorance can enthrone. . . . Define nothing you can avoid.”5

Healy’s advice was well-taken, as the Cumann na nGaedheal government learned rather quickly to read the silences in Anglo-Irish relations and to exploit the ambiguous status of a dominion. The Treaty’s Canada clause introduced ambiguity to the Anglo-Irish relationship, as Canadian status was ever-evolving. Ambiguity also allowed the Irish to choose the most favorable dominion precedents and gave the Irish government a chance to claim greater sovereignty without creating unwinnable conflicts with England. Kevin O’Higgins, repudiating criticisms of the constitution in the Dáil, said, “Ever since the Treaty debate started last December we came up against a class of people who think that nothing is true until you have written it with ink on paper. And some of us know that that is not a fact, and that in fact the writing of a thing with ink on paper does not make it one degree truer than before it was so written. . . . We would like to point out that the fact of the sovereignty of the Irish people does not become any more a fact when we write it down with ink on paper. . . . There is even as much virtue in the thing that is left unsaid and unwritten as in the thing that is said and written.”6 Blythe, in the same debate, said, “With reference to putting our

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beliefs about the interpretation of certain words into black and white, I have only to say this: there is a certain door, and we believe it is open. We are not going to push, we believe here that if it should chance not to be open that pushing should cause it to be more securely bolted and locked.”7 D. W. Harkness credited Irish diplomats with pushing the limits of dominion status and in so doing assuring that the empire—at least among the dominions—did evolve into a commonwealth of free and equal nations: “The Irish Free State above all, for better or for worse, for selfish or for altruistic reasons, had seized the helm of the British Empire ship.”8 According to Harkness, the Irish were always aggressive, clever, and well-briefed at imperial conferences, much more so than many of their dominion brethren. Joseph Curran praised the Free State for having “weaken[ed] British dominance in the Commonwealth and loosened its ties.”9 Leo Kohn, writing in 1932, argued that the very act of negotiating the Treaty advanced dominion sovereignty: “[The] treaty represented the most revolutionary settlement ever effected within the framework of the British Empire. It embodied the formal acceptance of the fundamental aspiration of the Irish Revolution for a self-derived and unfettered national statehood comprising the whole of Ireland.” The last part of that statement is obviously untenable, especially given that Kohn was writing in the early 1930s. In addition to validating Free Staters’ notions of popular sovereignty and absolute independence, Kohn also contended that the Irish Constitution of 1922 was a major step forward for dominion statehood, as the act of committing the constitution to writing gave Ireland de jure what the other dominions only had informally and de facto.10 Deirdre McMahon conceded that “in the decade after 1921, Ireland played a major role in expanding the constitutional independence of the Commonwealth,” but she also believed that Ireland did not really fit with the other dominions and that Irish statesmen never wanted to be part of the commonwealth, however much their short-term interests converged at times: “For the new Irish Free State, Commonwealth membership resembled the chafing of an ill-fitting shoe.”11 Ged Martin contended that Ireland played no significant role in the development of the commonwealth and that all the changes in the commonwealth would have happened without Irish involvement. The processes that loosened the chains of empire were underway before the Irish joined the commonwealth, and the Irish met far more defeat than success in pushing their own agenda. The Free State, according to Martin, “chose to emphasize its European and American aspects rather than its Imperial ones.”12 Maryanne Valiulis observed that Cumann

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na nGaedheal was not “overtly pro-British” but that it was perceived as the commonwealth party.13 Bill Kissane dismissed most of Cumann na nGaedheal’s “superficial changes” and concluded that “between the convening of parliament on 9 September 1922 and the imperial conference of 1926, the overriding logic of policy seemed to be to tie ‘southern Ireland’ more firmly to the Empire it had repudiated in 1918.”14 Although one can argue whether Ireland was the leader of the commonwealth, or instead just following the path paved by other dominions, Kissane’s statement is at variance with even a cursory reading of the Free State’s diplomatic record. Some contemporary observers characterized Ireland’s relationship with the commonwealth as uneasy, or somehow different than that of the other dominions. South African general and former revolutionary J. B. M. Hertzog said that the “Irish Free State was a Dominion in name, not in spirit,” indicating a degree of Irish resistance to dominion status.15 As a “Dominion in name,” the Free State faced several important problems in the realm of foreign policy. In Nicholas Mansergh’s cogent summary: “Two fundamental questions of dominion status remained unresolved after the Imperial Conference of 1921. The first, discarded but not disposed of by the Conference, was the necessity or otherwise of redefining British-dominion relations in terms that would bring law into line with conventional practice on a basis of equality, or near-equality. The second, entangled with the first but distinguishable from it, was the international status of the dominions.”16 The Cumann na nGaedheal party pursued those questions aggressively during the 1920s, maintaining a stance of calculated aggression toward British imperial claims, while using silence and ambiguity to further expand Ireland’s postimperial rights and paper over unpleasant realities. The initially low profile of the External Affairs portfolio under FitzGerald was not an indication of a lack of concern with foreign affairs but instead reflected Cosgrave’s tendency to conduct foreign affairs himself, and also O’Higgins’s increasing involvement in such questions, culminating in his brief appointment as minister for external affairs shortly before his assassination in 1927. By the late 1920s, Patrick McGilligan had given External Affairs a much higher profile, exploiting the growing importance of the issues with the power to shape policy and make decisions, something that Desmond FitzGerald probably never had when he occupied the post. Cumann na nGaedheal leaders definitely believed they had done important things in the realm of foreign affairs. FitzGerald told the Dáil in 1926 that “since we, the Irish Free State, came into existence we have done more

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than anybody else in making it perfectly clear what the position is. It has been suggested that my department has not justified its existence. People are quite entitled to hold that view, but I am quite prepared to argue and maintain that the Irish Free State Department of External Affairs had made more progress, more clarity and more precedence in the right direction than the Department of External Affairs of any British Dominion during that time.”17 The Weekly Bulletin, which publicized the Free State’s status in order to augment its boundary claims, wrote in 1923, “The old Imperialism based on centralisation is dead beyond recall, and its place has been definitely taken by the concept of co-operation founded on unlimited freedom.”18 Patrick McGilligan similarly praised the “positive, persistent and decisive” contributions of his department to Irish advances.19 Having defended the commonwealth as a necessary evil during the Treaty debates, the pro-Treaty leadership then attempted to make the relationship work to Ireland’s advantage as best they could. Their vision of the commonwealth was as a free partnership of sovereign nations. Initially, some Cumann na nGaedheal elites, including O’Higgins, emphasized that membership in the partnership was coerced, although this language was increasingly dropped as time went on.20 Cumann na nGaedheal also frequently argued that it was Ireland’s responsibility to develop and make use of its sovereignty, as illustrated by a 1923 election flyer that read, “Now that you have under your control the shaping of the future destiny of the nation, it is manifestly your first interest to secure and to safeguard the status of national sovereignty to which you have attained.”21 This was a return to Sinn Féin– style rhetoric emphasizing Irish self-reliance. To develop and demonstrate its sovereignty, Ireland needed to be active internationally. Equality of status, and Ireland’s place as a historic nation, were issues of deep concern to Treatyites. The Cumann na nGaedheal government fought for equality of status, and its members were sensitive to political criticism from republicans that they had allowed Ireland’s status to erode or had failed to get the full status implied by the Treaty. O’Higgins established the importance of this idea as he introduced the relevant constitutional article to the Dáil in the fall of 1922. The article read, “Saorstát Éireann is a coequal member of the Community of Nations forming the British Commonwealth of Nations.” Of that clause O’Higgins said: “Epitomised in that first Article of the Constitution you have the fruits of a struggle which some would call a five years’ struggle and some would call a struggle of seven centuries. In that Article also you have the shortage of the crop.”22 Eoin MacNeill told

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a restless Cumann na nGaedheal Standing Committee in late 1923, “We should seize the opportunity of stating and rubbing in the status of the Free State, which was that of sovereign independence, absolutely and clearly recognised on complete equality with Great Britain.”23 O’Higgins, speaking in 1924, blamed the civil war on an unwillingness to believe that Ireland was truly sovereign: When we told the people of Ireland that they had their destinies in their own hands, that all the powers in Ireland, Legislative, Executive, and Judicial were theirs to delegate to representatives who would answer back to them for the use of that power, that was scoffed at and shouted down as a lie. When we told the people of Ireland that as fully and as really as the people of England they had their Government in their own hands, that also was shouted down. Yet there is general agreement here about its truth. And the most useful service that the Deputies could do would be to emphasise that plain simple truth to the people of the country whose minds have been confused with regard to it, people who have been led to doubt it, who have been led to disbelieve it, who have been led on to believe that the status that was accepted here was a paltry subordinate status, and the people who certainly do not know and do not believe that this country stands to-day equal in status with England, as free as England, and no more bound to England than Canada, Australia, and South Africa, simply sharing with her, membership of what might well be described as a miniature League of Nations, certainly a league of free nations, and certainly a league of equal nations.24

Other Cumann na nGaedheal politicians were equally testy when Ireland’s status was challenged. Cosgrave told a Cumann na nGaedheal meeting in Ringsend in 1923 that the government “had nine months’ experience of the authority of the government of Saorstát Éireann, and not once in that time had a single instance occurred in which the sovereignty or authority of the government of this country had been interfered with by the British Government.”25 Cosgrave also told William Redmond in the Dáil later in 1923, “I think it is not in the power of any genius—lawyer or otherwise—to indict the Ministry of this country, the people of this country, or the army of this country, with any derogation of status or any giving up of the rights and the privileges of a free people. The very first Article of the Constitution placed beyond all doubt what our position is.”26 Eoin MacNeill informed a deputation of skeptical rank and file Cumann na nGaedheal party members

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in 1923, “From our participation in the League of Nations and in the Imperial Conference, there had emerged the fullest and clearest recognition of our sovereign independent status, in which the Republicans hitherto had refused to believe.”27 This concern with equality of status played out over a surprising number of issues during Cumann na nGaedheal’s decade in power. Some of these issues are quite well-known—O’Higgins’s comma, the Statute of Westminster, the appointment of ambassadors—but what is surprising is the sheer number of subjects over which the Free Staters fought the British on questions of sovereignty. Much of this was done behind the scenes and dealt with matters that arguably impacted Irish life very little, but the entire pattern reveals a government deeply committed to protecting Irish sovereignty and resisting British attempts to treat the commonwealth as an indivisible whole. One of the most significant fights was over the role of the governor general. The appointment of the governor general was one of the first instances where the Irish deployed the strategy of deliberate ambiguity. The governor general’s title and powers were already disputed during the drafting of the constitution. The British had made it clear that the Irish could not refer to the governor general as a president and by so doing imply the continued existence of the Irish Republic. There was some sentiment for calling him a commissioner or another title that would not directly connect him with similar offices in Canada and Australia. Although O’Higgins wanted to mandate the specific title of governor general, because it had a fixed and definite meaning, he did not want the constitution to whittle down the legal powers of the governor general, or to demand that he be appointed only by the Executive Council. The lack of overt challenge to the office, O’Higgins believed, would make the British more inclined to allow the appointment of an Irishman to the position, which to O’Higgins was the most important thing: “The man, his outlook, and his nationality are the things that will matter.” The potential advantage to Ireland from having an Irish nationalist as governor general should not be discarded for what O’Higgins saw as futile posturing: “We ought not to cast away the substance in bothering about trifles and bothering about ink and paper and bothering about shadows.”28 The Irish did appoint an Irish governor general, Tim Healy, who was the first governor general in the empire to be a citizen of the country in which he served. Once the title was taken care of, there was debate about the role of the governor general, the actions available to him, and who exactly he represented.

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A frequent republican criticism of the governor general was that although he formally represented the king, he would in reality act on the advice of the British government and would be a means of entry for that government into Ireland. Free Staters, attempting to answer this criticism, instead argued that the governor general was solely a representative of the Crown and acted on the advice of the Irish government. The idea was that the king in Ireland followed the advice of the Irish Executive Council, just as the king in Great Britain acted on the advice of the British cabinet. Eoin MacNeill was initially worried that this was not explicitly stated in the Irish Constitution. Commenting on a draft, MacNeill wrote, “The Draft Constitution nowhere provides that the Representative of the Crown shall act only on the advice of the Irish Ministry. This omission, if intended, is contrary to Art. 1 [which gave Ireland coequal status within the commonwealth]. It creates an inequality.”29 Despite the lack of this assurance in the constitution, the Irish government acted as if this was the situation at hand. When Tim Healy expressed reservations about his ability to sign the 1923 Public Safety Act because he had doubts about the constitutionality of the bill’s provision to suspend an article of the constitution, O’Higgins informed him that he had no choice as he had been advised to do so by the Executive Council. Healy complied with this directive.30 The fact that O’Higgins was Healy’s nephew may have smoothed this process, but the fact remains that the Free State had de facto eliminated the governor general’s discretionary power over legislation. They then moved to eliminate this de jure. Heading into the Imperial Conference of 1926, Attorney General John O’Byrne prepared a memo arguing that the governor general’s signature on behalf of the Crown and on the advice of the Executive Council was final, and that the Crown had no power to disallow laws after the governor general had signed on its behalf. O’Byrne based his assumption on the fact that “the power of disallowance is of such a far-reaching nature that it ought not to be implied save on the clearest grounds. . . . There is no provision in the Constitution providing for the disallowance of a law after it has received the assent of the Crown.” The other dominions had such provisions as part of their constitutions. He also invoked an argument that the Crown was bound by Ireland’s laws in Ireland, once assented to by the governor general. O’Byrne noted that no Canadian law had been disallowed since 1873, when the Crown vetoed a Canadian law that it claimed was beyond the power of Canada’s legislature to enact. O’Byrne wrote, “This fact, taken in conjunction with the omission from our Constitution of any power of disallowance, seems to me to amount to a recognition

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that, according to the practice and constitutional usage now governing the relationship of the Crown to the Dominion of Canada, the power of disallowance is no longer operative.”31 This is an excellent example of how the Free Staters attempted to use the ambiguity of the Treaty to their advantage, particularly the sweeping provision of the Canada clause. O’Byrne essentially claimed that Ireland was different from Canada and the other dominions in that it did not have a specific constitutional provision allowing the royal veto, and also that Ireland was similar to other dominions in that the royal veto was wholly fictional. Thus the Canada clause, according to Irish legal advisors, only operated when it favored Ireland. It could not be used to import Canada’s unwanted constitutional provisions—the royal veto, the necessity for Westminster’s approval in altering the constitution, among others—but it could be used to argue for the lapse of that veto, based on Canadian precedent. Using Childers’s dichotomy of “Law and Fact” in Canada, the Irish view of the clause was that it allowed Ireland access to Canada’s de facto status, without allowing the British to invoke Canada’s de jure status, a reading arguably based more on the spirit of the Canada clause than the letter. Irish diplomats emphasized this point at the Imperial Conference of 1926, arguing that the governor general was simply an agent of the king, acting at the behest of the Irish Executive Council, rather than an agent of the British government. A memo prepared for this conference explained: “The Governor-General could become the repository in the Dominions of all the King’s powers, but in order to do so his functions as officer administrating the Dominion and as channel of communication with the British Government would have to cease. . . . As a corollary to such a change the Governments of the Dominions would communicate with London entirely through a Minister Plenipotentiary in London who should have the same right of audience with the British Foreign Minister as the representative of any Foreign Country. The Dominions Office which is only a continuation of the old Colonial Office and still implies British Ministerial control over the Dominions, should cease to exist.”32 The governor general could also be used as a medium for communications between foreign nations and the Free State, but only if he was no longer seen as an agent of the British government. To the Irish, all of these issues were related. After the 1926 conference, Desmond FitzGerald informed the Dáil of the nature of the discussions. He started by emphasizing that the conference had no actual authority, as the commonwealth was not a federal structure

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and Ireland did not delegate its sovereignty to any federal body. He also noted that the recommendations of the conference had to be accepted by the participating states, and that the commonwealth “was based in its broader aspects on the fundamental and now completely accepted constitutional principle of co-equality.” The suggestions in the final report were “intended to make clear the implications of co-equality and to prepare the way for the gradual elimination of legal machinery and administrative practices which are not in conformity with that principle.” Among the proposals listed in the report were: “The Governor-General ceases to have any of the functions or attributes of a representative of the British Government,” “The British Government cease to imply a right to advise disallowance of our Acts,” and “[Irish] Bills cannot be reserved for deliberation or decision by British Ministers.” The result of all this was that “this Conference has given more time and attention to this question of the elucidation of status than any conference which preceded it, and, I have no doubt, will be regarded by historians as marking a definite step forward in the development of the individual states of the commonwealth as distinct political entities in the general society of nations.”33 O’Higgins also told the Dáil that the Irish delegation was determined to use the conference to eradicate the various derogations of status suffered by the Free State de jure, if not de facto, since independence: From time to time throughout the last three or four years matters have come under notice in the constitutional mechanism of this community of nations, in the constitutional practice which, to us, appear incompatible with the conception of complete co-equality of status. These matters were noted for reference, noted for attention at just such an occasion as offered in this Imperial Conference. Anything, everything, that to us appeared to conflict with the conception of the fullest co-equality of status was raised by us in that Conference. . . . The matters raised by us at the Imperial Conference were exhaustive of the points of practice, the points of constitutional machinery, which struck us as being in conflict with the conception of co-equal status, and they are set out in this Report.34

By 1926 the Free State had fought to win recognition of its assumption that the governors general were representatives of the king, who acted only on the advice of the dominion governments and could not, save specific constitutional provision, have their actions scrutinized by the government in London.

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Another issue which the Irish pressed was that of citizenship. This had also been a point of dispute during the Treaty debates, as pro- and antiTreatyites had argued the significance of the difference between common and reciprocal citizenship. Cumann na nGaedheal leaders clearly saw Irish and British citizenship as different and rejected any overarching imperial citizenship, although they wanted Irish nationals to be able to avail themselves of British diplomatic facilities abroad. The Departments of External Affairs and Justice explored this issue leading up to the 1929 Imperial Conference. A Department of Justice memo laid out the British view that Ireland’s relationship to Britain was different than, for example, France’s relationship with Britain. The memo then rejected that argument, relying again on the doctrine of coequality and ignoring those parts of the Treaty that possibly implied otherwise. The Irish position started with Article 1 of the constitution: “Article 1 of the Constitution states that the Irish Free State is a ‘co-equal member of the Community of Nations forming the British Commonwealth of Nations.’ It is difficult to imagine how a co-equal member can at the same time be a ‘dependency’ or be liable to be legislated for by another ‘co-equal’ member.” Anything to the contrary was discarded by the Irish bureaucrats: “The reference to ‘common citizenship’ in the Oath means little or nothing. ‘Citizenship’ is not a term of English law at all. There is not, in fact, ‘common citizenship’ throughout the British Commonwealth: the Indian ‘citizen’ is treated by the Australian ‘citizen’ as an undesirable alien.”35 The memo concluded that the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act, 1914, did not apply to the dominions and the Free State, part of a larger struggle over whether preindependence laws in Britain bound the Free State. The Colonial Laws Validity Act, 1865, stated that any colonial law repugnant to a British law was null and void. The British tried to argue that because this law applied to Canada (which, unlike Ireland, did have a colonial legislature in 1865 when the law was passed) it therefore applied to Ireland because of the Canada clause. Hearne, writing for External Affairs, denied this, using a slippery slope argument: “If that argument is correct where do its advocates draw the line in interpreting Article 2 of the Treaty? If Article 2 applies the Colonial Laws Validity Act, 1865 does it not also apply the British North American Act, 1867 as being part of the law governing the relationship of the Crown or the representative of the Crown and of the ‘Imperial’ Parliament to the Dominion of Canada? I think that the whole argument is a constructional effort which overloads the sense of Article 2 and becomes heavily embarrassed by the nature of the conclusions to which it leads.”36

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The Irish were well aware of the British need for the dominions to have the appearance of freedom. The matter of what came to be called “O’Higgins’s Comma” also received significant diplomatic attention. The Irish had always been particularly sensitive to nomenclature, particularly that involving some sort of royal remnant. At the end of the 1923 Imperial Conference, before the Irish had even found their feet diplomatically, they had requested that the text of the address issued to the king at the close of the conference change references to the “throne” to the “Crown” and “British Empire” to “British Empire and Commonwealth.”37 This interest in the king’s titles continued after the 1923 conference closed. Hugh Kennedy told the Dáil that it was a “necessary implication of the Treaty” that the king’s titles be altered, and that the British government had a political responsibility to pass legislation amending the Royal Titles Act. After this speech, FitzGerald rose and somewhat counterintuitively asserted that the title “King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland” did not include the Free State, but that the Free State was instead included in the section of the king’s title that gave him sovereignty over “British Dominions beyond the Seas.” FitzGerald said, “Although the name Ireland is used in one title and not in the other, the relationship between the Crown and this country is contained in the one in which the name of Ireland is not mentioned.”38 Clearly, the Irish wanted to emphasize that the Act of Union had been overturned. The issue remained unresolved as the Irish delegation prepared for the 1926 Imperial Conference. At this point, a memo from External Affairs in 1926 laid out the proposed Irish solution, given that the other dominions would only agree to something that also appeared to increase their own status: “The title would then run as follows: ‘King of the United Kingdom, of Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Emperor of India.’ A solution on these lines would have the advantage of emphasizing the multiplicity of kingship which must serve as the theoretic basis for the recognition of the right inherent in the Dominion Government to advise the King directly in all matters whatsoever concerning the Dominion’s internal and external affairs.”39 This was another attempt by the Free State to rally the dominions against the metropole and to gain dominion assistance in asserting titular independence from Great Britain. This matter was finally concluded, and the agreement to alter the titles gained, at the 1926 conference. Since O’Higgins was probably the most forceful Irish negotiator at the 1926 conference—marking his growing interest in foreign affairs and his

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increasing eclipse of FitzGerald once the civil war was settled—his name was attached to the change, and the comma in the king’s title became known as O’Higgins’s Comma. One of the more important issues faced by the Cumann na nGaedheal government, and one that perhaps best reveals their diplomatic strategies and visions of the commonwealth, was the controversy over the right of appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. O’Higgins, piloting the Constitution through the Dáil in 1922, admitted, “We do not like this appeal. We tried not to have this appeal.”40 As O’Higgins explained later, the Irish never believed the appeal would be operative: “Underlying all the discussion [with the British], there was the idea that we might admit this fiction, just as we admitted the fiction of the veto, with full assurance that it would be a matter of theory rather than a matter of fact or a matter of practice. And having no particular objection to fictions, as long as they remain fictions, Article 66 [dealing with the appeal] was written into the Constitution as it now stands.”41 This was a different kind of ambiguity: words included in the constitution were presumed to have the opposite of their literal meaning. When forced to include the appeal, the Irish again exploited imperial ambiguity by claiming not the more liberal Canadian right of appeal (where any citizen had the right to appeal to the Privy Council) but instead “the most favorable position, the South African position. . . . An appeal would not lie in the case of ordinary routine domestic legislation, but only in cases where international issues were raised. . . . We have in effect secured a position very much more favourable than that of Canada.”42 Here the Irish were turning their back on the Canada clause and instead using the uneven evolution and differing status of the dominions—something that republicans claimed would harm Ireland, as it would never be permitted the amount of freedom possessed by geographically distant dominions—to their advantage, maximizing Irish sovereignty through the use of the most favorable dominion precedents. The Cumann na nGaedheal government was outwardly content to let this situation remain dormant throughout their first years in office. When an Irish Supreme Court decision in 1925 was appealed to the Privy Council, however, the government had to act to prevent this perceived violation of Irish sovereignty. The case arose out of the Land Act of 1923, and leave was granted by the Privy Council to hear the appeal. Privately, the Irish Executive Council directed the attorney general to investigate solutions for these “abuses.”43 Publicly, the government again disavowed the appeal as a whole.

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O’Higgins told the Dáil, “As a Government, we are opposed to this remnant of the Sovereign’s prerogative. We think it ought to be allowed to lapse.”44 O’Higgins also claimed that the Privy Council’s actions in accepting the case were “a very clear and definite departure from the undertakings which were given to Irish ministers at the time that the draft Constitution of this State was the subject of joint consideration and review.”45 The government’s remedy was to introduce legislation to the Dáil confirming the decision of the Irish Supreme Court and, by so doing, to force the Privy Council into overturning a piece of Irish legislation should it hear the case. In this instance, unwritten and ambiguous policy (there was nothing yet written down barring the British government or parliament from overturning Irish legislation) was turned against the British, as they would have to violate the heretofore unwritten code against the royal veto. The British government would thus find itself backed into a corner by its own tendency to maintain useful fictions about the Crown’s prerogative: an open denunciation of an Irish law would not only irritate the other dominions but would also boost the fortunes of Irish republican critics whom the British did not particularly want to see in power. O’Higgins shrewdly appealed to dominion sentiment in defending his bill before the Dáil: “Lest we here should be open to the accusation from the other State members of the British Commonwealth of Nations that we allowed an erosion, that we allowed something that was obsolescent, rapidly obsolescent, to become a fact and a reality and to regain strength because of our propinquity, or because of the outlook of individuals here or in England, whose outlook has not changed with the Treaty, we must pass this Bill. It should not lie in the mouth of a Canadian, or a South African or an Australian to say to us that when the whole trend was towards the disappearance of this anomaly, towards the scrapping of this outworn appeal, we allowed it to take on a freshness, a vigour and a reality which it had lost or was rapidly losing.”46 After this bill passed the Dáil, the issue became less immediate, but it returned at the end of Cumann na nGaedheal’s time in government. The Cumann na nGaedheal government also stood up for Irish sovereignty on a number of issues where the stakes were not as high as that of the appeal to the Privy Council. In 1926 the government rather petulantly rejected a British offer to host and fund dominion delegations at the imperial conference. The Irish government preferred to pay its own way rather than risk the appearance of subordination, a rare case where the interests of the Department of Finance did not dictate policy.47 In another case, Kevin

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O’Higgins was sent to Geneva in the summer of 1927 to participate in a naval disarmament conference, surely an unexpected forum for an Irish statesman. The Irish were only there to demonstrate their own sovereignty and to guard against any agreement being signed on their behalf, or on behalf of the “British Empire,” an entity which O’Higgins claimed had no legal or diplomatic existence. O’Higgins admitted as much to a British delegate, informing him “that the interest of the Saorstát in the Conference was mainly, if not entirely, based on Constitutional considerations.”48 O’Higgins was also there to rally the other dominions. He complained to his wife that “Canada and South Africa [i.e., two dominions that actually had navies] will only fight in support of us. They have not yet learned to take a stand on their own and in any case they only see things when they are pointed out to them. Their position is entirely second hand and derivative.”49 This strategy apparently worked, as Michael MacWhite, another Irish representative at Geneva, said, “A well-known Japanese jurist said to me [that] the Conference has been a failure for all except the Irish. They have used it to assert their international status, in which they have fully succeeded.”50 The Irish similarly asserted their diplomatic independence at a conference on reparations in 1924, in the signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928, and at the League of Nations, where the Irish repeatedly denied the existence of a “British Empire” or “Commonwealth” bloc. The Irish also removed the king’s name from the juror’s oath in 1924, as the new court system was being constructed. Facing opposition on this from Bryan Cooper, O’Higgins responded, “I can understand the Deputy’s [Bryan Cooper’s] conservatism, but the Deputy is broadminded enough to realise that that conservatism is not shared by the majority of the citizens of this State.”51 The picture that emerges from all this activity is that of a Cumann na nGaedheal government obsessed with the question of Irish sovereignty and determined to thwart any attempts to limit that sovereignty. To relevant Irish statesmen, the direction laid out in Anglo-Irish and Commonwealth relations during the 1920s was definitely correct. FitzGerald told the Dáil in 1925: “I admit that although the equality amongst the nations which are members of the British Commonwealth of Nations is recognized, the implementation of that equality is not quite up-to-date. I admit that it is not; I admit that there is still a good deal of leeway to be made up, but I suggest that, provided there is progress in that direction, provided that things are advancing in the right direction the whole time, we should be satisfied.”52 O’Higgins made a similar point during the 1926 Imperial Conference: “The

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direction is right and they can’t change it—and when one can’t go far and fast the appropriate thing to say is that it is the direction rather than the pace which really matters.”53 This direction was also established at the League of Nations, where Irish diplomats played on a much wider stage and had to engage with issues beyond the commonwealth. Similar to other postwar Europeans, many Irish placed considerable faith in the League as a palliative for Europe’s problems. League membership promised to achieve a number of goals for the new Free State. As discussed above, the League was seen as a guarantor of Irish freedom, a body to which the Irish could appeal if Britain violated the Treaty. The Irish had even tried to insert the League into the Treaty during the final negotiations, requesting a clause reading, “In matters of common concern, the rights and status of Ireland shall be in no respect less than those enjoyed by any of the component States of the British Commonwealth represented in the League of Nations.”54 This would have been the equivalent of the Canada clause, although, in retrospect, probably less favorable to the Irish. Thus League membership had two advantages: it was both to demonstrate and to guarantee Irish sovereignty. An article in the Irish Independent during the Treaty debates outlined the recognition that League membership would bring: “While it is true that we always looked upon ourselves as a nation, and were actually a nation, the other countries of the world were far from convinced that we were such, or if they were, they always took good care not to give us anything in the shape of formal recognition. . . . Now by the present Treaty we secure this recognition. . . . By virtue of our membership in the British community of nations we acquire the right to enter the League of Nations, and this once entered we can say that we are in law and in fact a fully fledged nation.”55 Alec MacCabe called admission “the international recognition we sought so vainly in the early days of the republican movement,” and he continued to link this achievement to the pre-Treaty days, saying, “Was it not on this issue, admission to the Peace Conference, or, in other words, admission to the comity of nations, what is known as the Plunkett election [the first Sinn Féin by-election victory in 1917] was fought in North Roscommon?” MacCabe also invoked the dominions as self-interested guarantors of Ireland’s status: “We can say that, as a Dominion, we are entitled to enter the League of Nations. If not, I’m sure in their own interests the British Dominions will have something to say about it.”56 Gavan Duffy, foreign minister for the first half of 1922, made the same argument in advocating rapid Irish application for membership: “It is their

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membership of the League which above all else carries with it for the Dominions in international law the high international status as sovereign States that they now hold.”57 Gavan Duffy placed significant faith in the League because he distrusted the commonwealth, which he saw as a British appendage.58 Nevertheless, the idea was that if all League memberships were assumed to be equal, and members such as Britain, France, and Japan were clearly sovereign, then Ireland as a member state must be clearly and fully sovereign as well, by some sort of diplomatic transitive property. India’s membership in the League made this assertion somewhat problematic, but this was usually glossed over.59 The League was also to serve other interests specific to Ireland. Irish statesmen hoped devoutly that the League would be a forum in which small nations would have the same voice as large nations, which would go a long way toward leveling the international diplomatic playing field. Griffith published in 1919 a pamphlet titled “Ireland: First of the Small Nations,” and several Irish politicians placed special emphasis on this issue. FitzGerald wrote a propagandistic speech in 1918 arguing for Irish centrality to Wilson’s proposed League: “World peace on the basis of a League of Nations cannot be established without Ireland’s participation. . . . Formerly, the freedom of Ireland may have been essential only to the Irish people; to-day it is essential to the future peace of the world.”60 The sentiment behind this draft was that Ireland, as a small nation that believed itself to have both a historic nationhood and a strong identity as a mother country, would be a useful barometer to see if the League intended to take small countries seriously. Terence MacSwiney told the Dáil in 1919 that “no League would be permanent if small and large nations were not admitted on equal terms. It could not be permanent if Germany and the neutral countries were not equally admitted. Ireland was the test case.”61 The question of the League was debated in the First Dáil, with several deputies expressing skepticism about the League’s credentials. However, by 1922 pro-Treatyites had convinced themselves that the League could be useful to Ireland, in part because skepticism about the League was more useful politically when the Irish were still trying to get formal American recognition. Again, in one of his many memos on the League and the international situation while foreign affairs minister, Gavan Duffy wrote in April 1922 that “no country ever started its international career with better prospects than were ours after the war, for our soldiers had won us warm friends everywhere, and we had no enemies to speak of throughout the continent of Europe. Ireland had every reason to expect rapidly to

