Dublin Castle and the Anglo-Irish War : Counter Insurgency and Conflict [1 ed.] 9781443815734, 9781443813921

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Dublin Castle and the Anglo-Irish War

Dublin Castle and the Anglo-Irish War: Counter Insurgency and Conflict, by Eamonn T. Gardiner This book first published 2009 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2009 by Eamonn T. Gardiner All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-1392-3, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-1392-1

Dublin Castle and the Anglo-Irish War: Counter Insurgency and Conflict

By

Eamonn T. Gardiner

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword and Acknowledgements ............................................................ vii Chapter One................................................................................................. 1 Introduction Chapter Two ................................................................................................ 5 The Relationship between Dublin and London: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 23 The Royal Irish Constabulary: A Century of Counter-Insurgency in Ireland Chapter Four.............................................................................................. 39 The British Army and Counter-Insurgency in Ireland 1919-1921 Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 61 Conclusion Bibliography.............................................................................................. 65 Appendix A ............................................................................................... 71 Photographs Appendix B................................................................................................ 79 Maps and Diagrams

FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As the author of this academic work, I feel that it is important to deal with a number of issues which the reader may question when later reading this paper. First and foremost this work is incomplete; it is not as complete as the author should like it to be. To elaborate further the scope of this thesis is limited and focuses overly on one aspect, the chapter on the British Army, and I feel that is its most serious flaw. Although the British Army chapter is the most important, effectively describing how the most potent fighting force on the planet was neutralized from within, it is still just one of the chapters in what became a larger work. it was necessary to reduce the scope of this work to three largish chapters in order to properly deal with the chosen subject matter thematically. The concept of chapters averaging six thousand words or so, while practical in this academic instance, might not be comfortable for the average reader; I as the author apologise to those who feel that this is the case. The lack of attention to the situation as regards bitter counterinsurgency (or even the nature of the insurgency itself) in Ulster and the lack of a chapter dedicated to the sacrifice made by the brave souls of the Dublin Metropolitan Police Force (unarmed throughout the conflict) and the fate that befell their G-Division colleagues is a black mark against this work. However due to the imposition of a strict word count and a limited time frame, it was neither realistic nor potentially possible to address these issues as comprehensively as I would have liked to have done. In this work I have endeavoured to demonstrate to the reader the complexity of the multiple factors constricting and dictating the response by the British government of the day and the consequent actions implemented by their organs (the newly bolstered RIC and the weakened British Army), one cannot yet help feeling that this thesis still lacks the unbiased view that is necessary to distinguish it as being worthy of academic credit. I undertook this work as a result of a series of discussions with Professor Anthony McElligott, the MA Course Head, University of Limerick. Prof. McElligott counselled me that my outlook on history might be considered by some as being potentially biased given my use of language and tone. Therefore I chose this area of research, largely

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Foreword and Acknowledgements

neglected by the more populist writers in an attempt to bridge that gap. I believe that this work is as free as can be from political bias. I am personally of an Irish Nationalist outlook and would define my political views as being those of a political moderate. Conscious of such biased motivation, I endeavoured to write this thesis from a British point of view as much as possible; in fact I would go as far as to say inherent personal bias has shifted somewhat as it probably does as slight disservice to the government of David Lloyd George, whilst bolstering the characters of the Royal Irish Constabulary and the British Army. My thanks also go to Dr. Catherine Lawless, the other MA Course Director for her tireless efforts on my behalf as regards helping with potential sources and travel information in London for my research trips. I would especially like to express my sincere thank to my long suffering supervisor, Dr. Ruan O’Donnell. Ruan as Head of the History Department in the University of Limerick, has had more than enough on his plate over the past number of years and he has nonetheless accepted my thesis as the second piece of formal academic work which I have submitted under his aegis. Beir bua agus beannacht! I would also like to thank my parents, Maura and Eamonn without whose generosity, both monetary and of spirit, I would not have been able to undertake this project. To my friends John, Kevin and Nicola, without whom the stress of this year would surely have taken a far heavier toll on me than I would care to admit, I thank you all. Without your guidance, help, perseverance, goodwill and support I would never have been able to complete this thesis. You are all true friends and I know that you will go on from here to do great things. To Aoife. Thank you for all your help and encouragement in this project.

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

When one sets out to examine the British policies which were aimed toward countering the insurgency in Ireland which had developed in the first quarter of the twentieth century, one must first consider some initial questions regarding the subject matter. These questions, perhaps filters would be a more appropriate term, have great bearing on the subject. What nature did the insurgency assume (and by natural extension the insurgents) and of what nature was the response by Dublin and London to this insurgency? What state was the British Exchequer in at the end of the bloodiest war since 1648? What was the extent of the new British Empire and what was the condition of her forces? In this book I set forth to provide to the reader answers to the aforementioned questions and hopefully provide some clarity to an often over-simplified subject. As historians, there is a professional imperative upon us to ask difficult questions in the pursuit of our work. We must face the truths that we would rather avoid. Without this tough stance being taken, the pursuit of historical fact (and the subsequent analysis of that fact) is prone to the oversimplification of accepted popular views. The fact in this case can be an oversimplification which can be traced to the idea that there were two sides to the insurgency; that it was simply the Irish versus the British (or more often the English). Another aspect of the oversimplification of Irish revolutionary history is the common misconception that is often portrayed by the Republican movement, is the popular image that it was the heinous British that inflicted such horrendous atrocities on us, the Irish. That image, whilst popular, is nonetheless fundamentally flawed. It fails to address the fact during the period of the War of Independence (19191921), Ireland was as much a part of the United Kingdom as was Scotland or Wales; Dublin was considered by many to be the second city of the British Isles. How then can one reconcile the fact that an Ireland which sought to be free was also an Ireland that was integral to the United Kingdom of the early

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Chapter One

twentieth century? Logically there cannot be two Irelands which existed at the same time in the same place and yet were so fundamentally different from each other that they could almost have been from different planets. Logically again, one must deduce that one vision of Ireland must not be wholly accurate in its portrayal of the country, the nations of peoples and the inter-communal relationships that existed. This book aims to examine the relationships, imagery and popular perceptions of counter-insurgency experiences in Ireland during the Irish War of Independence. It will probe the elements of the various forces which engaged in counter-insurgency operations in Ireland during the period in question, seeking to expand on traditional views and confront some preconceived theories surrounding them. It will also challenge the theory that the conflict was one of a primarily ‘might versus right’ and provide a greater depth of analysis of all belligerents involved in hostilities. It is hoped that through an examination of the relationships that existed between the belligerent forces (and in some cases between allies) taking part in the war, light will be shed on the complex network of moralities, allegiances and operational abilities that were operating in Ireland during the conflict. By extension it will examine the often conflicting nature of the relationship between the tripartite members of the security apparatus in British administered Ireland, namely the ‘police’ (RIC and DMP), their paramilitary reinforcements (Black and Tans and Auxiliaries) and the Army. As the title suggests, the purpose of this chapter is to outline to the reader the state of the country, with special reference to the province of Munster, prior to the outbreak of widespread hostilities during the Anglo-Irish War, popularly known in this country as the War of Independence. Although both terms describe a common event, they are not actually mutually exclusive and actually represent a sharply divergent set of views with regard to the hostilities that occurred between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and those forces being maintained and paid for by the British Government in the early twentieth century. Whilst the term ‘War of Independence’ can be viewed as being synonymous with Republican bias and rife with Nationalistic tendencies, it should also be treated with respect; the hostilities entered into by the Irish Volunteers (IV; later the IRA) were, for all intensive purposes, true warfare. The IRA had taken an oath to fight for the establishment and protect the Irish Republic; men had died for ‘the cause’ as it had become known and as such it deserves a measure of respect. However the alternate point of view must also be

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respected. Some regard the war as being the first truly Anglo-Irish War and term it accordingly. Others still do not regard it as a war at all This work aims to examine and debunk the myths surrounding the conflict and in doing so aims to demonstrate to the reader that the War of Independence was not so much won by the Irish as lost by the British. Furthermore it aims to show that this loss was not inevitable and that although the main action occurred between 1916-1921, the seeds of destruction were sown far earlier than that.

CHAPTER TWO THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DUBLIN AND LONDON: QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES?1

The history of the relationship between the British government and the administration which it sponsored in Ireland is a long and complex one. This chapter will primarily focus on that relationship during the period 1919 to 1921; the reasoning being that this period is generally agreed to more or less accurately encompass the main actions of the Anglo-Irish War, more popularly known in Ireland as the War of Independence. By selecting this period to study, this scholarly work sets forth to examine the role played in Irish affairs by both the British government and its quasiindependent (at times) administration in Ireland. It will also observe the increasingly complex nature of the relationship between the administrations as the conflict progressed. To do this it will study the roles of the Lord Lieutenant, the Chief Secretary and the Civil Service probing not only their involvement in the day-to-day administration, but also degree to which they provided key strategic long-term planning for Ireland. This chapter and the subsequent, dealing with the Royal Irish Constabulary, will demonstrate how a lack of foresight, prudence in decision making and a general failure to see the bigger picture over time contributed to the fact that as hostilities progressed the force was prematurely unable to contain the threat posed by militant separatism. Theoretically the ‘old’ Constabulary, as a paramilitary force with excellent local intelligence, should not have been defeated and effectively sidelined as early in the conflict as they were. The reason for their extremely precipitous capitulation cannot merely be the military prowess of an untested (and under-resourced) guerrilla army, such as the Irish Volunteers/Republican Army were at that point in the conflict.

1

‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes’, who shall watch the watchers?

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Chapter Two

It will also attempt to show the effects of such an endemic ad hoc nature of security planning on the security and law enforcement situation in the country. In doing this it will demonstrate how the laissez faire attitude of the Dublin Castle administration unfortunately complemented the poor decision making and planning aspects of their relationship with London. It will demonstrate how the position of Lord Lieutenant became largely ceremonial in the years after the Act of Union superseded in import by the Chief Secretary. It will show how this office in turn attained the connotation of being a poisoned chalice, usually passed around the government in a game of political football and ‘awarded’ to a junior member. The posting, although guaranteed a seat at the cabinet table, was rarely sought out and the quality of the office holders was sufficient in times of order and rarely exceptional in times of crisis. Although the British administration in Ireland, traditionally based in Dublin Castle (henceforth referred to as the Castle administration or simply the Castle), can trace its lineage back to the time of the Norman conquest of the country, for the sake of historical expediency we will deal primarily with a period beginning from the latter half of the nineteenth century onwards. By the late eighteenth century it had grown both in scale and structure; after surviving the failed rebellions of the United Irishmen in 1798 and Robert Emmet in 1803, it began to operate in a quasiindependent manner which it managed to continue into the post Unification era. Ironically it was after the final unification of all the lands of Great Britain under a single parliament in London that the Castle administration became more firmly established in Ireland and entrenched in Irish society than it had ever been before. Legislation contained in the Act and subsequent acts also passed by the Houses of Parliament paved the way for the furthest yet assimilation of the rule of London into Irish political and social life. This assimilation was brought about by Dublin through its provision of law and order for the troubled island of Ireland; the initial law enforcement agency, the Peace Preservation Force, was established by Sir Robert Peel in 1814.2 Peel reasoned that if Ireland could be brought to adhere to the laws and ordinances of mainland Britain then peace and the move to order would follow shortly.3

2

Brian Jenkins, Irish Nationalism and the British State, From Repeal to Revolutionary Nationalism, ( London, 2006), p. 21. 3 Robert Black, The Conservative Party from Peel to Churchill, (London, 1970), p. 49.

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Within a decade the force had been assimilated into the County Constables, a law enforcement entity which was organised on a provincial and county basis rather than a national one.4 The reasoning behind this move was that a more comprehensive approach to the problem of Irish law enforcement was needed, if anarchy was to be banished. As a consequence, this force was later itself amalgamated into the Irish Constabulary, which in turn became known as the Royal Irish Constabulary.5 By examining the reform of and special attentions being paid to the constabulary in Ireland, one can deduce that in the nineteenth century the decision was made by the British government that ‘special’ crime in Ireland, especially militant separatism, should be the domain of the police rather than involving the armed forces in its suppression. However the British government acknowledged the fact that Ireland was a distinct entity, separate in its attitude towards law and order, from mainland Britain and that this separation required a specialist approach that would not be found elsewhere in Britain.6 For instance in the aftermath of the Clerkenwell attack by the Fenians, HM Queen Victoria urged Lord Derby (Prime Minister) to suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus in an attempt to capture the rebels.7 Despite his Queen’s wishes, Derby ensured that the British liberal tradition would continue, instead convincing her that increasing the Metropolitan Police Force would prove to be a better move.8 Britain, and especially England, often laid claim to their proud tradition of liberalism. This liberal moral compass played a role in the inability of the British administration being able to effectively counter and eliminate the threat posed by militant nationalism and separatism in Ireland; their misplaced morality prevented the British government from utilizing their most potent asset in the execution of their duty, the British Army. It was perceived that there was an over-reliance by the British government on using the Army to suppress rebellion in Ireland and furthermore that it 4

Stanley Palmer, Police and Protest in England and Ireland, (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 243-4. 5 Peter Cottrell, The Anglo-Irish War, The Troubles of 1913-1922, (Oxford, 2006), p. 12. 6 Black, The Conservative Party from Peel to Churchill, p. 51. 7 Sir John Moylan, Scotland Yard and the Metropolitan Police, (London, 1929), p. 183. 8 Ibid.

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portrayed weaknesses on the part of the state, being unable to govern effectively through civil means.9 Nevertheless the idealist view of liberalism was often conveniently diluted or placed on hiatus whenever successive British governments found it inconvenient to adhere to its more stringent conditions, e.g. the genocidal final British response to the Boer Kommandoes during the Second Anglo-Boer War.10 To say that the British liberal tradition prevented the government from bring the most appropriate resources to bear to counter the threat posed by Irish separatism is a flawed hypothesis. To casual British observers it was readily apparent that there was always something wrong with Ireland, that it was a troubled and blighted nation of people, who were unable or unwilling to comport themselves in a British manner. Certainly that image was one which was cultivated by several British politicians in order to conceal the growing need for agricultural, social and national reform. The policies of successive British Governments were at best ineffective in Ireland; at worst they were harmful to the economy and the people. The Act of Union had promised a greater ‘domestic’ export market for Irish produce and services to mainland Britain. However this did not materialize due partly to British mercantile protectionism and partly to the inability of British politicians to allow the Irish profit at the expense of British farmers. The Irish Famine can be cited as being an incident of harmful, negligent oversight by the ruling authority, the British government. The perceived inactivity of the British government during this terrible period of Irish history drew the wrath of Irish nationalists who revolted during the Young Irelander rebellion of 1848. During the famine years in Ireland, with thousands dying each month and tens of thousands at great risk of starvation and disease, the British liberal tradition allowed the landlords of the country to continue to export foodstuffs, charge rack rents and evict tenants unable to pay those rents, at will. The inability and unwillingness of the British state to take effective remedial action to stem the initial problems ensured that the difficulties caused by the failure of the potato crop descended into secondary chaos and the anarchy which accompanied it. The inability of a British government to admit to incurring a problem of such initial magnitude while they were in power can be seen as a recurring feature of Anglo-Irish history. An example of this inaction would be David 9

Jenkins, Irish Nationalism and the British State, p. 21. Jenkins, Irish Nationalism and the British State, p.101.

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Dublin Castle and the Anglo-Irish War: Counter Insurgency and Conflict

9

Lloyd George’s decision to reinforce the RIC with demobilized British soldiers rather than employ the Army proper to deal with the rebels can be viewed as a failure to properly engage with the issue and admit that there was a serious problem. The decades ending the nineteenth century and beginning the twentieth were quiet by Irish standards. After the years of wastage and want during the mid-century famines and the attempted and failed rebellions of 1848 and 1867, the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Castle administration were given a degree of autonomy in their dealings with Ireland. This included the manner in which the Irish people would be policed. Due to the near total degree of destruction which the Irish Constabulary visited on the Fenians in 1867 and the subsequent rout of Irish nationalist forces, the Castle administration determined that the threat from radical Irish separatism had been severely diminished. The Land War (1889-1892) and the destabilizing anti-social effects which accompanied it provided the template for Irish counter-insurgency policing for the next generation; the British administration adhered strictly to the principle of being well equipped for the last war you faced. During the Land War, the RIC engaged in few heavily armed conventional engagements with the Irish peasantry. Instead practically the only occasions which they had cause to handle weapons was their daily morning parade with rifles/carbines, when providing a guard on a fixed location (courthouses, private/official residences, protection posts, etc.) or when accompanying Land Agents carrying out evictions or guarding other VIPs. Once the threats posed by the Land War had passed, the decision was taken by the constabulary hierarchy and the Castle leadership that there no longer sufficient need for the RIC to carry long/short rifles on a regular basis; Constables were ordered to dump heavy arms in their barracks armoury and patrol only with their side-arms (RIC Webley Revolver) and truncheons. In the aftermath of the War, the increased gulf which had developed between the police and the policed became readily apparent. The perceived level of aloofness and alienation from the local populace, it was reasoned, ensured that the RIC was not privy to details of local life and were thus unable to prevent or prosecute the crimes which were committed in their district as effectively as they could in theory. The decision to position the RIC in closer social proximity to the citizenry of Ireland was to reap benefits for the Castle; it was also inadvertently be the cause of their downfall and eventual ruin. Whilst the RIC became a

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Chapter Two

perfect example to other police forces around the world (inspiring the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the territorial police forces in Australia and other crown colonies), in all aspects of ‘low intensity’ or ‘community policing’, they were in fact effectively dumbing down the physical paramilitary skills of the force which had been hard learned for over a generation. Training in musketry, arms drill and elementary tactics all but ceased when recruits graduated and left the RIC training depot in the Phoenix Park in Dublin. The lack of effective postgraduate continuous training in musketry and the other aforementioned defensive disciplines ensured that when, between 1919 and 1921, they were confronted with determined, armed and co-ordinated opponents they were unable to counter the threat posed. This change in policies by the leadership of the RIC is one of the primary causes as to why the RIC were unable to effectively defend themselves and can be highlighted as one of the reasons why the RIC essentially disintegrated as an armed police force when confronted with a credible threat. The stagnation in training for the RIC (in much the same manner as for the Army during peacetime, e.g. post Boer War) was complimented unfortunately by other self-destructive factors. Inflation in Ireland had begun to rise during the economic uncertainty of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; this can be attributed to a number of recurring factors which dominate Irish fiscal life during the period. Pre-Industrial Revolution economic life in Britain was still heavily tied to and dependent on agriculture. Nowhere was this statement truer than in Ireland; excluding the major population centres (Dublin, Belfast, Cork, etc.) and the region of the Lagan Valley in Ulster, agriculture was the primary occupation of the majority of the population.11 In normal times the connection of the fiscal fortunes of a country to a relatively stable sector of their economy was a relatively normal and not dangerous occurrence; economic growth would be slow, but steady. However Irish farming was both subsistence (potato) and export (cereals and livestock). And while there was a strong export market for Irish produced foodstuffs, the majority of Irish tenant farmers were forced to survive on the potato crop. When the potato crop began to suffer from Blight and fail in the mid 1840’s, a large-scale famine struck the country. Those closest to the 11

James H. Johnson, ‘The Context of Migration: The Example of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century’, in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series (Vol. 15, No. 3, 1990), pp. 259-276.

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poverty line were worst affected by the shortfall in their basic foodstuffs; however the Famine and the concomitant massive socio-economic upheaval that followed affected all aspects of Irish society. Inflation rose nearly every year in Ireland (the rate did slow somewhat during the relative calm in the aftermath of the Land War). In 1847 the cost of living index for rural Ireland was six-hundred and twenty-five; by the turn of the century it had fallen to three-hundred, but it rose every year after that, without fail, until the declaration of the Truce in 1921.12 Table1.1: Cost of Living Index for Urban and Rural Ireland, 18671921.13 Year

Urban

Rural

1867 1875 1890 1900 1914 1916 1918 1919 1920 1921

384 357 278 264 304 439 613 693 847 611

419 427 333 300 382 543 723 888 979 864

The cumulative effects of such increases began to seriously undermine the efforts of ordinary workers attempting to keep pace with it. The RIC was not immune to such inflatory depredations and rank and file constables suffered an erosion of their standard rate of pay through until the Truce was declared. The RIC sought pay rises from the Castle during this period in an effort to offset this inflatory trend, however the necessary increases were seldom forthcoming. The initial rate of pay for constables was so low during the 1860’s and 1870’s that it was (coupled with the unreasonably strict nature of barrack life) one of the primary reasons for the resignation

12

N.C. Fleming and Alan O’Day, ‘Cost of Living Indices’, in ‘the Longman Handbook of Modern Irish History Since 1800’, (Harlow, 2005), pp. 569-571. 13 Ibid.

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of many young constables from the force, often in order to better their position.14 This trend was later to return to haunt the force. Periodically the Castle saw fit to grant piecemeal increases to the Constabulary, however these were seldom able to do more than barely retain parity with the rising cost of inflation. The Royal Irish Constabulary had done their job and had enforced the King’s Law in a troubled land and had brought about the elusive transition to law and order that London had sought before there was a unified Britain. With their Herculean task completed, the RIC was regarded as a throwback to Ireland’s darker past; an armed police force in a Union of states which shunned such a very coercive and Orwellian concept. They were treated in a similar manner by successive Castle administrations, which were quick to reap the benefits of peace, but were not interested in taking steps to ensure that such peaceful conditions would continue. However it should be remembered that the Castle and the Chief Secretary were British civil servants and as such they also were subject to the whims of the Exchequer in Whitehall. Furthermore, the British Exchequer in turn was subject to the will of the Cabinet and it was there that all major policy decisions concerning Ireland were (in conjunction with the civil service in Whitehall and the joint Houses of Parliament) formulated, debated and decided. To lay total blame for the degradation in abilities of the Royal Irish Constabulary wholly at the feet of the civil servants in Dublin Castle and the short termed Chief Secretaries would be unfair; Dublin merely implemented policies which were formulated in London. Dublin did however pass along information to London which shaped those policies and it is in this area that responsibility might best be apportioned. The Castle Administration was an extension of the civil service which operated from Whitehall and like their colleagues in London, they too went normally and unquestioningly about their work. When it came to Ireland, British politics (and by extension, ‘Irish’ policies), were neither simple nor straightforward. So many considerations had to be entered into that the complexity of even the most simple situation beggared belief; approval for policies had to generated/gauged at department, ministerial and cabinet levels. It had to be skilfully defended in the Commons and then in the Lords, where it would usually be 14

John D. Brewer , ‘Max Weber and the Royal Irish Constabulary: A Note on Class and Status’, in The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Mar., 1989), pp. 82-96.

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viciously attacked by the opposition, often purely due to its origin from the government benches. Proposers of policies then had to receive financial assurances from the Exchequer as to whether or not there would actually be sufficient funds available to implement its provisions. We shall see in later chapters how the Exchequer rose to be able to exert disproportionate control at cabinet level over other departments in the aftermath of the massive financial commitment undertaken during the First World War. British cabinets in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were a mixture of Conservative and Liberal traditions. These two parties each delivered an eclectic mix of policies on Ireland aimed at solving the Irish question, the perennial thorn in the side of the British political establishment. What neither side was willing to admit was that nothing less than the integrity of the Union was at stake; the security of Ireland was being compromised due to the deliberate state policies aimed at weakening the ability of the Royal Irish Constabulary to fight militant separatism should it rear its head once more. Governments of the late nineteenth century ensured that the position of the Chief Secretary of Ireland was to be appointed from central government and was to have the power of a full cabinet minister.15 This implies that London had decided that it was taking on primary responsibility for Irish affairs from the Irish; in bringing Ireland in from the periphery in theory London hoped that Ireland would find harmony in being an official component of the Union and also of the larger Empire. However British inability to treat the native Irish (distinct from the Anglo-Irish) as equals destroyed any hope of a peaceful Union. This required the British to provide an armed coercive police force to enforce British rule, a force which they allowed to lapse into sloth and which wasted away due to the careless attitude. Ireland was similar in degrees to the other English vassal states of Scotland and Wales. ‘British’ policy can best demonstrate this difference. British inability to decide a comprehensive security policy for Ireland can be cited as a primary example; the fact that the Irish police were still armed, whereas their mainland counterparts were not can be identified as the prime example in this regard. The shift from high intensity policing to that of a lower intensity in the latter stages of the nineteenth century shows us that Ireland was beginning to move from its traditional historical wilderness to a more British ‘civilised’ social outlook. However in spite of these changes, the RIC remained an armed coercive force, not following 15

Oliver Mac Donagh, Ireland, the Union and its Aftermath (Dublin, 2003), p. 9.