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become recognised as the First of the Small Nations.” He then noted that much of this favor had evaporated as Ireland slid closer to anarchy and civil war in the spring of 1922.62 Irish statesmen thought that the League could give Ireland a rare forum as a small nation to speak out on world issues. Allowing Ireland membership would demonstrate that the League was serious in standing up to the large imperial powers in the name of the small states. This argument assumed, despite evidence to the contrary, that Britain would resist Irish membership, and thus Ireland’s entry would be a victory for small nations.63 Although the hopes that the League could permanently end war were already dimming by 1923, an Irish memorandum noted, “While the League at present leaves much to be desired as regards its power of preventing aggression, it at any rate provides a means of publicity and of protest against any aggressive act.” Despite its inability to prevent aggression, “membership in the League gives to small nations a voice in world affairs which they did not possess and could not have secured previously. At the meetings of the Assembly or Council it is not merely the size or military strength of nations which gives them influence, but the character and abilities of the men they send to represent them, this marking a great change from earlier diplomacy.”64 The League would also help to integrate Ireland into European politics and as such serve as a counterweight to Irish obsession with Anglo-Irish and Commonwealth affairs.65 The process by which Ireland joined the League was a bit more arduous than expected, largely because of the civil war and perceived Irish American hostility to an Irish application. A memo sent to the Executive Council in 1923 outlined the reasons why Ireland should not follow the United States in spurning the League: “Such a policy might be sound if Ireland was situated on the other side of the Atlantic. But Ireland is and must be part of the European system, and for European States membership of the League and its subsidiary organisations is becoming almost a necessity of prosperous life.”66 In general, Free Staters were quicker to grasp the role that Ireland could play on the world stage and saw similarities between Ireland’s situation and that of other European countries. Pro-Treatyites often compared their nation to Switzerland and Denmark, smaller European countries perceived to be agrarian yet prosperous and respected. This wider framework persisted despite the equally obvious obsession of Free State politicians and diplomats with questions of Irish sovereignty. It was a holdover from the revolutionary period, when the Dáil’s Department of Publicity skillfully thrust

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the Irish issue onto the world stage. There were exceptions, but in general the engagement with the League is one indicator that Free Staters often shed their isolationist thinking more rapidly than republicans.67 While Gavan Duffy wrote frequently to Michael Collins in the summer of 1922 urging Ireland’s immediate application, Collins thought that the formal application for League membership should be postponed because of potential hostility from Irish Americans and because the civil war was a more pressing concern.68 What Collins wanted was to establish Ireland’s right to apply for membership, to which he did not anticipate British resistance, and then postpone the actual application until the Free State found its feet.69 The Executive Council, its hands full with the civil war, was in no hurry to decide on the League as the annus horribilis of 1922 dragged on. The final decision was made by Cosgrave, who scrawled a note to FitzGerald on the back of another memo presented to the Executive Council on the League: “M. External Affairs. This question of our entry to League of Nations ought be definitely decided. Unless the state of war interferes with or prejudices our membership we ought apply in my opinion.”70 Two months later, FitzGerald sent the formal application for League membership and was prodded by Cosgrave to submit a statement about this application to the Executive Council in late April.71 The British proved willing to help, as Cosgrave told the Executive Council that “he had received a message from Mr. [Lionel] Curtis of the Colonial Office stating that the British Government wished to be informed as to what attitude on their part would be most helpful to the Free State in connection with its application for member-ship to the League of Nations.” Curtis also suggested that the Irish inform the colonial governments and Westminster with a formal note.72 The Irish went to their first League General Assembly meeting in September 1923 with much fanfare. Three Executive Council ministers attended the first session (Cosgrave, MacNeill, and FitzGerald), and Cosgrave, as head of government, delivered Ireland’s first address in Geneva. He started off in the Irish language, which provided much amusement to several attendees (and which was unusual for Cosgrave, who was far from fluent in Irish).73 The Irish delegation’s evaluation of the meeting emphasized many of the same themes the Free State had been pursuing diplomatically since the Treaty. Ireland’s status as a small, but great, nation, was emphasized in the Irish delegation’s rather self-congratulatory official report: “The remarkable reception accorded to Ireland on her admission into the League was certainly one of the outstanding features of the recent Assembly. There is no doubt

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that the large group of little Nations who form a clear majority in the League welcomed the coming of Ireland as an important and useful addition to their class and as a country that was likely to take an impartial and courageous stand on all essential matters affecting those principles of liberty and harmony upon which the foundations of the League are said to have been laid.” One unnamed “great European statesman” said “Ireland although in the category of the little Nations geographically was in the category of the Great Nations morally.”74 This moral status, as well as Ireland’s historic nationhood, was emphasized in Cosgrave’s initial speech, which identified Ireland as “one of the oldest and yet one of the youngest nations.” Cosgrave also spoke of the origins of the Irish diaspora, noting that Ireland was “in ancient times linked by bonds of culture and of friendly intercourse with every nation to which the ambit of travel could carry her far-venturing missionaries and men of learning.”75 As discussed above, Sinn Féin had invoked Ireland’s historic nationhood and status as a mother country as key signifiers of its difference from other colonies and of its right to independence and sovereignty. Irish diplomats believed that this elevated status would allow them to take a leadership role among the small nations in Geneva. This was implied in the report of the delegation, which read, “The recent Assembly was remarkable for the activity of the little Nations and the strong tendency amongst them to assert themselves on the big important issues. This was a notable departure from their attitude at the past Assemblies when, with few exceptions, they remained largely quiescent on all important matters, allowing the big Powers to have it mostly their own way.” The report then expressed a hope that this tendency for small nations to flex their collective muscles would continue to develop, concluding that “there would appear to be a genuine desire amongst the little States themselves to act purely on principle when they can.”76 This reliance on principle was supposed to be a broadside against the realpolitik and aggressive imperialism that had governed European and world relations for centuries. The realities of Irish participation in the League were much different than this initial blast of idealism and proposed activism. The central issue that occupied the Irish in the early months of membership was the registration of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, demonstrating again the Cumann na nGaedheal obsession with exhibiting sovereignty. The idea was that registering the Treaty would constitute recognition that it was in fact a Treaty between two sovereign nations and not mere “Articles of Agreement” (the Treaty’s

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formal name) between two entities within the British Empire. The British had supported Irish membership in the League, but they opposed registry of the Treaty. Instead, the British government invoked its inter se doctrine, which argued that agreements between members of the commonwealth were not subject to international law or international sanction. This argument rested on the indissoluble unity of the Crown, meaning that any entities under the Crown could not be truly international. The British spoke of the commonwealth as a group of nations when it suited them, usually in communications within the commonwealth, but also wanted the commonwealth to present a single face diplomatically and internationally. In the language of the British government, the Treaty “was not, in their view, an instrument proper to be registered under Article 18 of the Covenant.”77 When the Irish registered the Treaty in July 1924, the British attempted to get this revoked, or to convince the Irish that this was not a wise precedent. Cosgrave replied that he would have never accepted the Treaty but for the fact that he believed it to be a Treaty between two sovereign nations. J. P. Whyte, a civil servant in the Department of External Affairs, wrote, “The British refusal to recognise the registration of the Treaty simply because Great Britain has always held the view that the Covenant does not apply to intra-Commonwealth relations is the most barefaced explicit denial of equality of which we have an instance.”78 The Irish believed League membership meant absolute equality, that there was no different class of member, and that Ireland could not be both subordinate and a member of the League. The Irish government used the governor general to communicate its disapproval to the British government. Healy sent a letter reading, “My Ministers find it impossible to accept a view which interprets in a distorted and restricted sense the rights and obligations of the Members of the League of Nations. They can see no clause in the Covenant which in any way purports to differentiate as between the various States Members of the League. . . . It is also their profound conviction, as you are no doubt aware, that the strictest adherence to the principle of perfect equality amongst its members in all circumstances whatsoever is an essential condition for the continued existence of the British Commonwealth of Nations.”79 The British were unsuccessful in blocking the application. The Irish established an important precedent, although Ged Martin has argued that the other dominions were fairly disinterested.80 The wrangle did show, however, that the Free Staters conceived of sovereignty in absolute terms. There was no halfway house that Cumann na nGaedheal would accept within the commonwealth,

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and the coequality of members of the commonwealth applied equally within and outside that body. The Free State, according to its leaders, could not be treated as a coequal state within the commonwealth and then be expected to act differently when on the world stage. The implication of the inter se doctrine that the commonwealth was a single diplomatic unit angered Irish diplomats and statesmen. The Irish repeatedly asserted that the British government had no right to bind the Free State to international agreements— whether or not in the guise of some common imperial policy—without specific and separate Irish consent. O’Higgins had made this point clear to the League of Nations after the 1925 meeting, and this was the sole reason he was at the disarmament conference the week before his assassination: to make sure that Ireland was not bound to an agreement without its consent.81 Patrick McGilligan also made this point in a later memo: “The only ‘British Empire’ group recognised in the League of Nations is the group consisting of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and all parts of the British Empire not separate members of the League. The Irish Free State is not a member of that. . . . The Irish Free State, like the other members of the Commonwealth, acts solely on its own initiative and represents nobody but itself.”82 Rhetoric aside, the Irish record at the League was decidedly mixed. The Irish generally pursued a policy that Michael Kennedy has described as “critical support,” meaning that the delegates supported the general goals and structures of the League but were willing to criticize specific policies in which the League seemed to be falling short of its ideals and ambitions.83 Ireland had a permanent League delegation before any of the other dominions, and that presence at Geneva undoubtedly allowed for a higher diplomatic profile than Ireland otherwise would have enjoyed, especially considering the fact that Ireland’s right to send ambassadors was contested during the 1920s and Ireland could not afford numerous expensive diplomatic legations abroad.84 The Irish also used their League presence to emphasize sovereignty and solidarity. Cosgrave instructed the League to communicate with Ireland directly rather than through the Colonial Office, confessing “to feeling surprised that any other method than the direct should have been contemplated.”85 Joseph Walshe, an External Affairs bureaucrat, also advised Irish delegates how best to use the League to emphasize sovereignty: “The Delegates will hold council among themselves about their attitude toward the other nations of the Commonwealth. It is the opinion of this Ministry that while relations with these latter should be most cordial, we should endeavour to associate for the most part with Delegates of other nations of Europe, especially

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the smaller nations. This will emphasize our real position as one of the old nations of Europe and will obviate any impression which might be created in the United States by too frequent association with the British Group.”86 The use of the Irish language in Geneva, the necessity for which was urged upon the government by its envoy Michael MacWhite, would also serve to distinguish Ireland from the other Commonwealth nations. MacWhite told FitzGerald to make sure that Cosgrave’s opening speech was entirely in Irish. This request was ignored—Cosgrave spoke his opening sentences in Irish before switching to English—most likely because of Cosgrave’s lack of facility with the language. Irish propaganda about the League for domestic consumption also emphasized sovereignty. An article in the pro-Treaty United Irishman in 1923 noted that “outside the League of Nations the Irish Free State is little more than a Dominion, within the League it is a nation whose political independence is guaranteed by the other members.”87 While members of the government may not have agreed with the first clause, they undoubtedly agreed with the second one.88 The Free State also ran for a position on the League Council in 1926 and 1931, against the will of the British, succeeding on the latter attempt. Cosgrave trumpeted this achievement in his 1931 address to the Cumann na nGaedheal party, observing that the election of Ireland to the League Council “may justly be claimed as a vindication of the degree of prestige acknowledged for this country among the other nations of the world.”89 Of course, owing to the change of government in Ireland, it would be de Valera who would end up reaping most of the benefits of Ireland’s expanded role in Geneva. Cumann na nGaedheal leaders also threatened several times to take the northern Irish boundary dispute to the League for resolution. Kevin O’Shiel, a lawyer who served as Cumann na nGaedheal’s expert on the northern issue, had advocated this from the beginning. He claimed that the League’s Article 10 did not fix the current boundary between northern Ireland and the Free State, and that joining the League and registering the Treaty in Geneva would “greatly strengthen our case at the Boundary Commission.”90 O’Shiel repeated this a month later, arguing that Ireland could use its platform at the League to stir up anti-British sentiment among “France, Belgium, and other countries” hostile to Britain at the time, largely over the ongoing crisis in the Ruhr.91 O’Higgins also threatened to take the Boundary Commission issue to the League during the final frantic negotiations in late 1925, although he never followed through on this threat.92

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Irish policy at the League, however, remained mostly threat and bluster, done more for propaganda points than in pursuit of constructive action. The League did not develop into a platform for small nations, and the hope of being the “First of the Small Nations” disappeared rather quickly, as power at the League ended up mirroring power in other diplomatic arenas. Kevin O’Higgins wrote a fairly pessimistic assessment of the League in a 1925 letter to his wife: “On the whole I am, I fear, inclined to be mildly cynical about this ‘League of Nations’ without denying that it has certain advantages. Personal contact between representatives of governments is good. It breaks down prejudices and insularities. A certain amount of humanitarian work of a broadly international aspect has been achieved through the instrumentality of the League. On the other hand, while there is unlimited lip service to idealism and . . . use of such abstract terms as ‘Justice,’ ‘Truth,’ ‘Right’ etc., a crafty imperialism can breathe quite freely the atmosphere.” O’Higgins further claimed that the British representatives there, including Robert Cecil (“his sanctimonious exterior conceals an utterly cynical, ruthless, coldhearted imperialism”) and Leo Amery (in Geneva “to assert his inalienable and indefeasible right to Mosul”) were imperialistic and not at all genuine supporters of the ideals of the League. As O’Higgins concluded, “God is on the side of the big battalions.”93 Ernest Blythe also complained in 1926 that “during the last two years Ireland has been absolutely negligible at the Assembly, neither saying nor doing anything whatsoever.”94 The reasons for this, according to Blythe, were that Ireland was not taking the League seriously, its delegates were not well-prepared, and it was missing a chance to use the League to substantially improve Ireland’s status.95 The profile of Ireland at the League did improve somewhat after 1926, culminating in de Valera’s Presidency of the Council in 1932. But the League remained more useful for Ireland as a way of asserting sovereignty rather than effecting any particular global policy change. Desmond FitzGerald had a different view. Obviously defensive about the frequent criticism of the External Affairs Department, and of himself in particular, FitzGerald claimed that Ireland was doing good work at the League that was being ignored at home. FitzGerald wrote to his wife that “the Irish newspapers that I have seen have been worthy of themselves— they seem to get the wrong end of everything with perfect genius. If we had a proper press we should have had good publicity—but though the Irish Times quotes their ‘own correspondent’ no such person exists. . . . We probably got a better show in practically every other press. We have been one

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of the most prominent countries here . . . and those damn fools haven’t sense enough to make anything out of it. But of course it doesn’t really matter whether they do or not. The foreign papers have done well by us, and from the point of view of prestige that matters much more.”96 The problems with the Irish press had been evident for several years. Sean Lester, a publicity aide for the Free State government, told Cosgrave in 1924, “The Irish newspapers are diffident about the necessary expenditure and I submit that anything we can do to make it possible for the Irish Press to obtain reports and photographs would be of considerable importance.”97 FitzGerald’s quote illuminates two aspects of the Free Staters’ conduct of foreign policy. One, they realized that the Irish public did not seem to care about Irish foreign policy advances. The other side of this, as evidenced by FitzGerald’s praise of foreign papers, was that Cumann na nGaedheal often kept its eyes focused on the international arena and in so doing lost touch with the Irish electorate. After the pair of elections in 1927, foreign relations fell into the hands of Patrick McGilligan, who continued using the commonwealth to increase Irish freedom, as O’Higgins and FitzGerald had done in the first years of the state. In fact, foreign policy probably played a larger role in the Dáil after 1927 than it had in the years prior. This was due in part to the presence of the Fianna Fáil opposition, which questioned many of Cumann na nGaedheal’s foreign policy assumptions more directly and vigorously than had the Labour or Farmers’ Parties. In addition, Patrick McGilligan was a more active minister for external affairs than Desmond FitzGerald, and McGilligan’s sharp tongue and willingness to defend his record at length meant that a fairly significant amount of the Dáil’s time was taken up by foreign affairs. The government was also proud of the Free State’s record of activism within the commonwealth and on the world stage, particularly given Ireland’s small size and recent independence. As McGilligan told the Dáil in 1929: “The traditional national policy of this country has been that Ireland should take her place amongst the nations. Ireland has taken her place amongst the nations. We speak clearly and audibly in the Assemblies of the world.”98 Many of the salient themes from Cumann na nGaedheal’s conduct of foreign policy were explained in a speech given by McGilligan to the Dublin Rotary Club. He complained of the generally low interest in international affairs in Ireland and then proceeded to explain why foreign policy should matter to citizens of the Saorstát. The emphasis, as always, was on Irish sovereignty: “We could not, and never should be, satisfied with any form of

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subordination to an external authority. Co-equality was our aim, and I think I can say with truth that co-equality has been our achievement. . . . Our Treaty with Great Britain achieved one great object—the right to develop and evolve on constitutional lines until every shadow and trace of external rule should have been eliminated.” The means by which the Cumann na nGaedheal government achieved this was “persistent friendly discussion and negotiation” with Great Britain. McGilligan also attacked isolationism, claiming that it was antinationalist, and argued that Ireland had to build up a unique national identity if it were to be respected internationally: “The esteem in which we are held by other countries is very largely measured by the strength of our distinctive national life. Sycophantic imitation of other countries is the mark of parasite peoples, and is the surest road to national decay.” The lack of a fully developed nationhood was traced to “our geographical situation as an island on the fringe of the European continent and the age-long domination of our country by an external Government,” which “have had an atrophying effecting on the growth of a distinctive Irish national feeling.” Those factors also explained the rather unfortunate indifference of the Irish electorate to foreign affairs and its tendency toward isolationism.99 These were common Cumann na nGaedheal talking points: sovereignty, nationalism, and anticolonialism. Of these, sovereignty generally received the most play, as Cumann na nGaedheal ministers, particularly McGilligan, emphasized, somewhat contradictorily, that equality within the commonwealth had been achieved and that Cumann na nGaedheal would continue its efforts to remove all traces of British authority within the Free State. As he summarized in 1928: “The policy of the Department has been and will continue to be the consolidation of the co-equality expressed at the last Imperial Conference [1926], and in furtherance of that to seek to eliminate all the forms which in some of the Dominions more than others, and in most Dominions much more than here, are said not to be in accordance with the particular definition that was given.”100 McGilligan attempted to reconcile Cumann na nGaedheal’s continued push for greater status with its equally oft-repeated claim of existing equality. The remaining tasks were presented as the “consolidation” of the status that had already been granted, or as ways by which to convince the doubters. That status was already clear to Cumann na nGaedheal leaders, who needed little convincing of the past five years’ achievements. Mulcahy told an election crowd in 1927 that “the country enjoyed a status in every way equal to that of any country in the world” and that “we are absolutely independent

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in matters of peace and war.” Unwisely, Mulcahy quoted British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin as an authority for this assertion.101 Blythe said that by 1927 the Free State’s status was greater than that of Canada and had surpassed what even supporters of the Treaty had thought possible in 1921.102 As evidence of Ireland’s sovereignty, McGilligan cited its treaty-making power and its right to send diplomatic representatives to other nations.103 The KelloggBriand Pact was mentioned as the first instance where Ireland clearly had the right to sign a Treaty on its own rather than having Britain attempt to commit the entire empire/commonwealth to an agreement.104 This emphasis on sovereignty was part of Cumann na nGaedheal’s more aggressive strategy against Fianna Fáil after 1927. The Free State’s status was no longer something to be apologized for, or explained away, but something that should be seen as the culmination of the Irish nationalist struggle for independence. The stepping-stones had been used, in other words, and Cumann na nGaedheal leaders wanted full credit for those actions. Cumann na nGaedheal politicians clearly thought they had the better of Fianna Fáil on this issue, as their interpretation of the possibilities of the Treaty had proven correct. In a lengthy debate about the role of the Department of External Affairs in 1929, McGilligan mocked Fianna Fáil for suddenly talking about trade and thereby ducking the status issue, even though it was the major factor in the civil war and “it is certainly the point upon which people in the Fianna Fáil party have besmirched many reams of paper and put up all sort of vain imaginings.”105 The Cumann na nGaedheal paper The Star made fun of Fianna Fáil’s inability to answer McGilligan’s assertions of Irish sovereignty, as demonstrated by the Statute of Westminster: The Fianna Fáil leaders worked themselves up into a perfect passion of intransigent Republican patriotism. They objected even to the idea of the British Parliament being allowed to renounce its claim to legislate for the Dominions, because that implies, to their sensitive minds, an admission on our part that the British Parliament had the right to legislate for us. It is true we sent representatives to the British Parliament for over a century—all that was wiped out by Mr. de Valera’s assumption of the title “President of the Irish Republic” in 1919. That earth-shaking event not only binds all politicians (except Mr. de Valera) for all future time, but it also undid the past. It made this country into a Republic, not only now but at all times since the coming of the Milesians, or maybe even of the Firbolgs. All who refuse to recognise that fact, whether they be Irish or foreign, are traitors and worthy of death.106

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Patrick Hogan even asserted in 1928 that the Free State’s current status “is far and away a greater status than the status of a Republic. On these matters, we will not make any concession.”107 Blythe, similarly pugnacious, observed that the Free State provided all the status Ireland needed, and he personally would not lift a finger to achieve a republic.108 So the Free State was now presented as superior to a republic, a much more assertive stance on this issue than Treatyites had taken in 1922. This line of argument varied between treating sovereignty as an absolute, which a nation either possessed or did not, and as a scale, along which a nation could advance. On the one hand, Cumann na nGaedheal leaders claimed Ireland was absolutely sovereign, equal in status to Great Britain. On the other hand, they also marked “advances” along that path, often in ways for which statesmen from long-established countries, such as France or the United States, never would have seen the need. Unlike Fianna Fáil, though, Cumann na nGaedheal did not admit that there could be retrogression. The stepping-stones only led forward, toward greater or full sovereignty. As McGilligan said in 1929, “Our purpose is that whatever remnants there may be of the old order of Imperial control will be removed and the last legal vestiges of the organisation now superseded swept away. The entire legal framework in which the old system of central rule was held together will be taken asunder and will never be put together again.”109 Free Staters touted several specific advancements as evidence that the final shackles were being removed from the Free State. McGilligan put particular stress on the ending of the governor general’s powers to disallow legislation. The Cumann na nGaedheal government had fought from the outset to limit the independent action of the governor general and to make sure that he only acted on the advice of his Irish ministers. The 1929 Report of the Conference on the Operation of Dominion Legislation and Merchant Shipping Legislation specifically denied the governor general’s ability to disallow legislation on his own authority, something that had been eliminated in practice by 1923. Those dominions with the right to amend their own constitutions could specifically “abolish the legal power of disallowance if they so desire.”110 The governor general could still reserve the bill for the king’s perusal, but the report admitted that right too could be eliminated if the dominion so desired. McGilligan noted that “our interest in this section is . . . somewhat academic. There was no power of disallowance as far as our laws were concerned; there was no such constitutional right. But, from the point of view of general Dominion status it had its value for us.” The point, again, was that

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complete freedom existed, but that the law had to catch up with the practice. The king still had to approve Irish legislation, but on the advice of his Irish ministers, not the British government. In essence, this was O’Higgins’s dual monarchy, although without the politically harmful trappings of a separate coronation and title. The functions of the king were being completely divorced from those of the British government, and the king, working in an Irish context, was dissociated from his British powers. The issue was important because it led to a revival of some of the same foreign policy issues that had cropped up during the Treaty debate. Seán T. O’Kelly, responding for Fianna Fáil, claimed once again that Ireland was different from the other dominions because it was not a settler colony. Any association with Britain was necessarily coercive and undesirable. Making the commonwealth work better, according to O’Kelly, was actually against Irish interests. For O’Kelly, the solution was not reworking relatively minor points of disagreement within the commonwealth but “winning Ireland’s independence, . . . breaking out of that Commonwealth and . . . getting Ireland, not the Free State, her proper status in the world.” This was a complete rejection of the stepping-stone model and articulated a vision of sovereignty as absolute, an assumption that Free Staters sometimes shared. O’Kelly, along with Labour leader T. J. O’Connell, also observed that dominion status was now being proclaimed as an achievement and a good, rather than as something that was reluctantly accepted under duress. O’Kelly said, “Dominion status is certainly more of an insult than anything in which to take pride,” and O’Connell urged the Dáil to reject the report so as to avoid voluntarily accepting dominion status: “The Free State and the word Dominion appear to me, in any case, to be contradictory. The word Dominion has a historical application. It arose at the time when the British Parliament did, in fact, exercise dominion.” Desmond FitzGerald, the former minister for external affairs, responded to these critiques. He defended membership in the commonwealth as a necessity given the current geopolitical situation: “When there is a large State next to a small one the small State has to recognise certain facts which are inherent in its very smallness and in the relative size of the two countries.”111 He admitted Ireland could leave the commonwealth but said, “We are not such damn fools as to do it.”112 FitzGerald also asserted that “during the seven years of the existence of this Government our sovereignty and independence have not been called in question on any occasion by any other Government.” The government had been “watch[ing] jealously” for anything

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that seemed to impinge on Irish sovereignty, and made significant efforts to get such matters addressed at imperial conferences.113 As if trying to agitate republicans, FitzGerald openly claimed that the Crown actually helped Ireland because it “enables Great Britain, if you like to talk quite bluntly, to allow freedom of action to the government of the Irish Free State which it would probably not be possible to allow in the event of there being no such unifying factor as the Crown.”114 Presumably what he meant was that the fiction of the Crown gave the British government political cover in allowing Ireland to go its own way. The Conference Report also explicitly stated the Free State’s right to have its own citizenship policies. The commonwealth allowed for the possibility of Irish citizens possessing the benefits of citizenship in Britain and the other dominions if the Free State government so desired. McGilligan made it quite clear that this was reciprocal citizenship, not common citizenship, and was predicated on the Free State voluntarily making specific arrangements with the other states of the commonwealth. As McGilligan emphasized, “We need not agree unless we are satisfied to agree. We may not agree because we think that the wider status . . . imports a limitation of status. We may decide to remain suspicious and not move beyond the determination of our own nationality and our national rights.”115 McGilligan personally seemed to favor some sort of reciprocal rights but did not think this meant a common British citizenship, and he stressed the voluntary nature of any potential agreements. Much of this Cumann na nGaedheal rhetoric was a continuation, in slightly different form, of the anti-imperial empire proposed by party leaders in the early 1920s. The trappings of empire—dominion precedent, imperial conferences, and even the common Crown—were wielded so as to increase Irish sovereignty. The elimination of the British government from the commonwealth was not as clear-cut as McGilligan claimed in 1930, however. Cumann na nGaedheal still had to work to remove the British ministerial offices from the chain of communication. Writing to the dominion affairs secretary in 1930, McGilligan gave notice that the Irish wanted to bypass the Dominions Office and the Foreign Office as means of transmitting messages from the Free State government to the king. McGilligan wrote, “The right of the Government of each Member of the Commonwealth to advise the King is at present exercised through the channel of the Dominions Office and the Foreign Office. This practice has in fact created an impression that the effective advice in matters relating to the Member of the

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Commonwealth concerned is that of the British Government.” This was a problem because “the King being cut off from the Governments of the Members of the Commonwealth and accessible only through the British Government, becomes so identified with the latter that it is impossible for the other Governments to distinguish where the functions of the British Government end and those of the King begin.” According to McGilligan, a refusal to separate the king and the government could lead to a devaluation of the king within the commonwealth, and to easy fodder for republican arguments against the Treaty and the commonwealth. Similarly, the Free State government wanted foreign governments to contact it directly rather than relying on the British government to pass along messages through British diplomatic channels, a practice which raised “an element of tutelage and want of trust unworthy of the position of co-equality.”116 All these clarifications ultimately pointed toward the 1931 Statute of Westminster, which explicitly stated that the British parliament did not have the right to legislate for the dominions. This had been an issue as early as 1922, when George Gavan Duffy proposed an amendment to Article 12 of the Free State Constitution indicating that the Irish parliament had the “sole and exclusive” right to legislate for Ireland.117 In reply, Kevin O’Higgins argued that the wording was unnecessary, as Article 2 (the popular sovereignty article) and the language of Article 12 itself already implied that only the Irish parliament could legislate for Ireland. However, O’Higgins accepted an amendment “calculated to soothe the mind of Deputy Gavan Duffy and to soothe people who may be troubled with similar minds.”118 This exchange indicated that to O’Higgins, at least, the right later to be “granted” in the Statute of Westminster was already in existence at the birth of the Free State. The 1931 statute, therefore, only expressly stated a condition that had long been the case. Echoing some of the concerns raised during the Treaty debates, particularly those of Erskine Childers, McGilligan presented the statute as the harmonizing of law and fact in the commonwealth. The law was finally being brought into accord with practice and constitutional usage. In so doing, the statute did not in fact confer anything new but was merely declaratory, a format decided upon because Canada and South Africa desired something stronger than a conference report, and Ireland, for various legal reasons, did not want an agreement between nations.119 McGilligan concluded, “The King acting on the advice of the British Government can no more contract for the Irish Free State than can the King of Italy or the Mikado of Japan.”120

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Once again, the functions of the Crown were separated from those of the British government, answering a key argument made by de Valera and Childers during the Treaty debates that Crown rights would be a point of entry into the Free State for British power. Fianna Fáil, led by Seán T. O’Kelly, criticized the Statute of Westminster for its apparent acceptance of dominion status. He said the Cumann na nGaedheal government “have worked with all their might to bind us more closely to the British Empire, politically, economically and financially.” If the Dáil approved the Statute of Westminster, it would further “this policy of fastening Dominion status upon us.”121 After hearing O’Kelly’s attack, Michael Collins’s former associate Batt O’Connor sneered at O’Kelly’s diplomatic service during the revolution, as it allowed him to be “safe in Paris or Rome” during the war, and “sheltering in one of the grand hotels in Paris or Rome and we had to do the best we could here.”122 Maligning the revolutionary credentials of their opponents, as well as more frequently and aggressively asserting their own, would be a common Cumann na nGaedheal strategy in the government’s last years. Other than the oath, the major constitutional issue remaining after the Statute of Westminster was the right of appeal to the Privy Council. This issue had bothered the government earlier in the decade, but it had been handled through ordinary legislation. Now the government wanted to have the right abolished more clearly. McGilligan told the secretary of state for the dominions that the right of appeal was “a menace to our sovereignty” and “constitutes one of the greatest obstacles to the acceptance of the Commonwealth position by a very large number of the citizens of the Irish Free State, and it renders more difficult the growth of that close and friendly co-operation between Great Britain and the Irish Free State which is so strongly desired by all the Commonwealth peoples.”123 McGilligan pressed hard on this issue, as did other members of Cumann na nGaedheal, as they recognized the threat to Irish sovereignty that the appeal embodied. Yet another Irish case appealed to the Privy Council returned the issue to the government’s immediate attention in 1930. The Ministry of External Affairs prepared a dispatch, various memoranda were written by the attorney general’s office, and finally recommendations were made to the Executive Council in March 1931 outlining different ways that the Privy Council’s role could be voided. These ways included ordinary legislation or a constitutional amendment to remove the appeal.124 The External Affairs Department argued that having external judges decide an Irish case was a violation of democratic principles, as it was “contrary to the wishes of the overwhelming