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Chapter Two

the example of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (in turn following the example set by the Police Force for the Metropolis of London) and providing an unarmed police service.16 It is in this basic lack of attention to detail of policy which can be said to have had a major effect on the British administration in Ireland. If one were to imagine a popular rebellion against British rule occurring in the Rhonda Valley in Wales in the early 1920’s, where the police were unarmed during this period, one can draw the following conclusions. Firstly, although the police would have been a perfectly legitimate potential target, there would not have been raids, nor assaults on police patrols for arms as the police did not possess these weapons in the first instance. Secondly, there would not have been a rush to reinforce the police with mercenaries and these reinforcements would not then have been given carte blanche in their endeavours to defeat the rebels. Thirdly and perhaps most importantly, the primary agents who would deal with the insurgents would have been the Army; an unarmed police force could not possibly have been able to resist an armed determined and coordinated enemy, but it would be capable of providing ancillary civil support to the Army in this endeavour. Therefore it is possible to determine that the half hearted retention of arms by the RIC and the catastrophic lack of appropriate and continuous training, was a tragic error in judgement on the part of both the British government and their Dublin Castle administration. As time went on British government requirements of the RIC increased disproportionately to the input of resources or the oversight of the conduct of the force. The prewar governments were constantly preoccupied with matters in theatres other than the Union; a militant Russian Empire threatening the northern borders of India, an expansionist Ottoman Empire in the Middle East hostile to British interests in the Suez Canal, an escalating arms race with a newly unified Germanic super state in Central Europe.17,18,19,20 These 16

Richard Abbott, Police Casualties in Ireland (Cork, 2000), p. 17. T.O. Lloyd, The Short Oxford History of the Modern World; The British Empire, 1558-1995 (2nd Edition, Oxford, 1984), p. 152. 18 ‘The British Empire and the Great War, 1914-1918’, in ‘The Oxford history of the British Empire, Volume IV: The Twentieth Century’, (Eds.) Judith M. Brown and Wm. Roger Louis (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999), pp. 114-137. 19 Lawrence James, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (London, 1995), p. 213. 20 James, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire, pp. 335-6. 17

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concerns were exacerbated by the usual demands of garrisoning a large and disparate empire; garrisons had to be provided in Australia, Canada, India, Asia, Australia and large areas of Africa.21 It was argued that the decrease in profile as a result of reductions in funding and maintenance of the force was not to be considered to be a completely negative outcome. The newly streamlined force would be more cost efficient it was argued, an important aspect for Prime Ministers hard pressed to find money for dreadnoughts and colonial forces as well as outfitting and reforming the aging British Army. Another aspect which should be noted as important for British administrations in regard to Ireland was public opinion. Although the Empire had a long history of making and adhering to unpopular decisions as regards their imperial policy, in some regards policy had to bow to pressures emanating from outside the home islands. In relation to Ireland, the most important external actor intruding in Britain’s sphere of influence was the United States of America. Being Ireland’s closest transatlantic neighbour and having a large and expanding economy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, large numbers of destitute Irishmen and women sought refuge from the worst excesses of the Famine in America. As a result of wide-scale, long-term and continuous waves of emigration from Ireland, a large Irish-American community began to steadily grow and prosper on America’s East Coast. Cities like New York, Boston and Chicago became synonymous with Ireland and hotbeds of Irish nationalism. Pro-Irish nationalist organisations like the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Fenian influenced Clann na Gael were established by emigrants to retain a link with the land of their birth and also to promote Irish interests both in Ireland and also in the United States; they also served as unofficial groups for the purpose of lobbying American politicians in regard to the position of Home Rule for Ireland.22 The British government of David Lloyd George had to tread carefully around the American president of Woodrow Wilson from the beginning of the First World War in 1914. American isolationism was at an all time high and slogans such as ‘America First’ and ‘Americism’ were not 21

J.R.M. Butler, ‘Imperial Questions in British politics 1868-1880’, in The Cambridge History of the British Empire: Volume III, The Empire-Commonwealth, (Eds.) E.A. Benians, J.R.M. Butler, P.N.S. Mansergh, E.A. Walker (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 17-64. 22 Bernadette Whelan, United States Foreign Policy and Ireland; From Empire to Independence (2006), p. 32.

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uncommonly heard; Wilson in his re-election campaign had promised to keep America out of what was largely seen as a conflict between European colonial powers, one which largely did not concern Americans. In addition to this there was a substantial degree of political pressure being brought to bear by pro-Irish nationalist groups in America against the political establishment; the advent of the war had reignited anti-English sentiment and coupled with the Irish propaganda, it rapidly became Anglophobic in aspect. Even Irish-American Catholic Bishops began to emerge as rabid Nationalists in the US, encouraging their congregations via polemic sermons directed against the Democratic Party and their president. In an election year, Woodrow Wilson could not allow such a significant segment of traditional Democratic voters to defect to a rival party over a foreign policy issue which was not technically pertinent to the domestic United States. Nor however, could he interfere in the running of a democratically elected regime friendly to the USA and potentially one of her allies against the Axis powers. A compromise was needed by Wilson. As an academic specialising in Public Administration, Woodrow Wilson readily acknowledged that his strengths lay more at home on the domestic front rather than as a foreign policy hawk; he had remarked to a friend prior to his election that ‘…it would be the irony of fate if my administration had to deal chiefly with foreign affairs.’23 His administration sought to minimise the negative effects of their unpopular relationship with Britain at this time on his domestic agenda during the run up to the 1916 presidential election; indeed his domestic policies, which were aimed at regulating working hours for adults and shortening/abolishing them for minors/children, garnered a considerably greater vote for him than any other recent Democratic candidate for the Presidency. Although this was the case as regards domestic policies, foreign relations were another case. Wilsonian doctrine as regards the wider world was America First! Wilson tried to retain Allied biased American neutrality in an attempt to keep the US free from this war. However as the conflict progressed and turned into an inferno of epic proportions the hard pressed Allies were no longer able to accept such half measures as biased neutrality any longer. The government of David Lloyd George was beset by both domestic and foreign difficulties at this juncture. Britain was involved in a conflict of global proportions, incurring casualties on a scale that had not been seen in Europe since the destruction of the Thirty Years War, almost three 23

Whelan, United States Foreign Policy and Ireland, p. 22.

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hundred years prior. The British government could no longer shoulder the strain which the war placed upon the national economy; nor could they afford to lose so many young men of fighting age. Arguments over the need to extend conscription to Ireland threatened to boil over, possibly requiring large number of troops being sent to Ireland in order to enforce the Conscription Act, thus essentially defeating the purpose. Balanced with this was the need by Lloyd George to bring in another powerful supporter to bolster the sagging Allied Nations in their attempt to defeat the Axis Powers led principally by Germany and the Austro-Hungarians. The best case scenario for the Anglo-Franco alliance was American entry into the ‘Great War’ on their side; the worst case was the Americans retaining their mask of passive neutrality. Anglo-American relations suffered throughout the path to war; there were a series of attempts by the British to prevent the Americans dealing with the Central powers which resulted in a partial maritime blockade of British shipping (it had been hoped that such action would erode the middle ground and force the US to pick a side).24 The addition of the seemingly eternal ‘Irish Question’ to the arena of international politics during this period was not a welcome one for the British. The American people were skittish enough in regard to the possibility of entering a major war without being presented with evidence of one of their potential allies apparently subjugating the desire for independence of a small nation. It was feared by some in the British government that Americans would draw parallels with the Irish and their shared historical enmity against the British (the American War of Independence, the War of 1812, the Fenians). Lloyd George was forced to continually attempt to reassure the American President that the trouble in Ireland was merely limited to isolated attacks by political dissidents. It was noted by the New York Times newspaper, traditionally a pro-Ally periodical, that the belligerent blacklisting of Euro-American trade was ‘…the most tactless, foolish and unnecessary act of the British Government during the war.’25 Unfortunately for the beleaguered and embattled British government worse was yet to come.

24

Thomas A. Bailey, ‘The United States and the Blacklist during the Great War’ in The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Mar., 1934), pp. 14-35. 25 New York Times, July 20, 1916.

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Whilst Lloyd George was able in some fashion to reason away the questionable legality of the boycotting of American merchants.26 What he could not cover up or gloss over however was the 1916 Easter Rising. In the aftermath of the Rising, Wilson acted on behalf of not only American citizens found guilty of taking part in the fighting, but also tried to get the British to mitigate the severity of their response to the insurrection. Indeed the callous policy of spaced out executions in cold blood, whilst designed to demonstrate the Empire’s resolve, instead portrayed to Irish-America and indeed the rest of the world a British government little changed from the days of ‘Black ’47. This colossal gaffe on the part of the British authorities forced Lloyd George to consider all future action which was being prepared against the rebels in Ireland most carefully. British military actions in Ireland were no longer subject to universal indifference; the promotion of formal education for minors, the arrival of the telegram and the growth in popularity of newspapers (with a concomitant rise in the voting franchise) ensured that news of the British attempts to quell the Rising soon found their way into transatlantic immigrant homes and public houses. The operation of drumhead courts martial and accompanying executions generated feelings of horror and disgust in such quarters, leading many of the Irish émigrés to question their loyalty to a political party which would allow such policies to be enacted without uttering words of caution and protest.27 Many IrishAmerican lobby groups began to petition the Democratic Party and the President in order for him to intercede. If the Rising had taken place in a non-election year, perhaps the result would have been different, but Wilson began to question the policies of His Majesty’s government. Whilst the Irish continued to vote for Wilson in their droves, there was a very definite undercurrent of dissatisfaction being generated in America in the years after the Rising; this began to manifest itself in anti-British propaganda and also more worryingly in the increased collection of funds for the upkeep of revolutionary forces in Ireland. These funds were then used to purchase arms, ammunition and material which were smuggled into the country with varying degrees of success; an example of IRA

26

Bailey, ‘The United States and the Blacklist during the Great War,’ pp. 20-21. Sterling J. Kernek, ‘Distractions of Peace during War: The Lloyd George Government's Reactions to Woodrow Wilson, December, 1916-November, 1918’ in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, Vol. 65, No. 2 (1975), pp. 1-117.

27

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gunrunning would be the foiled exporting of Thompson Sub-Machine Guns (SMG) from New York Harbour in 1921.28 The policy of widespread martial law and the accompanying trial by courts martial were victims of this attempted scale down in British international diplomacy. Without these tried and tested measures any British counterinsurgency in Ireland would lack effective teeth; any group of murderers could sow fear and hatred amongst the populace, but unless the guerrillas were removed from the equation, the insurgency would continue unabated. The choices facing the British were stark; on the one hand they needed the help of an unwilling ally in the form of the United States to come on board and enable them to defeat the Central Powers. Without them or a reversal of fortunes of miraculous proportions then the Allied Powers would be forced to sue for peace. They simply could not hold the equally desperate Central Powers any longer. On the other hand, if the British were to sacrifice hugely effective measures such as the increased use of the military and the proclamation of widespread Martial Law, then without a radical change in strategy and/or policy they could not hope to restore order to Ireland and effectively counter the threat from insurgents. In short to win one war, the British accepted virtual defeat in another. In the aftermath of the War, Wilson seemed to roll back on his promises and high ideals of the right to self-determination for small nations. Irish envoys to the Versailles negotiations and to America and Washington itself were often left unmet. The British felt reasonably more secure in their dealings with American involvement in Irish affairs in the aftermath of the War; they were no longer dependent on American entry into the conflict on their side and they were beginning to reacquire a measure of their independence in the provision of munitions and other supplies. The British Foreign office felt secure in themselves to such and extent that they issued an ultimatum to an Editor of the Philadelphia Public Ledger; they stated that unless he refrain from printing Sinn Féin calls for a boycott of British goods, then British firms might decide to treat the periodical in a likewise manner as regards advertising.29 In the aftermath of the war and the immediate threat to American lives in Ireland, Wilson began to lose interest in Ireland and Irish affairs. His electoral victory in 1916, especially his popularity amongst Irish-American Democratic voters on domestic policy issues, told him that while he could not afford to ignore 28 29

New York Times, June 20th, 1922. British Embassy to the Foreign Office, London. 5th July 1921, FO 371/5633.