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majority of the citizens of the Irish Free State.” It also violated Irish sovereignty, as “the Sovereignty of the State in the administration of justice is one of the prime factors in securing the maintenance of order, contentment and the strict observance of the law.” The colonial legacy was invoked as well, in that appealing to an external authority could undermine Cumann na nGaedheal attempts to present the law as “Irish” law. As the memo pointed out, “there is no doubt that anything which appears to derogate from that Sovereignty, as the possibility of such submission cannot fail to do, must act as a detrimental influence on the minds of litigants and others by lessening their loyalty to and respect for the institutions under which they live.” An appeal also involved the Crown acting on the advice of an entity other than the Irish government, which violated the notion of coequality, as well as all the strictures that the Irish had successfully placed on the independent actions of the Crown and the governor general.125 Another memo from the attorney general’s office, written by John J. Hearne, unpacked the legal issues involved in eliminating the appeal. Article 66 of the Free State Constitution established the Irish Supreme Court as the highest court in the Free State but then provided that “nothing in this Constitution shall impair the right of any person to petition His Majesty for special leave to appeal from the Supreme Court to His Majesty in Council or the right of His Majesty to grant such leave.” The Free State wanted to “delimit still further, with a view no doubt to its final abolition, the prerogative on which the appeal to the Judicial Committee has been founded.” The problem was the Treaty. Canada had a much more liberal right of appeal to the Privy Council, and the Treaty expressly linked Ireland’s status to that of Canada.126 However, Hearne sought to evade this interpretation by arguing that the development of the commonwealth since 1921 trumped the Treaty. Ireland inherited Canada’s position as it evolved, not as it was fixed in 1921, which had always been a standard Cumann na nGaedheal interpretation of the Treaty. Hearne asserted more than this, though, claiming that Ireland’s status could exceed that of Canada’s at the current time on the basis of other developments within the commonwealth, such as the 1926 statement of coequality. This meant that the Treaty itself could be exceeded, and Ireland could develop beyond the Treaty, not just within it. Hearne wrote, “The only construction of Article 2 of the Treaty of 1921 which can stand examination at all is that whatever prerogative right in the King is preserved in the material words of that Article can only be exercised upon the advice of the Government of the Irish Free State. . . . The argument, therefore, that

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Article 2 of the Treaty imports by reference the whole Canadian position even before the Declarations of 1926 loses force when one considers the existing legal positions in Canada.” Hearne recommended that the various dominions either work out a mutually acceptable role for the Privy Council or abolish it altogether. Members of the government publicly stated their desire to remove the right of appeal. McGilligan told the Dáil in July 1931, while explaining the Statute of Westminster, that legislation on the Privy Council would follow, but that it was “difficult legislation” that “may take a considerable time to draw up.”127 The Star mentioned “the non-recognition by the Saorstát of the extern British Privy Council” and promised that the government would continue to “nullify by special enactment” decisions of the Privy Council that overturned Irish judicial decisions.128 That same newspaper promised “the abolition of the nominal right to appeal to what is known as the ‘Judicial Committee of the British Privy Council,’” in the “near future.”129 The reference to the right as “nominal,” and the emphasis on its Britishness, indicates the lack of respect with which the institution was treated. Cosgrave told the annual Cumann na nGaedheal convention in 1931 that the appeal to the Privy Council was “the main question still outstanding between us and Great Britain” and that “appeals to that body from our Supreme Court are an anomaly, and an anachronism. Their continuance is incompatible with our status, and is an insult to our dignity, and our sense of fair play.”130 McGilligan wrote an article in The Star criticizing Irish Protestant agitation in favor of the appeal, using language redolent of de Valera. He wrote, “The people who call for the maintenance of the Privy Council make the plea that it is our last bond with the Commonwealth. Let them believe me that it is just now the greatest obstacle in the way of more friendly co-operation between this country and Great Britain.” McGilligan asked if the agitators “really believe that Irish Protestants require to be protected by an external tribunal against any Irish Government” and concluded that such action was just designed to keep the Irish people artificially divided and “play the game of the small number of diehard Tories in Great Britain, who have never forgiven this country for having won her freedom.”131 McGilligan appeared, at least in this article, hostile toward the empire and his Protestant or Unionist critics. The government as a whole was committed to removing the remaining indicators of unequal status and made that drive a key part of its propaganda. The one issue on which the government did not indicate a desire to budge, however, was the oath. This clinging to

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the oath, the subject of much discussion at the time, has obscured the rather relentless way in which Cumann na nGaedheal took action in guaranteeing equal status. As McGilligan outlined to the Dáil in asking them to pass the Statute of Westminster: “We had one purpose in 1926, and that was that there must be uprooted from the whole system of this State the British Government; and in substitution for that there was accepted the British Monarch. He is a King who functions entirely, so far as Irish affairs are concerned, at the will of the Irish Government, and that was the summing up of the whole aim and the whole result of the conferences of 1926, 1929, and 1930: that one had to get completely rid of any power, either actual or feared, that the British Government had in relation to this country. In substitution for that under the Treaty there was accepted the monarchy, as I say, a monarchy in every respect in relation to Irish affairs, subject to the control of an Irish Government.”132 Cumann na nGaedheal leaders believed that this activity demonstrated the truth of the Treatyite contention from a decade earlier that the document could lead to full independence. Since they tended to view this as a promise kept and a prophecy fulfilled, they often bragged about it in the months and weeks leading to the election of 1932. The Star, in a piece called “Anti-Treaty Prophets Confounded,” explained that the Free State “has proved itself to be a living political organism, capable of development in all directions necessary for the full expression of the sovereignty which resides in it. In external and internal affairs no actual limitation exists to prevent the free play of that sovereignty.”133 The problem was that there was little evidence that these foreign policy initiatives resonated with the Irish electorate at home. FitzGerald and O’Higgins each implied that the Irish had become so used to enslavement that they could not recognize freedom. FitzGerald told the Dáil that “there was a slave mind which refused to recognise that we were free.”134 O’Higgins, in criticizing two speeches by opposition deputies on foreign affairs, said, “One has to remember the antecedents of our whole position; one has to remember that for very many centuries we were an unfree people, and that we have borne the fetters so long, they have eaten so deep, that even when they are struck off there are those amongst us, believing or professing to believe, that they are still there, those amongst us who cannot realise freedom and are unable to raise their heads and look their fellow man in the face, and say we are a free people. The whine of the slave was in those two speeches.”135 Cumann na nGaedheal actually staked out a fairly aggressive foreign policy agenda, one that was anything but compliant on imperial issues. Treatyites

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knew that it would have been electoral suicide to simply reiterate the Redmondite rhetoric about the nobility of the imperial mission. In addition, many Treatyites identified with Sinn Féin’s anti-imperialism. The problem was how to accept the Treaty’s obvious limitations, membership in the empire/commonwealth chief among them, without abandoning the core principles of the Sinn Féin view of foreign affairs. The result was initially to spin the empire as an anti-imperial body, one in which the other nations of the commonwealth would assist the Irish in restraining and resisting the metropole. Once the Treaty passed, the Irish continued to seek dominion assistance in building the commonwealth into a free partnership of equals and often presented themselves as taking the lead in nudging other dominions toward a more anti-British position. In accomplishing this task, Free Staters used the informality and ambiguity of the commonwealth settlement to their advantage, only seeking clarity and precision when it was certain to aid the Irish cause. The Statute of Westminster was in many ways the culmination of what O’Higgins called “the status push,” but the groundwork had been laid almost since the moment the Treaty was signed. Instead of Free Staters toning down their rhetoric to fit within the more refined nonrevolutionary atmosphere of the commonwealth, FitzGerald believed that the other states of the commonwealth adjusted to the Irish. He said, “Points of view that were previously attributed to our revolutionarism are now just as presumed as natural by the others.”136 Nevertheless, there was a sense that all this foreign policy work had little traction at home. The Free State had evolved in the direction of full sovereignty, and overt English interference in Irish affairs remained minimal, as predicted by Treatyites during the Treaty debates. The clearly reasoned and dire warnings of Erskine Childers proved almost wholly incorrect. However, these achievements within the commonwealth satisfied neither republican skeptics nor an electorate increasingly worried about Ireland’s poor economic performance and the government’s often listless economic policy.

6 Reclaiming the Revolution

W

hen Fianna Fáil entered the Dáil in the summer of 1927, the Irish political landscape was transformed irrevocably. Suddenly, a change of government seemed possible, and former civil war opponents now faced each other across the aisle in the Dáil. Those historians who have bothered to study the post-O’Higgins years of Cumann na nGaedheal have tended to emphasize the triumphant rise of Fianna Fáil and to characterize Cumann na nGaedheal as a listless party in terminal decline. Even John Regan rather lightly skipped over the late 1920s in order to bring on, in his words, the dancing Blueshirts. Only Ciara Meehan has portrayed the party as active and vibrant during these years, focusing mostly on its innovative and aggressive electoral campaigns. There are important themes that are not highlighted even in Meehan’s analysis, though, and these themes illuminate Cumann na nGaedheal’s continuing efforts to deal with the revolutionary legacy. This legacy became even more directly contested once Fianna Fáil entered the Dáil, as the main parliamentary opposition was now a party that continually claimed the revolutionary mantle for itself and tended to characterize Cumann na nGaedheal as apostates. During this post-1927 period, Cumann na nGaedheal continued with many of the same emphases from earlier in the decade. The External Affairs Ministry under Patrick McGilligan pressed to remove remaining obstacles to Irish sovereignty, and the party repeatedly bragged about its restoration of order. But the party also made several critical adjustments. First, it altered its national party rhetoric, starting to inveigh against small parties and factions as inherently destabilizing rather than as a corrective 214

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against a British-style two-party system. Second, Cumann na nGaedheal aggressively moved to claim the revolutionary mantle for itself after increasingly vituperative Fianna Fáil attacks. Invocations of the revolution became more frequent, and there was a concerted effort to malign the revolutionary credentials of Fianna Fáil. These strategies failed to connect with the electorate, though, and by the election of 1932 the government felt besieged by enemies, and its pronouncements took on an increasingly negative tone. During the 1927–32 period, the party continued to depict itself as national, but the content of this claim shifted somewhat after Fianna Fáil entered the Dáil. At that point, the smaller parties were becoming a hindrance to Cumann na nGaedheal, drawing votes away and making its majority over Fianna Fáil razor thin. As a result, the party returned to the emphasis on a large party that was inherent in the “national party” rhetoric, but now dismissed the smaller parties as impediments to Irish democracy. Neither the Labour Party, nor William Redmond’s National League, nor any of the various loose coalitions of independents ran sufficient candidates in the 1927 elections to achieve a majority, even had all their candidates been elected. O’Higgins told the Dáil after the first 1927 election, “We do think that the people should learn from this position a constitutional lesson, learn for future guidance that it is a cynical thing, a fundamentally deceptive thing, for a Party to dangle spectacular programmes before it while not seeking a majority in Parliament by which to put these programmes into operation.” Specifically mocking the Labour Party, O’Higgins said, “They invited the electorate to throw out this Government. What Government was the electorate to throw in? Not them—they were not looking for a majority.”1 Cosgrave also pointed to the fact that there were insufficient candidates to form a new government: “Each of the parties made certain promises as to what its policy would be if it came into power, if its candidates were returned, but I must be forgiven for pointing out that they all took good care that they could not command a majority in the House.”2 The Irish Independent, in endorsing Cumann na nGaedheal’s candidates, observed that only Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil ran enough candidates to receive a majority, while the National League, “without any constructive policy, claims only to criticise, and speaks in conflicting voices from different platforms.”3 This played right into Cumann na nGaedheal’s rhetorical strengths and allowed the party to once again invoke revolutionary themes. They had always presented themselves as the party of construction and courage. While other parties merely carped from the sidelines, too afraid to actually seek a

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majority, Cumann na nGaedheal was willing to take responsibility. In the early years, such rhetoric was often cloaked in a disdain for party politics in general, and a fervently expressed hope that party discipline would not develop and the Dáil would be composed of loose groupings of deputies that shifted depending on the issue. However, that sounded like a much more appealing idea before Fianna Fáil entered the Dáil than it did after, when Cumann na nGaedheal’s majority became considerably less stable. In later elections, Cumann na nGaedheal instead touted the advantages of a larger party, one capable of forging a parliamentary majority. They now claimed to abhor small parties, citing Weimar and the French Third Republic as examples of the instability caused by too many small parties. On the hustings, Cumann na nGaedheal speakers began condemning the proliferation of small parties, coalitions, and independents in the 1927 elections. Blythe said that “many parties were making big promises because they knew they would not be called on to fulfil them” and that “small parties were not taking themselves seriously. A coalition of small parties would not be able to govern the country.”4 Professor O’Sullivan, the minister for education, told his audience, “They [the Government] were striving to govern the country in the interest of all classes. Their party was open to all, and it was essentially a Farmers’ Party because the basis of the Government’s policy had been to discover how best to promote the agricultural industry.” He then asked, “What was the good of electing small parties or individuals? There were already too many parties in the State and too many people styled ‘Independents.’ An Independent was very often the man on whom nobody could depend.”5 Now, instead of individual deputies voting for the good of the country, a model that had been promoted in the early days of the state, party discipline and dependability were elevated as the chief characteristics of a good deputy. The following week, O’Sullivan warned of “the dangerous position which may result from having too many parties. . . . If the people were not alert, they might find themselves without any Government at all, or without a party capable of forming a Government.”6 Given Cumann na nGaedheal’s frequent references to the alleged lawless and antigovernmental tendency of the Irish people, having no government at all might actually have been an electoral selling point. O’Higgins linked this danger in 1927 with the need to protect the Treaty from Fianna Fáil. Noting that most of the small parties and independents were pro-Treaty, O’Higgins said, “I warn you that if the Treaty strength is unduly diffused and dispersed amongst the various small parties and groups

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then there will arise a serious position for the country and its people.”7 Denis Gorey, the former leader of the Farmers’ Party who had joined Cumann na nGaedheal in 1927, told his electors, “The party he now joined was more solid and firm and less likely to break down than a small party.” He continued, “I saw all these little parties coming along and anyone who has read history knows that the existence of a lot of little parties in a State means instability and insecurity and eventually, chaos and ruin.” He finished by disparaging the chances of strong or stable coalitions.8 At an election meeting with Gorey the next day, Cosgrave noted that independent candidates or those representing small parties could only get elected with a low voter turnout. He said, “A sufficient number of odd people could on a small poll get an odd candidate elected.” He reiterated Cumann na nGaedheal’s crosssectional “national” status, singling out the unpopular “banking interest” as the only interest not represented by the party.9 After the first 1927 election failed to give Cumann na nGaedheal a majority, O’Higgins issued a statement blaming the small parties: “Whatever of insecurity and instability is inherent in that [election] result is the joint gift to the State of the National League, the Farmers’ Union, and the Independent candidates. The strength behind the Treaty in the country was challenged by sectional interests and ambitious individuals.” As was his wont, O’Higgins attributed some of this to personal motives: “Capt. Redmond felt himself a congenital leader, and the Farmers’ Union rejected fusion, and independent candidates were ambitious, and thereby hangs a tale.”10 Although the context had clearly changed with the ascent of Fianna Fáil, the “national party” rhetoric still allowed Cumann na nGaedheal to invoke, however indirectly, the revolutionary days of Sinn Féin, when one party was assumed to be capable of representing the nation. The government also continued to depict itself as above party, although the emphasis after 1927 was increasingly on technocracy. Again, this was not solely the function of a charisma-less Cumann na nGaedheal elite, or a political dodge, but a reflection of wider European interwar trends.11 The government tended to delegate key decisions to boards of experts, setting up tariff, banking, and currency commissions as well as deferring to experts on the construction of the Shannon Scheme and the revitalization of the Gaeltacht. Hogan explained this general strategy at a public meeting in Galway in 1927. Hogan noted that many of the government’s critics (in this case on the issue of the Gaeltacht) had no specific solutions to offer for the perceived problems. According to Hogan, “That shows there is a need for

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experts. The experts were the men who helped the Government to solve every problem that faced it during the past five years, and the experts had no reason to be ashamed of the results.” An attendee helpfully responded, “It is an expert government we need!”12 Cumann na nGaedheal’s “Fighting Points” for the 1932 election explained this dependence on experts as a way to remove crucial issues from the domain of party politics: “The Government has striven all along to lift the question of Protection out of the maelstrom of purely party issues and to insure that every tariff proposal is decided absolutely on its merits after the most careful and comprehensive investigation by experts in a judicial atmosphere removed from any possibility of undue or undesirable influence by interested parties.”13 This emphasis tied in with Cumann na nGaedheal’s attempt to be above party concerns and is a product of the same mindset that led to the proposal for extern ministers in the early years of the state. The use of experts also moved the party away from claims of jobbery, as the experts chosen presumably would not be party hacks rewarded for previous service. More than this, though, the party waded directly into the fray over the revolution, mentioning its revolutionary origins more frequently and dismissing the revolutionary service and connections of its opponents. Treatyites had found it difficult in the immediate postrevolutionary years to invoke revolutionary heroes and martyrs, as anti-Treatyites successfully claimed that Treatyites had betrayed their revolutionary past and that republicans were the true inheritors of the revolutionary tradition. Struggling to overcome this argument, and wanting to downplay talk of revolution during the civil war, Cumann na nGaedheal initially seemed to accept this dichotomy. References to Pearse or Tone became less frequent in Cumann na nGaedheal rhetoric, and the party’s attempts to commemorate or reference the revolutionary tradition often came across as half-hearted, as Anne Dolan has chronicled. By the late 1920s though, Cumann na nGaedheal was becoming much more aggressive in citing revolutionary heroes. The two most obvious candidates, of course, were Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith, who were both revolutionaries and Treatyites. Patrick Hogan, “amidst many interruptions,” said that they were going to stand by the Treaty because “what was good enough for Griffith and Collins was good enough for them.”14 MacNeill connected Collins and Griffith to the oath, saying “Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins, who had prouder records than most of the people who opposed the Treaty, humbled themselves and took the oath for the sake of Ireland.”15 This summed up Cumann na nGaedheal’s frequently expressed

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self-image as politicians who subordinated their personal goals and beliefs for the good of the country, and even in so doing had better revolutionary records than their opponents. At a Cumann na nGaedheal victory party in August 1927, a speaker said, “Dublin has stood to-day with Griffith and Collins . . . and this demonstration is a fitting celebration of the anniversary of the men who founded this State.”16 The assassination of O’Higgins unleashed a further torrent of Collins and Griffith references as O’Higgins was assumed into the Cumann na nGaedheal pantheon. The Cumann na nGaedheal–leaning Irish Independent began these encomiums in the days after O’Higgins’s death, editorializing, “Mr. O’Higgins, soldier before he was Minister, died for his country as surely as did General Collins, victim, too, of violence, and as did President Arthur Griffith, worn out by the strain of public work.”17 Cumann na nGaedheal politicians took up this thread, hoping to win an election on the wave of public revulsion against O’Higgins’s assassination. Richard Mulcahy said of the government: “They had given service to their country at the expense of their own lives. They were the only party in the Dáil whose members had laid down their lives in the service of the Dáil. Michael Collins, Arthur Griffith, and Kevin O’Higgins died not as masters, but as servants of the Dáil.”18 MacNeill referred from the platform to the “policy and structure of government built by Griffith, Collins, Cosgrave and O’Higgins.”19 Ernest Blythe increased the martyr’s halo around O’Higgins by relaying to electors his dying moments, during which he was “as calm as any man could be. He attended to his affairs. He thought of the world to come, he spoke of his family, he made his little joke, and he did all without the slightest stress, fear, or perturbance.”20 Professor J. M. O’Sullivan also noted that “because of all his virtues he [O’Higgins] now lies in his grave,” again giving O’Higgins the air of one struck down out of jealousy and fear.21 Blythe expanded on the symbolism surrounding O’Higgins’s death by claiming that this was an attack on the ordinary people of Ireland: “He died because he tried to do his duty to the plain people of Ireland, and those who were the enemies of the plain people, and wanted to drive them like a flock of sheep, struck him down for his services.”22 In an earlier speech, Blythe had referenced the 16,000 Dubliners who had voted for O’Higgins at the last election and used their apparent disenfranchisement as a way of coloring the murder as an attack on the people. For Cumann na nGaedheal, which increasingly struggled to strike a populist note, this was a potentially fruitful line of argument that again emphasized the party’s view that it represented a majority during the

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civil war. Blythe’s later reference to Liam Lynch’s infamous antidemocratic statement solidified this connection. In a statement released to the international press, Cosgrave cited how reactions to the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and French President Sadi Carnot had created a new impetus for unity and support for the “welding together of the fabric of state,” and he hoped that O’Higgins’s death could serve a similar purpose in Ireland. Cosgrave also invoked previous Cumann na nGaedheal martyrs: “O’Higgins, like Collins and Griffith, has sacrificed his life in testimony of his belief in the sanctity of his country’s bond.”23 Two years later, The Star was still making the same connections, referring to Collins, Griffith, and O’Higgins as “the immortal three” and crediting O’Higgins with having “taught the people to have faith in themselves and in the free institutions which were being built up as a result of the Treaty.”24 Connecting O’Higgins to Griffith and Collins highlighted the events of 1922, the founding of the Free State. This was an obvious strategy given how much of Cumann na nGaedheal’s identity remained linked to its proTreaty position. But the party also tried to establish connections to 1916 and to the War of Independence. Mulcahy, speaking in 1927 to a meeting in Waterford, told them, “The present Government was composed of men who came from the stock which produced men like Pearse, Connolly, and McDermott in 1916, and was, therefore, entitled to the support of everyone who wished to live up to the ideals of these brave men.”25 Mulcahy was a good choice to deliver this message, as he had clear 1916 links. He elaborated on these themes in another election speech from 1927, even going so far as to refer to the government as revolutionary. Mulcahy remembered his own meeting with Pearse in his cell in Arbour Hill on the eve of his execution and “listened to his orders to the effect that Volunteers had achieved their purpose and that no further military action would be of any service.” This relation of gnostic knowledge about, or private conversations with, the martyrs was a tactic that had been generally associated with female politicians during the revolution and civil war and had been subsequently denigrated by Treatyites as emotional and out of place in political debate. Now, with the party’s revolutionary credentials under attack, and the revolution and civil war at a safer distance chronologically, the party returned to such invocations. Mulcahy continued to cite Pearse, noting how Pearse would undoubtedly be amazed at the level of self-government granted to Ireland a mere six years after his death. After listing the merits of the constitution, Mulcahy observed, “Your Constitution is neither unworthy of 1916

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nor of your heroic struggle against fierce oppression in 1919, 1920, and 1921. Rather it is the justification of your effort and our own sober pride.” Mulcahy then extolled the virtue of constitutional change “from within” rather than “from without by revolutionary methods.” However, he did not in so doing concede the revolutionary high ground to republicans but instead claimed that working constitutionally from within was the only way to preserve Irish gains. He concluded by dismissing Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin candidates: “God Help you and our country generally if you have to depend on the de Valeras, the Stacks and the MacEntees and the Seán Ts pulling even all together as your revolutionary leaders. . . . They have been talking to you a lot about modern Irish history but we know—and we prefer to go on making it.”26 The government also invoked the Easter martyrs in other ways. There was an annual commemoration of the executions, tellingly held in private. The 1929 ceremony, for example, took place at Arbour Hill and consisted of “a requiem Mass and a procession from the Church to the graves in the Prison Yard, where prayers for the dead will be recited and military honours will be paid.”27 This ceremony was obviously intended to be more military and religious than political and was not open to the public. The Cumann na nGaedheal journal The Star also prepared a lengthy Easter commemoration issue on the fifteenth anniversary of the Rising in 1916.28 Here was the Rising repackaged by Cumann na nGaedheal as a revolutionary, but not explicitly republican, event. The government realized the necessity of paying homage to its origins and was not willing to exclude 1916 and 1919 from the origins of the Free State but wanted the messages of those events to harmonize with the government’s overall assessment of the Free State and its position. The issue opened with a handwritten, and characteristically illegible, note from Cosgrave. The note praised both the Easter rebels and the current government, while commenting on the lack of recognition the government received for the business of governing. Cosgrave wrote that the issue “will bring grateful remembrance of the high courage, self-sacrifice and noble ideals of those who led the advance to our present position and of the movement which sustained them. . . . May the same inspiring ideals of true Irish patriotism guide us to accomplish the less spectacular but not less essential tasks of the present and the future.” Cosgrave signed with the Irish version of his name, Liam T. MacCosgair. This message recognized the mundane nature of many of Cumann na nGaedheal’s achievements and of the sense that an

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electorate raised on romantic heroism was insufficiently appreciative of quotidian achievements. The issue contained a long editorial about the Rising as well as separate pieces by Desmond FitzGerald, Min Mulcahy, and George Lyons, among others. The overall theme was to connect the Free State and the Treaty to the Rising and to position Cumann na nGaedheal as “the true heirs of the 1916 traditions.” However, there was a not-so-subtle depiction of the Treaty as a tangible success and the Rising as a noble failure. The Rising was definitely invoked as a seminal event in Irish history: “The heroic sacrifices” of Easter “marked the commencement of the last stage in the struggle for Irish freedom,” and the Rising itself was “a turning point in Irish history as significant as the landing of Strongbow.” However, the Rising leaders were repackaged as realists, rather than dreamers: “They not only accepted the role of martyrdom, but they set an example of stern realism which has been faithfully followed since by those to whom national responsibility has descended.” The main evidence for that realism, according to the editorial writer, was the decision to surrender in 1916 rather than to keep fighting. The 1916 rebels were also redefined as something other than republicans: “The Men of Easter Week went forth to do battle, not for a political formula, but for national freedom.” While this is somewhat defensible given the ostensible conversations about a German monarchy that took place in the Post Office, it does seem a rather breezy redefinition of the standard interpretation of the Rising. Overall, though, the Rising was depicted in the commemorative issue as a noble failure, as “the defeat which was inflicted upon the men of 1916 was utter and complete from the military point of view.” Subsequent Irish nationalists methodically and pragmatically turned that defeat into the victory of the Treaty, at least according to The Star. This transformation from defeat to victory was engineered by Griffith and Collins, two safe conduits of Treatyite legitimacy: “Few, indeed, during those dark days [Easter 1916] could have dreamt that within the short space of six years, the flag which went down before the might of Britain in Easter Week, 1916, would be flying over a free sovereign Irish state. . . . It may well be doubted if national freedom would have come in our time had it not been for the heroism which prompted the men of 1916 to strike the blow which has rendered their names immortal in the history of their race. But that we can salute their memory to-day as free citizens of a sovereign Irish state is due in no small degree to Griffith and Collins, whose courage and statesmanship during the five years following

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1916 turned the defeat of fifteen years ago into the national triumph of 1921.” The Treaty was therefore the “national triumph” and still the anchor of Cumann na nGaedheal’s political philosophy. But it was connected to the Easter Rising, so as to root Cumann na nGaedheal in the revolutionary past and enable it to fend off charges that it was a counterrevolutionary party. Collins and Griffith were the bridge between the revolutionary past and the Treatyite present and were invoked as such repeatedly in this commemorative issue. Because of its association with Collins, Griffith, and 1916, the Cumann na nGaedheal government was depicted as the true heirs of the revolution: “Like their forerunners of Easter Week, Griffith and Collins were found ready to lay down their lives in defence of the sovereignty of the Irish people. The spirit and traditions of 1916 have been carried on down to the present day by the Government which has safeguarded the Treaty position and reared upon it the edifice of a worthy national state.” O’Higgins also was connected to 1916, as he “laid down his life for Ireland in 1927 with that same calm courage as that which animated the men of 1916 in the face of the firing squad.” The apostolic succession from 1916, and the mantle of Irish nationalism, was aggressively reclaimed and restated by Cumann na nGaedheal in its last years in power. The connections—in principle, deed, spirit, and valor— between the current government and its revolutionary origins were stated more frequently and forcefully than in previous years, although that revolutionary tradition was often reimagined so as to emphasize themes currently important to Cumann na nGaedheal, such as sovereignty (instead of republicanism), pragmatism, and “getting on with the business.” Republicans, on the other hand, were divorced from the revolutionary legacy by Cumann na nGaedheal. Patrick Hogan, speaking in 1927, denied that those executed by the Free State during the civil war had died for Ireland.29 De Valera was assumed to be antinational because he surrendered to a British general in 1916 but refused to surrender to an Irish military or government in 1923.30 Through its last years in power, the government attempted to turn charges that it was antinational or counterrevolutionary inside out, consistently depicting Fianna Fáil as sham republicans and phony nationalists. For Cumann na nGaedheal, reasserting revolutionary credentials also involved reasserting Irishness, a particularly important election strategy for a party oft accused of Anglophilia. There were frequent claims from republican benches that Cumann na nGaedheal was un- or even anti-Irish. To give one example, Seán Lemass said, “I do know that the policy of the

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Executive Council, as operated, did tend to benefit the interests of another country against the interests of the Irish nation.”31 When Cosgrave was proposed as head of the Executive Council, O’Kelly admitted that Cosgrave had once stood for “the gospel of Irish independence and Irish nationality,” but then denied that Cosgrave continued to stand for that platform as head of the Free State.32 Cumann na nGaedheal leaders tended to respond to these types of charges in several ways. First, they denigrated the nationalism of their opponents. Responding to O’Kelly’s speech, Blythe said, “There was a sort of suggestion in Deputy O’Kelly’s speech that on their side was virtue and Erin, and on ours Saxon and guilt. That is all very well for an election platform, but it does not bear any relation to reality.”33 Cosgrave later charged his opponents with misunderstanding Irish nationality: “Practically every sentence they [republicans] uttered, and practically every expression they used shows completely to any person, even though he be not a student of politics at all, that they have no conception of the term ‘Nationalist.’ . . . The narrow, bigoted, useless and peculiar form that they have adopted . . . is detracting from their own country, and is out of date. . . . The facts are that in the Seanád nominations which took place six years ago there were two people of those who were present at the first Sinn Féin convention in this country in 1905. There is not one Deputy on the Benches opposite who was present there. The Deputy [de Valera] was old enough to have been there, but apparently at that time his national eyes were not open; they have been opened since.”34 Cosgrave, who was present at the founding of Sinn Féin, subtly called attention to the fact that he was involved with advanced nationalism before it was popular and resented having his nationalist credentials called into question. At times, Cumann na nGaedheal speakers suggested that republicans misunderstood Irish nationalism because they were not themselves Irish. O’Higgins told a crowd in 1927 that de Valera’s spiritual home was in Mexico, a play on both de Valera’s Spanish heritage and the chaos and civil war into which Mexico had slipped during the 1910s.35 O’Higgins also referred to de Valera’s betrayal of Collins and Griffith in 1922 as a “dago trick.”36 Hogan also dismissed de Valera’s foreign parentage, telling a Galway crowd, “Whatever or whoever de Valera is, he is not the son of a West Cork farmer, or of a Galway farmer either.”37 Gearóid O’Sullivan said from the hustings, “The fathers and forefathers or the Government candidates were in the country long before the Johnsons, Mortisheds and de Valeras were heard of.”38 After Eoin MacNeill had a speech interrupted by the ubiquitous “Up de

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Valera” call, he responded, “That is a comical sort of republicanism, attaching a romantic atmosphere to a foreign-sounding name. Would they think so much of it if it was a good old Irish name like O’Donnell or MacNeill? My motto is ‘Up Ireland.’”39 MacNeill’s retort typified another common Cumann na nGaedheal theme: that the “foreign-ness” of de Valera’s name was part of its attraction to his followers, both because it conveyed exoticism and also because of the purported “slave mind” operating within Ireland, whereby years of colonial rule had taught the Irish people to associate power with foreigners and weakness with the Irish. Patrick Hogan said that Fianna Fáil “would rather have John Bull than the Kellys or Burkes or Sheas. If a man’s name was Staunton, or Heenan, or Hogan, or Murphy, they wouldn’t follow him at all. The real grievance against us is that we are Irishmen. A lot of people don’t like to see a neighbor’s child running the country.”40 After a member of the audience called de Valera a “Cuban” during another one of Hogan’s speeches, Hogan replied, “The only thing we do know about him is that he is not an Irishman, and that is the reason that Frank Fahy and company are following him. These people with the slave in their bones follow him because they would rather see a Spaniard, an Englishman, a German, or a Frenchman run this country than an Irishman. That is what is wrong with them.”41 Hogan also said that even though the government was attacked for being un-Irish, its members were “a damn sight better Irishmen than the people who make those charges against us.”42 While questioning their opponents’ Irishness, Cumann na nGaedheal speakers increasingly foregrounded their own. Cosgrave angrily said, “In answer to some of the speeches that have been made against my nomination [as president], that from the strict point of view of Irish nationality I yield to no man, in this House or outside it.”43 In addition to defining their own Irishness negatively by calling attention to their opponents’ foreign names, Cumann na nGaedheal speakers spent some time explaining a more positive meaning for Irishness. Hogan, harking back to the ecumenical message of the “national party,” stated, “Our business is to make every man in this country an Irishman,” and he desired an Irishness that was not broken down along sectional or confessional lines.44 Cosgrave desired a “thoroughly virile national character and a thoroughly virile moral character, and there must be respect for private undertakings and national obligations.”45 This invocation of honor, morality, and masculinity was the opposite of the characterizations of republicans in Cumann na nGaedheal rhetoric.