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the Irish question as regards the traditional Irish-American support for the Democratic Party, he could leave it aside to cool as long as the British did not reinvent 1916. The deliberate policy of not meeting with either DeValera or any of the other members of the Irish delegations in either the continental United States or Versailles can be viewed as Wilson attempting to (at least temporarily) wash his hands of the Irish question. This recalcitrant (especially when contrasted with Wilson’s avowed aims of self determination) policy should have been noted by Britain as a tacit sanction by their wartime ally of their behaviour in their troubled province. The Rising changed little with regard to Britain’s relationship with its administration in Ireland. No sweeping changes in administration practices were made, no vast re-armament and re-training programmes were embarked upon for the RIC; it should be noted that the RIC did not play the most active role in the suppression of the Easter rebels, instead ceding authority to the Army as it was realised that only the British Armed Forces possessed both the wherewithal in terms of firepower and the training to utterly defeat the rebels. This fact was clearly and painfully lost on the British government in the aftermath of the Rising. The only immediate positive effect which the attempted coup d’état had on the RIC was that constables were ordered to remain armed at all times, even when in barracks and to always patrol armed.30 This was to be used should barracks come under attack, mirroring the Fenian attempts in 1867 and foreshadowing the later attacks by the IRA. This increase was laughable when compared with the ferocity of the onslaught which came next; constables regularly retreated to strong redoubts within the barracks when it came under attack, rather than engage the determined guerrillas with this limited supply. One of the chief areas for criticism and complaint would be the fact that the political leadership of the United Kingdom was out of touch with the actual situation on the ground; it was this lack of accurate information that resulted in the planning for the Rising going largely undetected. Furthermore, this continued lack of information contributed to the failures of all attempts at containing the problem of militant separatism at the local level before it had a chance to organise itself in the aftermath of the postRising and German Plot mass arrests. Once this chance had passed the joint Irish and British administrations by, there was still a small chance that the authorities would have been able to arrest the leadership of the 30

Jim Herlihy, The Royal Irish Constabulary, 1822-1922 (Dublin, 1997), p. 272.

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rebels and allow the nascent organisation to falter and fail of its own accord without too much effort from the coercive elements of the state. Due to a combination of a lack of accurate and up-to-date intelligence coming from the Royal Irish Constabulary and a lack of willingness to present a plan to their underlings, the government also allowed this chance to slip through its fingers. If the policy of executing the leaders of the Easter Rising was the biggest mistake that London ever made in relation to Ireland, then not taking commensurate remedial action against all identifiable rebels at the first sign of intelligence suggesting that an organised threat was beginning to emerge, was surely their second biggest. The failures in the relationship between the administrations of Ireland and their government in London, is what allowed the Anglo-Irish War to become known as the Irish War of Independence. To say that there was a breakdown in communication between Dublin and London is a gross understatement. The very fact that any measure of negotiated truce followed by independence, tempered as it was, granted unto a group of organised rebels by the British Empire speaks volumes regarding the failures of the British administrations in both London and Dublin. The Irish did not win the war on their own; the British also lost theirs. Not since the American War of Independence had the British suffered such a disastrous military defeat. Yet how can one count the Truce as a victory for the Irish? The guerrilla has to do nothing but exist and survive in order to win; the very fact that the British government failed to press an IRA which was short on ammunition, weapons and allegedly running out of free ground in which to operate, suggests that they were unable to do so. If one cannot defeat one’s enemy then one, by an extension of that logic, has lost. Lloyd George’s need to maintain an extremely cordial and slightly deferential relationship with Wilson largely became defunct with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles; the Americans had entered the war, fought on the Allied side and had brought about the ‘peace’ at Versailles. Britain could now conduct her affairs in Ireland and settle the ‘question’ on her own terms; to say that after 1919, that Britain was forced to lessen the severity of its response towards Irish separatism, due to American pressures, is largely unfounded. True there was some pressure exerted, but very little official pressure. Therefore what else caused the British government to fail to respond to the domestic threat posed by private political armies within the United Kingdom itself at a time when they were concerned with the threat posed from similar groups around the world?

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The answer can be found in the economic situation in which Britain found itself in the aftermath of a war of attrition resulting in the near total destruction of the traditional enlisted and NCO fighting core of the British Army the First World War. The cost which the Treasury was forced to shoulder for such a long and arduous series of campaigns to defeat the Central Powers also played a significant part in the early post-war period in the United Kingdom; even prior to the outbreak of hostilities, a harmfully parsimonious attitude existed in Treasury and governmental financial management circles with regard to Ireland. The lack of cabinet harmony ensured that neither an effective nor measured response would be forthcoming anytime during the life of that government; this situation parallels the situation in which the Dublin Castle administration found itself in when confronted with a disastrous succession of inept, uncaring and divisive senior civil servants and political leaders. Without proper bipartisan leadership being shown, a true impact could not be made upon the complex networks of problems which beset the Union at this juncture in its history.

CHAPTER THREE THE ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY: A CENTURY OF COUNTER-INSURGENCY IN IRELAND

The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) was to the forefront of law enforcement organisation operating on the island of Ireland during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Demographically the organisation can be easily and simply divided into two distinct and separate groups; Officers and Constables/NCOs. Potential Officers underwent a course of training as a cadet and were commissioned as Officers. They were usually drawn from the upper Protestant classes and more often than not from the landed gentry of the countryside. The officers therefore shared common ties (religion, class, social and political outlook) with their contemporaries and have sometimes been accused of being ignorant of the challenges that the Constabulary faced from resurgent militant nationalism in the new century. On the other hand, the vast bulk of the RIC was composed of the rank and file constables and the Non Commissioned Officers who led them on a daily basis. These men (women were not eligible for enlistment) were mainly lower and farming class Catholics, ordinary young Irishmen, drawn together from a myriad of different backgrounds. The RIC offered the younger sons of farmers (who would not normally inherit the farm) the ability to make a life for themselves away from their family. They would have a profession with very little natural aptitude required; certainly it was easier than trying to become a mason or a cooper. The constabulary was looked up to and the barracks was the administrative and civil centre of any village or town. New constables were all but guaranteed a life long job of steady employment, regular set hours and a good pension after they had completed their service. There was little sign of anything approaching widespread danger or disorder. The closest that the RIC came to serious unrest after William SmithO’Brien’s uprising of 1848 and the rather lacklustre Fenian uprising of 1867 (disparagingly and more popularly known as ‘the Battle of the

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Widow McCormack’s Cabbage Patch) was agrarian motivated violence. In the late nineteenth century this was the primary policing concern for the RIC. Groups like the Whiteboys and the Ribbonmen, presented a real threat to the maintenance of law and order in the rural localities of Ireland. Young men usually provided the nucleus of these groups, who attacked the crops and more usually the livestock of farmers thought to be co-operating with the Anglo-Irish landlords; these actions were undertaken to send a message to the landlord, the public and the family themselves that such cooperation with ‘the enemy’ would not be tolerated. Agrarian violence of this type manifested itself in the form of limited attacks by small sections of the groups against a co-operating neighbour; the actual attack itself might encompass either the killing or the maiming of an animal(s) and/or the destruction of crops/property. Whilst many of these acts were indeed of a highly serious and dangerous nature and even though they were taken very seriously by the RIC, nonetheless they were not classified as being as ‘dangerous’ as nationalist inspired violence. Therefore, although RIC men were occasionally injured and sometimes killed whilst enforcing the laws and ordinances set down by Dublin Castle (and dictated by Whitehall), the vast majority of RIC men retired after careers of sometimes forty years service on full pensions. However this idyllic situation was not to last for the Royal Irish Constabulary for much longer. Fenianism continued to be a thorn in the side of successive Castle administrations throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Every time that it emerged it threatened to overthrow the Castle administration with its populist policies and its fiery rhetoric. In the aftermath of the failed Fenian rebellion of 1867, the RIC entered into an era of relative calm; an era where political policing began to appear less and less often in the policing mainstream. Dublin Castle also took note of this shift in the attentions of their constabulary and responded by encouraging this paradigm shift. At the turn of the twentieth century, the Royal Irish Constabulary had approximately eleven thousand constables (not including officers) and occupied over fifteen-hundred barracks throughout the country.1 Many of these barracks were simply houses which had been converted into makeshift barracks, providing sleeping and living quarters for the occupying constables and also a moderate element of security for prisoners/arms etc.2 However quite a few of these barracks were merely 1

Herlihy, The Royal Irish Constabulary, p. 49.

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small three or four bedroom cottages or hutments, which were located in isolated areas or far outlying villages; often their only purpose was to provide a police presence (and deterrent) in remote agricultural communities and/or hamlets. Such a presence would often be the only contact that a farmer or a local businessman might have with Dublin and was viewed by the Castle as an important unofficial method of social control of the Irish populace. The Irish situation as regards policing was certainly a unique one in the broader context of the United Kingdom. Whereas on mainland Britain there was an anathema towards the usage of firearms in coercive police dealings with the public, in Ireland there was a different policy. Indeed in Ireland there was almost a different government with the Dublin Castle administration being allowed considerable discretion in their running of the Irish organs of the British Civil Service. Therefore it seemed to have become accepted fact that a land like Ireland, with her temperamental populace, who were oft prone to rebellion against their natural masters in London, required special attentions. Founded during the particularly turbulent nineteenth century in Ireland, the Irish Constabulary had attained the elusive and meritorious honorific ‘Royal’ prefix in appreciation for its actions in the suppression of armed rebellion, a role usually associated with the Army. It was felt that any police force operating in such a hostile environment must be armed, if only purely for their own personal survival. On the other hand at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, Ireland had become a very different place; the widespread agrarian violence which had so characterised the previous hundred years had lessened to only the occasional outrage and Fenianism had (apparently) faded into the background. Therefore it seemed unusual that the RIC was still behaving in a manner implying that they were under constant mortal peril and this also hindered the cultivation of better relations with the local community.3 Consequently decisions were arrived at in Whitehall and the Castle to dump the majority of heavier personal weapons (rifles, carbines, etc) in the barrack armoury until an occasion would arise when they were needed.4 Only light personal weapons (revolvers, truncheons) were to be carried on the constable’s person when 2

Herlihy, The Royal Irish Constabulary, p. 49. Brendan Ryan, ‘The Royal Irish Constabulary, 1814-1922’ in Offaly Heritage, Journal of the Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society (Ed.) Dr. Rory Masterson, Vol. 5, 2007-2008, pp. 83-116. 4 Abbott, Police Casualties in Ireland, p. 14 3

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patrolling on foot or by bicycle. Even then, the revolver was rarely needed by the constable in the execution of his duty. Indeed in the principal city of the land, the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), had relinquished their reliance on coercive means and instead patrolled the streets of Dublin unarmed apart from a hardwood truncheon. The DMP was closely modelled on the City of London’s Metropolitan Police Force; the uniforms, rank structure and hierarchy were practically carbon copies of each other. With the massive reduction in the number of incidents of agrarian and separatist violence and with the RIC reducing the level of armed coercion and pacification that it had been ordered to impose upon the populace by Dublin Castle, a new approach was required. That course of action came about with a general progression from the previous Colonial style of policing to a more relaxed, informal Community policing style. This new ‘low intensity’ style of policing differed greatly from the previous century’s ‘high’ style of policing; previously the Constabulary had been required to act as a paramilitary gendarmerie, similar to those in operation in France (Gendarmerie Nationale) or Italy (Arma dei Carabinieri).6 As has been mentioned earlier, the events of the tumultuous nineteenth century often forced Royal Irish Constables to comport themselves in a more formalised military manner than that of a police force. When, in the late nineteenth century, Ireland began the slow walk towards normalcy in daily life and long term rule the RIC had to follow suit. As a result of weapons not being used regularly, musketry skills began to degrade significantly; it had degraded to such an extent that in 1920 the RIC had to be given musketry refreshing training by the military, such was the level that their skills had degraded by in a generation.7 The Dublin Castle administration was not (at least during the late nineteenth century) blind to the change in tenor of Irish policing and decided that in addition to the decision to remove the carrying of heavy personal weapons from daily life, there should also be a change in focus for the force. However the RIC leadership was not oblivious to the fact that it had authorised harsh measures, which were taken in suppression of the separatist rebellions of the nineteenth century and the violent incidents of the same era. They were afraid of the development of a possible stigma 6

Moylan, Scotland Yard and the Metropolitan Police, p. 70. Charles Townshend, The British Campaign in Ireland 1919-1921: The Development of Political and Military Policies, (Oxford, 1975), p. 55. 7

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which could manifest itself against those who served in the constabulary. Born out of that fear was the move towards normalcy, the move away from a paramilitarised police force, which would act against the people, demolishing their houses, destroying their way of life. Therefore the Dublin Castle administration decided that as the constabulary would not be burdened with extra security duties, that they should also become the first point of contact for the citizenry with their government in Dublin. Plans were set in motion to ensure that constables in every barracks would be able to help the local populace in the completion of any administrative forms which might issue forth from the Castle. From the early nineteenth century onwards the barracks kept rough records of agricultural and census records for each area patrolled; in 1821 it was decided that the constabulary would formally assist the civil power in the recording of the census and would forward this information to the Castle. From this simple move the RIC gained one of its most important intelligence jewels. Under this new ‘low intensity’ policy of policing being adopted, constables were encouraged to break down any barriers that might have traditionally existed between the force and the general public. Although the constabulary had generated particular hatred during the course of the early and mid-nineteenth century, from the 1880’s onwards they attempted to reach a rapprochement of sorts with the general population. Constables began to develop improved relations with the community in which they were stationed, essentially becoming a part of the same. This, the Castle felt, had two major benefits. Firstly it made attacks on the RIC less common as they were seen to be as normal an aspect of daily existence as the postman or the schoolteacher, thus allowing the constabulary to semipermanently dump arms. Secondly and more importantly it allowed the constabulary an opportunity to get close to their local sources of casual information without seeming to have an ulterior motive. The seemingly casual attentions of the local constables were actually directed by his superiors and his findings were duly reported back. The ability of the Royal Irish Constabulary to generate general and political intelligence was perhaps their most important contribution to post 1867 Ireland. The accuracy of their intelligence and the degree to which they were able to keep their finger on the pulse of the Irish people is phenomenal; constables kept ad hoc records on births, marriages, deaths, new families/individuals entering their area, political affiliations, even

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crop returns and other agricultural statistics.9 These statistics and other information was collected, collated and added to the general census data that the RIC was authorised to collect, thus giving the local constabulary an up to date and amazingly accurate picture of the surrounding hinterland. This information was to prove itself of vital importance to the RIC and military authorities in the early years of the conflict, as it helped pinpoint where would be the most likely places that republicans would be resting or would have dumped arms at. Obviously as the war went on and the strategies of both sides changed so too did the nature of the intelligence needed. Although they were unable to predict the magnitude of the 1916 Easter Rising, they were able to arrest one of the main protagonists (Sir Roger Casement) mere days before the insurrection with the help of a member of the public who came to find the police, evidence of the esteem which the police were held by the general public.10 Even though they had been cuckolded during the preparations for the insurrection by hitherto unheard of internal security by the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), they knew from their files which houses to visit once they were notified to arrest all known republicans; a prime example of this would be when the local constabulary went to arrest the Kent brothers at their home in Castlelyons, just outside Fermoy. The local constabulary knew exactly where Thomas Kent lived as a result of the intelligence file which they had prepared on him in general and also expanded on in later years due to his membership of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Irish Volunteers. In the days and weeks after the Rising, the RIC used their information which had been carefully gathered over the course of years to begin sweeping up nearly all of those involved in leading the Irish Volunteers (IV) and some members of the IRB. After any possible insurrectionists had been deported the RIC began to once again collect their information and had begun the attempt to return to normal policing duties. Nonetheless despite the desire from the rank and file to return to pre-Rising policing duties and postures, it was not possible to turn back the clock; after the chaos that had ensued during the Rising, the Inspector General of the RIC issued orders that all constables on duty (either in barracks or elsewhere) were to wear their revolver side-arms at all times. 11 The opportunity for a 9

Abbott, Police Casualties in Ireland, 1919-1922, p. 14 Charles Townshend, Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion (London, 2005), p. 127. 11 Donal J. O’Sullivan, The Irish Constabularies 1822-1922 (Kerry, 1999), p. 272 10

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fresh start for policing in Ireland had truly been lost, even if the authorities failed to acknowledge that fact for several years yet. The point at which the Royal Irish Constabulary can be counted as being most effective can be traced to the early period of the twentieth century, prior to the Easter Rising; it had succeeded in establishing strong links within the community. It had finally succeeded in distinguishing itself and creating a separate identity from the other coercive organ of the British state in Ireland, the Army. It had achieved a level of popularity both externally among the general public and internally within the force itself; it is no exaggeration to state that this was the zenith of the force’s power in Ireland and that from this point onwards only decline occurred. In some cases the degradation was gradual, taking place slowly, almost imperceptibly, over a generation of so. Conversely, some of the sharpest damage was done almost overnight in a few short years. In saying the sharper, the more visible and violent damage occurred overnight is not to belittle the decay, the rot which had taken hold in the force a generation earlier. If the constabulary had not been progressively weakened for those almost thirty years they could possibly have rendered the introduction of non-Irish reinforcements to the force as unnecessary if they had been capable of seriously countering the threat posed by the insurgents; had that been the case it is quite conceivable that the conduct certainly and potentially the outcome of the Anglo-Irish War could have been very different. As has previously been outlined, the RIC had been in decline for many years before its final destruction in the fires of the Irish War of Independence. The decline had a number of themes and it is the cumulative toll which these themes took on the RIC which ensure that it was unable to withstand the shocks which shook its systems in the final dark years. In fact the Royal Irish Constabulary was a victim of its own success as much as it was of the depredations of the IRA. Gaining entry into the RIC was as difficult or more so when compared with attempting to join the British Army, as the following requirements state; Each candidate must be at least 5 feet and 8 inches in height with adequate chest measurement. He will be required to pass a medical examination by the Surgeon to the force. He must be in good health and free from varicose veins; varicocele [sic]; spine curvature; impediment of speech; defects of sight and hearing; or other physical defect or disposition to constitutional or hereditary disease or weakness of any kind… He will have to satisfy the

30

Chapter Three Civil Service Commissioners as they may deem necessary, that his moral character is such as to qualify him in all respects for appointment.12 .

Those looking to enlist also had their backgrounds and those of their families checked by their local constabulary, bringing their large informal intelligence apparatus to bear. A typical day’s basic training entailed three hours learning about the law and police duties, one hour of physical training and conditioning, two hours on foot drill and marching and two hours on musketry and marksmanship.13 Although they were being trained as policemen and there was a greater emphasis (in terms of daily hours spent) on the instruction of laws and jurisprudence, the golden subjects from their instructors point of view were still arms and foot drill. It was not just during training that members of the force had to contend with the harsh conditions which service entailed. The constabulary’s theoretical and philosophical outlook decreed that it was to be a policing service for Ireland and that it was to adhere to the strictest possible rules and regulations, far exceeding those in place for the military, after which it was modelled. Instructions issued to the force in 1909 spell out what was expected of every member: …recommend no man for promotion who is arrogant, rude, rough, or unmannerly in dealing with the public; and this direction should be acted upon whether such a man has been successful in the detection of crime, possesses superior education and can pass examinations with success.14

The instruction continues that; Literary education entirely unfits a man for the Force…it puffs him up, makes him conceited, and leads him to think himself too good for his profession. As such a man will never make a good policeman or succeed in the Force, he ought in time to turn to some other employment which may afford a greater scope for his talents and high notions.15

Constables were to be polite automatons at all times. They were never to insult the public and were at all times to comport themselves as representatives of the Crown. Promotion too was another issue and with it pay and conditions for the Constables. Under the old system of promotion 12

O’Sullivan, The Irish Constabularies 1822-1922, p. 175. O’Sullivan, The Irish Constabularies 1822-1922, p. 180. 14 Herlihy, The Royal Irish Constabulary, p. 79. 15 Herlihy, The Royal Irish Constabulary, p. 80. 13

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the Sub-Inspector would nominate men for promotion to the District Inspector who, at his complete discretion, either promote them or not; this stagnation of the ranks it was felt, led to a reduction in the desire of prosecute criminals, with those promoted becoming more interested in administration.16 Under a new scheme introduced in 1888, Constables wishing to advance to the rank of Sergeant would first sit an annual exam run by the Civil Service Commission; the sixty men with the best scores (and at least five years service at the rank of Constable) would be promoted to Sergeant.17 However bigotry raised its head when Protestant members of the Force began to complain that the majority of the sixty promotions were Catholics; eventually the quota was reduced to just thirty overall. Criticisms were also levelled at candidates for vying for promotion to the senior officer ranks who were Catholic; Protestant members of the Constabulary gave statements to the effect that they [the Protestants] felt that their Catholic counterparts would be unable to comport themselves in a manner compatible with the increase in rank!18 Regulations existed for almost every eventuality in the RIC; few if any recruits escaped being fined, reprimanded, cautioned or punished in some manner or other during their training. Anything, no matter how small it was, any incident that might have, in theory brought the force as a whole into disrepute and thus was viewed as a punishable offence. Fines ranged from shillings to pounds depending on the alleged severity of the offence and the message that the reprimanding officer wished to instil.19 The consumption of alcohol was strictly frowned upon. Any consumption of alcohol, prior to a slight relaxing of the regulation during the 1880s, was regarded as a serious breach of the regulations; those found in breach of the rule (any hint of drunkenness was enough to convict a Constable) were subject to the most stringent punishments.20

16

W.J. Lowe, ‘The Constabulary agitation of 1882’ in Irish Historical Studies, Vol. 31, No. 121 (May, 1998), pp. 37-59. 17 John D. Brewer, ‘Max Weber and the Royal Irish Constabulary: A Note on Class and Status’ in The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Mar., 1989), pp. 82-96. 18 Thomas Fennell, The Royal Irish Constabulary: A History and a Personal Memoir, (Dublin, 2003), p. 56. 19 Ryan, The Royal Irish Constabulary, 1814-1922, p. 92. 20 Fennell, ‘The Royal Irish Constabulary’, p. 142.

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Regulations decreed that there would be no annual leave, no official rest days and no expression of a political choice (members of the Force were forbidden from voting in Parliamentary elections).21 Pay in the Constabulary was extremely poor; the most common reason for young men leaving the constabulary voluntarily was that they were seeking to improve their circumstances abroad.22 The reputation of the RIC was so firm, so resolute, that any Constable having been honourably discharged from its ranks in order to seek more commensurate employment would be readily accepted into the vast majority of foreign police forces; America and other colonial forces such as India, Canada and Australia were the main choices for ex-Constables. The cost of living index for rural Ireland rose every year from the beginning of the twentieth century until the end of the Anglo-Irish War; in just over twenty years the cost of living trebled from three-hundred to nearly nine-hundred, with no significant rise in wages.23 In 1869 the pay scale for rank and file RIC stood as below: Rank

Pay 24

County Inspector District Inspector Head Constable Constable Acting Constable Sub-Constable

£270 - £300 £125 - £200 £56 - £60 £49 / 8 Shillings £44 / 4 Shillings £31 / 4 Shillings - £42 / 18 Shillings*

Without doubt, the Royal Irish Constabulary was in decline. Resignations due to pay and overly stringent conditions were stripping the young talented men from the Constabulary and bleeding the force of its future. Para-militancy was, for the RIC, an uncomfortable throwback to the past; the disdain shown for weapons was a harbinger of the future worsening of the force’s situation. The lack of attention being shown to the RIC by bureaucrats and diplomats was indicative of the state of the force and the degree to which is had become largely irrelevant to the British government. To London, the RIC was an uncomfortable anachronistic 21

Ryan, The Royal Irish Constabulary, 1814-1922, p. 93. Eunan Ó Halpín, The decline of the Union: British government in Ireland 18921920 (Dublin, 1987), p. 132. 23 Fleming and O’Day, ‘Cost of Living Indices’, pp. 569-571. 24 Ryan, The Royal Irish Constabulary, 1814-1922, p. 94. * Final sum arrived at through incremental increases over twenty years service. 22

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reminder, a relic of a bygone era. Now that peace reigned in Ireland, it was queried was it really necessary to maintain such a large and expensive armed force in Ireland? In the immediate aftermath of the Easter Rising, questions were asked of the ability of the RIC to penetrate separatist organisations and to report on their intentions; however much the RIC attempted to spy on or insert officers into Volunteer circles, they were unable to penetrate the new organisation to any great degree. In the new organisation operational secrecy and stealth were as important as weapons and ambushes; the ethos ‘fight to live another day’, had become the mantra of the Irish guerrilla fighter. A key reason why British counter-insurgency efforts failed could be attributed to this ethos; all an insurgent had to do to win is to survive. For the state to win they must defeat the rebel entirely, which invariably meant kill him. The RIC as it existed in the early 1920s was unable to carry out this task; it barely remained as an entity, let alone an authoritative one.25 The IRA were forced themselves to shoulder many policing duties traditionally assigned to the civil authority;26 towards the end of the Anglo-Irish War, in a role reversal people began to flock to the Republican Police and the IRA were able to increase the popularity of their image by being seen as the providers of stability, law and order. The British government had decided that enough was enough in Ireland. Proposals were tabled at Cabinet level and plans were set in motion allowing for the recruitment of RIC constables outside Ireland and RIC officers also. These new men were to be primarily drawn for the vast cadre of ex-soldiers and officers, recently demobilized after the First World War. The reign of the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries as they became known were to mark the one darkest, most destructive periods in AngloIrish relations since the inaction of the British government during the Famine. The introduction of the extra forces was seen as a positive step, a bolstering of the sagging defences of the RIC, bringing much needed martial skills to a force which had made a conscious decision to remove them from its organisational psyche a generation before. However positive a step the introduction of the extra forces was in terms of organisational and military prowess, it was vastly overshadowed by the 25

Tom Bowden, The Irish War of Independence 1919-21, in Police Forces in History, Sage Reader in 20th Century History, Volume 2, (Ed.) George L. Mosse (London, 1975), p. 60. 26 Ibid.