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The entry of Fianna Fáil into the Dáil also renewed debate about the morality of revolutionary violence. This debate particularly heated up after the introduction of the controversial Constitutional Amendment (Article 2A) legislation in late 1931. Fianna Fáil, in the Dáil, generally took a “hate the sin; love the sinner” approach to ongoing republican violence. While in the Dáil, the party generally condemned IRA attacks—they were somewhat less willing to openly condemn such activities during stump speeches—but tended to mitigate the force of that criticism by ascribing idealistic motives to the gunmen or blaming the violence on socioeconomic conditions rather than tendencies toward innate criminality. Interestingly, several Fianna Fáil speakers at this point blamed the culture of violence that had been created during the revolution, often by those who now were Cumann na nGaedheal frontbenchers. This unusual inversion called attention to the revolutionary records of Cumann na nGaedheal politicians and somewhat distanced Fianna Fáil from the revolution. De Valera took the lead in this, arguing that many of the men who were committing violent acts in the name of the republic in 1931 had originally been inspired by the same men who were now using the law and the constitution to suppress them. As an example, de Valera cited Blythe’s fire-breathing articles from the prerevolutionary IRB journal Irish Freedom, in which Blythe generally extolled violence as a primary component of Irish manhood. De Valera said, The arguments that will be put up to the young men who are asked to join that organisation will be a repetition of the arguments which Ernest Blythe, as he then was, or Dick Mulcahy, as he then was, or any other Minister, who was formerly in the I.R.B., put up to the young men that he wanted to join his organisation. Can they not at least get back to their young days and ask themselves whether they did not stand up against the principles of constituted authority? Remember the British in those days said that they were the constituted authority. They bound themselves in secret and revolutionary organisations to oppose what was the established authority of the day. Can they not remember that every one of the arguments which they used then are likely to be applied by the people who go around at present trying to get young men into the I.R.A., or whatever other organisations of that kind are in the country?46

De Valera also observed that Cumann na nGaedheal leaders used secret societies during the revolution, which were against the teaching of the Catholic Church, and therefore should not be surprised that Irishmen and

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Irishwomen continued to defy the church by joining banned or secret organizations such as Saor Éire or the IRA. The next day, de Valera again associated Cumann na nGaedheal with the cult of revolutionary violence. He denied that the revolution had succeeded because of “preaching on the vapouring of Ernest Blythe” and instead asserted that it was the democratic nature of the revolution, and the elevation of elected representatives with the support of the people, that fueled the movement. De Valera then distanced himself from the militaristic aspects of the revolutionary cult: “I was not one of those who supported the soldier cult. It was the gentlemen on the opposite benches who were out for that during the period of the fight from 1919 to 1921. It was the citizens of the country, the plain people who when an ambush took place had to face unarmed and alone the Black and Tans, these were the most courageous section of our people. I know it, not the man with the gun in his hand. I admit it, I never felt so safe or free from danger in my life as when I had a gun in my hand.”47 A Cumann na nGaedheal deputy responded to the latter comment with “or when you were in America.” Seán T. O’Kelly also highlighted the violent past of Cumann na nGaedheal frontbenchers, particularly Mulcahy and Blythe. He said, “We know that certain teachings . . . were engendered in the minds of young men, and that certain doctrines as to militarism and shootings were not alone taught, but practised, probably too liberally and too generously in this country. The men who led in that practice had for certain reasons control of the country, and they have been the most successful in getting their comrades down by bloodshed and otherwise.” O’Kelly continued, “We have not made an effort in ten years to eradicate the methods that were so successfully and ably practised by the Minister for Local Government [Mulcahy]. . . . Throw your minds back to Bloody Sunday and look at the awful things that happened on that day in the City of Dublin.”48 O’Kelly and de Valera were making a twofold argument here. On the one hand, they were using the military history of Cumann na nGaedheal politicians to draw attention to the militaristic methods proposed by the Constitutional Amendment (Article 2A) bill. They also were trying to urge clemency on Cumann na nGaedheal, arguing that men who had undertaken similar violent acts themselves should have a greater degree of understanding for IRA soldiers in the late 1920s. In fact, O’Kelly closed with a passage that very closely echoed the rhetoric of O’Higgins in 1922 and 1923: “All minds do not move alike. It takes a longer time to bore changes and alterations in conditions, national, social

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and otherwise, into some minds than into others. You cannot change the [military] tradition, because it is a tradition. You cannot alter it in five years.” Where O’Kelly and O’Higgins differed, however, was on the remedy for this situation. O’Kelly argued for leniency and understanding, particularly given the violent past of some of the Cumann na nGaedheal leaders. O’Higgins, on the other hand, wished to model stern, impersonal discipline, hoping that would accelerate the learning process. These comments from Fianna Fáil give Cumann na nGaedheal some of the revolutionary credibility that it had sought in the years since the civil war. Cumann na nGaedheal was now being associated with the cult of the gunman and the glorification of revolutionary violence, and several of its founding fathers were credited as inspirations for the revolution. For a party that was often accused of being pro-British, or too close to the establishment, this discussion was potentially a boon. But while the revolutionary credibility was potentially beneficial, Cumann na nGaedheal leaders also had to explain why they no longer tolerated such views from the IRA. Mulcahy, whose attempt to revive the IRB had been mentioned by Fianna Fáil speakers, defended secret societies, arguing that they needed to be judged by what they produced: “The fruits we brought in . . . were that we put this Parliament sitting here with an Army responsible and subservient to its will. That is our contribution, and Deputies sit with their tongues in their cheeks listening to Deputy de Valera talking about the I.R.B.”49 Desmond FitzGerald admitted that he and his colleagues had extolled violence before the Rising: “The Deputy quoted from documents written by Mr. Blythe many years ago. Mr. Blythe wrote these at a time when this country was governed by a foreign Government, when the Irish people were completely submerged. If the whole Irish people had decided that they wished a certain thing for their country it meant nothing because we were governed from outside. We, in our judgment, possibly may have erred somewhat and if we did we are to blame for it.” But he then went on to argue, as Cumann na nGaedheal was wont to do, that the context had changed between 1913 and 1931: Deputy de Valera quotes these articles of Mr. Blythe with the clear intimation that he considers the present situation exactly as it was then. He considers that if Mr. Blythe was right in saying these things at that time that the other people outside are right in preaching exactly the same doctrine in relation to the Irish State now that Mr. Blythe preached to the Irish people in relation to the British State some seventeen years ago. Deputy de Valera says that at that time it was to

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a certain extent successful, and that it is the same thought that was in the mind of Mr. Blythe when he wrote these articles as is at the back of the minds of the young men now, the young men who go round the country telling the people that they have the right to commit murder. . . . If Deputy de Valera is right, Mr. Blythe and the rest of us must admit that we were completely perverted at that time. Are we, with the authority, responsibility and duty that we now have, to cover up our faults at that time as Deputy de Valera would like to do? Are we to go around and say to young men that murder is one of the first doctrines of the Catholic Church, are we to go around and assure them that nobody has the right to obey authority and that authority has not the right to exist?50

This kind of debate offered a number of opportunities for Cumann na nGaedheal. It did remind the Irish people that the members of the Cumann na nGaedheal party, many of whom had been condemned repeatedly as conservatives, crypto-unionists, or antirevolutionaries, actually had a revolutionary past that they could invoke. It also allowed the government to explain, once again, how revolt that had been legitimate in 1916 or 1919 was no longer legitimate because of changed conditions. This had been an argument that O’Higgins and others had struggled to make since the Treaty. Cumann na nGaedheal also disparaged the revolutionary records of its opponents. Cumann na nGaedheal leaders frequently had trouble distinguishing Fianna Fáil from de Valera, and they tended to assume that the party was more or less a reflection of de Valera’s somewhat mystifying—to them at least—personal popularity. This factor, along with the bitter recriminations from the civil war, ensured that there would be a large number of personal attacks as part of election campaigns and Dáil speeches. The idea was, in part, that tarnishing de Valera’s revolutionary service would weaken his appeal to the Irish people and elevate that of the Cumann na nGaedheal politicians. The party realized that the revolutionary context was still important to voters. Patrick Hogan, picking up where his friend O’Higgins left off, took particular pride in criticizing de Valera. He told the Dáil in 1929, “It is the old story: de Valera will pick a quarrel and then we will go to war and clear it up. That has been his consistent role for the last five or six years.”51 Hogan also mocked de Valera for being “in America, as usual 2000 miles from the scene of battle” when he was proposed to the Dáil as a candidate for president in 1930.52 Hogan similarly taunted a pro–de Valera heckler while campaigning in 1927, observing that de Valera “was always in America when there was trouble here.”53 This kind of personal attack was often useful

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on the hustings, where politicians had to respond to interrupters much as a comedian would respond to a heckler during a show. Gearóid O’Sullivan gave his jab an economic dimension, telling his audience that “Mr. de Valera talked of reducing [civil servants’ and ministers’] salaries, but Mr. de Valera’s stay in America cost many times more than the salary of the highest paid minister.”54 For good measure, O’Sullivan also claimed that de Valera was responsible for the deaths of Brugha, O’Connor, O’Higgins, and Collins, and said, “Mr. de Valera was the biggest political fraud that ever appeared in public life in Ireland. He surrendered in 1916 to Maxwell, but he was too proud to surrender to the Irish people who made him.”55 Eamon Duggan, a Treaty signatory, claimed that de Valera refused to accept the Treaty simply because he was jealous that Collins “ousted him from the position he occupied in the hearts of the Irish people.”56 Cosgrave rather pithily summed up de Valera’s reputation among Cumann na nGaedheal leaders by asking an election audience, “Could any man point to any leader who has ever done as bad work as that man has done after the Treaty was passed?”57 These attacks framed de Valera exactly as Cumann na nGaedheal wished to have him seen: hypocritical, fraudulent, and prone to talking rather than doing. In addition, they questioned the utility of de Valera’s revolutionary service, a key component of his reputation. To undermine this source of legitimacy, Cumann na nGaedheal emphasized de Valera’s willingness to surrender in 1916, his absence in America during some of the most difficult stages of the revolution, and his perceived inability to work with others without splitting or sabotaging the movement. Other Fianna Fáil front benchers came under attack as well, most notably Seán MacEntee and Seán T. O’Kelly. After one of O’Kelly’s speeches, Cosgrave noted, “I do not know that I ever heard Deputy O’Kelly flounder along at greater disadvantage to himself than he did tonight.”58 Gearóid O’Sullivan mocked the revolutionary service of O’Kelly, contrasting it with his subsequent bellicose rhetoric: “Sean T. O’Kelly, who said he was not yet demobilised, set out in 1916 with an umbrella and got shot in the toe. He [O’Sullivan] would like to know what Sean T. O’Kelly’s representation of the Irish Republic in Paris cost.”59 This kind of thing was clearly a conscious strategy for Cumann na nGaedheal, as Eoin MacNeill repeated a similar charge at a meeting the next day.60 Cumann na nGaedheal speakers also questioned the credentials of rankand-file republicans. After facing an interruption at an election meeting, O’Higgins wondered “how many of those young men [the interrupters] had

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so much gab in the winter of 1920, but you who lived among them are in a position to bear testimony as to who was anxious to wade knee deep in Saxon gore at the time.” He then addressed the interrupters directly: “Come up here [on the platform] and tell us where you buried your dead—where is your private cemetery where you buried all the police and military you shot.”61 Later the same day, O’Higgins again took on an individual interrupter: “There is a 50-horsepower commandant over there. . . . God knows how many police he killed. He must have been a tough boy in 1920.”62 Duggan also claimed that republican hecklers at his election meeting were men who had done nothing while the Black and Tans were in Ireland.63 O’Higgins told the Dáil in 1923, “Deputies know that people who profess to be unable to bring their proud souls under to the [Treaty] settlement . . . were able in the past to bring their proud souls under to British occupation, to British administration of this country, and to bring not only their proud souls but their proud bodies under the bed when the British were ‘rampaging’ through the country.”64 This sort of attack increased in frequency during the later years of Cumann na nGaedheal’s tenure in government. After a heckler said, “Up the Republic” during Cosgrave’s speech, the president snapped, “I fought for the Republic. You didn’t,” a relatively rare invocation of his Easter service.65 Hogan made these kinds of comments frequently, as he was one of the Cumann na nGaedheal leaders most often attacked for his lack of a revolutionary record. Fianna Fáil’s Seán Lemass told Hogan, “You were never even a Home Ruler,” and Hogan responded by both promoting his own record and denigrating that of Lemass. Hogan said that during the revolution, he “enjoyed three square meals a day in an internment camp for twelve months, the same as Deputy Lemass.” After being asked where he was during Easter Week, Hogan dismissively said, “Sure we were all out in Easter Week” and then repeatedly (and incorrectly) attacked Lemass, who was a good decade younger than most of the revolutionaries, for not being part of Easter Week. After being told that Lemass was out at Easter, Hogan again mockingly said, “Then I was there also. I was at the Post Office and I did not see him, and I am without a national record.” O’Kelly interjected that “Deputy Lemass did his duty as a boy in 1916,” and Hogan responded, “His record is nothing to mine. . . . I have a marvelous record.”66 Hogan also told an election crowd in his native Galway that many Fianna Fáil members were only faking their republicanism, referencing Easter Week in Galway in the process: “There are genuine Republicans here, who learned their Republicanism from Liam Mellows, and I ask them who are the Republicans now? Who are those who

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are the real Nationalists and trying to do the best for the country? They are on our side, and will not be found in the ranks of Fianna Fáil.” Fianna Fáil, in contrast to the principled nationalists in Cumann na nGaedheal, were “that wretched crowd whose campaign began in spite and whose leader, out of jealousy of a West Cork farmer’s son, put the country through all the expense and terrors of a civil war.”67 A few days earlier, Hogan had evoked a similar theme, noting that if there was a renewed fight with England, as Fianna Fáil at times claimed to desire, there would be no Fianna Fáil volunteers “to man the trenches. . . . They only talk about fighting; they don’t mean it, and the men who did the fighting in this country when the English were here would have to come in again and clean up the mess.”68 He continued in the same vein at a meeting at Woodford, again calling the courage of Fianna Fáil supporters into question: “They did no shouting or fighting when the ‘Black and Tans’ were in the county in 1922. These heroes took the barracks in Woodford, and remained there in fear and trembling until men now listening and not shouting on the outskirts of the meeting came in and took them.” He continued, “95 per cent of the men who are following de Valera are men who would not take the risk if there was any danger coming.” Hogan also confidently predicted, “What the National Army gave them in 1922 is nothing to the beating they are going to get at this election.”69 The Star claimed republicans were “still harnessed to illusion and hysteria. It still coquets with the wild women and the male war-time pacifists who have become post-truce warriors.”70 Mulcahy negatively compared “the Republicanism of the men who never fired a shot in 1921, but came out of their hiding places when all danger was over in 1923” to “the Republicanism of the men who gave their lives for Ireland in 1916 and 1921.”71 In so doing, Mulcahy glossed over the fact that he had not himself fired a shot since 1916. This emphasis on the government’s revolutionary origins and record often bled into triumphalism about the civil war. The party presented its civil war record with a bit more gusto, seemingly believing that this issue would animate voters in ways that the foreign policy record did not. In fact, many party leaders seemed to believe, even in the late 1920s and early 1930s, that the party’s biggest achievement remained its civil war victory and subsequent restoration of order. The voters’ apparent willingness to forgive de Valera for his actions in 1922, or perhaps even to agree with his version of events, baffled many Cumann na nGaedheal leaders, who went down to electoral defeat in 1932 seemingly unaware of why their perceived trump card failed to discredit the former president. This reflected a continuing belief—dating

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back at least to O’Higgins’s stump speeches in 1922 and 1923—that de Valera could be argued or reasoned out of existence. Proud of their restoration of stability, the party brought the events of the civil war back to voters’ attention after 1927, with little recognition that the contexts of 1927 or 1932 were quite different from those of 1922 and 1923. Minister of Education John Marcus O’Sullivan ruefully—whether feigned or otherwise—told an election crowd in 1927 that the Treaty should not continue to be the dominant issue in public life in 1927, but because Cumann na nGaedheal’s main electoral rival was the anti-Treaty party, the Treaty was necessarily going to be an important factor in the coming election.72 Having blamed Fianna Fáil for the prominence of the Treaty in election rhetoric, Cumann na nGaedheal members could then retreat to a favorite pastime: bashing de Valera. The electorate was repeatedly reminded of republican actions during the civil war, and the blame for the civil war was placed squarely on the shoulders of republicans, de Valera in particular. Republican actions in 1922 and 1923, according to Cumann na nGaedheal, got the revolution off track and prevented many revolutionary goals from being achieved. It took the dedication, sacrifice, and resolve of Cumann na nGaedheal to salvage anything from the wreckage. This narrative positioned Cumann na nGaedheal as the party truly dedicated to the revolution, despite republican claims to the contrary, and credited it with restoring order, winning the civil war, and presiding over the achievement of revolutionary goals. De Valera was frequently the villain of this narrative, with his two major sins generally considered hypocrisy and vanity. Charges of hypocrisy generally centered on the incongruities between his post-1922 republicanism and his willingness to accept something short of a republic in 1921. Duggan told an election crowd that the Republic had been abandoned when negotiations started, as the plenipotentiaries were told to make a Treaty of association with the commonwealth.73 O’Higgins, eager as always to pound de Valera, similarly claimed that de Valera abandoned the Republic when he told the Dáil in August 1921 that a compromise was coming.74 FitzGerald and de Valera debated for nearly ninety minutes on an election platform in Borris, with de Valera refuting FitzGerald’s charges that he had agreed to an oath to the king at the 3 December 1921 cabinet meeting.75 Cumann na nGaedheal also depicted the Treaty split as the result of de Valera’s ego and desire to be in control. Ernest Blythe attributed de Valera’s opposition to the Treaty to “personal enmity” toward Collins, which had initially formed when Collins criticized de Valera’s extravagant living while

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touring America in 1919 and 1920. Blythe also remarked that de Valera feared that Collins, who had already received credit for winning the war, would similarly receive credit for the Treaty, at de Valera’s expense.76 The Star called Fianna Fáil “the disgruntled and defeated fragment of the old Sinn Féin party. It owes its existence, not to its possession of any particular policy or national ideal, but simply and solely to the manoeuvres of a rejected and disappointed leader striving to recover the ascendancy his own disloyalty and folly had forfeited.”77 The same journal again noted, “It is to Mr. de Valera’s feeling of personal superiority that we must attribute his actions in the civil war,” a war that would not have been so devastating “if Mr. de Valera’s egotism had not fanned it to a fiercer flame.”78 Duggan, in a September 1927 stump speech, took this accusation even farther, comparing de Valera’s pride to that of Lucifer. After again blaming Fianna Fáil for the Treaty continuing to be an election issue, Duggan said that de Valera rejected the Treaty because “he became so full of vanity and, like Lucifer, he came to the conclusion that he was greater than all the people of his country.”79 Using such themes, Cumann na nGaedheal hammered home again and again de Valera’s—and, by extension, Fianna Fáil’s—responsibility for civil war. Cumann na nGaedheal’s materials for the second 1927 election highlighted this argument. The most interesting of these prints put de Valera’s profile on a Roman- or British-style coin, with a laurel wreath on his head and the inscription “E.D.V. APPROX. PRES. EXT. ASS. NON-CO-OP.” The punning caption is “Our new Half-Sovereign? Worth its Face Value?”80 Other posters made similar claims in less obscure ways. In one, de Valera is depicted as an artist painting a canvas called “Civil War.” The painting has dying people in the foreground, a burning building in the background suggestive of the Four Courts, and a price tag of £33,000,000, the common figure cited by Cumann na nGaedheal for the costs of the civil war. The caption reads “Presented by the Artist to the Nation. The Artist is now working on another Canvas(s), but what about the Price?” Another poster had de Valera shedding crocodile tears to an impoverished worker. The worker is marked “Irish Industry” and is dressed in overalls and walking with crutches. De Valera tells the worker, “I’m so sorry for you,” and the worker responds, “So well you might be—after crippling me yourself.” The figure of £33,000,000 was again written in the sky above the worker. Cumann na nGaedheal advertisements referred to “Fianna Fáil: the party whose leader caused the civil war of 1922 over what has since become an ‘empty formula.’” They also condemned Fianna Fáil’s recent taking of the

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oath: “They took the Oath to save their party—they would not take it in 1922 to save the country from Civil War. The Oath today is the same as it was in 1922. . . . Mr. De Valera and his friends would not take it then. They preferred to plunge their country into the horrors of civil war.”81 On the stump, Ernest Blythe pithily told the crowd, “If Mr. de Valera had accepted the Treaty in 1921 the country would have been saved the horror and demoralisation of civil war, brother would not have been set against brother, and the country would not have been left with a big financial burden.”82 The election propaganda in 1932 continued in the same vein. Cumann na nGaedheal’s “Fighting Points for Speakers” called the civil war “the attempt to dictate to the nation” and discussed the first Free State government under the heading “The state saved for the people.” Speakers were also to emphasize that “the opposition to the Treaty was not based upon any real national principle, but sprang mainly from petty jealousies and personal spleen. The suggested alternative to the Treaty—Document No. 2—is historical testimony to that fact.”83 The civil war had also ruined Irish pride in the state’s new institutions, as it had entangled their founding with the outbreak of civil war. As The Star editorialized wishfully in 1931: “It is tantalizing to imagine what would have been the situation in Ireland if the murderous hatreds and unlovely propaganda of the Civil War had never been let loose on the people to distract their attention from the tremendous and inspiring historical tasks that were set them by the Treaty. Of one thing we may be quite sure; that the people would have been more conscious, and proud of their glorious new opportunity, and that this consciousness, and this justifiable pride would have resulted in a far more purposeful and fruitful concentration upon the positive work that has followed the undoing of the conquest.”84 Consistently, this is how Cumann na nGaedheal presented the civil war as the decade progressed. Opposition to the Treaty was characterized as a sham, motivated by a combination of inherent unruliness and de Valera’s personal vanity. Cumann na nGaedheal, on the other hand, were depicted as nationalist stalwarts patiently creating the institutions of a new state in the face of civil war–induced economic distress, democratic inexperience, and a population distracted by the issues and personalities of 1922. As Patrick Hogan said in 1930, “The Treaty was signed in 1922. I agree with Deputy Lemass, that this country was new to self-government, and I agree that a certain amount of mental and moral confusion was to be expected. But, after all, we have had eight years of government, and we ought to get proud of ourselves. We ought to realise that we are a white people who are expected

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to live up to our responsibilities.” Fianna Fáil’s hesitant and conditional embrace of democratic forms, and its occasional use of these forms to subvert the elected government, was, according to Hogan, “a positive insult to this people, with its fighting traditions and its traditions for fair play . . . and realism.”85 Cumann na nGaedheal had, in its view, created the democracy of which Fianna Fáil was now taking advantage, and the party wanted credit for that achievement. As the “Fighting Points” declared, “The civil war was essentially a fight for democracy,” and Cumann na nGaedheal, in winning this fight, believed themselves to be the true democrats and the true heirs of the revolutionary tradition.86 Cumann na nGaedheal wanted to redefine nationalism in practical terms, much as it had attempted to do since the Treaty debate. After referencing the government’s good credit rating, and willingness to spend money “on the labourer, the farmer, the shopkeeper,” Hogan concluded: “And that is what we call patriotism. We have not wasted our time talking about an oath, or a Treaty, or about a Republic or a Free State.”87 This line of argument offered the advantage of downplaying unpopular compromises such as the oath, while allowing the government to trumpet its record of constructive achievement. On the other hand, the argument was framed more aggressively in the late 1920s, as Cumann na nGaedheal leaders were more willing to mock openly the records of their republican opponents as well as tout their own connections to the revolution. It was an appeal to the “silent majority,” those people who had taken part in the war, or supported Irish nationalism, but were presumably less disposed to crow about their records at election meetings. This was clearly a strategy designed to disconnect Fianna Fáil from its claims to superior revolutionary activism and to remind voters that Cumann na nGaedheal leaders had an active role in the revolution too. The entry of Fianna Fáil to the Dáil joined this battle in a way it had not been in previous years, and the growing distance of the civil war made invocations of the revolution undoubtedly safer for Cumann na nGaedheal speakers than it had been in 1922 or 1923. After 1927 Cumann na nGaedheal leaders expressed mounting frustration over both the apparent negative trajectory of the country and the electorate’s increasingly wary mood. As Hogan rather apocalyptically put it in 1927, “Ireland was free from all foreign domination, but she was not free from the enemy within.”88 Eventually, a siege mentality gripped Cumann na nGaedheal in its last years. Party leaders had always tended to see themselves as heroic and embattled public servants, committed to doing the right

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thing despite physical threats, republican harassment, and electoral unpopularity. This attitude originated during the civil war, when members of the government were often barricaded in their offices by threats of violence. As the party’s popularity continued to wane in the late 1920s and Fianna Fáil’s increased, this siege mentality reemerged, only this time the enemies at the gates were variously identified as republicans, communists, and, ultimately, an ungrateful and uncomprehending Irish electorate. Republicans were, of course, an old enemy, and the perception that Cumann na nGaedheal was surrounded by republican adversaries was hardly a new one as the 1932 election approached. After a few post-1923 years of peace, violence seemed to increase as the government’s final five-year term progressed. The assassination of O’Higgins had shaken a government slowly getting used to tranquility, and increasing attacks on both policemen and jurymen provided more apparent cause for worry. The IRA seemed to be growing in numbers, supplies, and audacity, and Fianna Fáil’s cagey refusal to wholly disavow the campaign continued to frustrate the government. Attacks on Cumann na nGaedheal election meetings left the members of the government fearful for their own safety should a Fianna Fáil majority be returned. As Blythe said in a 1932 election speech: “If a Fianna Fáil Government are returned to power elections would be won not by argument and persuasion but by organised terrorism. . . . Fianna Fáil needs your vote to put it in power. It would not need your vote to keep it in power.”89 Another election flyer claimed the government had “established the reign of law and put down the Gun Bully.”90 One flyer, headed “Please Don’t Commit Any More Murders,” highlighted de Valera’s apparent inability to either separate himself from or condemn the IRA for its attacks on policemen or jurors. The flyer warned voters, “If you put Mr. de Valera in power his way of protecting your life and property will be to go on his knees to the assassins . . . and say to them, ‘PLEASE, DON’T SHOOT.’” Cosgrave, on the other hand, would “treat murder as murder. With President Cosgrave’s Government in power, it is the murderer and the looter who will be unsafe—NOT YOU. KEEP YOUR BULWARK AGAINST THE TERRORISTS.”91 Blythe also feared that the IRA was bent on overthrowing the state by force, and he linked them with other paramilitary or antidemocratic groups on the continent: “There is no use in blinking the fact that there is a new sort of antidemocratic theory, a new teaching of a policy of a minority seizing power. That policy is all through the world. I believe that as things are going in Europe and throughout the world even Governments and States that have

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had no cause, for a long time, to fear armed movements or violent attacks are liable now, and will be liable in the future, to fear them.”92 Lost in this jeremiad was the fact that some leading members of Cumann na nGaedheal, most particularly Blythe, were themselves flirting with antidemocratic methods as potential ways to forestall a Fianna Fáil electoral victory. Blythe’s speech was delivered on the introduction of the final, and most draconian, Cumann na nGaedheal Public Safety Act, the Constitution Amendment (Article 2A) Act of 1931. This amendment restored military tribunals and essentially removed civil, constitutional, and procedural rights from those persons tried under these tribunals. The tribunals, and the act which created them, were also artificially removed from the scrutiny of the regular courts. The act also gave the government wide powers to regulate speech by banning organizations and publications. In introducing the bill, and in hurrying it through the Dáil by restricting debate, Cosgrave cited a number of common Cumann na nGaedheal themes.93 He observed that the ongoing disorder was distracting Cumann na nGaedheal from focusing on the economic crisis: “On more than one occasion since the establishment of the State our energies have had to be diverted from the great work of economic regeneration because the very foundations of all economic and civil life were in jeopardy. And now, at a time of unparalleled financial stringency and depression, we have once again to pause in our work. This time the menace must be removed once and for all.” Cosgrave listed a variety of offensive and belligerent statements that had been printed in An Phoblacht, including calls for open drilling, threats to murder the minister for justice, justifications for the shooting of policemen, and warnings to the Garda against the suppression of political crime. Ministers promoted this measure as a guarantor of democracy, particularly the type of majoritarian democracy that Cumann na nGaedheal had been peddling since the civil war. As Blythe told the Dáil: “This is a democratic country. We accept the principles of democracy and government can only be carried on on that basis that majority rule be accepted . . . and that those who want things changed be satisfied to persuade the majority of their people to change them.94 Cosgrave added, “We stand, and we have always stood, for democratic rule in this country.”95 The bill was presented as a necessary evil, made necessary by the actions of the revived IRA. Minister for Education J. M. O’Sullivan even half-apologized for the bill: “This is not the kind of measure that any Government would care to introduce. It was introduced only because it was completely and absolutely necessary, because there

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was, if you like, a half state of war in this country. It was a one-sided war in which all the shooting, all the activities, could be done by one side.”96 As these speeches made clear, however, there was another reason for the draconian legislation: the fear of communism. Increasingly, some members of the Executive Council were increasingly nervous about the perceived rise of communism within Ireland and felt themselves and their state progressively more under attack by communists and communist sympathizers. In introducing the Constitution Amendment Act, Cosgrave went on a long tirade—seemingly sincere, although Fianna Fáil charged Cumann na nGaedheal with seeking political capital out of this whole episode—about the communist threat. Cosgrave said, “Within the past few months a new element of danger has been added to our existing perils. The I.R.A. has accepted as its ally the new organisation known as ‘Saor Éire,’ which is simply an organisation for setting up in this country a State on the lines of the Russian Soviet Republic.”97 Communists resisted church, state, and capitalism, and “young men are being taught that murder is a legitimate instrument for the furtherance of Communist or political aims.” Cosgrave defended his government’s right to suppress such activities and speech, citing Christian principles and Ireland’s precarious postcolonial status as key reasons for so doing: They are being taught that the Christian Church around which our whole history and civilisation have been built up is an instrument of tyranny for the suppression of the people; that the priest must remain within the sanctuary; that outside that sphere his teachings must have no sway. I believe, and my colleagues believe, that the future of this country is linked up with the traditions and teachings of the Christian religion which have governed the minds of its people for fifteen hundred years. We believe that the new patriotism based on Muscovite teachings with a sugar coating of Irish extremism is completely alien to Irish tradition. The right to private property is a fundamental of Christian civilisation and so long as this Government remains in power it will maintain that sacred right for the people.