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backlash which the mercenaries provoked. Any hope which Lloyd George’s government might have had of pouring oil on troubled waters was dashed each time the Black and Tans lashed out, the IRA retaliating with even greater ferocity.27 Raids made on homesteads for arms, the burning of shops and businesses as reprisals were revisited on the enemy by the IRA in terms of sieges of RIC barracks after dark and daytime ambushes of convoys and patrols. Such was the level of barbarity and ferocity that although great and terrible events such as the burning of Cork City as a reprisal for the killing of Auxiliary cadets by the IRA took place, it was dismissed by the government when questioned about it in Parliament; Sir Hammar Greenwood, Chief Secretary for Ireland, went as far as to call thee burning of Cork an IRA operation, brought about by the planting of incendiary bombs.28 The theory behind the introduction of these extra forces for Ireland was to rapidly increase the ranks of a force bordering on total capitulation, to ensure that the conflict remained primarily a police orientated action and to use the rapid influx of martial skills as a mechanism for the speedy defeat of the rebels. What better way to fight a guerrilla force than use a demobilized army, recruited largely abroad, hungry for work and skilled in close quarters fighting. There was also the added benefit which became apparent to many observers as time progressed in that whilst the military was strictly haltered by its own role in the conflict and its ability to operate within the United Kingdom, this large body of ex-servicemen were subject to no one but their superiors. Therefore with the right backing (such as Sir Hammar Greenwood and Gen. Sir Hugh Tudor) behind them, there was no reason seen why this force could not reassert law and order in Ireland and defeat the rebels. However things were not to progress in such an orderly fashion for the RIC. By the entry of the RIC supplementary forces, in mid 1920, the RIC had already been forced to withdraw from its outlying rural barracks and hutments. The IRA had already begun moving about the countryside in force and was relatively free to train in the large areas left police free as a result of the withdrawal. The IRA had also taken the precautionary steps of burning all vacated barracks and began concentrating their attacks on the larger ones under the cover of darkness. The introduction of a highly 27

Robert Kee, Ourselves Alone: Volume Three of The Green Flag (London, 1976), pp. 125-126. 28 O’Sullivan, The Irish Constabularies 1822-1922, p. 338.

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trained and well equipped combat arm to the RIC could have produced vastly different results than it did. With their new strength and a mandate to restore order by any means, the Black and Tans (under Auxiliary leadership), could have moved out in force into the old hutments and began to vigorously patrol the countryside from there on foot; this would have severely reduced the mobility of the IRA and would also have taxed them tremendously as they would have to be constantly on guard for relatively quiet and stealthy foot patrols. The Crossley tenders which the reinforced RIC began using were loud, prone to breakdowns and could only travel by road, whereas foot patrols could go practically anywhere at a fraction of the cost and with a far greater degree of flexibility. They did however begin to adopt a semblance of sense when RIC reinforcements arrived. Initially convoys of lorries on patrol travelled close together, the theory being it made them easier to defend if they were ambushed. The advent of the Auxiliaries brought the theory of military convoys to the countryside; accordingly the spacing between each transport increased. This was to allow at least a portion of the convoy to escape and effectively return fire against the ambushers (see maps and diagrams section). However that was not to be the case. As the conflict began to enter its endgame, the Black and Tans showed their true colours and any semblance of law and order from the Crown forces began to deteriorate utterly. The RIC reinforcements were not well received by the military, with the senior leadership feeling that it was an unsuitable measure and that if all out war was needed then it should be led by the army and not dependent on some cobbled together force; Field Marshal Henry Wilson wrote in 1920 that he felt that although the rebels had declared war on the army, the army was precluded from responding in kind by the Prime Minister.29 ‘I am very unhappy about Ireland,’ he continued on the 28th of June, ‘I don’t see any determination or driving power in the Cabinet and I really believe we shall be kicked out [of Ireland].’30 Ireland in the early 1920s was a lawless place. Violence and intimidation reigned supreme. There was no law but the law of might; might was right. The reinforcements to the ranks of the RIC had been the last hope of the British government and they had squandered their chances miserably. 29

Major General Sir C.E. Callwell, Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, BART, GCB, DSO, His Life and Diaries, Vol. II (London, 1927), p 246. 30 Ibid.

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With Lloyd George refusing to commit proper military forces to the conflict, even going as far as to determinedly and consistently classify it as a policing action rather than win the war with proper military forces, the British really never had a chance of victory. The initial determination shown by the ‘new’ RIC was quickly overshadowed by a massive depression; men used to a certain type of warfare, used to rules and regulations were unused to this new, incessant war. It in turn gave rise to a great lethargy on the part of the Black and Tans; men began to drink heavily and get into drunken fights. Raids on grocers for spirits and other goods became increasingly common and eventually the Black and Tans were more feared than the rebels themselves. In turn the Auxiliaries disgraced themselves by failing to keep the rank and file properly in order during the conflict ; the Black and Tans were demobilized soldiers, and as thus were not subject to the same fear of the RIC code. The Auxiliaries however were officers and can, historically, be held to a higher standard than that of sacking a city and preventing firemen from controlling the fires which they set in their drunken rage.31 The subsequent defence of their despicable behaviour by Sir Hammar Greenwood can be seen as the point which Britain lost all moral right to rule in Ireland. The services performed by the RIC towards removing the separatist threat from Irish soil, for nearly a century, had been for naught. Britain had lost the AngloIrish War. In summary, the British can be said to have lost the Anglo-Irish War on the basic premise of being unable to maintain a force in Ireland capable of repelling any rebellion which might arise again. British historians cannot claim that they were not to know that such an occasion would arise. Their oldest colony had revolted more often than any other and had during the nineteenth century alone had done so three times! Had the government taken remedial action during the Castle administrations of the early twentieth century to improve the wages and conditions of the RIC and to improve their training perhaps in firearms and intelligence gathering, there might have been a good chance that the RIC would have been able to counter the threat of the insurgency on their own with minimal help from the military. If action had been taken in the immediate aftermath of the Easter Rising, the RIC would have had almost three years before hostilities escalated significantly and could quite possibly have attracted and trained enough young policemen that they might have been able to hold out longer than they did and with eventual military aid return order to the troubled 31

Richard Bennett, The Black and Tans, (Kent, 1959), pp. 140-141.

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island. If even proper retraining and a reemphasis on the importance of musketry was given at that stage, there could quite possibly have been far fewer names added to the lists of killed in action by the IRA. However once the RIC were forced to withdraw from their outlying barracks, once they were forced to adopt a siege mentality in their larger barracks and to not patrol the environs regularly, the IRA had effectively won control of the countryside. A generation of government inaction doomed the RIC. An obsession with balls, dress uniforms and political advancement at the Vice-Regal Lodge and Dublin Castle had made a mockery of the system of Law and Order within the island of Ireland. The dumbing down of the RIC, turning them into a glorified government post office, a centre for the completion of official documents had made a mockery of the police. How were they to fight off the IRA with a pen? The place for that was in Dublin Castle and London, however as the previous chapter has demonstrated, infighting and bureaucratic bickering halted any such reforms. The IRA defeated the RIC during the Anglo-Irish War, but the British government implicitly sanctioned that defeat.

CHAPTER FOUR THE BRITISH ARMY AND COUNTER-INSURGENCY IN IRELAND 1919-1921

The existence of an armed insurrection would justify the use of any degree of force necessary effectually to meet & cope with the insurrection.1

The British army in Ireland has had a long and (from the British point of view) distinguished history of service and fealty to the realm in the centuries preceding the advent of the Irish War of Independence. The British Army (henceforth referred to the Army) saw themselves as the institutionalised guardians of both the sovereign and the interests of the sovereign on the island of Ireland. However the Army’s relationship with Ireland and by extension its peoples and culture is a far deeper and more complex issue than merely that of the military forces of an external occupying power. Worried by early trends during the Second Boer War, defence bureaucrats in Whitehall decided at the beginning of the twentieth century that the creation of a separate military entity was necessary in order to be able to garrison British imperial holdings on the Indian subcontinent effectively; conceptually, the Army of India was established by reforms set in motion in 1895, climaxing under the aegis of Lord Kitchener in 1902.2 What the inhabitants of Whitehall failed to grasp however, in one of the greatest ever failures of British administration and strategic planning, was that their nearest and oldest colony also required a specialist approach. Ireland had long been a thorn in the side of the British Army; the country had historically required a disproportionately large (and expensive) 1

‘Summary of the Law of Riot and Insurrection’, in Manual of Military Law (Ed.) Lord Thring (London, 1916), p. 224. 2 T. A. Heathcote, ‘The Army of British India’ in The Oxford History of the British Army, (Eds.) David G. Chandler & Ian Beckett (Oxford, 1994), pp. 362-384.

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garrison in order to ensure that it remained pacified and prevent it from cooperating with Britain’s enemies. From the mid sixteenth century until the end of the Anglo-Irish war, various Irish rebels had conspired with the enemies of England in an attempt to overthrow their ‘masters’ on no less than four occasions during this period: the Spanish in 1601, the Catholic armies of Europe in 1641, the French in 1798 and the Germans in 1916.3 In the same period no less than eight rebellions, including the Nine Years War, the 1798 Rebellion and the Easter Rising occurred on Irish soil;4, 5 these rebellions against the Crown required a large military presence and significant resources in order to reconsolidate and reinforce the British rule in Ireland. After the imposition of the Act of Union (1801), the suppression of Robert Emmet’s abortive rebellion of 1803 and the restoration of order in the aftermath, British Army regiments in Ireland began to experience a long period of relative calm. Fostering this move towards normalcy was the advent of regular civil policing. In theory the introduction of a civil police force should have meant the withdrawal of the Army from public life. Instead, frequently, its role became one of primarily supplying manpower aid to the civil power when requested to do so; it was called out to reinforce the constabulary during the Famine, the Land War and in attempted suppression of the landing of arms at Howth in Dublin. The Howth ‘Gun-Running’ as it became known was not the military’s finest hour in Ireland; unable to capture the rifles and returning to their barracks, soldiers from the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, fired into a crowd on Bachelor’s Walk in Dublin City, wounding thirty-two and killing three.6 The soldiers claimed that they had been attacked by the crowd and had fired in self-defence. Whilst the Army garrisoned Ireland, Unionism began to establish itself firmly within the ranks of its officer class. The majority of Irish officers in the Army were either Protestants or Unionists or both. Normally this type of recruitment only strengthened the ties that bound Ireland to Britain; however, with the re-emergence of militant separatist and unionist groups long thought consigned to history, regimental ties began to manifest themselves in unfamiliar and dangerous ways that threatened the very 3

Ruán O’Donnell 1798 Diary (Dublin, 1998), p. xiii. Thomas E. Hachey, Britain and Irish Separatism; From the Fenians to the Free State 1867/1922, (Washington D.C., 1984), p. 1, 2-3, 4. 5 Tim Pat Coogan, The IRA, (London, 1993), p. 19. 6 Dorothy Macardle, The Irish Republic (London, 1937), p. 107. 4

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integrity that the Army had traditionally prided itself on.7 The British Army differed noticeably from other regular armies of the period in that it employed the Regimental system as its forces’ main ‘building blocks’ as opposed to the Continental system which employed interchangeable infantry/cavalry/support Divisions. The regimental system allowed for the rapid despatch and long term operation of a largely self-contained fighting unit, often complete with its own support services; this ensured the British had maximum flexibility when deploying troops on colonial missions where the duration of the mission might not be known in advance. The regimental system also traditionally guaranteed that a very close connection between officers and a quasi-familial atmosphere developed; the officer commanding (usually a Colonel) is viewed as the pater familias; the Adjutant and the Quarter-Master were viewed as the ‘mothers’ of the regiment, taking care of the officers, ensuring they were fed, supplied, given their orders, etc, etc. Consequently a strong brotherhood often developed between subaltern junior officers. This fraternity however, whilst generating a better esprit de corps than would be normally found in divisional-sized formations, did have a drawback. Occasionally regimental commanders exceeded their remit and ‘forgot’ the fact that as serving officers, they owed their first loyalty to the Army and not to their brother officers’ personal wishes. An occasion such as this would soon have very serious consequences for Ireland. The toleration of the growth of private political armies on both sides of the emerging political divide in Ireland should have been anathema to army officers. Although the upper echelons of the British military were supposed to have been politically neutral, there was an undercurrent of sympathy felt throughout the officer class with regard to the plight of Ulster Unionists. With so many members of the Irish officer cadre coming from unionist families, a growing sense of unease began to circulate among regimental officers over the prospect of having to suppress militant Unionists in Ulster, men with whom they were able to identify with. This unease spread throughout the army for some time until it came to a head in June/July 1914 when the officer commanding the Curragh Army Camp, Sir Arthur Paget, misinterpreted his orders (for a precautionary assembly on foot of a possible march to Ulster) to mean that he was to begin marching on Ulster to enforce Home Rule on an unwilling populace.

7 F.X. Martin, ‘Carson – Unionist and Rebel’ in Confrontations – Studies in Irish History (Ed. J. C. Beckett (London, 1972), p. 165.

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Paget took the highly unorthodox of offering his officers the chance to resign and thus not have to contend with conflicting loyalties when serving in Ulster; consequently over two thirds of his men threatened to resign their commissions.8 Alarmed by this phantom mutiny the Liberal government of the day backed down, claiming that a simple misunderstanding had led to the impasse and that it was not intending on forcing Ulster to accept Home Rule from Dublin, although doubts were expressed by senior military figures as to ‘…why the Government have stood so nobly by Paget; he caused all the trouble by his insatiable folly and want of tact.’9 Beset by internal pressures senior British planners began to worry about the fact that the two main paramilitary volunteer organisations (the UVF and the Irish Volunteers) were thought to have nearly 200,000 members between them.10 Any conflict which did arise would, it was felt, rapidly degenerate into civil war. So great was their fear that an internal army memorandum from the period states that if such a conflict were to erupt in Ireland then ‘…a situation may arise which may require the whole of our forces at home [mainland Britain] to deal with.’11 This was indeed a very troubling prospect for the British high command at the onset of the First World War. With the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) likely to be deployed to France within three months, Britain was unlikely to be able to fully garrison Ireland and prevent civil war and also fight modern European powers on mainland Europe at the same time. Certainly the mere possibility of a mutiny by serving army officers on the eve of war scared the Liberal government of the day. Consequently London felt that it was unwise to employ the army as the primary instrument in the implementation of Home Rule/Law and Order in Ireland. As a report from Major-General W.P. Pulteney to the Cabinet shows, the situation with regard to the Sixth Division which was then serving in Ireland prior to deployment to the continent was intense and required careful handling. 8

(Ed.) Ian F. W. Beckett, ‘Extracts from the Diary of Lieutenant-general Sir John Spencer Ewart, 30 April 1914’ in The Army and the Curragh Incident 1914 (London, 1986), p. 366. 9 Ibid. 10 (Ed.) Ian F. W. Beckett, ‘A Memorandum by the Military Members of the Army Council on the military Situation in Ireland’ in The Army and the Curragh Incident 1914 (London, 1986), pp. 379-380, 11 Ibid.

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‘My opinion of the general state of feeling existing in the 6th Division, as regards Ulster, is as follows: 1. 2. 3.

They can be relied on to support law and order. They would not enforce Home Rule on an actively reluctant Ulster. There is little chance of this feeling altering unless H.M. the King proclaims the Ulster Volunteers as rebels.’12

There was a definite feeling of unease in the army as a result of this crisis. The senior staff of the army wanted above all else to preserve the integrity of the Army and ensure that its officers and men would remain loyal to their mission, whatever that may be. This desire to ensure that stalwart discipline and behaviour remained homogenous and constant can be seen as a recurring theme throughout the Army’s last years of service in Ireland. However that discipline was to be severely challenged by the lack of experience in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. The sheer volume of death and destruction that occurred during the ‘Great War’ ensured that many officers, Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) and men who had a wealth of experience in different types of combat were lost forever to the Army. The constant replacement of skilled career soldiers with hastily trained volunteers and conscripts ensured that by the end of hostilities in 1918, the British force which stood in Flanders was a very different one to the BEF that had been sent there four years previously.13 The British Army had lost some of its most experienced soldiers from all ranks including those who had previous experience dating back to the time of the Second Anglo-Boer War. Many ordinary soldiers, those who survived in the trenches long enough anyway, were often promoted into junior NCO positions without adequate training or experience in leadership. The same trend occurred among officers. With the constant and terrible rates of attrition and wastage among junior and midlevel officers, many subalterns at the start of the war found themselves being breveted to more senior positions and rapidly promoted thereafter; Gen. Henry Hugh Tudor had begun the war with the rank of Captain and as of 1918 had attained the rank of Major-General, a monumental rise in only four

12

(Ed.) Ian F. W. Beckett, ‘Report by Major-General W.P. Pulteney’ in ‘The Army and the Curragh Incident 1914’, (London, 1986), P. 367, 13 Thomas Jones, Whitehall Diary, Vol. III, (Oxford, 1971), p. 27.

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years!14 While the army at the end of the war was a far more experienced one than any other British force in a century, it was skilled in only a few areas; static warfare, trench warfare, co-ordinated artillery bombardments, tank and armoured warfare (especially when co-ordinated with infantry). However the army was not to encounter a level of warfare, which required such large scale deployments or co-ordination of its combined arms, until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. The end of the First World War proved itself to be a somewhat pyrrhic victory for the army. Although it had succeeded in winning the Great War, it had suffered horrendous casualties in the process; it had lost massive numbers of its most skilled men and had forced the Chancellor of the Exchequer to savagely downsize it to its pre-war size. Such a reduction in force failed to consider the fact that it was during the interwar period the British Empire reached was reaching its zenith. Imperial possessions, territories and mandated protectorates in such varied areas as India (and large areas of Asia), Australia, Palestine, Mesopotamia (Iraq), South Africa (and large parts of the continent) and Aden (Yemen) were added to the remit of the already largest empire in the world.15 However such large and diverse holdings also brought large responsibilities in terms of providing strategically located military garrisons in each newly acquired state and ensuring that there were adequate forces in situ in countries where trouble might arise (either internally or externally). Such large forces incurred tremendous expenses in terms of training, wages, logistics, weapons and even uniforms; to be able to field a force capable of providing all of these things required ample funding to be forthcoming from the Treasury. However in the aftermath of the unprecedented monumental expenditure ‘Great War’ and the concomitant effects that economic ‘total war’ had on the British Exchequer and the British public, the armed services found themselves forced to concede that forces in peacetime did not require budgets as large as they had required when at war. In one year the defence expenditure was cut by over four hundred and five percent; £766 million

14

Jim Herlihy, Royal Irish Constabulary Officers; A Biographical Dictionary and Genealogical Guide 1816-1922 (Dublin, 2005), p. 303. 15 C.E. Carrington, ‘The Empire at War, 1914-1918’ in ‘The Cambridge History of the British Empire, Volume III, The Empire-Commonwealth’, (Eds.) E.A. Benians, J.R.M. Butler, P.N.S. Mansergh, E.A. Walker (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1967), pp. 605-644.

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(1919-1920) to £189 million (1920-1921)!16 Despite such drastic action the Treasury still found itself unable to balance the national budget and something had to give. In the early 1920’s British Prime Minister Lloyd George appointed Sir Eric Geddes to chair a committee which would examine governmental expenditure and recommend areas where savings could be made. Geddes recommended that substantial savings could be made in the area of defence, with the Army and the Navy coming in for the greatest decreases in expenditure, although the committee recommended that over £5 million could be saved from the Air Force’s budget. The Royal Navy’s budget in 1922-23 was to be reduced by £19 million, with the loss of four capital ships and thirty-five thousand sailors, while the Army was to lose £20 million pounds and fifty thousand soldiers across all ranks.17 While such cuts were necessary and they were not formally instituted until after the declaration of the Truce in Ireland, the overburdening of the Armed Forces with ‘imperial policing’ concerns and the commencement of demobilization in the post-war period were concerns just as valid an the possible redeployment of the BEF had been in 1914.18 Ireland was not yet a strategic imperative for the new British Army. The Ten Year Rule, which was gaining currency at the time as a theory in governmental circles, stated that the armed forces should plan their annual expenditure requirements with the caveat that they would not be involved in another large scale conflict in the forthcoming decade.19 Already historically low military expenditure for such a large empire was beginning to place immense strain on the armed forces and relatively small imperial garrison forces were being stretched to breaking point. Bearing the brunt of this decision was Ireland, which was not seen as a military priority in the aftermath of the brutal suppression of the Easter Rising by General Maxwell; colonial possessions and mandates such as Palestine, Egypt and India remained essential to the continued existence of the Empire and thus required greater military resources to garrison them and deter potential enemies. Sir Maurice Hankey, then the Cabinet Secretary, wrote to A.J. Balfour remarking that; 16

Paul Kennedy, The Realities behind Diplomacy (London, 1981), p. 231. Henry Higgs, ‘The Geddes Reports and the Budget’ in The Economic Journal, Vol. 32, No. 126, (Jun., 1922), pp. 251-264. 18 Keith Jeffrey, The British army and the crisis of empire 1918-1922, (Manchester, 1984), p. 52. 19 Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (London, 1991), p. 273. 17

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Chapter Four …they [the military] are conducting difficult military operations in Persia and in Mesopotamia…and the Irish affair is an immense strain on them. All this has to be done with an army of pre-war size.20

It can be reasonably assumed that the elements of regiments sent to those external possessions were ‘crack’ units, ones which had been previously seen action and had borne up well under fire. Furthermore one can logically continue that if the majority of the British Army’s battle hardened veterans were defending the Empire, then those regimental units sent to Ireland were of a lesser standard than their counterparts deployed elsewhere. Indeed as the conflict in Ireland began to increasingly involve the use of the army, the standard of troops being committed to Ireland began to be questioned. GHQ decreed that any shortfall in the training of these men should be rectified at the source, i.e. their own home depots. The Battalion [on active service] should thus be relieved of the necessity of detailing officers and NCOs to complete the training of recruits except for firing the recruits’ course of musketry for which at present there is neither time nor ranges at the depot.21

They went on to highlight the lack of even rudimentary musketry (firearms) training which the average recruit had on being sent to Ireland; ‘Sufficient rounds should be fired on 30 yard ranges to get [the soldiers] over any gun shyness.’22 For any recruit to be committed to what was for all intensive purposes a war zone while he was still untrained in the use of his weapons was at least professional misconduct on behalf of the upper echelons of the army. For any recruit not to be at least comfortable in the firing of their weapon is nothing less that criminal negligence on GHQ’s behalf. Underfunded as they were, theoretically the British Army still had a significant presence in Ireland; it was located around the countryside at nodal points and other areas of strategic value. As separatist groups embarked upon a campaign of violence, initially focusing on disrupting the British civil administration in the country, army officers also began to sense the first tendrils of the coming wrath being specifically directed against them. Irish Republican Army (IRA) units began to attack soldiers either singly (on leave or detached from their unit), or ambush them in 20

Jeffrey, The British army and the crisis of empire 1918-1922, p. 52. Memo E.C. S/32964(G) Organization and Training in Regimental Depots: (i) Functions of Depots, (b), p. 1. (IWM, Gen. Peter Strickland Papers, P.363). 22 Ibid. 21

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small groups or isolated sections; incidents occurred in Shinroe and Ennistymon in mid-1920.23, 24 One of the more serious examples would be the Wesleyan Chapel Raid on a section of soldiers from the ‘New’ Barracks in Fermoy, who were parading with arms to the local Wesleyan Chapel in the town.25 All of the Lee Enfield service rifles (SMLE Mk. III), which they had been parading with, were captured and one of the soldiers who physically resisted his ambushers was shot and mortally wounded; the ambushers were left with no other options as magazines on the rifles were usually loaded with live ball ammunition during this type of parade, as a Volunteer had been injured during a previous attempt.26 In light of this rise in violence towards soldiers, there were few passive or active remedial measures enacted in response. There was no discernable increase in the size or disposition of the guard mounted to protect barracks throughout the country. No new tactical training was planned for troops to give them either rudimentary or refresher training in close combat, or self defence techniques, to be used in defence of themselves, their comrades or their post. GHQ did issue some sage advice at the same time to the soldiers garrisoning Ireland; He [the soldier] must be ready at all times to go to the assistance of the police if called upon. He must always be vigilant and never allow himself to be lulled into a sense of security by the apparently peaceful appearance of his surroundings, and he must be well trained in the use of his weapons so as to defend himself should the necessity arise.27

Advice is generally given when practical aid cannot be; therefore one can logically draw the conclusion that the army was simply unable to afford the training expenses in light of the severity of the recent budgetary cuts. It is easy to lay the blame at the feet of the politicians in London and their civil servants in Dublin, however the semi self-sufficient nature to which all regiments laid claim to should not be disregarded automatically in this case. Some regiments indeed evolved their own responses to the worrying trend and began to formulate their own tactics in response. 23

Secret Weekly Intelligence Summary GS 4045/I, p.8. (IWM, Gen. Peter Strickland Papers, P.363). 24 Ibid. 25 Thomas O’Riordan, The Price of Freedom; The Life Story of Mick Fitzgerald (Commandant) O/C 1st Battalion Cork No. 2 Brigade (Barrys, Fermoy), p. 46. 26 O’Riordan The Price of Freedom, p. 47. 27 Sinn Féin and the Irish Volunteers, p. 2, (B20/387) H&S Ltd, 8550 W.W. (IWM, Gen. Peter Strickland Papers, P.363).