The president concluded by once again indirectly referencing Ireland’s postcolonial difficulties in fostering order and respect for government and blaming republicans for the fertile ground onto which communist propaganda fell: Our task as the first Government of this country has been difficult. We have had to contend not merely with the negative difficulty of the absence of a State

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sense amongst large sections of the people, but with positive propaganda of a more insidious character against the members of the Government. We have been variously described . . . as atheists, as paid agents of England, as Imperialists, as traitors. No effort has been spared to make the essential government of the country as difficult as possible by poisoning the minds of our citizens against their representatives. . . . The present legislation would never have been necessary—and it is a necessity—if the ordinary principles of patriotism and fair play had been observed by those who are opposed to the present Government. The Communist and the potential murderer find easy disciples amongst a people who are taught to believe the most sinister evils of those who are in authority over them.

The state’s political immaturity was again cited as a reason for the present disorder. However, as the 1920s wound to a close, and the Great Depression set in, the government did begin to pay more attention to this perceived threat. Part of this was due to the rise of Fianna Fáil, which gave the Cumann na nGaedheal government a heightened sensitivity toward enemies. The declining economic situation also made government leaders feel that communism could gain ground. The formation of Saor Éire in 1931 galvanized the government, which seemed to genuinely fear its marriage of republicanism and communism. As Michael Tierney wrote in The Star, “There are many indications that for some time past the surviving fragments of extremist Irregularism in Ireland have been drawing closer and closer to international Communism.”98 By 1930 ministers were being deluged with memoranda from the Ministry of Justice on the communist and labor movements. The goal of most of these was to paint republicanism and communism in monolithic terms as doctrines that threatened all that good Irishmen and women held dear. For example, a Ministry of Justice memo on communism in Ireland from August 1930 read, “It is pretty clear that the Workers’ Voice [Peadar O’Donnell’s paper] is in close touch with the Communist Party in Russia and that there is some kind of working understanding between the Communists as represented by the Workers’ Voice and the Irregulars. . . . An Poblacht . . . purports to represent the Irregular view point [and] is developing the working class complex although the Russian Communists apparently do not regard them as true proletarians but rather petty bourgeoisie.”99 Other similar memos exhaustively cataloged small revolutionary groups and their activities, or reported on meetings addressed by O’Donnell and other

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radical leaders.100 The conclusion from one of these memos noted that “the extremist movement in this country is a strange mixture of political revolutionaries and social revolutionaries. There will be found in the same organisation intellectuals living on the dividends of the capitalist system and corner boys who have no other driving force behind them than discontent with their condition in life.”101 The obvious language of class in this quote indicates that Cumann na nGaedheal leaders feared the proclamation of a social revolution in which “corner boys” could take over the reins of Irish society and the Irish state. In addition, the attacks on Christianity and Catholicism gave pious men such as Cosgrave and FitzGerald pause, as they seemingly threatened the intertwining of Catholicism and Irishness that had been built up over centuries. As Cosgrave said, “The right to private property was the first citadel attacked by Russian Communists in their own country, and when it fell the whole fabric of Christianity in Russia fell with it.”102 Cosgrave seemed quite willing here to connect Christianity with property. On the introduction of the Constitutional Amendment Act in 1931 Cosgrave promised, “This Bill will . . . enable us for all time to get rid of a conspiracy against democracy, against religion, against authority, and it will give us an opportunity of ensuring that God’s commandments will be obeyed in this country.”103 The declining situation in Spain—not yet in the thrall of an open civil war but with its turmoil-plagued Republic increasingly moving toward the left— also gave Cumann na nGaedheal propagandists cause for alarm. The Star spelled out the potential scenario: “If at the next general election, the Government of President Cosgrave is defeated, and a Fianna Fáil Government takes its place, we are likely to have in Ireland much the same series of results.” The editorial writer posited that Spanish leftism, like Irish republicanism, was a “party . . . made up of the most heterogeneous elements, and [it] has the secret support and active aid of elements more heterogeneous still.” Once a government was elected, the moderates would be pushed aside, as allegedly happened in Spain: “All of a sudden, the subterranean forces in the heterogeneous Republican Party got to work. There were carefully organised outbreaks in nearly every town. Armed men set fire to buildings, destroyed property, terrorised and harried innocent citizens. All the while the Police and Army stood idle.”104 Another Star article several months later noted, “The Draft Spanish Constitution gives us an indication of the lines which the Workers’ Republic here will logically and naturally follow. Divorce is to be had for the mere asking. Religious Orders are to be suppressed. All

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private property is to be gradually socialised.”105 Why this was a logical and natural conclusion was left unstated. Cumann na nGaedheal election propaganda urged the electorate to stay vigilant and prevent such a catastrophe in Ireland: “It is your duty to help the Government Party to eliminate once and for all the danger of a Spanish Republic in Ireland. . . . A careless electorate gave Spain a weak government. Then the rest came.”106 This is also another invocation of Cumann na nGaedheal’s status as a national party, a “Government party,” and by implication the only force broad and deep enough to create a strong government that could resist unruly minority elements such as communists. Other sectional, single-issue, or insufficiently national parties would have to form a coalition government, leaving them prey to minority movements. Cumann na nGaedheal commentators divided on whether communism could actually take root in Ireland. Catholicism was thought to be the great bulwark against such an outcome, but Cumann na nGaedheal writers speculated frequently on how communism could possibly flourish in what seemed to be a devout Catholic country. One common assumption was that communism could enter Ireland through the actions of weak leaders who were not perhaps communists themselves but who refused to crack down on their more questionable political allies. A Cumann na nGaedheal election leaflet from 1932 noted that “Spain a short while ago was no less Catholic than Ireland is to-day, and the great majority of her people are still Catholic. Yet at this moment in Spain convents are being burned, churches destroyed, and God is being blasphemed. Why have these things happened? Because the Spanish Republican leaders while paying lip service to the principles of law and order and to the rights of the majority, have never ceased to pander to the Gunman and the Communist.”107 Making the same argument in another international context, The Star labeled de Valera as “another Kerensky.”108 Others worried that communism could be introduced to Ireland by linking it with more overtly “Irish” phenomena. The Star’s lead column “Affairs of State” observed, “The communistic ideal . . . cannot of itself appeal to a deeply religious people. Its denial of God, its glorification of the material world, its ridicule of religion and virtue are all absolutely repugnant to the Irish nature. The poison is being administered under a sugar coating of nationalism.”109 Moral decay caused by civil war and revolutionary violence, a favorite topic of Cumann na nGaedheal rhetoric, was another particularly Irish phenomenon that could aid the spread of communism. FitzGerald, ever alert to the opportunity for moral theorizing, cited the postcolonial condition

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as a reason for Ireland’s potential acceptance of communism: “The people of this country being governed from outside for many generations have realised that the effective authority that was over them was denuded of moral authority, and that they had a right to overthrow that authority. That necessarily had an effect on the moral being of the people of Ireland, and made them fail to realise that the authority which comes from God must be obeyed by them according to the moral code.” FitzGerald also mentioned the confusing moral effects of revolutionary violence: “We know in our warfare against the British regime we had to use methods which in other countries under legitimate government would actually have been the methods of the criminal. These necessarily have had an effect on the people and have made this country apparently a fruitful ground for the promotion of social chaos.”110 The example of the Soviet Union, where a relatively small self-professed “vanguard” party seized power, gave pause to Cumann na nGaedheal elites. Cosgrave said, “Let us not delude ourselves into believing that the new doctrines could never subvert the traditions of this country. Subversive movements are usually carried out by a relatively small minority, and that is no very sound reason to be convinced that large sections of our people would not, like other people, succumb to Communist teachers when allowed complete freedom of utterance.”111 UCD professor Michael Tierney argued that Irish communist sympathizers could pick and choose which elements of communism they would adopt: “The Irish revolutionaries do not have to assimilate Marxian economics, the surplus-value theory, the materialist interpretation of history, the fatalistic belief in the generation of opposite from opposite that is the basis of Marx’s prophecies.” Instead, they could merely emphasize “an uncompromising belief in violence, the desire for a minority dictatorship, and the kind of revolutionary optimism which makes doctrinaires cling to an apparently hopeless cause.”112 Cumann na nGaedheal worried, therefore, that a small number of people could influence the generally Catholic and God-fearing Irish people to accept, or at least not to resist, a doctrine that reinforced the Irish traditional distrust for authority. This marriage of republicanism with communism, symbolized by the creation of Saor Éire, heightened Cumann na nGaedheal’s sense of being surrounded by enemies. Interestingly, the communist or socialist aspect of this program was assumed to be an external creation, brought into Ireland by adherents of Marx or Lenin. The socialist component within the Irish revolution, whether James Connolly’s Marxist theorizing, the egalitarian

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language of the 1916 Proclamation, or the land agitation in the west of Ireland, were rarely mentioned, as the homegrown roots of Irish socialism were downplayed. The government, instead, highlighted the connections between Irish communists, Fianna Fáil, and the Soviet government and expected those connections to turn the electorate against Fianna Fáil.113 Examples of perceived class warfare from the continent, along with the revival of republican violence in Ireland, gave the government a feeling that it was besieged by republicans and communists who could work together to achieve more than either party could alone. Finally, the government increasingly suspected an electorate that it perceived as hostile and ungrateful. Tom Garvin wrote, “Irish democracy was to be heavily shaped by the idea of embattled heroes in power struggling against a perceived collective moral mediocrity ultimately originating in a popular slave culture,” and Cumann na nGaedheal certainly fit this bill in its last years.114 Despite a number of fairly consistent strategies—the attempt to be national and above party, the reassertion of revolutionary credentials, an aggressive foreign policy, and the constant touting of the benefits of the Treaty—Cumann na nGaedheal was clearly slipping with the electorate, and its majority in the Dáil was getting more and more precarious. The slippage, and the increasing sense of electoral abandonment, was caused by a number of factors. First, the rise of Fianna Fáil and, more specifically, its entry in the Dáil, undoubtedly changed the electoral math. The government also felt itself increasingly attacked from the right, where the National League, the National Farmers’ and Ratepayers’ League, and other similarly minded groups picked up votes. Aside from the electoral threats from Fianna Fáil and the National League, the constant heckling of ministers at public meetings also bore witness to the electorate’s increasing unease. This phenomenon was fairly pronounced during the 1927 campaigns, before reaching epidemic proportions in 1932 and 1933. Mention of such heckling was common in newspaper accounts of political meetings, particularly in those newspapers generally sympathetic to Cumann na nGaedheal. The Irish Independent noted that “Ministers appeared to be the only people singled out for persistent interruption,” as “Mr. Hogan had a stormy reception at Ballinamore Bridge (Galway); Mr. Hughes got a lively time at Grange (Louth), and Mr. O’Higgins experienced some heckling at Sligo.”115 O’Higgins received more than his share of such treatment, as “absolute pandemonium” prevented him from speaking in Monaghan, and eggs were thrown at him while speaking in Limerick.116 The journalist noted that the eggs missed

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O’Higgins as “the marksmanship was poor.” O’Higgins responded at another meeting by promoting the Eggs Act as mandating that “we must keep our stale eggs and dirty eggs for election purposes.”117 There were five minutes of disorder from “a few frenzied women” while O’Higgins was attempting to speak, and these female hecklers were given a “rough handling” by stewards as they were escorted from the meeting hall.118 Faced with such disruptions, which ministers believed to have been deliberately organized by republicans, ministers generally responded by belittling their opponents, often with some attempt at humor. Their retorts were very frequently suffused with class prejudices and assumptions. O’Higgins referred to a Drogheda heckler as “the town drunkard” and said that most people who heckled him about the low pay for Shannon workers were drunk and thus obviously getting paid sufficiently for them to purchase alcohol.119 Patrick Hogan said of an interrupter, “That man who shouted ‘Up De Valera’ had not a shilling to give to anyone,” and asserted that he “did not come there to look for the votes of wastrels but for the votes of men who worked.”120 Hogan also called hecklers “louts” and said “most of them wanted a chance of making money without working.”121 Peter Hughes, interrupted at Dundalk, said that he heard that the unemployed were organized so as to disrupt his meeting. He arrogantly replied, “I wouldn’t have [your vote].”122 Hogan said that the party wanted votes from “the decent people anxious to make a decent livelihood.”123 The government by the end of the 1920s was fairly consistently touting its achievements in governing, its successes in defeating its civil war enemies, and its connections to the Irish revolution that brought it to power. The faltering economy, however, complicated this image. The economy was already an issue in the 1927 elections, as the post-WWI trade slump had clearly affected Ireland, but it was even more of an issue as the industrialized world slid into depression after 1929. Cosgrave told a New York Evening Post writer in 1930 that “the questions which agitate the public mind today are almost exclusively economic in character.”124 Cumann na nGaedheal had always been attacked on economic grounds by the Labour and Farmers’ Parties, but the ascent of Fianna Fáil expanded the scope of, and audience for, such attacks. Fianna Fáil repeatedly hammered Cumann na nGaedheal on its mishandling of the economy and its general inability to restore or create prosperity. This was an issue that could be, but certainly was not always, framed in revolutionary terms. Certainly, Fianna Fáil reached back to the revolutionary

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era in touting tariffs, and in criticizing Cumann na nGaedheal for abandoning a key component of Griffith’s Sinn Féin vision. Fianna Fáil also attacked Cumann na nGaedheal as the party of the wealthy, with the implication that Cumann na nGaedheal was pursuing economic policies that aided Unionists and others who did not support the revolution, while ignoring promises of economic betterment made to those classes that had actually taken part in the revolution. These charges were fueled by Cumann na nGaedheal’s policies of keeping income taxes low, slashing funding allocation to pensions and other relief measures, reducing unemployment payments, moving rather slowly on housing construction, and, allegedly, dragging its feet on job creation and land redistribution. Cosgrave and other Cumann na nGaedheal leaders were well aware of this perception and tried to address it. As Cosgrave said, rather defensively, in 1930: “Other Deputies went so far as to say that we were legislating entirely for the rich and that we were indifferent to the poor. That is not a true charge. . . . We have been responsible for as intensive a social programme as the country was able to afford.” Cosgrave continued by admitting the difference between ideals and reality, a lesson that had been drummed into Cumann na nGaedheal members during the party’s eight years in power: “I invite Deputies to contrast the condition of affairs here with their ideals, to examine other countries much longer established than this, countries with greater opportunities and better traditions than we have got, to compare affairs in those countries with conditions here, and to bear in mind that it is easy enough to table a programme of houses for all, houses for everybody, but it is quite another matter to find out who can be taxed to pay for them.”125 In this case, the financial state of the country, along with, apparently, its less-than-stellar traditions—the “better” traditions elsewhere are not particularly spelled out by Cosgrave, but presumably that is yet another reference to postcolonial lawlessness and disorder—were to blame for the failure to realize the economic ideals of the revolution. This stood uneasily next to the emancipatory and soaring economic rhetoric pouring out of Sinn Féin during the revolution. At that time, committees of experts studied Ireland’s economic conditions, positing vast supplies of natural resources, agrarian potential and fisheries income, enough to bring about prosperity for all and to support a much larger population. All of Ireland’s economic problems, in turn, were blamed on the colonial connection. Few Cumann na nGaedheal party members, except for O’Higgins—who famously called the Democratic Programme “mostly poetry”—and Blythe, were willing to publicly admit that such claims were overblown, necessary

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during the revolution as motivational devices but bearing little relation to reality. Instead, Cumann na nGaedheal had to defend its economic record on its merits, which was difficult to do in the midst of a worldwide economic slump. This too, however, was an issue that could be and often was placed in the framework of the revolution. On the one hand, Ireland’s economic performance under the Cumann na nGaedheal government was put in the context of the revolution and Irish nationalism. Economic underperformance was blamed on the costs of the civil war, and Ireland’s solid credit rating was offered as a potential source of national pride. In addition, the economic situation was placed in an international framework, with Cumann na nGaedheal deputies highlighting the relationships between the Irish economy and outside factors and deriding Fianna Fáil’s perceived isolationism as a dangerous and inadequate solution for Ireland’s economic ills. First and foremost, the government, even after 1927, continued to cite the tremendous economic costs of the civil war as an ongoing impediment to Irish economic growth. The alleged effects were twofold: the sheer cost of restoring order and replacing the damaged infrastructure, as well as the fact that the government could not turn its full attention to economic reconstruction because of the distractions of civil war. O’Higgins summed up both of these complaints in a 1927 election speech at Drogheda: “The people who imposed a burden of £25,000,000 on the State were talking about economic depression. . . . Those were the people who prevented the Government for one and one-half years from turning its attention to the social and economic problems that confronted it. There were grave problems confronting the Government, and it should have been free earlier to turn its attention to them.”126 Cosgrave similarly said in 1927, “If half the energy that had to be spent on restoring public confidence by impartial administration could have been spent upon the vital business of the nation in energising industry, etc., this country would be a better place to live in at present.”127 Hogan and Blythe both blamed the cuts in old age pensions on the costs of civil war, with Hogan saying, “If they [republicans] wanted to show their form in the civil war the country had to pay for it, and drastic reductions had to be made.”128 Cumann na nGaedheal election advertisements also frequently referred to the costs of civil war, with £35 million usually the figure cited. A front-page Cumann na nGaedheal advertisement in the Independent from 1927 even listed several hundred individual incidents of damage allegedly caused by republicans during the civil war, and itemized the £35 million figure into damage to public property, private property, compensation to banks

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for stolen money, and county-by-county claims for restitution. The tag line reminded Irish voters that they were still paying for this damage.129 The government also placed great emphasis on, and claimed responsibility for, Ireland’s favorable credit rating. The “Fighting Points” document from the 1932 election proclaimed “the establishment and maintenance of our National Credit on the highest possible level” as the “greatest achievement of President Cosgrave and his government.”130 This was presented as a point of pride and something that elevated Ireland above many other small countries. Cosgrave proudly told the Dáil in 1930, “Our credit today stands as high as the credit of the strongest countries in the world.”131 FitzGerald made a similar boast a few years earlier, explaining to an audience that Ireland’s credit rating was the highest in the world, including that of England.132 And Cosgrave no doubt sent an election meeting at Cloagh into a frenzy by proclaiming, “We have borrowed money 2 per cent cheaper than Belgium.”133 The intent of this comment, presumably, was again to compare Ireland to the other small countries of Europe and to emphasize that such high credit rating was no accident but was the result of prudent and wise government policies.134 Fianna Fáil, on the other hand, would destroy this favorable credit rating with rash diplomatic and economic policies. An advertisement from the second 1927 campaign declared that Fianna Fáil could not get a foreign loan, presumably because the party’s chicanery over the “empty formula” of the oath would render dubious any promises to honor loan agreements. The ad warned the Irish people that “Fianna Fáil won’t borrow the money, because they cannot. They can only get it by imposing heavier taxation on the Irish people.”135 Another ad noted, “The declared policy of Fianna Fáil is first to destroy the Treaty, violate the Constitution, and reinstate the gunman-politician, thus ruining the country’s credit. Then to go a-begging for a foreign loan offering as security the wreck they will have made of Ireland.” In contrast, Cumann na nGaedheal will “raise it [a loan] at home in Ireland so that the interest will be paid to our own people and there will be no huge drain on the wealth of the country away to foreign capitalists.” The tag line was similarly jingoistic: “Vote for Cumann na nGaedheal and Keep Irish Money in Ireland.”136 High credit was itself something of which Ireland could be proud—a rather mundane reimagining of Irish nationalist goals— and it was also the key to prosperity, as such loans would be the stimuli for projects that would help restore or create Irish prosperity, such as the Shannon Scheme.

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In addition to speaking of the economy in a revolutionary or nationalist context, Cumann na nGaedheal leaders also did so in an international context, highlighting the interdependence of Ireland with the world economies and contrasting Cumann na nGaedheal’s outward-looking strategies favorably with Fianna Fáil’s perceived isolationism and naval gazing. O’Higgins cited the “world factors” that played into Ireland’s unemployment, suggesting that some of these adverse economic conditions were out of Ireland’s hands.137 In a 1930 Dáil speech, Cosgrave said, “Speculation as to what our position would be if we were completely self-contained is vain. We are at present a country with an enormous export surplus which must be sold on a foreign market, and as such we cannot escape the reaction of world conditions.”138 McGilligan echoed this, telling the Dáil, “I know it causes a smile in this assembly to talk of world matters. People pretend to be so self-centred that they imagine it is possible to live in this country without any appreciation whatever of events outside or without any thought that events outside may have some reaction upon the internal economy of this country.” McGilligan also cited the commonwealth as one potential way out of Ireland’s economic difficulty, noting that “there is a closer grouping together in economic life of the States of America” and that some European statesmen had even mooted closer economic ties between the various European states. He then mentioned a “movement within the group known as the British Commonwealth of Nations,” before continuing, “I suppose the popular view as expressed at meetings would be that we should keep apart from all of these movements. How then are we going to live? Is it considered that we can live here economically isolated, that we are not to have any touch with the outer world? If people admit that we must have some touch with the outer world, then with what part of the outer world?”139 Cosgrave also said that being “surrounded by so much depression” undoubtedly hurt Ireland’s economic position but that Ireland’s weathering the storm so well, and preserving the value of its exports in the midst of a global crisis, spoke well of the country, Irish agriculture, and the government’s attempt to standardize the quality of Irish agricultural products. Cosgrave even surmised that “my personal view is that were Britain even normally prosperous at this moment, we should be abnormally so.”140 Cumann na nGaedheal’s citation of outside economic forces provided both a convenient scapegoat for Irish economic difficulty as well as another way of contrasting the party with Fianna Fáil, which was depicted generally as wanting to isolate Ireland behind high tariff walls. Cumann na nGaedheal, in contrast,

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claimed that it was “frankly protectionist” in its policy but not “whole-hog” protectionist like Fianna Fáil, a position which Cumann na nGaedheal variously argued would fatally harm Irish agriculture, drive up the cost of living, and cut off Ireland from products that it was unable to produce itself.141 The sometimes confused impression that emerged from Cumann na nGaedheal’s presentation of Ireland’s economic status was a country that could be proud of its economic status, particularly its low taxes and high credit rating. Ireland was also a country that could and should be engaged with the world economy but not to the point of neocolonial dependence on the British market. In addition, the government very clearly took credit for positive economic indicators, while blaming negative economic indicators on republicans, worldwide economic trends, or Ireland’s traditional underdevelopment. The Cumann na nGaedheal government at times displayed economic optimism, as demonstrated by Blythe’s annual public budget statements as minister for finance.142 At other times, particularly when justifying cuts in pensions or reductions in taxes, the government cited Ireland’s poverty and inability to provide more revenues. Private government communications, particularly out of the Ministry of Finance, tended toward pessimism. J. J. McElligott’s memo from late 1931 (and marked “confidential”) was very bleak, noting that “serious as the position in the present year all the signs go to show that the Budget position for the year 1932/33 will be much more serious.” As if that was not sufficiently gloomy, McElligott continued, “The harvest for this year is poor, trade and business are stagnant, and there is no likelihood of such an improvement in conditions as will permit the yield of the present taxes in 1932 coming up to the expectations of the budget of 1931.”143 The poor economic outlook undoubtedly cast a pessimistic pall—what McGilligan wryly called the “present state of hypochondria into which the country has fallen”—over Cumann na nGaedheal’s last few years in power.144 Cumann na nGaedheal leaders expressed mounting frustration over both the apparent negative trajectory of the country as well as the electorate’s increasingly wary mood. Feeling embattled and increasingly unpopular, subject to political attacks from the left and right, and often prevented from speaking freely at public meetings, the government responded, as it so often did, by raising itself to an elevated moral plane. The Star observed that “it is always much easier to be popular than to be intelligent, painstaking and courageous in public life,” and this was very much the attitude adopted by Cumann na nGaedheal.145 There was much pride among Cumann na

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nGaedheal speakers in the government’s refusal to pander to the population for votes. Hogan claimed that they would not bring in an “election budget” to win votes.146 Blythe said that he would not raise pensions right before an election only to have to lower them again after the election: “I am not out for a ‘stunt’ of that kind to get votes. I will tell the truth, and if I am not elected on an honest policy, I don’t want to be elected at all.”147 He would soon get his wish. Cosgrave said in 1927, “We have set a headline in honesty as against popularity. We have left a record of honest, hard work behind us.”148 Two years later, Cosgrave again said, “They discharge the duties of government best who make lasting national welfare rather than the temporary popularity the touchstone of policy.”149 O’Higgins’s insistence on twice proposing an unpopular Intoxicating Liquor Act on the eve of elections was evidence of this stubborn refusal to be seen as courting popularity. O’Higgins told the Dáil that he would not “run away from the report of the Intoxicating Liquor Commission [just] because a general election was due.”150 As Major Bryan Cooper said of O’Higgins, “I am certain that if he woke up some morning and found that he was popular, he would examine his conscience.”151 In the face of declining popularity, the Cumann na nGaedheal government turned a lack of popularity into a virtue, moving it back onto the more comfortable revolutionary ground of the honorable minority. This same attitude had been pilloried by Treatyites during the civil war, as they invoked instead a majoritarian version of democracy. But now the government was depicted as increasingly besieged by enemies, and increasingly willing to take unpopular measures to protect the nation from these enemies. This, again, was standard nationalist rhetoric, particularly when the nationalists in question were in the minority. Instead of pointing to ideological purity as the key to membership in this exalted minority, the government invoked its record and the tangible achievements it had brought about while in power. This led to an increasingly top-down view of democracy—the removal of the provisions for referenda and initiative from the constitution are the most obvious pieces of evidence—but the government never lost its belief in electoral majorities as the best way of settling internal disputes. The government had a majority, but it worried that its majority was composed of elements that were more fickle and less resolute than members of the government. As Hogan said in 1927, “The country has the issues clearly before it, and if it does not respond now, in the light of all the circumstances, with a full knowledge of the facts, then it will be proved that this country, so far from being

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fit for a Republic, is hardly fit for the self-government that we have got under the Treaty.”152 There was, then, a sense that the people were somehow letting down the government, both in flirting with republicanism and communism and also in failing to reward electorally a government that had accomplished so much. This siege mentality and a martyr complex caused the government to come across as arrogant and out of touch in its later years. Even the generally sympathetic Irish Independent wrote that the personal truculence and insolence of several ministers cost Cumann na nGaedheal the first 1927 election. The Connaught Sentinel blamed “the autocracy of ministers” and editorialized that “the Cumann na nGaedheal party had its work made more difficult, not because of lack of funds and enthusiastic workers alone, but because the Government Party had not been distinguished for its tact or diplomacy in its dealings with the people who had elected it.” Other papers claimed that the government’s “benevolent despotism” caused it to “[turn] a deaf ear to popular sentiment and feeling” in promoting policies that were thought to be in the people’s best interest but were opposed by many of those same people.153 At times, members of the government criticized their own electorate. O’Higgins privately wished “we had a smaller per centage of bloody fools in our population.” The Star lamented the “carelessness, disgruntlement or over-security of Cumann na nGaedheal supporters.”154 But neither these bursts of frustration nor Cosgrave’s occasional fatalistic acceptance of electoral defeat should obscure the fact that the party did have an aggressive strategy in promoting itself during its later years in power and was not simply whistling past the graveyard. Cumann na nGaedheal continued to advertise the kind of practical idealism that it associated with its Treatyite heroes Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith. The party actively promoted its achievements in the areas of foreign policy, sovereignty, and the restoration of order, while providing voters with often overwhelming lists of legislative achievements. The party also moved to reclaim the legacy of the revolution, with increasing mention of party leaders’ revolutionary credentials, more frequent invocation of revolutionary heroes, and denigration of the revolutionary credentials of Fianna Fáil and other opponents. No matter how often various parties wished it were otherwise, Irish politics continued to be practiced in a political culture largely defined by the experiences of the revolution and the civil war. Cumann na nGaedheal’s attempt to walk the line between a party of revolutionary ideology and one of practical achievement may not have been electorally effective in the long run, but party leaders certainly did

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not see themselves as counterrevolutionaries or as dismantling revolutionary structures that had been put in place a decade earlier. As Eoin MacNeill wrote in Foreign Affairs in 1932: “Many observers and not a few domestic critics have found matter for discussion in the apparent antinomy of Free State policy: an unbending utilitarianism, exemplified in the Shannon Scheme and such matters as the regulation of livestock breeding, and, on the other hand, a no less obstinate adherence to idealistic and cultural aims, conspicuously in the case of the Irish language. There is in truth no opposition and no want of harmony between these two lines of national policy. If there be any error in the case it lies in the mental abstractions of those who, separating the life of material utilities from the life of culture and ideals, create a dialectical opposition and discord which do not actually exist.”155 This quote sums up what Cumann na nGaedheal was trying to achieve during its ten years in power as well as the main substance of the party’s rhetoric and propaganda. The dialectical opposition it faced in so doing, perhaps, contributed to the party’s ultimate undoing just as much as its political opposition did.

Notes

List of Abbreviations DD DIFP NAI NLI UCDA

Dáil debates (Dáil Éireann, Díospóireachtaí Parlaiminte) Documents on Irish Foreign Policy (ed. Fanning, Kennedy, Keogh, and O’Halpin) National Archives of Ireland National Library of Ireland University College Dublin Archives

Introduction. Cumann na nGaedheal, Historians, and the Irish Revolution 1. Most, although not all, of the historians working on this period have conceded that the events of the 1910s and 1920s in Ireland collectively merit the term “revolution.” David Fitzpatrick, Politics and Irish Life, 1913–1921: Provincial Experience of War and Revolution (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1977), quoted in Charles Townshend, “Historiography,” in The Irish Revolution, 1913–1923, ed. Joost Augusteijn (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 3; D. George Boyce, “Introduction,” in The Revolution in Ireland, 1879– 1923, ed. D. George Boyce (Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1988), 1; Diarmaid Ferriter, The Transformation of Ireland (Woodstock: The Overlook Press, 2004), 188; Michael Laffan, The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Féin Party, 1916–1923 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), xvi–xvii. Many historians have qualified this somewhat by noting that the Irish revolution was not a social revolution. This sentiment was first raised in Patrick Lynch, “The Social Revolution That Never Was,” in The Irish Struggle, 1916–1926, ed. T. Desmond Williams (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966), 41. Others have echoed this, most notably Mary Daly, Industrial Development and Irish National Identity, 1922–1939 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1992), 15; Laffan, Resurrection of Ireland, 117, 310–11, 315; Peter Hart, The IRA at War, 1916–1923 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 21; and Michael Hopkinson, The Irish War of Independence (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2004), 20. A few have

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noted the radical potential in the Irish revolution, most notably Fergus Campbell, Land and Revolution: Nationalist Politics in the West of Ireland, 1891–1921 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 2, 226, 282. 2. Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 3. 3. Generally, historians have considered “Treatyite” and “Cumann na nGaedheal” and “Free Staters” to be broadly similar terms. I will follow that convention in this manuscript, even though the Cumann na nGaedheal party did not formally exist until April 1923. 4. Joseph Curran, The Birth of the Irish Free State, 1921–1923 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1980), 132, 259, 136, 280–81. 5. Leo Kohn, The Constitution of the Irish Free State (London: Allen and Unwin, 1932), 71, 80. 6. F. S. L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine (Redlands: Fontana Press, 1985), 479. 7. Maryann Gialanella Valiulis, Portrait of a Revolutionary: General Richard Mulcahy and the Founding of the Irish Free State (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1992). 8. John P. McCarthy, Kevin O’Higgins: Builder of the Irish State (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2006). 9. John M. Regan, “Southern Irish Nationalism as a Historical Problem,” Historical Journal 50, no. 1 (2007): 197. 10. This work will follow the convention of referring to anti-Treatyites as “republicans” after the signing of the Treaty. While this has the effect of appearing to deny that some Treatyites were themselves republicans, and of making the split over the Treaty seem as if it was between republicans and moderates, the nomenclature existed at the time and has become conventional since, and it seems not very useful to attempt to change it. 11. Regan, “Southern Irish Nationalism,” 197. 12. Ibid., 217. 13. Valiulis, Portrait of a Revolutionary, 173; Bill Kissane, The Politics of the Irish Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 151; Terence Brown, Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, 1922 to the Present (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985). 14. Mike Cronin, “The State on Display: The 1924 Tailteann Art Competition,” New Hibernia Review 9, no. 3 (Fall 2005): 50. 15. R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland, 1600–1972 (London: Penguin, 1989), 516. 16. Mary Kotsonouris, Retreat from Revolution: The Dáil Courts, 1920–24 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1994), 3. 17. Townshend, “Historiography,” 7. 18. Kissane, Politics of the Irish Civil War, 23. 19. Ibid., 28, 36. 20. Ibid., 37, 165, 84. 21. Anne Dolan, Commemorating the Irish Civil War: History and Memory, 1923– 2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 184, 124. 22. Ibid., 39, 42–43.

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23. Campbell, Land and Revolution, 282. 24. John M. Regan, The Irish Counter-Revolution, 1921–1936: Treatyite Politics and Settlement in Independent Ireland (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2001), xii. 25. Ibid., xvi. 26. Ibid., 137–38. 27. Senia Pašeta, Before the Revolution: Nationalism, Social Change and Ireland’s Catholic Elite, 1879–1922 (Cork: Cork University Press, 1999), 65, 95. 28. Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, xvi. 29. Ciara Meehan, The Cosgrave Party: A History of Cumann na nGaedheal, 1923– 33 (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy/Prism, 2010), xvi, xi. 30. Ibid., xii–xiii, 3, 25. 31. Ibid., xi, 91. 32. Tom Garvin, The Evolution of Irish Nationalist Politics (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1981), 7. 33. Orlando Figes and Boris Kolonitskii, Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language and Symbols of 1917 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), 1. 34. Foster, Modern Ireland, 515. 35. Jeffrey Prager, Building Democracy in Ireland: Political Order and Cultural Integration in a Newly Independent Nation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Tom Garvin, 1922: The Birth of Irish Democracy (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1996). 36. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine, 501. 37. Kevin Matthews argues that sovereignty even trumped unity, as the Free State was more interested in demonstrating its sovereignty than it was in resolving the boundary crisis in its favor. See Fatal Influence: The Impact of Ireland on British Politics, 1920–25 (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2004). Chapter 1. The Treaty and the Revolutionary Inheritance 1. Curran, Birth of the Irish Free State, 132. 2. Kohn, Constitution of the Irish Free State, 71, 50–51, 72. The agreement was, of course, framed as “Articles of Agreement for a Treaty,” but Kohn claimed that this was within the “legal frame of a treaty.” 3. See J. J. Lee’s rather blunt analysis of this: “The bottom line that is so easily forgotten in the welter of discussion about the diplomacy of the Treaty negotiations is that Britain carried far the bigger gun. Until 5 December it was kept more or less discreetly hidden. Then Lloyd George pulled it out, laid it on the table, and threatened to use it.” J. J. Lee, “The Challenge of a Collins Biography,” in Michael Collins and the Making of the Irish State, ed. Gabriel Doherty and Dermot Keogh (Cork: Mercier Press, 1998), 29. 4. Dorothy Macardle, The Irish Republic (1937; rpr., New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965), 592. 5. Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 82. Regan defines this elite as W. T. Cosgrave, Kevin O’Higgins, Joseph McGrath, Patrick Hogan, Eamon Duggan, Ernest Blythe, J. J. Walsh, Fionan Lynch, Richard Mulcahy, Desmond FitzGerald, and Eoin MacNeill. 6. Stephen Collins, The Cosgrave Legacy (Dublin: Blackwater Press, 1996), 2.

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7. Brian Farrell, Chairman or Chief? The Role of the Taoiseach in Irish Government (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1971), 19. 8. Tom Garvin, Preventing the Future: Why Was Ireland So Poor for So Long? (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2005), 33. 9. This is seen in John M. Regan, “Kevin O’Higgins, Irish Republicanism, and the Conservative Counter-Revolution,” in Laois: History and Society, ed. Pádraig G. Lane and William Nolan (Dublin: Geography Publications, 1999), 634, and Meehan, Cosgrave Party, 19. 10. See Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 83. 11. About his time in the Economic Affairs Ministry, O’Higgins humorously told the Dáil, “I am not a profound economist. I can make that admission now. I could not make it when I was Minister for Economic Affairs. When I pass out from the Home Affairs Ministry I shall have equally interesting revelations to make.” Dáil Éireann, Díospóireachtaí Parlaiminte (Parliamentary Debates) (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1919–), 4 Jan. 1923. The Dáil debates, from the First Dáil (1919) forward, are hereafter cited as DD. 12. Quoted in Terence de Vere White, Kevin O’Higgins (London: Methuen Press, 1948), 131. 13. McCarthy, Kevin O’Higgins, xv, 27. 14. Valiulis, Portrait of a Revolutionary, 244. 15. For the golf story, see McGilligan to Dwyer, 12 Nov. 1916: Patrick McGilligan papers, University College Dublin Archives (hereafter UCDA) P35d/132. 16. Irish Independent, 30 Apr. 1927. 17. Laffan, Resurrection of Ireland, 326. 18. DD, 16 Nov. 1928. 19. Irish Independent, 16 May 1927. 20. Peter Hart, Mick: The Real Michael Collins (New York: Viking, 2005), 364–65. 21. This will be discussed in chapter 2. 22. DD, 19 Feb. 1925. 23. Ibid., 1 Mar. 1923. 24. Ibid., 13 Apr. 1923. 25. Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 67–68, and Regan, “Michael Collins, General Commanding in Chief, as a Historiographical Problem,” History 92, no. 307 (2007): 318–46. 26. Garvin, 1922, 142–43; Michael Farry, The Aftermath of Revolution: Sligo, 1921– 23 (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2000). 27. See, e.g., Kissane, Politics of the Irish Civil War, 23, 28, 61. 28. Prager, Building Democracy in Ireland, 21, 30, 16. 29. Garvin, 1922, 3, 62. See also Tom Garvin, “Unenthusiastic Democrats: The Emergence of Irish Democracy,” in Modern Irish Democracy: Essays in Honour of Basil Chubb, ed. Ronald J. Hill and Michael Marsh (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993), 23. 30. Garvin, “Unenthusiastic Democrats,” 15. 31. See generally Garvin, 1922.

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32. J. J. Lee, Ireland, 1912–1985: Politics and Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 67. 33. Garvin, 1922, 18, 145. 34. DD, 19 May 1922. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid., 17 May 1922. 37. Provisional Government Address, 15 July 1922, quoted in Valiulis, Portrait of a Revolutionary, 155. 38. Patrick Hogan, Draft Reply to Labour Party, 22 Aug. 1922: Desmond FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/694. 39. United Irishman, 17 Mar. 1923. 40. See, for example, Handbill, “General Election to the Electors of Kerry,” August 1923: National Library of Ireland (hereafter NLI) ILB 300 P7 (49); and Typewritten copy of speech by Kevin O’Higgins, ca. 1923: Richard Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/346. 41. Collins to Cosgrave, 5 Aug. 1922: Hugh Kennedy papers, UCDA P4/254. 42. DD, 17 Nov. 1922. 43. Ibid., 29 Nov. 1922. 44. Ibid., 2 May 1923. 45. O’Higgins to Mulcahy, 1 Sep. 1922, quoted in Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 104. 46. Kevin O’Higgins, Memo on Proposed Conference on Maintenance of Order, 20 Jan. 1923: Department of the Taoiseach papers, National Archives of Ireland (hereafter NAI) S 3306. 47. DD, 20 Apr. 1923. 48. Ibid., 26 June 1923. 49. Ibid., 7 Feb. 1923. 50. Ibid., 14 Dec. 1923. 51. Ibid. 52. Blythe to Lord Longford, 11 Jan. 1971: Ernest Blythe papers, UCDA P24/1531. 53. Kevin O’Higgins, Memo on Proposed Conference on Maintenance of Order, 20 Jan. 1923: Department of the Taoiseach papers, NAI S 3306. 54. DD, 27 Sep. 1922. 55. Talk between Mulcahy and Senator Hayes about Certain Aspects of de Vere White’s biography, 22 Oct. 1964: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7b/183 (55). 56. Kevin O’Higgins to Tom O’Higgins, 30 Dec. 1922: Kevin O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/108; DD, 16 Nov. 1922. 57. DD, 14 Dec. 1923. 58. Ibid., 1 Mar. 1923. 59. Ibid., 3 May 1923. 60. Ibid., 5 Jan. 1923. 61. Risteárd Mulcahy, Richard Mulcahy (1886–1971): A Family Memoir (Dublin: Aurelian Press, 1999), 137. 62. DD, 7 Feb. 1923.

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63. Ibid., 9 Jan. 1922. 64. This is discussed in, among other works, Michael de Nie, The Eternal Paddy: Irish Identity and the British Press, 1798–1882 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004). 65. Kevin O’Higgins, Three Years’ Hard Labour: An Address Delivered to the Irish Society of Oxford University 31st October, 1924 (Dublin: Cahill and Co., 1924), 4. 66. Kevin O’Higgins to Brigid Cole, 22 Nov. 1920: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/42. 67. Kevin O’Higgins, Draft Speech, 31 Oct. 1924: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/ 141. This speech became “Three Years’ Hard Labour,” the address he gave at Oxford and subsequently published. 68. DD, 26 June 1923. 69. Ibid., 15 June 1923. 70. Publicity Release, 15 Feb. 1923: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/298. 71. Kevin O’Higgins, Memo on Proposed Conference on Maintenance of Order, 20 Jan. 1923: Department of the Taoiseach papers, NAI S 3306. 72. DD, 27 Sep. 1922. 73. Ibid., 29 Nov. 1922. 74. Ibid., 8 Dec. 1922. 75. Ibid., 8 Feb. 1923. 76. Crane Brinton, The Anatomy of Revolution (New York: Vintage, 1965), 16, 203, 205. 77. Kevin O’Higgins, Typescript of Speech at Dun Laoghaire, 29 Oct. 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/366. 78. DD, 29 Nov. 1922. 79. Ibid., 12 July 1923. 80. Ibid., 11 Sep. 1922. 81. Kevin O’Higgins, Speech/Article for the anniversary of the Free State, ca. late October 1925: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/142. 82. Irish Independent, 11 Aug. 1927. 83. Quoted in Collins, Cosgrave Legacy, 33. 84. DD, 12 Sep. 1922. 85. Ibid., 20 Oct. 1922. 86. Quoted in Garvin, 1922, 60. 87. Ibid., 90. 88. DD, 26 June 1923. 89. Ibid., 11 Sep. 1922, 17 May 1922. 90. Ibid., 27 Sep. 1922. 91. Ibid. 92. See, for example, Michael Hopkinson, Green Against Green: The Irish Civil War (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1988), 89. 93. Curran, Birth of the Irish Free State, 245. 94. Kevin O’Higgins, The Catholic Layman in Public Life (Dublin: Catholic Truth Society, n.d.): O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/146. This pamphlet was published in 1923 or 1924.

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95. J. M. O’Sullivan, “Phases of Revolution,” 21 Nov. 1923: NLI LO P102. 96. Kevin O’Higgins, Draft Speech, 31 Oct. 1924: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/141. 97. Ibid. 98. Newspaper clipping of Kevin O’Higgins’s speech at Bray, 10 June 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/346. 99. DD, 18 Sep. 1922. 100. James Burke, New Year’s Message from the Minister for Local Government, ca. December 1926: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7b/61. One wonders if ministers were told to make their New Year’s messages as depressing as possible, as the Cumann na nGaedheal messages were frequently more mournful than celebratory. 101. DD, 3 May 1923. 102. Mulcahy, Notes for Speech “Citizenship/The Burden of Freedom,” ca. 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/325. 103. Eoin MacNeill, Memo on Political Situation in 1933, ca. 1933: Eoin MacNeill papers, UCDA LA1/F/314. 104. Newspaper clipping of O’Higgins’s speech at Bray, 10 June 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/346. 105. Irish Independent, 9 June 1927. 106. DD, 14 Dec. 1923. 107. Cosgrave, Graveside Oration for O’Higgins, 13 July 1927: Department of the Taoiseach papers, NAI S 5478. 108. Conference of Standing Committee with Executive Council at Government Buildings, 3 Dec. 1923: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1. 109. DD, 20 Oct. 1922. 110. Ibid., 4 Jan. 1922. 111. Ibid., 25 Sep. 1922. 112. Ibid., 25 Oct. 1922. 113. Kevin O’Higgins, “Communism and Documentarian Republicanism,” ca. 1922: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/135. 114. DD, 21 Dec. 1921. 115. Ibid. 116. Blythe, Witness Statement to the Bureau of Military History, ca. 1948: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/1783; Eoin MacNeill, “Ten Years of the Irish Free State,” Foreign Affairs 10, no. 2 (January 1932): 235. 117. DD, 12 Dec. 1923. 118. Quoted in Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 236. 119. DD, 11 Oct. 1922. 120. Cumann na nGaedheal appeal for funds, ca. December 1924: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/1103. 121. DD, 16 Dec. 1926. 122. Ibid., 14 June 1923. 123. Minutes of Standing Committee, 10 Oct. 1924: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1.

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124. Draft Reply of Kevin O’Higgins to Rev. Brennan, Roscommon Cumann na nGaedheal branch, 9 Jan. 1925: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1. 125. O’Higgins to Cosgrave, ca. May 1923: Department of the Taoiseach papers, NAI S 2210. 126. DD, 9 Jan. 1922. 127. Ibid., 10 Jan. 1922, 28 Feb. 1922. 128. O’Higgins, Draft of “Mexican Politics,” ca. spring 1922: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/137. 129. DD, 24 Jan. 1923. 130. Ibid., 27 Sep. 1922. 131. Ibid., 19 May 1922. 132. Irish Independent, 7 June 1927. 133. Ibid. 134. DD, 29 Nov. 1922. 135. Conference of Standing Committee with Executive Council at Government Buildings, 3 Dec. 1923: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1. 136. Preliminary Statement on Policy by the Committee on Policy, ca. late 1924– early 1925: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/1104. 137. Minutes of Cumann na nGaedheal Standing Committee, 10 Oct. 1924: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1. Chapter 2. Security, Order, and Sovereignty 1. Ferriter, Transformation of Ireland, 312; Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 147. 2. Marie Coleman, County Longford and the Irish Revolution: 1910–1923 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2003), 8. 3. “Postcolonial” here is meant in its most literal sense, as in a period following colonial rule. The more recent debate about whether or not Ireland fits a theoretical “postcolonial” model is a separate question. 4. Regan, “Kevin O’Higgins,” 628. 5. D. H. Akenson and J. F. Fallin, “The Irish Civil War and the Drafting of the Free State Constitution, Parts I–II,” Éire-Ireland 5, nos. 1–2 (Spring–Summer 1970): 12. 6. McCarthy, Kevin O’Higgins, 49–50. 7. Minutes of Meeting of Provisional Government, 2 June 1922: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/243. 8. Collins, Notes on the Constitution, undated, but ca. spring/summer 1922: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/28. 9. DD, 18 Sep. 1922. 10. Ibid., 11 Oct. 1922. 11. Ibid., 18 Sep. 1922. 12. Ibid., 11 Oct. 1922. 13. Akenson and Fallin, “Irish Civil War and the Drafting of the Free State Constitution, Parts I–II”; Kohn, Constitution of the Irish Free State. 14. This proposal for “extern ministers” will be discussed in detail in chapter 3. 15. DD, 18 Sep. 1922.

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16. W. T. Cosgrave, “Comment,” Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 22, no. 88 (December 1933): 552. 17. Macardle, Irish Republic, 799. 18. Desmond FitzGerald, publicity release, 15 Feb. 1923: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/298. 19. W. T. Cosgrave, Graveside Oration for Kevin O’Higgins, 13 July 1927: Department of the Taoiseach papers, NAI S 5478. 20. Kevin O’Higgins, Draft Speech “Three Years’ Hard Labour,” 31 Oct. 1924: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/141. 21. Mulcahy, Richard Mulcahy, 177. 22. DD, 20 Dec. 1921. 23. Quoted in Diarmaid Ferriter, Judging Dev: A Reassessment of the Life and Legacy of Eamon de Valera (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2007), 55. 24. DD, 7 Jan. 1922; Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 25. DD, 17 May 1922. 26. Ibid., 11 Sep. 1922. 27. See Meehan, Cosgrave Party. 28. DD, 23 June 1927. 29. Irish Independent, 31 May 1927. Hogan particularly liked to invoke the republic in order to highlight what he saw as the phony republicanism of his political opponents. 30. DD, 11 Sep. 1922. 31. Newspaper Clipping of Kevin O’Higgins’ Speech to Catholic Truth Society, 13 Oct. 1923: Mulcahy Papers, UCDA, P7/B/366. 32. Kevin O’Higgins, “‘On Democracy’: A Vote of Thanks to the Auditor at a meeting of the Trinity College Dublin Historical Society, n.d.: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/146. 33. Garvin, “Unenthusiastic Democrats,” 13. 34. DD, 12 Sep. 1922. 35. Ibid. 36. Kevin O’Higgins, “‘On Democracy’: A Vote of Thanks to the Auditor at a meeting of the Trinity College Dublin Historical Society, n.d.: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/146. 37. Cumann na nGaedheal Annual Convention, 13–14 May 1925 (Athlone: Athlone Printing Works, 1925). Pamphlet contained in Blythe papers, UCDA P24/616. 38. DD, 26 June 1923. 39. Irish Independent, 27 May 1927. 40. Kevin O’Higgins, Draft of Speech for Oxford Union, 31 Oct. 1924: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/141. 41. See generally Arthur Mitchell, Revolutionary Government in Ireland: Dáil Éireann, 1919–1922 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1995). 42. Blythe, Memo on Local Courts, ca. July 1922: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/72; Hogan, Memo, ca. July 1922: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/73.

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Notes to Pages 64–71

43. DD, 29 Sep. 1922. 44. Ibid., 24 July 1923. 45. Ibid. 46. Ibid. 47. Kotsonouris, Retreat from Revolution, 3, 5. 48. DD, 29 Sep. 1922. 49. Cosgrave to Judiciary Committee, 27 Jan. 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/254. 50. Hugh Kennedy to Charles Shannon, 5 Jan. 1925: Kennedy papers, UCDA P4/1166; Kennedy to Cosgrave, 3 July 1925: Kennedy papers, UCDA P4/1167. For an indication that the robes were adopted for the district courts, see Kennedy to W. B. Yeats, 13 Mar. 1926: Kennedy papers, P4/1167. Although generally finding inspiration for the robes in the country’s Gaelic past, Kennedy also noted, “The cap on Cardinal Wolsey in the advertisements of Wolsey underwear . . . is rather the idea.” 51. McCarthy, Kevin O’Higgins, 110–11; Talk Between Mulcahy and Senator Hayes about Certain Aspects of de Vere White’s biography, 22 Oct. 1964: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7b/183 (55). 52. DD, 11 June 1924. 53. The Star, 12 Jan. 1929. 54. DD, 19 Jan. 1923. 55. Ibid. 56. Ibid., 24 Jan. 1923. 57. Ibid., 31 Jan. 1923. 58. Ibid., 11 Mar. 1924. 59. Extract from Minutes of Meeting of Executive Council, 16 Apr. 1923: Department of the Taoiseach files, NAI S 3063. 60. DD, 15 June 1923. 61. Ibid., 23 July 1923. 62. Executive Council minutes, 11 June 1923: Cabinet papers, NAI G2/2. 63. DD, 12 July 1923. 64. Ibid., 10 July 1923. 65. Ibid., 12 July 1923. 66. Ibid., 14 Dec. 1923. 67. Ibid., 19 Mar. 1925. 68. Ibid., 19 Feb. 1925. 69. Confidential Report of the Chief of Staff to Executive Council, 14 May 1925: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/222. 70. Gregory Allen, The Garda Síochána: Policing Independent Ireland, 1922–82 (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1999), 18. 71. Army Council (Four Courts) to Each TD, 25 Apr. 1922: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/51(1). 72. DD, 20 Oct. 1922, as quoted in Allen, Garda Síochána, 28. 73. Garvin, 1922, 107–8.

Notes to Pages 71–76

265

74. Liam McNiffe, A History of the Garda Síochána: A Social History of the Force, 1922–52, with an Overview for the Years 1952–97 (Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 1997), 22. 75. Quoted in Hopkinson, Green Against Green, 91. 76. Allen, Garda Síochána, 45. 77. The formation of the Citizens Defence Force is described in Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 125. 78. Quoted in Allen, Garda Síochána, 46. It was somewhat ironic that he was making this speech to people who would soon be deprived of the vote, as Garda members were not allowed to vote until the late 1950s. 79. Cabinet Minutes, 4 Oct. 1923: NAI G2/3. 80. The CID contained a number of former Collins men and had been given responsibility for intelligence gathering during the civil war. The body had a reputation for being brutal, violent, lawless, and unresponsive to civil authorities other than Collins. 81. Cabinet Minutes, 25 May 1923: NAI G2/2. 82. Cabinet Minutes, 4 Oct. 1923: NAI G2/3. 83. McNiffe, History of the Garda Síochána, 35. 84. Eoin O’Duffy, General Order No. 6, 18 Oct. 1922: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/293. 85. Newspaper clipping of O’Higgins speech at Bray, 10 June 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/346. 86. Eoin O’Duffy to Kevin O’Higgins, 6 Dec. 1926: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/170. 87. Department of Finance, “Financial Position” Memo, 9 Sep. 1931: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/99 (2). 88. McNiffe, History of the Garda Síochána, 109. 89. Allen, Garda Síochána, 99–100. 90. DD, 27 Sep. 1922. 91. Ibid., 20 Apr. 1923. O’Higgins specifically mentioned “citizenesses” because a number of republican women were engaged in a hunger strike against the government at that time. 92. Valiulis, Portrait of a Revolutionary, 176–77. 93. DD, 17 Nov. 1922. 94. Ibid., 29 Nov. 1922. 95. Ibid. 96. Ibid., 8 Dec. 1922. 97. Ibid. 98. Ibid. O’Higgins is here quoting from Cicero’s famous defense of the so-called Senatus Consultum Ultimum during the Cataline crisis in 63 BCE. 99. Blythe Statement to Bureau of Military History, ca. 1948: Blythe papers, UCDA P48/1783. Blythe’s statement also indicates that the names of those to be executed were not discussed at that Executive Council meeting, and the four particular victims were chosen by the military authorities. The motion to execute the men was made by Mulcahy and seconded by MacNeill, with O’Higgins demonstrating the most vocal

266

Notes to Pages 76–80

dissent from the proposals before capitulating. Whether Blythe is correct in asserting that the Executive Council did not know the names of the victims is unclear, and this assertion is unsubstantiated elsewhere. 100. DD, 8 Dec. 1922. 101. Cosgrave’s unease probably stemmed from the Catholic Church hierarchy’s private condemnation of the use of the word “reprisal” to describe the executions. Desmond Williams cited “private conversation” with Cosgrave as evidence of this. The original claim that O’Higgins was one of the last men to agree to the executions came from Patrick Hogan’s diary (as read by T. F. O’Higgins) and was confirmed somewhat by Ernest Blythe’s Witness Statement. See Desmond Williams to Ernest Blythe, 22 Apr. 1963: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/1520; as well as Blythe Statement to Bureau of Military History, ca. 1948: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/1783. The discussion of Hogan’s diary is in de Vere White, Kevin O’Higgins, 256–57. 102. Austin Stack’s Ministry of Home Affairs twice failed to produce a republican police force so as to relieve the army of responsibility for policing duties. 103. DD, 12 Sep. 1922. 104. Ibid., 18 June 1919. 105. Ibid., 1 Mar. 1922. 106. Ibid., 10 May 1922. 107. Patrick Hogan, Memo on Land Seizure, 22 Dec. 1922: Department of the Taoiseach papers, NAI S 1943. 108. Patrick Hogan, Memorandum, 7 Apr. 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/256. 109. Kevin O’Higgins, Statement to the Army Inquiry Committee, 23 May 1924: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/165. 110. Kevin O’Higgins, Memorandum on Proposed Conference on Maintenance of Order, 20 Jan. 1923: Department of the Taoiseach papers, NAI S 3306. Another version of this memo, with an earlier date, is found in the Mulcahy papers. See Kevin O’Higgins, Memorandum on Army/Government Cooperation, 11 Jan. 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7b/96 (7–10). 111. The major impetus for this meeting was Eoin O’Duffy’s report for February 1923. See Confidential Monthly Report for February 1923, 20 Mar. 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/254. O’Duffy’s cover letter concludes, “The net result is that there is little real change in the situation, and where there are improvements to note—it is due to an improved military situation, and where the reverse is true it will also be found to be because of the military situation also.” 112. Mulcahy to Cosgrave, 28 Mar. 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/254. 113. O’Higgins to Chair, Army Inquiry Committee, 12 May 1924: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/21. 114. Mulcahy to Cosgrave, 28 Mar. 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/254; Mulcahy to Cosgrave, 28 Mar. 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/254. 115. Mulcahy, “Note No. 10,” 27 Mar. 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/42. 116. Executive Council to Mulcahy, 9 Apr. 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/254. 117. O’Higgins to Chair, Army Inquiry Committee, 12 May 1924: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/21.

Notes to Pages 80–87

267

118. See the collection of these memos in Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/254. 119. Mulcahy, Notes on Cabinet Meeting, 29 Mar. 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7a/132. 120. Mulcahy to O’Higgins, 17 Feb. 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/254. 121. Memorandum, March 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/254. The speaker for this passage is listed as “P,” which from the context probably means [P]resident Cosgrave, although that is not entirely certain. 122. Memorandum, March 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/254. Again, this comment was made by “P.” 123. The IRB also declared the Supreme Council to be the de jure government of the republic until an Irish republic was actually established, but no one took this particularly seriously by the time of the revolution. 124. John Regan has argued to the contrary. See, generally, Regan, “Michael Collins.” 125. Maryann Valiulis argued that it was Sean MacMahon who was the prime mover behind the revival. See Portrait of a Revolutionary, 203. Sean Ó Murthuile also claimed involvement in this decision. Sean Ó Murthuile memoir, n.d.: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7a/209. 126. The most detailed account of the events leading up to the mutiny came in an exchange in the Dáil on 26 June 1924. The occasion was Mulcahy’s proposed motion of censure against the Executive Council. All quotes will come from this discussion unless otherwise indicated. 127. Sean Ó Murthuile memoir, n.d.: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7a/209. 128. Ibid. 129. Notes on Meeting with Cosgrave, Mulcahy, Liam Tobin, Charlie Dalton, Frank Thornton, Christie O’Malley, 25 June 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/195. 130. Report of Evidence Given by O’Higgins to Army Inquiry Committee, 22 Apr. 1924: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/23. 131. Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 173–74. 132. Cabinet Minutes, 17 Sep. 1923: Department of the Taoiseach papers, NAI G2/2. 133. O’Higgins to Chair, Army Inquiry Committee, 12 May 1924: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/21. This letter is O’Higgins’s response to Mulcahy’s statement to the Army Inquiry Committee. 134. Mulcahy’s statement to Army Inquiry Committee, 7 May 1924: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/10. 135. O’Higgins to Cosgrave, 17 Aug. 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7a/133. 136. Mulcahy notes, n.d. but ca. April–May 1924: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/42. 137. O’Higgins to Cosgrave, 17 Aug. 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7a/133. 138. As evidenced by the fact that it found its way into Mulcahy’s files. 139. Cabinet Minutes, 17 Sep. 1923: Department of the Taoiseach papers, NAI G2/2. 140. Hugh Kennedy, Memo on the attacks against the Misses McCarthy, 27 Sep. 1923: Department of the Taoiseach papers, NAI, S 3341. 141. Blythe, Witness Statement to the Bureau of Military History, ca. 1948: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/1783. Blythe does not give a specific date for this event in his statement, but given that he references Kennedy’s legal opinion (dated 27 September 1923), it seems that it probably happened shortly after that time.

268

Notes to Pages 87–97

142. A draft of this letter is included in the Cabinet Minutes, 29 Sep. 1923: Department of the Taoiseach papers, NAI G2/3. 143. Sean Ó Murthuile memoir, n.d.: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7a/209. 144. Regan, “Politics of Reaction,” 559, 563. 145. Valiulis, Portrait of a Revolutionary, 194, 173. 146. McCarthy, Kevin O’Higgins, 158. 147. Mulcahy, Memorandum, 11 Jan. 1924: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/195. 148. Mulcahy, Notes on Meeting with Cosgrave and McGrath, 26 Jan. 1924: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/195. 149. Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 183. 150. DD, 11 Mar. 1924. 151. The best account of this party meeting is in Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 184–86. Various Dáil deputies also discussed this meeting at length on 26 March 1924. 152. For examples of later support for McGrath within the party, see McGrath to Seamus O’hAodha, Sec. Cumann na nGaedheal Standing Committee, 25 June 1924: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/1100. 153. DD, 12 Mar. 1924. All future citations for this section come from the 12 March Dáil debate unless noted. 154. Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 185. 155. O’Higgins read the letter, as well as Mulcahy’s official order, to the Dáil on 19 March 1924. 156. Cosgrave to Mulcahy, 17 Mar. 1924: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/196. Cosgrave’s handwriting is very difficult here, and “just now” and “save any” are just my best guesses at the wording. 157. DD, 26 June 1924. 158. Valiulis, Portrait of a Revolutionary, 214–15. 159. Fionan Lynch mentioned this to the Dáil on 26 June 1924. 160. DD, 26 June 1924. 161. Ibid., 19 Mar. 1924. 162. Ibid, 163. Cabinet Minutes, 24 Mar. 1924: Department of the Taoiseach papers, NAI G2/3. 164. DD, 26 June 1924. 165. Ibid., 19 Mar. 1924. 166. Ibid., 26 June 1924. 167. Ibid., 19 Mar. 1924. 168. Ibid., 20 Mar. 1924. 169. Ibid., 26 June 1924. 170. O’Higgins to Chair, Army Inquiry Committee, 12 May 1924: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/21. 171. Questioning of Patrick Hogan by the Army Inquiry Committee, 24 Apr. 1924: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/24. 172. Eoin O’Duffy to Executive Council, Confidential Report(s) of the General Officer Commanding the Forces, 29 May 1924, 8 Sep. 1924: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/222.

Notes to Pages 97–103

269

173. Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 223–24. 174. Memo from Council of Defence to each member of Executive Council, 22 July 1925: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/99. 175. Department of Defence report for Imperial Conference, 1926: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/217(1). 176. See the collection of these reports from 1925 in Blythe papers, UCDA P24/222. 177. Eoin O’Duffy to Executive Council, Confidential Report of the General Officer Commanding the Forces, 30 Sep. 1924: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/222. 178. Ibid., 29 May 1924. 179. See generally Peter Hart, The IRA and Its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916–1923 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). 180. John P. Duggan, A History of the Irish Army (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1991), 148–51. 181. Duggan, History of the Irish Army, 155, 159, 165. 182. Eunan O’Halpin, “The Army in Independent Ireland,” in A Military History of Ireland, ed. Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffrey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 415–16. 183. Peter Hughes, New Year’s Message from the Minister for Defence, December 1926: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7b/61. 184. Cosgrave to Mulcahy, 5 Jan. 1931: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/88. 185. DD, 11 Oct. 1927. 186. Ibid., 17 May 1928. 187. Irish Independent, 31 Aug. 1927. 188. Ibid., 6 Sep. 1927. 189. DD, 24 May 1928. 190. Ibid., 10 Nov. 1927. 191. Ibid., 15 Oct. 1931. 192. The Star, November 1931: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/D/170. 193. DD, 14 Oct. 1931; Ibid., 16 Oct. 1931. 194. Collins memo, 29 July 1922: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/28. 195. Kevin O’Higgins, The Catholic Layman in Public Life (Dublin: Catholic Truth Society, n.d.): O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/146. This was a published version of a speech O’Higgins delivered to the Catholic Truth Society in October 1923. 196. DD, 27 Sep. 1922. 197. Ibid., 23 July 1923; United Irishman, 7 July 1923. 198. DD, 29 Sep. 1922. 199. United Irishman, 5 May 1923. 200. Minutes of Cumann na nGaedheal Annual Convention, 29 Jan. 1924: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/1. 201. O’Higgins, New Year’s Message from the Minister for Justice, ca. December 1926: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7b/61. 202. DD, 5 Oct. 1922. 203. Irish Independent, 16 May 1927. 204. DD, 11 Sep. 1922.

270

Notes to Pages 103–110

205. Typescript of Kevin O’Higgins speech at Dun Laoghaire, 29 Oct. 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/366. 206. Quoted in Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 310. Chapter 3. The Promotion of Irishness 1. DD, 3 Jan. 1922. 2. Laffan, Resurrection of Ireland, 236. 3. Hopkinson, Irish War of Independence, 12; Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 206. 4. Townshend, “Historiography,” 6–7. 5. Philip O’Leary, Gaelic Prose in the Irish Free State, 1922–1939 (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2004), 37–48. 6. DD, 31 May 1923. Figgis was often singled out for criticism by Cumann na nGaedheal leaders for his arrogance. 7. DD, 22 Dec. 1921. 8. Ibid., 6 Jan. 1922. 9. O’Higgins, Speech to the Committee [?] starting Gaelic classes, n.d.: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/140. The context of this lecture makes it clear that it was written sometime during the revolution. 10. DD, 11 Sep. 1922. 11. Ibid., 12 Sep. 1922. 12. Cumann na nGaedheal Appeal for Funds, ca. December 1924: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/1103. 13. All quotes from Collins, Notes/Memo on the Constitution, n.d. (ca. summer 1922): Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/28. Emphasis in original. 14. Collins, Memo “Change of Situation and Outlook,” ca. summer 1922: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/28. 15. Weekly Bulletin, Issue 35, 31 Aug. 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/241. This issue is actually marked as No. 34, but that was an error since the previous issue was similarly marked as No. 34. 16. See, for example, Ewan Morris, Our Own Devices: National Symbols and Political Conflict in Twentieth-Century Ireland (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2005). 17. Cosgrave, Speech Delivered at a Banquet given by the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, at Philadelphia, January 1928, in With the President in America: The Authorized Record of the American Tour (Dublin: O’Kennedy-Brindley, 1928), 79. 18. Message to all pro-Treaty TDs from Honorary Secretary, Saor Stát Publicity and Election Council, ca. 3 Mar. 1922: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/A/70. 19. See Meeting of Election Sub-Committee, 30 Mar. 1922: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1; Meeting of General Election Council, 30 Mar. 1922: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1. 20. Special Meeting of the General Election Committee Re: Formation of a Political Party, 7 Sep. 1922: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1. 21. An Cumann Naisiunta, Memo attached to Meeting Minutes, 10 Nov. 1922: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1.

Notes to Pages 110–115

271

22. Minutes, Propaganda Sub-Committee, 9 May 1922: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1. 23. Minutes, General Election Council, 11 May 1922: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1. 24. Minutes, Standing Committee Meeting, 12 Oct. 1923: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1. 25. Blythe, notes on the language, n.d.: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/1902. 26. Dáil Cabinet Minutes, 4 Apr. 1922: Eamon de Valera papers, UCDA P150/1372. 27. Dáil Department of Education Report, ca. April 1922: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/A/63. This report was circulated to the Dáil on 26 April 1922. 28. Cumann na nGaedheal Appeal for Funds, ca. December 1924: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/1103. 29. Kevin O’Higgins to Rev. Brennan, Roscomman Cumann na nGaedheal branch, draft reply, 9 Jan. 1925: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/197. 30. DD, 11 Nov. 1925. 31. Ferriter, Transformation of Ireland, 350, 353. 32. Blythe, Draft Speech on the Census of 1926, ca. 1926/1927: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/1765. 33. Blythe to J. M. O’Sullivan, 13 Nov. 1928: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/428. 34. Minutes, National Executive, 3 Nov. 1924: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1. 35. Blythe to J. M. O’Sullivan, 15 June 1929: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/426 (19). 36. O’Sullivan to Blythe, 2 Jan. 1930: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/426 (23). 37. Results of nonfiction competition, ca. 1930: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/438. 38. Blythe to O’Sullivan, 19 Aug. 1929: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/426 (20). 39. Blythe to Controller, Stationery Office, 13 Dec. 1929: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/426 (22); Blythe to Michael Hayes, 26 Jan. 1931: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/ 380 (28). 40. Tim McMahon, Grand Opportunity: The Gaelic Revival and Irish Society, 1893– 1910 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2008), 107. 41. DD, 16 Nov. 1922. 42. Ibid., 31 July 1923. 43. Cabinet Document, 14 Apr. 1924: Cabinet papers, NAI G 2/3. 44. O’Duffy to Ministry of Home Affairs, 3 Feb. 1923: Mulcahy papers, P7/B/293. 45. DD, 21 May 1924. 46. Irish Independent, 11 May 1927. 47. O’Duffy, Memo on Irish in the Garda Síochána, 1 Nov. 1929: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/87. 48. O’Duffy, Memorandum on Irish in the Garda, 2 Dec. 1929: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/427. 49. O’Duffy, “Answers to Criticisms of Memo #2,” ca. Dec. 1929: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/427 (4). 50. Eoin O’Duffy to Executive Council, Confidential Report of the General Officer Commanding the Forces, 30 Sep. 1924: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/222.

272

Notes to Pages 115–122

51. Eoin MacNeill, “Draft Constitution Memo,” 21 Feb. 1922: Mulcahy papers, UDCA P7/A/65. MacNeill was apparently responding to a draft of the constitution put forward by Professor Magennis. 52. Auxiliaries and Black and Tans were exempted from this provision for obvious reasons. 53. Minutes, Cumann na nGaedheal Standing Committee, 10 Oct. 1924: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1. 54. DD, 15 Nov. 1923. 55. Ferriter, Transformation of Ireland, 350. 56. Secretary, Department of Finance, to “A Dhuine Uasail [Sir],” 8 Aug. 1929: Department of the Taoiseach papers, NAI S 3066. 57. Memo by Selection Committee, Junior Translator Post, 13 July 1931: Blythe papers: UCDA P24/380. 58. Blythe, Memo on Oral Tests in Irish, n.d. but ca. July–August 1931: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/381. 59. Blythe to FitzGerald, 6 Oct. 1931, and Secretary, Ceann Comhairle, to Secretary, Minister for Finance, 28 Oct. 1931: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/380. 60. For the Gaelic League’s opposition to Roman type, expressed in 1924, see Blythe to Eoin O’Duffy, with Memorandum “Roman Type” enclosed, n.d.: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/425. For National School teachers, see generally Blythe papers, UCDA P24/425. 61. Blythe to Liam O’Briain, 12 Nov. 1931: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/425. 62. For Blythe’s conversion, see Blythe Statement to Bureau of Military History, ca. 1948: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/1783. 63. Blythe to Eoin O’Duffy, with Memorandum “Roman Type” enclosed, n.d.: Blythe papers, NUCDA P24/425. 64. Secretary, Department of Finance, to “A Dhuine Uasail [Sir],” 8 Aug. 1929: Department of the Taoiseach papers, NAI S 3066. The memorandum does not make it entirely clear whether this directive applied solely to the Department of Finance or to all government publications generally. 65. Cabinet Minutes, 5 Apr. 1927: Department of the Taoiseach papers, NAI G2/5. 66. Arthur Codling (Department of Finance) to Secretary, Ministry of Justice, 6 Oct. 1931: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/88. 67. S. A. Roche (Ministry of Justice) to Mulcahy, 9 Oct. 1931: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/88. 68. Mulcahy to Roche, 12 Oct. 1931: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/88. 69. Blythe to J. M. O’Sullivan, 26 Feb. 1931: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/425. 70. Secretary, Department of Finance, to W. G. Lyon, 1 Feb. 1932: Blythe papers, P24/425. 71. Report of Commission on the Gaeltacht, 1925: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/529. All subsequent quotations in this section are from this report unless noted. 72. Irish Independent, 28 Jan. 1927. 73. DD, 16 Nov. 1928. 74. Morris, Our Own Devices, 220.

Notes to Pages 122–130

273

75. See generally Alan Bairner, “Ireland, Sport and Empire,” in Jeffrey, Irish Empire?, and Brian Stoddart, “Sport, Cultural Imperialism, and Colonial Response in the British Empire,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 30, no. 4 (October 1988): 649–73. 76. Mike Cronin, “Projecting the Nation through Sport and Culture: Ireland, Aonach Tailteann and the Irish Free State, 1924–1932,” Journal of Contemporary History 38, no. 3 (July 2003): 406. 77. Cronin, “The State on Display,” 52. 78. DD, 3 Jan. 1922. 79. Ibid., 11 Nov. 1925. 80. Ibid., 25 Apr. 1924. 81. Ibid. 82. Ibid. 83. Ibid., 13 Apr. 1923. 84. This is discussed in Daly, Industrial Development. 85. DD, 3 May 1923. 86. Ibid., 25 Apr. 1924. 87. Ibid. 88. Ibid., 4 May 1926. 89. Ibid., 30 June 1926. 90. Ibid. 91. Ibid. 92. Irish Independent, 11 May 1927. 93. DD, 30 June 1926. 94. Ibid., 25 Apr. 1924. 95. Memo/Notes by Collins, “Change of Situation and Outlook,” ca. summer 1922: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/28. 96. The best history of Sinn Féin remains Laffan, The Resurrection of Ireland. 97. Quoted in Michael Laffan, “Labour Must Wait: Ireland’s Conservative Revolution,” in Radicals, Rebels and Establishments, ed. Patrick J. Corish (Belfast: Appletree Press, 1985), 213. 98. Election Material, 1918: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/1017. Another pamphlet in this collection contains the timeless Blythe slogan “Vote Right. Vote for Blythe. And Save your Children from Shame.” 99. DD, 23 Aug. 1921, 14 Dec. 1921. 100. Ibid., 1 Mar. 1922. 101. Ibid., 28 Apr. 1922. 102. Kevin O’Higgins, Civil War and the Events Which Led to It (Dublin: Talbot Press, 1922), 20–21. 103. DD, 9 Jan. 1922. 104. See, for example, Patrick Maume, The Long Gestation: Irish Nationalist Life, 1891–1918 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999); Michael Wheatley, Nationalism and the Irish Party: Provincial Ireland 1910–1916 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Farry, Aftermath of Revolution.

274

Notes to Pages 130–135

105. DD, 14 Dec. 1921. 106. Ibid., 3 Jan. 1922. 107. See Peter Hart, “Youth Culture and the Cork IRA,” in Revolution? Ireland, 1917–1923, ed. David Fitzpatrick (Dublin: Trinity History Workshop, 1990), 23. One of the central theses of Michael Laffan’s history of Sinn Féin, The Resurrection of Ireland, is that the party declined into near-insignificance after 1918. 108. Quoted in Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 229. 109. Mulcahy notes on meeting with Cosgrave, 18 May 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/188. 110. DD, 9 Sep. 1922. 111. With the President in America, 8. 112. Hopkinson, Green Against Green, 180. 113. Minutes of Preliminary Conference of Cumann na nGaedheal, 7 Dec. 1922: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1; Summary of pro-Treaty meeting, 21 Dec. 1922: Mulcahy papers, P7/B/325. 114. Quoted in Kevin Boland, Fine Gael: British or Irish? (Cork: Mercier Press, 1984), 13. 115. “Dublin Doings,” 19 July 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/240. 116. DD, 9 Sep. 1922. 117. Blythe proposed the name An Cumann Naisiunta in September 1922. See Special Meeting of General Election Committee Re: Formation of a Political Party, 7 Sep. 1922: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1; Minutes of Preliminary Conference of Cumann na nGaedheal, 7 Dec. 1922: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1. 118. Quoted in Dolan, Commemorating the Irish Civil War, 20. 119. “Address to the Nation,” ca. 1923: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/614. 120. North Dublin Election News, 21 May 1927: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/540; Cumann na nGaedheal Election Handbill, ca. June 1927: NLI ILB 300 P7 (82). 121. Cumann na nGaedheal Annual Convention, 13–14 May 1925: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/616. 122. McCarthy, Kevin O’Higgins, xiii. 123. Quoted in Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 235. 124. DD, 20 Sep. 1922. 125. Minutes of Propaganda Sub-Committee Meeting, 4 Apr. 1922: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1. 126. Special meeting of the Standing Committee, 27 Nov. 1924: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1. 127. Conference of Standing Committee with Executive Council at Government Buildings, 3 Dec. 1923: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1; Richard Mulcahy, “Message to the Nation,” 1 Jan. 1924: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/183. 128. Quoted in Warner Moss, Political Parties in the Irish Free State (New York: Columbia University Press, 1933), 68. 129. Conference of Standing Committee with Executive Council at Government Buildings, 3 Dec. 1923: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1.

Notes to Pages 135–143

275

130. Quoted in Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 134. 131. Ibid., 236. 132. DD, 5 July 1928. 133. Cumann na nGaedheal Organisers’ Report, 13 July 1923: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1; DD, 29 Nov. 1922. 134. Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 200. See also an account of one of Milroy’s speeches in Eoin O’Duffy to Executive Council, 11 June 1924: Blythe papers, P24/222; “Statement of Views of the Coiste Gnotha Relative to the Political Aspect of the Present Situation,” 10 Oct. 1924: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1. 135. Minutes of Standing Committee, 10 Oct. 1924: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1. 136. Hugh Kennedy, Cover Memo on Draft B of the Constitution, March 1922: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/A/65. 137. Ibid. 138. Ibid. 139. Patrick Hogan, “Memo—Constitution,” 17 May 1922: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/A/65. 140. W. T. Cosgrave, “Constitution—Memorandum,” ca. spring 1922: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/A/65. 141. DD, 20 Sep. 1922. 142. Ibid., 5 Oct. 1922. 143. Ibid., 12 Oct. 1922. 144. Ibid. 145. Report of Amendments to Constitution Committee, 6 May 1926: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/702(5). 146. DD, 23 June 1927. Chapter 4. The Treaty and the Empire 1. DD, 14 Dec. 1921. 2. Manela, Wilsonian Moment, 5. 3. Ibid., xi. 4. Paul Townend, “Between Two Worlds: Irish Nationalists and Imperial Crisis, 1878–1880,” Past and Present, no. 194 (February 2007): 163. 5. Kevin O’Higgins to Brigid O’Higgins, 17 Nov. 1926: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/100. 6. This absence is best documented and analyzed in Joe Cleary, “Amongst Empires: A Short History of Ireland and Empire Studies in International Context,” Éire-Ireland 42, nos. 1–2 (Spring/Summer 2007). 7. Linda Colley’s Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 is a high-profile example of this. 8. Stephen Howe, Ireland and Empire: Colonial Legacies in Irish History and Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 43; Stephen Howe, “Historiography,” in Ireland and the British Empire, ed. Kevin Kenny (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 232.

276

Notes to Pages 144–149

9. Simon Potter, “Introduction: Empire, Propaganda and Public Opinion,” in Newspapers and Empire in Ireland and Britain: Reporting the British Empire, c. 1857–1921, ed. Simon Potter (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004), 16. 10. MacKenzie, “The Press and the Dominant Ideology of Empire,” in Potter, Newspapers and Empire, 31; Felix M. Larkin, “The Dog in the Night-Time: The Freeman’s Journal, the Irish Parliamentary Party and the Empire, 1875–1919,” and Patrick Maume, “The Irish Independent and Empire, 1881–1919,” both in Potter, Newspapers and Empire, 109, 116, 124, 139. 11. D. W. Harkness, The Restless Dominion (New York: New York University Press, 1970), ix. 12. Townend, “Between Two Worlds,” 172. 13. Deirdre McMahon, “Ireland, the Empire and the Commonwealth,” in Kenny, Ireland and the British Empire, 182. 14. Harkness, Restless Dominion, 13; McMahon, “Ireland, the Empire and the Commonwealth,” 188; P. J. Mathews, “Stirring Up Disloyalty: The Boer War, the Irish Literary Theatre, and the Emergence of a New Separatism,” Irish University Review 33, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2003): 102. 15. Maume, Long Gestation, 28. 16. United Irishman, 3 Mar. 1899. This was the inaugural issue of Griffith’s and Rooney’s paper. 17. Ibid., 17 June 1899, 18 Mar. 1899. 18. Ibid., 1 July 1899. 19. Wheatley, Nationalism and the Irish Party, 75; Maume, Long Gestation, 16; McMahon, “Ireland, the Empire and the Commonwealth,” 196. 20. Wheatley, Nationalism and the Irish Party, 94, 74. 21. Dáil Éireann, “Message to the Free Nations of the World,” 21 Jan. 1919, in Documents on Irish Foreign Policy (hereafter DIFP), vol. 1, ed. Ronan Fanning, Michael Kennedy, Dermot Keogh, and Eunan O’Halpin (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1998–), 2. 22. Irish Bulletin, 30 Aug. 1921. 23. Notes on speeches, n.d.: de Valera papers, UCDA P150/674. 24. Frank Gallagher, Drafts of “The True Analogy,” articles, ca. June 1921: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/187. These articles were eventually published in the Irish Bulletin, 18–19 July 1921. 25. Ibid. 26. Quoted in Ferriter, Transformation of Ireland, 194–95. 27. DD, 14 Sep. 1921. 28. Michael Silvestri has detailed significant contacts between Irish and Indian revolutionaries in America. In contrast, D. W. Harkness referenced “isolated moments of anti-imperial fellow-feeling for Indians and Egyptians,” and Stephen Howe claimed that solidarity with Indians was mostly a rhetorical device designed to augment Sinn Féin’s reputation in the often anti-imperial United States. Michael Silvestri, Ireland and India: Nationalism, Empire, and Memory (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); Harkness, Restless Dominion, 27; Howe, Ireland and Empire, 49.

Notes to Pages 149–156

277

29. Photo of de Valera with sword and bond, 21 July 1919: de Valera papers, UCDA P150/674. De Valera’s speech at the Indian Freedom dinner was printed as the pamphlet India and Ireland by the Friends of Indian Freedom. A copy is in the de Valera papers, UCDA P150/1053. See also Silvestri, Ireland and India, chapters 1–2. 30. Eamon de Valera, India and Ireland, published by the Friends of Freedom for India, 1920: de Valera papers, UCDA P150/1053; Agnes Smedley, Secretary of the Friends of Irish Freedom for India, to de Valera, 9 Mar. 1920: de Valera papers, UCDA P150/1053. 31. De Valera to Friends of Freedom for India, 5 Dec. 1920: de Valera papers, UCDA P150/1053. 32. Seán T. O’Kelly to Cabinet, 24 May 1919, in DIFP, 1:16. O’Kelly also said that “there are no Indians here that we know of—except the one who is pro-British delegate to Conference and we know there is no use touching him.” 33. Seán T. O’Kelly to Cabinet, 15 June 1919, in DIFP, 1:31. 34. Diarmuid O’Hegarty to Seán T. O’Kelly, 25 June 1919, in DIFP, 1:35. 35. DD, 11 Apr. 1919. 36. Cabinet minutes, 8 Mar. 1921, 25 Nov. 1921: de Valera papers, UCDA P150/1371. 37. De Valera to Brennan, 6 Feb. 1921, in DIFP, 1:109. 38. De Valera to Brennan, 4 Apr. 1921, in DIFP, 1:126–27. 39. Dermot Keogh, Ireland and Europe, 1919–1948 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1988), 5. 40. Lloyd George to de Valera, 29 Sep. 1921, in The Irish Uprising, 1914–21: Papers from the British Parliamentary Archive, ed. Tim Coates (London: The Stationery Office, 2000), 207. 41. DD, 17 Aug. 1921. 42. See Chartres to Griffith, 14 Oct. 1921, in DIFP, 1:276. 43. See DD, 17 Aug. 1921, 14 Sep. 1921. 44. Smuts to de Valera, 4 Aug. 1921: de Valera papers, UCDA P150/1451. 45. Quoted in Hart, Mick, 281. 46. Patrick McCartan, Memorandum on hopes of Recognition of the Irish Republic from the USSR, June 1921, in DIFP, 1:151. 47. DD, 17 Aug. 1921. 48. Quoted in Ged Martin, “The Irish Free State and the Evolution of the Commonwealth, 1921–1949,” in Reappraisals in British Imperial History, ed. Ronald Hyam and Ged Martin (London: Macmillan, 1975), 203–4. 49. Erskine Childers, Memo on Dominion Status, 18 Oct. 1921: de Valera papers, UCDA P150/1511. 50. Childers diary, 3 Dec. 1921: de Valera papers, UCDA P150/1489. 51. Interview given by Eamon de Valera, 2 May 1921: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/46. 52. Irish Bulletin, 19 Aug. 1921. 53. John Chartres, Notes on the Crown, 22 Oct. 1921: de Valera papers, UCDA P150/1511.

278

Notes to Pages 156–164

54. Memorandum by the Irish delegates on their proposal for the association of Ireland with the British Commonwealth, 28 Nov. 1921, in DIFP, 1:318. The memo was signed by Arthur Griffith, who probably was not its sole author. Presumably Childers, the usual author of such memos, had little or nothing to do with this document, as he consistently opposed the granting of defense facilities in Ireland to Britain. 55. “Tentative Suggestions” for a Treaty presented by Thomas Jones to Arthur Griffith, 16 Nov. 1921, in DIFP, 1:309–10; John Chartres, “Rough Notes Showing how the Exclusion of the Crown and of Imperial Supremacy might be Effected by Means of Positive Enactments in Harmony on Practically All Points with Dominion Constitutional Usage,” 29 Nov. 1921: de Valera papers, UCDA P150/1511. 56. Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, 6 Dec. 1921, in DIFP, 1:356–57. 57. DD, 4 Jan. 1922. This was a reference to O’Higgins saying that if they had to go into the empire, they should go with their heads up rather than trying to disguise the fact. 58. Ibid., 7 Jan. 1922. 59. Ibid., 20 Dec. 1921. 60. Ibid. 61. Erskine Childers, “Law and Fact in Canada,” 29 Nov. 1921: de Valera papers, UCDA P150/1555. 62. Cabinet minutes, 3 Dec. 1921: de Valera papers, UCDA P150/1371. The status of these notes as official “minutes” was much disputed by several participants. 63. DD, 15 Dec. 1921. 64. Ibid., 19 Dec. 1921. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid., 6 Jan. 1922. 67. Ibid., 21 Dec. 1921. 68. Ibid., 19 Dec. 1921. 69. Ibid. 70. Erskine Childers, “Law and Fact in Canada,” 29–30 Nov. 1921: de Valera papers, P150/1555. 71. DD, 20 Dec. 1921. Emphasis in original. 72. Ibid., 19 Dec. 1921. 73. Ibid. 74. Quoted in Farry, Aftermath of Revolution, 51. 75. DD, 4 Jan. 1922. 76. Ibid., 9 Jan. 1922. 77. Ibid., 17 Jan. 1923. 78. Ibid., 6 Jan. 1922. 79. Ibid., 3 Jan. 1922. 80. Ibid., 7 Jan. 1922. 81. Ibid., 6 Jan. 1922. 82. Document No. 2 was de Valera’s proposal presented after the Treaty’s signing to a private session of the Second Dáil. It borrowed equally from the Treaty and from

Notes to Pages 165–170

279

de Valera’s previous proposals for external association with the empire. TDs were supposed to keep its existence secret, but someone, probably Arthur Griffith, leaked it to the press. 83. DD, 15 Dec. 1921. 84. Ibid., 19 Dec. 1921. 85. Ibid., 22 Dec. 1921. 86. Ibid., 18 Sep. 1922. 87. Ibid., 20 Dec. 1921. 88. Ibid., 22 Dec. 1921. 89. Ibid., 4 Jan. 1922. 90. Ibid., 3 Jan. 1922. 91. Ibid., 14 Dec. 1921, 19 Dec. 1921. The Dáil initially went into private session to debate the Treaty, and the bulk of the first several debates were held in private. Thereafter, most debates were held in public, with a few exceptions when deputies discussed specific military matters. 92. Ibid., 21 Dec. 1921. 93. Ibid., 10 Jan. 1922. 94. Ibid., 22 Dec. 1921. 95. Ibid., 15 Dec. 1921. 96. Minutes of Meeting of Provisional Government, 6 June 1922: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/243. 97. For a specific example of British insistence, see Kevin O’Higgins to Thomas Johnson, 22 Sep. 1922: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/211 (101). 98. Collins, Memo on the Constitution, ca. May–June 1922: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/28. This appears to be notes for an election speech. 99. DD, 20 Sep. 1922. 100. Ibid., 17 Dec. 1921. 101. Ibid., 20 Dec. 1921. 102. George Gavan Duffy, “The Future of our Foreign Affairs,” April 1922, in DIFP, 1:437–38. 103. Curran, Birth of the Irish Free State, 208. 104. Hugh Kennedy, “Foreword,” in Kohn, Constitution of the Irish Free State, x. 105. DD, 10 Apr. 1924. Interestingly, this speech to the Dáil was also surely one of the first recorded instances of sarcastic “air quotes,” as Kennedy told a speaker who questioned his reliance on international law that “unfortunately, the inverted commas to the words ‘international law’ are not visible in my oral remarks.” 106. Quoted in Hopkinson, Green Against Green, 105. 107. Michael Kennedy, Ireland and the League of Nations, 1919–1946: International Relations, Diplomacy, and Politics (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1996), 41; DD, 20 Sep. 1922. 108. DD, 9 Apr. 1924. 109. Ibid. 110. John J. Hearne, “Memo Prepared for Imperial Sub-Conference, 1929,” 15 July 1929: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/219.

280

Notes to Pages 171–180

111. DD, 6 Jan. 1922. 112. Ibid. 113. Ibid., 3 Jan. 1922. 114. Memorandum of the Proposals of the Irish Delegates to the British Representatives,” 24 Oct. 1921, in DIFP, 1:289. 115. DD, 14 Dec. 1921. 116. Ibid., 4 Jan. 1922. 117. Ibid., 22 Dec. 1921. 118. Ibid., 19 Dec. 1921. 119. Ibid. 120. Collins, Notes on Constitution and Election, undated, but ca. May–June 1922: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/28. 121. DD, 4 Oct. 1922. 122. Collins, “Change in Situation and Outlook,” ca. summer 1922: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/28. 123. P. S. O’Hegarty, Memorandum on Irish Membership in the League of Nations, 15 Sep. 1922, in DIFP, 1:503–4. 124. United Irishman, 17 Mar. 1923. 125. Ibid., 21 Apr. 1923. 126. See, for example, ibid., 24 Mar. 1923, 31 Mar. 1923, 12 May 1923. 127. Ibid., 7 Apr. 1923. 128. Weekly Bulletin, no. 1, n.d., but ca. fall 1922: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/241. 129. Ibid., no. 10, n.d., but ca. 1923. 130. Ibid., no. 28, 4 July 1923. 131. Kevin O’Shiel to Executive Council, “Confidential,” 30 May 1923, in DIFP, 2:122. 132. Kevin O’Shiel to Executive Council, 14 Mar. 1923, in DIFP, 2:72. 133. Harkness, Restless Dominion, 26. Chapter 5. A Dominion in Name 1. Quoted in Keogh, Ireland and Europe, 14. 2. Quoted in Curran, Birth of the Irish Free State, 210. 3. DD, 5 Dec. 1923. 4. Department of Justice, “Nationality and Citizenship,” ca. 1929: Blythe Papers, UCDA P24/219(9). 5. T. M. Healy, Criticisms of Draft Constitution, 5 Apr. 1922: MacNeill papers, UCDA LA1/F/243. 6. DD, 11 Oct. 1922. 7. Ibid. 8. Harkness, Restless Dominion, 121. 9. Curran, Birth of the Irish Free State, 218. 10. Kohn, Constitution of the Irish Free State, 71, 49. 11. McMahon, “Ireland, the Empire and the Commonwealth,” 210–11. 12. Martin, “Irish Free State,” 206, 209.

Notes to Pages 181–190

281

13. Valiulis, Portrait of a Revolutionary, 234. 14. Kissane, Politics of the Irish Civil War, 84. 15. Quoted in Harkness, Restless Dominion, 98. 16. Nicholas Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience, vol. 2, From British to Multiracial Commonwealth, rev. ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), 3. 17. DD, 5 Feb. 1926. 18. Weekly Bulletin, Issue 28, 4 July 1923: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/241. 19. Quoted in Harkness, Restless Dominion, 29. 20. See, for example, DD, 19 Dec. 1921. 21. Cumann na nGaedheal, “Address to the Nation,” ca. August 1923: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/614. This flyer was issued shortly after the formal founding of the Cumann na nGaedheal party. 22. DD, 20 Sep. 1922. 23. Conference of Standing Committee with Executive Council, Government Buildings, 3 Dec. 1923: Cumann na nGaedheal papers, UCDA P39/MIN/1. 24. DD, 9 Apr. 1924. 25. United Irishman, 7 July 1923. 26. DD, 12 Dec. 1923. 27. Eoin MacNeill, Memo of Conversation, 13 Nov. 1923: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/192. 28. DD, 19 Oct. 1922. 29. Eoin MacNeill, Notes on a Constitution Draft, ca. spring 1922: MacNeill papers, UCDA LA1/F/246. 30. Office of the President, Minute on the Public Safety (Emergency Powers) (No. 2) Act, 1923: Department of the Taoiseach, NAI S 3063. 31. John O’Byrne, “Memorandum Relating to the power of Disallowance by the Crown of the Acts of the Oireachtas,” 4 Feb. 1925: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/945. 32. Department of External Affairs, “Preliminary Memorandum: Relations with Great Britain,” n.d.: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/217. 33. DD, 15 Dec. 1926. 34. Ibid., 16 Dec. 1926. 35. Department of Justice, Memorandum on “Nationality and Citizenship,” ca. 1929: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/219 (9). 36. John J. Hearne, “Memorandum Prepared for Imperial Sub-Conference, 1929,” 15 July 1929: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/219. 37. Cabinet Minutes, 3 Nov. 1923: NAI G 2/3. 38. DD, 4 Apr. 1924. 39. J. P. Brennan, Memorandum, 21 Apr. 1926: NAI, S 1367. Brennan is identified as the Secretary to the Foreign Affairs ministry. 40. DD, 10 Oct. 1922. 41. Ibid., 3 Feb. 1926. 42. Ibid., 10 Oct. 1922. 43. Cabinet Minutes, 12 Dec. 1925: Department of the Taoiseach papers, NAI G2/4.

282

Notes to Pages 191–196

44. DD, 3 Feb. 1926. 45. Ibid., 27 Jan. 1926. 46. Ibid., 3 Feb. 1926. 47. Cabinet minutes, 18 May 1926 and 1 June 1926: NAI G2/5. 48. Secretary, Irish Geneva Delegation, to Secretary, Executive Council, 30 June 1927: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/173. 49. Kevin O’Higgins to Brigid O’Higgins, 30 June 1927: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/101. 50. Michael MacWhite to Secretary, Department of External Affairs, 5 Aug. 1927: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/173. 51. DD, 11 June 1924. 52. Ibid., 13 May 1925. 53. Kevin O’Higgins to Brigid O’Higgins, November 1926: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/99. Emphasis in original. 54. Amendments by the Irish Representatives to the proposed Articles of Agreement, 4 Dec. 1921, in DIFP, 1:346. 55. Irish Independent, 3 Jan. 1922. 56. DD, 4 Jan. 1922. 57. George Gavan Duffy, “Ireland and the League of Nations: Memorandum from the Minister of Foreign Affairs,” 22 July 1922: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/30. Emphasis in original. 58. Harkness mentions this, but without much evidence. See Restless Dominion, 32. 59. Mansergh, Commonwealth Experience, 2:5. 60. Desmond FitzGerald, Notes on Sinn Féin and the Paris Peace Conference, ca. 1918: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/12. 61. DD, 11 Apr. 1919. 62. George Gavan Duffy, “Report of Foreign Affairs Department,” April 1922: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/48. 63. Lloyd George promised in a letter to Griffith during the Treaty debates that Britain would support the Irish application for League membership. 64. Bolton Waller, Memorandum on Admission to the League of Nations, 24 Mar. 1923, in DIFP, 2:75. This memo was prepared at Free State Legal Advisor Kevin O’Shiel’s request and was circulated to the Executive Council. 65. Kennedy, Ireland and the League of Nations, 15–16, although he oddly claims that the continent was a more natural connection for Ireland than the dominion or the Atlantic world. 66. Bolton Waller, Memorandum on Admission to the League of Nations, 24 Mar. 1923, in DIFP, 2:76. 67. Regan makes this point, although in a sort of condemnatory way, writing that FitzGerald, Hogan, and O’Higgins shared “a cosmopolitanism which placed Ireland in the European system and jarred with some of Sinn Féin’s more isolationist thinking.” Irish Counter-Revolution, 91. 68. Kennedy, Ireland and the League of Nations, 21–23. Gavan Duffy wrote a memorandum on 22 July 1922 and, after getting a response from Collins, wrote again on 25 July.

Notes to Pages 196–201

283

69. Collins to Gavan Duffy, 22 July 1922: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/B/30. 70. This was written on the back of Kevin O’Shiel to each member of the Executive Council, 20 Feb. 1923: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/517. L. T. MacCosgair was the Irish form of Cosgrave’s name, which he frequently used in signing documents. 71. Michael MacDonnchadha, Assistant Secretary to Executive Council, to FitzGerald, 20 Apr. 1923: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/519. 72. Cabinet Minutes, 21 Apr. 1923: NAI G2/2. 73. Kennedy, Ireland and the League of Nations, 38–40. 74. Report of the Irish Delegation to the Fourth Assembly of the League of Nations, September 1923, in DIFP, 2:177. 75. William T. Cosgrave, Speech to the Assembly of the League of Nations, 10 Sep. 1923, in DIFP, 2:156. 76. Report of the Irish Delegation to the Fourth Assembly of the League of Nations, September 1923, in DIFP, 2:178. 77. J. P. Whyte to FitzGerald, 1 Dec. 1924: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/538. 78. Ibid. 79. Draft Reply #1 to British Colonial Office Despatch of 4 Nov. 1924, n.d.: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/538. 80. Martin, “Irish Free State,” 209. 81. For O’Higgins’s complaint at the 1925 meeting, see Department of External Affairs, “Sixth Assembly of the League of Nations, Geneva, September 1925: Summary of Proceedings,” ca. February 1926: NAI S 4820. 82. Quoted in Kennedy, Ireland and the League of Nations, 144. 83. Kennedy, Ireland and the League of Nations, 40–41. 84. Harkness, Restless Dominion, 33, 57. 85. W. T. Cosgrave to Edward Phelan, 4 July 1923, in DIFP, 2:132. 86. Joseph P. Walshe, Memorandum for members of the Irish delegation to the League of Nations Assembly, 23 Aug. 1923, in DIFP, 2:150. 87. United Irishman, 7 Apr. 1923. 88. At this time, United Irishman was edited by Sean Milroy, who, while an ardent supporter of the Treaty, did not always see eye to eye with the Executive Council. Milroy would resign from the Cumann na nGaedheal party and the Dáil in 1924 over the Army Mutiny but had ongoing disputes with the Executive Council over economic policy as well. 89. Quoted in Kennedy, Ireland and the League of Nations, 150. 90. Kevin O’Shiel to each member of the Executive Council, 29 Mar. 1923, in DIFP, 2:79. Article 10 had been one of the main criticisms levied at the League Covenant by Irish Americans in 1919, who believed that it would freeze the boundary of the UK so as to include Ireland. 91. Kevin O’Shiel to each member of the Executive Council, 21 Apr. 1923, in DIFP, 2:94. 92. Matthews, Fatal Influence, 228. 93. Kevin O’Higgins to Brigid O’Higgins, September 1925: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/93.

284

Notes to Pages 201–211

94. Quoted in Ferriter, Transformation of Ireland, 356. 95. Blythe, Memo on the League of Nations, 21 Oct. 1926: FitzGerald papers, P80/551. 96. Desmond FitzGerald to Mabel FitzGerald, September 1926: FitzGerald papers, P80/1407. 97. Sean Lester to William T. Cosgrave and Joseph P. Walshe, 20 Aug. 1924, in DIFP, 2:338. 98. DD, 5 June 1929. 99. Article printed in The Star, May 1931: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/D/170. 100. DD, 21 Nov. 1921. 101. Irish Independent, 2 June 1927. 102. Ibid., 10 Sep. 1927. 103. DD, 5 June 1929. 104. Ibid., 22 Feb. 1929. 105. Ibid., 5 June 1929. 106. The Star, August 1931: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/D/170. 107. DD, 28 June 1928. 108. Irish Independent, 14 Sep. 1927. 109. DD, 5 June 1929. 110. The following is taken from DD, 19 Mar. 1930, except where noted. 111. DD, 19 Mar. 1930. 112. Ibid., 20 Mar. 1930. 113. Ibid. 114. Ibid., 19 Mar. 1930. 115. Ibid. 116. McGilligan to Lord Passfield, Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, 12 Sep. 1930: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/602. 117. DD, 26 Sep. 1922. 118. Ibid. 119. McGilligan explained this to the Dáil on 16 July 1931. 120. DD, 16 July 1931. 121. Ibid. 122. Ibid. 123. McGilligan to Lord Passfield, Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, 12 Sep. 1930: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/602. 124. John Costello to Secretary, Executive Council, 4 Mar. 1931: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/88. 125. Draft Despatch, Ministry of External Affairs, 16 Apr. 1930: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/970. 126. John J. Hearne, Preliminary Memo on “The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council,” n.d.: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/219(3). South Africa and Australia prevented appeals except when the high courts in those dominions specifically allowed an appeal. 127. DD, 16 July 1931.

Notes to Pages 211–221

128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136.

285

The Star, January 1931: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/D/170. Ibid., May 1931. Ibid., June 1931. Ibid., May 1931. DD, 16 July 1931. The Star, May 1931: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/D/170. DD, 9 Apr. 1924. Ibid., 16 Dec. 1926. Quoted in Harkness, Restless Dominion, 226.

Chapter 6. Reclaiming the Revolution 1. DD, 23 June 1927. 2. Ibid., 23 June 1927. 3. Irish Independent, 9 June 1927. 4. Ibid., 25 Apr. 1927. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., 2 May 1927. 7. Ibid., 24 May 1927. 8. Ibid., 25 May 1927. 9. Ibid., 26 May 1927. 10. Ibid., 15 June 1927. 11. Mary Daly, in Industrial Development and Irish National Identity, argues that the creation of a tariff commission was largely a political ploy to enable the government to avoid making decisions on the implementation of particular tariffs. 12. Irish Independent, 28 Jan. 1927. 13. Fighting Points for Cumann na nGaedheal Speakers and Workers, General Election 1932 (Dublin: Temple Press, 1932): Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/42. 14. Irish Independent, 27 May 1927. 15. Ibid., 10 Sep. 1927. 16. Ibid., 26 Aug. 1927. 17. Ibid., 14 July 1927. 18. Ibid., 5 Sep. 1927. 19. Ibid., 12 Sep. 1927. 20. Ibid., 1 Sep. 1927. 21. Ibid., 9 Sep. 1927. 22. Ibid., 6 Sep. 1927. 23. Ibid., 16 July 1927. 24. The Star, 24 Aug. 1929. 25. Irish Independent, 19 May 1927. 26. Mulcahy, Address to Electors, 29 May 1927: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/98. Emphasis in original. 27. Secretary, Ministry for Defence, to Secretary, Executive Council, 9 Apr. 1929: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/86. 28. The Star, Easter Week Commemoration Number, ca. May 1931: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/D/170.

286

Notes to Pages 223–232

29. Irish Independent, 25 Apr. 1927. 30. Fighting Points for Cumann na nGaedheal Speakers and Workers, General Election 1932 (Dublin: Temple Press, 1932): Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/42. 31. DD, 11 Oct. 1927. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid., 5 July 1928. 35. Irish Independent, 16 May 1927. 36. Ibid., 25 May 1927. 37. Ibid., 13 Sep. 1927. 38. Ibid., 6 Sep. 1927. R. J. P. Mortished was the assistant secretary of the Labour Party. See Moss, Political Parties, 75. 39. Irish Independent, 10 Sep. 1927. 40. Ibid., 8 Sep. 1927. 41. Ibid., 9 Sep. 1927. 42. Ibid., 2 Nov. 1927. 43. DD, 11 Oct. 1927. 44. Ibid., 5 July 1928. 45. Irish Independent, 7 Sep. 1927. 46. DD, 14 Oct. 1931. 47. Ibid., 15 Oct. 1931. 48. Ibid., 16 Oct. 1931. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid., 15 Oct. 1931. 51. Ibid., 20 Feb. 1929. 52. Ibid., 2 Apr. 1930. 53. Irish Independent, 25 Apr. 1927. 54. Ibid., 6 Sep. 1927. 55. Ibid., 23 Aug. 1927. 56. Ibid., 13 Sep. 1927. 57. Ibid., 6 June 1927. 58. DD, 20 Feb. 1929. 59. Irish Independent, 6 Sep. 1927. 60. Ibid., 7 Sep. 1927. 61. Ibid., 27 May 1927. 62. Ibid. 63. Ibid., 25 Apr. 1927. 64. DD, 14 Dec. 1923. 65. Irish Independent, 10 Sep. 1927. 66. DD, 2 Apr. 1930. 67. Irish Independent, 12 Sep. 1927. 68. Ibid., 7 Sep. 1927. 69. Ibid., 13 Sep. 1927. 70. The Star, 14 Dec. 1929.

Notes to Pages 232–241

287

71. Irish Independent, 19 May 1927. 72. Ibid., 27 May 1927. 73. Ibid., 23 May 1927. 74. Ibid., 25 May 1927. 75. Ibid., 31 Oct. 1927. 76. Ibid., 8 Sep. 1927. 77. The Star, October 1930. 78. Ibid., September 1931. 79. Irish Independent, 5 Sep. 1927. 80. There is a file of election posters in the Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7a/172. 81. “Making History: The Story of a Remarkable Campaign,” n.d. but ca. 1928: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/1134. 82. Irish Independent, 9 Sep. 1927. 83. Fighting Points for Cumann na nGaedheal Speakers and Workers, General Election 1932 (Dublin: Temple Press, 1932): Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/42. 84. The Star, May 1931: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/D/170. 85. DD, 2 Apr. 1930. 86. Fighting Points for Cumann na nGaedheal Speakers and Workers, General Election 1932 (Dublin: Temple Press, 1932): Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/42. 87. Irish Independent, 13 Sep. 1927. 88. Ibid., 8 Sep. 1927. 89. Blythe notes on speech, 1932: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/622(a). These notes were written by Blythe when he was on the campaign trail in Monaghan and are written on letterhead from the Western Arms Hotel, Monaghan. 90. “Facts For Intelligent Voters,” ca. 1932: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/622(b). 91. “Please Don’t Commit Any More Murders,” ca. 1932: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/622(b). 92. DD, 16 Oct. 1931. 93. Ibid., 14 Oct. 1931. 94. Ibid., 16 Oct. 1931. 95. Ibid. 96. Ibid., 15 Oct. 1931. 97. Ibid., 14 Oct. 1931. 98. The Star, October 1931: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/D/170. 99. Ministry of Justice, Memo on Communism in Ireland, 9 Aug. 1930: FitzGerald papers, UCDA P80/912. 100. See, for example, “Communist Activities: Peasant Farmers’ Organisation” report, 29 Mar. 1930: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/168(3); and Ministry of Justice, “Revolutionary Organisations” memorandum, 4 Apr. 1930: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/169(9). 101. Ministry of Justice, “Revolutionary Organisations” memorandum, 4 Apr. 1930: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/169(9). 102. DD, 14 Oct. 1931. 103. Ibid. 104. The Star, June 1931: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/D/170.

288

Notes to Pages 242–249

105. Ibid., October 1931. 106. Quoted in Regan, Irish Counter-Revolution, 280. 107. “Irish Free State Election News,” 1932: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/622(b). 108. The Star, October 1931: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/D/170. 109. Ibid. 110. DD, 14 Oct. 1931. 111. Ibid. 112. Michael Tierney, “Communism and Irish Youth,” in The Star, October 1931: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/D/170. 113. See, for example, Fighting Points for Cumann na nGaedheal Speakers and Workers, General Election 1932 (Dublin: Temple Press, 1932): Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/42. Point 71, titled “Fianna Fáil and Communism,” charges Fianna Fáil with a permissive attitude toward communism and details visits by IRA and Saor Éire personnel to the Soviet Union or to Soviet-sponsored conferences. 114. Garvin, 1922, 91. 115. Irish Independent, 23 May 1927. 116. Ibid., 27 May 1927, 6 June 1927. 117. Ibid., 6 June 1927. 118. Ibid., 17 May 1927. 119. Ibid., 6 June 1927. 120. Ibid., 25 Apr. 1927. 121. Ibid., 31 May 1927. 122. Ibid. 123. Ibid., 10 Sep. 1927. 124. The Star, 3 May 1930. 125. DD, 3 Apr. 1930. 126. Irish Independent, 4 June 1927. 127. Ibid., 6 Sep. 1927. 128. Hogan quote from Irish Independent, 2 June 1927. For a similar comment by Blythe, see ibid., 2 May 1927. 129. Irish Independent, 14 Sep. 1927. 130. Fighting Points for Cumann na nGaedheal Speakers and Workers, General Election 1932 (Dublin: Temple Press, 1932): Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/42. 131. DD, 19 Nov. 1930. 132. Irish Independent, 21 May 1927. 133. Ibid., 8 June 1927. 134. Ibid., 25 Apr. 1927. 135. Ibid., 1 Sep. 1927. 136. Ibid., 9 Sep. 1927. 137. Ibid., 30 Apr. 1927. 138. DD, 19 Nov. 1930. 139. Ibid. 140. The Star, 3 May 1930.

Notes to Pages 250–253

289

141. Fighting Points for Cumann na nGaedheal Speakers and Workers, General Election 1932 (Dublin: Temple Press, 1932): Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/C/42. 142. An example is Blythe’s statement for 1930, in which he explained that revenue exceeded expectations and expenditure was below expectations for the previous fiscal year. DD, 30 Apr. 1930. 143. J. J. McElligott, “Financial Position” memorandum, 9 Sep. 1931: Blythe papers, UCDA P24/99(2). 144. DD, 19 Nov. 1930. 145. The Star, January 1931: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/D/170. 146. Irish Independent, 3 May 1927. 147. Ibid., 2 May 1927. 148. Ibid., 23 May 1927. 149. The Star, 5 Jan. 1929. 150. DD, 2 Mar. 1927. 151. Ibid., 29 Mar. 1927. 152. Irish Independent, 2 Sep. 1927. 153. Ibid., 16 June 1927, 17 June 1927. 154. Kevin O’Higgins to Brigid O’Higgins, 17 Nov. 1926: O’Higgins papers, UCDA P197/100; The Star, June 1931: Mulcahy papers, UCDA P7/D/170. 155. MacNeill, “Ten Years of the Irish Free State,” 248.

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Index

Anglo-Irish Treaty, 12, 18, 19, 22–23, 58, 115, 130, 141, 159–68, 178–79, 193, 197–99, 200, 210–11, 213, 216– 17, 222–23, 233; benefits of, 32, 107, 110–11, 127–28, 170–71, 173–74, 186, 203; centrality of, to Cumann na nGaedheal (see Cumann na nGaedheal: and Treaty); negotiation of, 3, 152–57; and Oath of Allegiance, 188, 211–12, 218, 234–35, 236 Anglo-Irish War (War of Independence), 3, 26, 35, 76, 77, 131 anti-imperialism/anticolonialism, 18–19, 33, 141–42, 144–45, 157, 163, 164–65, 170–76, 203, 213; historiography of, 143–44, 145–46, 149, 180–81; and tradition of resistance, 43–44, 58–59, 170–71, 246 Army Mutiny, 87–96, 267n126 Australia, 155, 157, 158, 161–62, 166, 170, 172, 174–75, 183, 184, 188, 189, 191, 284n126 Blythe, Ernest, 26, 27, 28, 34, 36, 40, 41, 42, 63, 66, 80, 83, 87, 94–95, 98–99, 129, 135, 136, 163, 175, 179–80, 200, 201, 204, 205, 216, 219, 220, 224, 226, 227, 228–29, 237–38, 265–66n99,

266n101, 267n141, 273n98; and budgets, 49, 115–16, 123–25, 127, 246–47, 250, 251, 289n142; and Irish language, 105, 110, 111–13, 116–18, 121–22; and Treaty, 47, 57, 133, 166, 233–34, 235 Boundary Commission/Agreement, 174–75, 182, 200 Canada, 159–62, 166–68, 169–70, 172– 73, 174–75, 183, 184, 185–86, 189, 191, 192, 204, 208 Canada clause, 156–57, 160–62, 165, 166–68, 173, 179, 185–86, 188, 190, 210–11 Childers, Erskine, 12, 25, 130, 148, 153, 155, 159, 160–61, 162, 165–66, 167, 186, 208–9, 213, 278n54; execution of, 39, 50, 75 citizenship, 188–89, 207 civic virtue, 11, 44–45, 69, 101–4 Collins, Michael, 9, 10, 13, 16, 26, 34, 36, 56, 60, 71, 82, 84, 107–8, 128, 141, 151, 163, 165, 167, 172, 173, 196, 209, 218–20, 222–23, 224, 230, 232, 233– 34, 252; and constructive nationalism, 49, 101, 133, 177; and the Treaty as stepping stone, 23, 88, 96, 154

299

300

Index

Commonwealth, 11, 142–43, 152–53, 163, 166–67, 171–75, 178, 180–84, 185–88, 191, 192, 193, 194, 198–99, 203, 206, 207–8, 210, 213, 249 Constitution Amendment Act (1931), 220–21, 227, 238–39, 241 Constitution of the Irish Free State (1922), 55–58, 167, 173, 179–80, 182, 183, 185, 188, 190, 191, 210, 220–21 Cosgrave, W. T., 9, 16, 17, 24, 29, 34, 38, 40, 44–45, 49, 59, 62, 65, 70, 74, 80, 86–87, 98, 103, 104, 126, 130, 133, 137, 151, 169, 177, 181, 183, 196, 199, 202, 217, 220, 221, 231, 237, 241, 243, 245, 246, 247, 238, 248, 249, 251, 252, 266n101, 267n121; and Army Mutiny, 83, 84, 88–95, 268n156; and the constitution, 56, 58, 80–81, 100, 211, 239–40, 241; and Irishness, 107, 109–10, 119, 200, 224; as president, 24–25, 100, 131, 132, 139, 196–97, 224, 225; and Treaty, 33, 47 Criminal Investigation Department (CID), 72, 265n80 Crown, 4, 19, 57, 156–57, 159, 161, 185–86, 188–89, 190–91, 198, 205–6, 207–9, 210, 212 Cumann na nGaedheal, 4–5, 8, 14, 29, 101, 104, 105, 107, 109, 126–27, 168, 204, 212–13, 215–16, 217–19, 222– 24, 226–29, 232–33, 235–37, 247–48; and budget/economy, 26, 106, 123– 24, 236, 238, 245–50; and counterrevolution, 6, 8–14; historiography of, 6–15, 54, 128, 180–81; and law/order, 11, 19, 75, 76, 236–44; as national party, 11, 20, 128–29, 131–36, 215– 17, 225, 242; political party, 27, 49, 51, 62, 90–91, 110, 115, 119, 128, 131, 132, 133–34, 135–36, 139–40, 183, 211, 268n151; and Treaty, 17, 45–49, 51–53; and Unionists, 127, 134, 135, 229, 246 Curran, Joseph, 6, 23, 41, 180

Dáil courts, 8, 62–65 Dáil Éireann, 28–29, 67, 81, 133, 136–38, 146, 150, 279n91; legitimacy of, 60–63 de Valera, Eamon, 3, 4, 12, 13, 40, 50, 51, 55, 100, 129, 130, 148, 149, 152, 163, 179, 200, 201, 209, 211, 221, 223, 224–25, 226, 227, 228–29, 237, 242, 245; and America, 60, 147, 149–50, 151, 229–30; blamed for civil war, 36–37, 204, 229–30, 232–36; and Treaty, 152–54, 155, 165, 233–34 Democratic Programme (1919), 10, 12, 246 Document No. 2, 164, 165, 235, 278– 79n82 dominion status, 4, 23, 152–56, 159–64, 168–70, 172–73, 181–93, 200, 204, 205–6, 207–8, 209, 213 Duggan, Eamon, 47, 230, 231, 233, 234 Easter Rising, 13–14, 26, 82, 129, 220– 23, 228, 230, 231, 244 education, 106, 110–11, 119–20 Egypt, 150–51, 158, 163, 171, 276n28 election (June 1927), 99, 203–4, 215, 216, 217, 220, 230–31, 233, 244–45, 247, 251, 252 election (September 1927), 219–20, 231–32, 233, 234–35 election (1932), 118, 215, 218, 235–36, 237, 248 executions, 4, 6, 25, 34, 38–39, 50, 55, 74–76, 86, 139, 266n101 extern ministers, 136–39, 218 Farmers’ Party, 20, 132, 133–34, 177–78, 202, 217, 245 Fianna Fáil, 4, 6, 20, 39, 46, 51, 101, 103, 104, 202, 204, 205, 206, 209, 214, 215, 216, 221, 223, 226–27, 228, 229, 231– 32, 233, 234, 236, 237, 241, 244, 245, 248–49, 288n113 FitzGerald, Desmond, 26, 27, 38, 46, 59, 83, 94–95, 117, 132, 135, 194, 200,

Index

212, 233, 241, 242–43, 248; as minister for external affairs, 170, 177–78, 181–82, 186, 189, 190, 192, 196, 201–2, 206–7, 213; and the Rising, 27, 222, 228 Gaelic League, 26, 110, 112, 113, 117, 272n60 Gaeltacht, 114, 118–22, 217 Gaeltacht Commission, 119–22 Garda Síochána (Civic Guard), 78, 97, 99, 113–15, 119, 238; creation of, 70–73 Garvin, Tom, 15–16, 24, 30–31, 32, 60, 61, 63, 244 Gavan Duffy, George, 12, 168–69; criticism of government, 65, 69, 208; and League of Nations, 193, 194–95, 196, 282n68 governor-general, 161, 184–87, 205–6 Griffith, Arthur, 9, 23, 36, 40, 57, 133, 134, 144–45, 151, 194, 278n54, 282n63; and economics, 123–24, 126–27; and Treaty, 33, 48, 156, 165– 67, 172, 218–20, 222–23, 224, 252 Healy, Timothy, 130, 179, 184, 185, 198 Hogan, Patrick, 10, 12, 26–27, 34, 35, 61, 63, 80, 88, 99, 100, 107, 135, 137, 139, 205, 217–18, 244, 245, 247, 263n29, 266n101; and Army Mutiny, 91, 92, 96; and land issue, 29, 77–78, 121, 124; and republicans, 37, 44, 50, 60, 75, 223, 224, 225, 229, 231–32; and Treaty, 47–48, 103, 165–66, 168, 235–36, 251–52 Hughes, Peter, 97, 98, 139, 244, 245 Imperial Conferences, 184, 186–87, 188, 189, 191, 192–93, 203, 207 India, 149–50, 151, 158, 163, 171, 188, 189, 194, 276n28, 277n29, 277n32 Irish language, 18, 105–7, 109–22, 196, 200, 253; and typesetting, 117–18, 272n64

301

Irish Party, 3, 10, 15, 30, 77, 112, 131, 142, 145–46, 179; hostility to, by revolutionaries, 20, 128, 164; and perceptions of jobbery/corruption, 28, 40, 129, 130 Irish Republican Army, 3, 7, 9, 14, 54, 61, 70, 71, 72, 77, 84, 89, 97, 115, 131, 226, 227, 228, 237, 238, 239, 288n113 Irish Republican Brotherhood, 26, 27, 174, 226, 228, 267n123; and Army Mutiny, 77, 81–84, 88–90, 96 Johnson, Thomas, 67, 70, 75, 91–92, 169–70, 224 Kenmare Incident, 85–87, 96, 267n141 Kennedy, Hugh, 40, 66, 86–87, 136–37, 169, 189, 264n50, 267n141, 279n105 Kissane, Bill, 8–9, 30, 181 Kohn, Leo, 6, 23, 57, 169, 180, 257n2 Kotsonouris, Mary, 8, 65 Labour Party, 20, 34, 75, 91–92, 133–34, 139, 169, 174, 202, 206, 215, 245 Land Act (1923), 121, 190 League of Nations, 11, 166, 169, 171, 172, 173, 175, 178, 184, 192, 193–202, 282n63, 283n90 Lemass, Seán, 24, 223–24, 231, 235 Lloyd George, David, 147–48, 152, 154, 155, 177, 257n3, 282n63 MacNeill, Eoin, 35, 39, 44, 45, 47, 51, 80, 83, 94, 103, 111, 131, 166, 167, 172, 182–83, 185, 196, 219, 224–25, 230, 253, 265–66n99; and the Irish language, 106, 115 McGilligan, Patrick, 10, 26, 27, 39, 88, 249, 250; as minister of external affairs, 181–82, 199, 202–6, 207–9, 211–12, 214 McGrath, Joseph, 26, 27, 76, 268n152; and Army Mutiny, 88–92, 93, 94, 96 Meehan, Ciara, 14–15, 214

302

Index

meritocracy, 27–28, 86, 87, 88, 89, 93, 136, 138 Milroy, Seán, 17, 59–60, 124, 135, 138– 39, 165 Mulcahy, Richard, 12, 13, 26, 35, 37, 41, 44, 59, 62, 74, 75, 85, 86, 97, 102, 130, 131, 133, 135, 203–4, 219, 220–21, 227, 232, 265–66n99; and Army Mutiny, 88–96; and army’s role in policing, 71, 72, 77–81; and Irish language/Irishness, 112, 118, 119–22; and Irish Republican Brotherhood, 82–84 National Army, 33, 41, 73–74, 77–98, 114–15, 117, 120, 121, 228, 232; and 1924 mutiny (see Army Mutiny) National Group, 24, 51, 90, 125 National League, 134, 215, 217, 244 O’Duffy, Eoin, 93–94, 97–98; as police commissioner, 71, 73, 79, 113–15, 266n111 O’Higgins, Kevin, 4, 7, 10, 16, 19, 24, 25–26, 27, 30, 32, 37–38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 48, 98, 107, 111, 125, 126– 27, 130, 137, 138, 173, 184, 201, 202, 206, 212, 213, 214, 227–28, 246, 249, 251, 258n11, 265n91, 265n98, 265– 66n99, 266n101; and Army Mutiny, 82–84, 88–96; assassination, 219–20, 223, 230, 237; and civic virtue, 11, 44–45, 69, 101–3; and constitution, 57–58, 167–68, 179, 190, 208; and Cumann na nGaedheal political party, 49, 131, 134–35; and Dáil courts, 8, 64–65; and democracy, 34, 61–63, 163; and de Valera, 36–37, 50, 224, 233; and dominion status, 181, 182, 184, 185, 187, 189–92, 192–93, 199; and elections, 215, 216–17, 230– 31, 245–46, 247, 252; and Free State courts, 66, 191, 192; and Kenmare incident, 85–87, 96; and law and

order, 11, 35, 36, 38, 55, 67–70, 74, 76, 79, 102; and meritocracy, 28, 93; and policing, 71–73, 77–81, 113–14; and popular sovereignty, 59, 60; and Public Safety Acts, 68–69; and Treaty, 46–47, 200, 278n57 O’Kelly, Seán T., 150, 161–62, 206, 209, 221, 224, 227–28, 230, 231 Ó Murthuile, Seán, 79, 83, 87, 267n125 O’Shiel, Kevin, 108, 175, 200 O’Sullivan, Gearóid, 79, 94, 99, 107, 170–71, 224, 230 O’Sullivan, John Marcus, 42, 112, 216, 219, 233, 238–39 Parnell, Charles Stewart, 37, 130, 146, 179 Pearse, Patrick, 40, 102, 105, 107, 117, 218, 220–21 Privy Council, 190–91, 209–11 Provisional Government, 33, 34, 56, 61, 65, 70–71, 110, 132, 137, 138, 161, 167 Public Safety Acts, 35, 55, 68–69, 98– 100, 185, 238 Regan, John M., 23, 26, 33, 51, 55, 91, 105, 214, 257n5, 267n124, 282n67; and counterrevolution, 9–14, 25, 54, 88; criticism of state-building approach, 7, 15; and social class, 10–11, 12, 30, 54, 85, 88 Seanad, 56, 57, 224 Sinn Féin, 4, 6, 8, 20, 22, 26, 27, 28, 30, 40, 54, 59, 63–64, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 110, 112, 117, 128, 129, 130–31, 133, 134, 140, 142, 143–44, 146, 147–49, 152, 153, 154, 155, 157, 164, 168, 170, 174, 182, 193, 197, 213, 217, 224, 225, 234, 274n107; and abstention, 3, 92; and economics, 77, 124–25, 127, 246; post-Treaty, 61, 81, 92, 129, 221

Index

South Africa, 148–49, 150, 154, 157, 158, 162, 166, 168, 170, 174–75, 181, 183, 189, 190, 191, 192, 208, 284n126 sovereignty, 11, 17–18, 19, 20, 33, 54, 133, 156, 177–79, 182, 190, 191–94, 197–99, 200, 202–3, 204–5, 206–7, 209–10, 212, 214, 223; popular sovereignty, 30, 59–60, 74–76, 93, 208 Stack, Austin, 26, 37, 151, 162, 221, 266n102

303

Statute of Westminster, 204, 208–9, 211, 212, 213 Tailteann Games, 8, 122–23 tariff commission, 126–27, 218, 285n11 tariffs, 20, 124–27, 245–46 Walsh, J. J., 24, 122, 124, 125, 130, 171

History of Ire l an d and the Iri sh D iasp or a Remembering the Year of the French: Irish Folk History and Social Memory Guy Beiner Ireland’s New Worlds: Immigrants, Politics, and Society in the United States and Australia, 1815–1922 M a l c o l m C a m pb e l l The Slow Failure: Population Decline and Independent Ireland, 1920–1973 M a ry E . Daly The Eternal Paddy: Irish Identity and the British Press, 1798–1882 Michael de Nie Old World Colony: Cork and South Munster 1630–1830 David Dickson Captain Rock: The Irish Agrarian Rebellion of 1821–1824 Jame s S . D onnelly, Jr. Sinn Féin: A Hundred Turbulent Years Brian Feeney The Shadow of a Year: The 1641 Rebellion in Irish History and Memory John Gi b ney A Nation of Politicians: Gender, Patriotism, and Political Culture in Late Eighteenth-Century Ireland Padhraig Higgins Stakeknife: Britain’s Secret Agents in Ireland Marti n Ingram and Greg Ha rkin

New Directions in Irish-American History Edited by Kevin Kenny Afterimage of the Revolution: Cumann na nGaedheal and Irish Politics, 1922–1932 Jason Knirck The Same Age as the State M á i re C ru i se O’ B ri e n The Bible War in Ireland: The “Second Reformation” and the Polarization of Protestant-Catholic Relations, 1800–1840 Irene Wh el an Tourism, Landscape, and the Irish Character: British Travel Writers in Pre-Famine Ireland Wi lliam H. A. Wi lliams