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As the situation began to deteriorate further between 1919 and 1920, the political leadership of the Union still regarded the police force as the natural counter to the ‘Irish terrorists’ and championed their operations regardless of the outcome. The Cabinet, though beginning to lean towards the unpleasant concept of yet another military solution to Irish Republican separatism, still frowned upon any formal proposals in that area. The decision was taken at Cabinet level to bolster the crumbling ranks of the Royal Irish Constabulary; the battered and bruised national police force (with the exception of the Dublin Metropolitan Area), which had suffered from over a decade of neglect under the aegis of several inept Castle administrations, was ordered to take the point in the campaign against those enemies of the Crown engaged against the Forces of the Crown.28 The reinforcements that the RIC had been promised by the Cabinet were to be two-fold; firstly, there would be direct recruitment from outside Ireland to the ranks of the RIC and secondly there would be appointments made to the officer corps of the organisation by commissioning temporary cadets. They became known as the ‘Black and Tans’ and the ‘Auxiliaries’ respectively. The prospect, of augmenting/rearming an already armed police force with ex-servicemen with thousands of man-hours experience in the profession of arms, seemed sound in theory. However in practice there were numerous difficulties arose in the implementation of these ‘reforms’ and the full extent of the changes was never realised. These difficulties are dealt with in greater detail in the chapter on the Royal Irish Constabulary. The Army was not confident that these measures would be successful and some of the senior leadership of the force felt that to embark on a policy which condoned complete disregard for the British tradition of constitutionality and adherence to the precepts of law and order, would lead to the ultimate ruin of the British administration in Ireland.29 They were ultimately proven to be correct in their assessment. This should not be construed however to mean that the Army was in favour of treating the insurgents with leniency, as the following quote from the British Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) Field Marshal Sir Henry H. Wilson illustrates;

28 29

Jones, Whitehall Diary, Vol. III, p. 28. Callwell, Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, p 252.

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I told him [Churchill] that our present policy was suicidal, that it would lead to our being put out of Ireland, that we must take strong measures or retire, that if we retired we lost our Empire.30

Wilson later remarked to Lloyd George that the ‘reprisals’ by the Black and Tans, …must lead to chaos and ruin. I pointed out that these reprisals were carried out without anyone being [held] responsible. I said that this was due to want of discipline, and this must be stopped. It was the business of the Government to govern. If these men ought to be murdered, then the Government ought to murder them.31

The officer commanding the British military forces in the country, General Nevil Macready, concurred with Wilson in this regard. He agreed that although it would be necessary to stem the growth in extremist violence in the country, it would be preferable to do that through the medium of an officially sanctioned military operation.32 Jeudwine, Macready and Wilson were in favour of a more legitimate role for the army in the growing conflict, a greater role than that of simply reinforcing the overburdened police. After making indignant noises for so long regarding the methods of counter-insurgency that the newly reinforced-RIC were employing, a new piece of legislation soon legally offered the Army many of the sweeping new powers that the RIC had simply assumed. The Restoration of Order in Ireland Act 1920 (ROIA) was an extension of the previously existing Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) which had been enacted the government, on the 8th of August, 1914, a few short weeks after the commencement of hostilities during the First World War.33 The original act had been intended to bolster the position of the British civil administration on the domestic front during the war; it provided for censorship of mails and media reporting which would cast the war effort in a poor light. It also provided legislation ensuring that should threats to the maintenance of proper order arise during the war, such as if Communist/Anarchist/Fascist/Separatist/Criminal groups attempted to cause unrest on the Home Front, then the government would be able to take definite and firm steps against such groups/individuals. DORA also 30

Callwell, Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, p 252. Ibid. 32 Callwell, Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, p 270. 33 Gerry White and Brendan O’Shea, Thomas Kent: executed for who he was, not what he had done, Irish Examiner, 08/05/2008. 31

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allowed for the possible declaration of Martial Law and the subsequent use of the armed forces to resolve incidents of civil disturbance. It was a remarkably successful piece of legislation which enabled the British government to provide such a rapid response to the Easter Rising of 1916. Yet DORA was only applicable during times of war and since Lloyd George refused to designate the conflict in Ireland as a war (and thereby granting legitimacy to the rebels), fresh legislation was required. The ROIA updated DORA, legally conferring upon the armed forces and the RIC wide-ranging powers (normally granted in times of war) in order to combat the insurgency which was growing unabated in the countryside. The military was relieved by the government’s decision to stop sitting on the fence and take an unambiguous and co-ordinated stance against those who questioned the power and resolve of their United Kingdom; Macready and Wilson were also grateful that they would no longer have to look at the premeditated and callous destruction that the newly augmented RIC was visiting on Ireland and her people on an almost daily basis. Whatever effect the government had intended when reinforcing the RIC, it had not paid dividends; the reinforcements had themselves become almost as great a problem as the insurgents they were supposed to be fighting. However happy the military was with the turn of events in their favour, they either failed to or deliberately overlooked the fact that ROIA was not the sure-fire method for dealing with the insurgents that they had hoped for; it was severely lacking in certain areas, as they were to discover later when they attempted to exceed the precepts of the act. For instance although they were now allowed to intern suspected rebels without trial, they were unable to do so outside the martial law area in Ireland and thus they were forced to commit extra resources for the guarding of the boundaries of that area.34 Another factor which the Army did not appreciate was the fact that although the Act had given them a major change in their Rules of Engagement (ROE) with the insurgents; London still insisted that the RIC assume the role of primary counter-insurgents in the affair.35, 36 This, the military felt, was being done for purely propaganda reasons and not for any effective operational reasoning; the Irish garrison had greater access to equipment, more training, better

34

Letter from Gen. Sir Henry Wilson to Gen. Sir Hugh Jeudwine, 6/12/1920. (IWM, Gen. Peter Strickland Papers, 72/82/2). 35 Townshend, The British Campaign in Ireland 1919-1921, p. 40. 36 Townshend, The British Campaign in Ireland 1919-1921, p. 104.

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marksmanship and experience with modern British small and light support arms (the latter three especially after trench raids during the war).37 The army was by no means a fine instrument; it was the ‘big stick’ which Theodore Roosevelt had spoken of earlier in the century.38 Nonetheless, the need for this big stick arose at an inopportune moment in the arena of international affairs. Britain could not afford to be seen as suppressing the rights of small nations, especially by the United States in the immediate aftermath of a war fought ostensibly to protect their rights. The large Irish community in the United States, historically politically active began to champion the cause of Irish freedom, through organisations such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians and Clann na Gael, maintaining pressure on the US government in this regard. As the conflict progressed the army began finding itself the victim of a different kind of war, taking casualties from unconventional weapons and tactics. The concept of guerrilla warfare, whilst not unknown to the British, had clearly lain gathering dust in the army’s institutional memory. The British Army suffered from the inability innate to all armies, in that it preferred to conduct ‘real war’ as opposed to stamping out brush fire rebellions conducted by guerrillas;39 the real glory was in India and the colonies, not in Britain’s perennial thorn, Ireland. Army planners failed to judge the importance of a guerrilla campaign in their oldest colony important enough to commit sufficient resources to be able to deal with the problem and that became their downfall. Committing the Army to quelling an insurgency or a border skirmish in a far flung corner of India or southern Africa was one thing; but conducting a large scale offensive against its own citizens, who possibly had a legal case for national self-determination, was a something entirely different altogether. To do so would require strong measures, stern resolve and large resources, none of which were available to the army from the government of the day. Indeed the Boer War had been the army’s last true experience of counter-insurgency operations and during that conflict it had been forced to evolve its operational abilities to a terrifying degree in order 37 Letter from Gen. Sir Henry Wilson to Gen. Sir Hugh Jeudwine, 6/12/1920. (IWM, Gen. Peter Strickland Papers, 72/82/2). 38 Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Henry L. Sprague, January 26, 1900, US Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/at0052as.jpg accessed on 12th August, 2008 at 12:27 p.m. 39 Ian F.W. Beckett, Modern Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies: Guerrillas and their opponents since 1750 (London, 2001), p. 24.

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to counter the abilities of the Boers.40 Ultimately the Army was successful, it restored order and the British civil administration was able to rule the area. However it came at a terrible price. British casualties, taken proportionally for the time, were extremely high for what was effectively seen as an imperial policing action against an unruly proto-colony; by the time the war had finished, one in every four soldiers who had fought there was wounded (22,829 incapacitated, 75,430 wounded or sick).41 5,774 had been killed in action and another 16,168 had died later, either from their wounds or succumbing to the diseases which abounded. 42 The civilian cost was even higher. Once a Boer homestead had been raided and burned, the family was then forcibly removed and interred in concentration camps (ostensibly called refugee camps). Disease and infection was rife; cholera, typhoid and others (other illnesses) claimed young and old in their thousands.43 Discounting the extremity of the measures undertaken by the British forces against a civilian population, there was method to their madness; by segregating the population, removing them from their communities and holding them in a secure location, they denied the guerrillas their most vital asset, their support base. That coupled with the constant patrolling and re-patrolling of the South African countryside, eventually tipped the balance in favour of the British. The Boer War can be said to have influenced the Irish War of Independence in this way.44 As has been mentioned previously the regimental system operated by the Army afforded some benefits that the continental system did not; Regiments were often able to operate and survive largely independently of the main army and each other. Such characteristics ensured that although regiments might be based in remote locations, such as the 1st Essex Regiment based in the West-Cork 3rd Brigade Area (IRA) which had a maximum of almost six-hundred soldiers to cover an extremely rugged area of over four hundred square miles!45 And it was in this area, which 40

Beckett, Modern Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies, p. 24. Edward Spiers, ‘The Late Victorian Army’ in David Chandler (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army (Oxford, 1994), pp 189-214. 42 Spiers, ‘The Late Victorian Army’, p. 205. 43 ‘British Army Counter-Insurgency Strategy & Tactics during the Second Boer War 1899-1902’, Eamonn T. Gardiner (University of Limerick, Limerick, 2008), p. 8. 44 Hachey, Britain and Irish Separatism, p. 36. 45 Townshend, The British Campaign in Ireland 1919-1921 (Oxford, 1973), p. 52. 41

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the famous Flying Column, led by Tom Barry operated. And yet despite all the odds, the 1st Essex still managed to inflict more damage on the guerrillas in their operational area than any other regiment. How did it do this? It has already been shown that there were less than two soldiers to patrol each square mile of the mountainous countryside. Did the 1st Essex have superior weapons, communications or aerial support? It made such impressive inroads by concentrating on certain aspects of unconventional military tactics which seemed at first glance to have borne some fruit in the battles against the Boers and other guerrillas. What should have been the first and foremost concern of the army was intelligence; without effective operational intelligence the massive numerical superiority which the Army enjoyed in relation to the (effective) strength of the IRA would be nullified. Without an effective intelligence network, the army was fighting blind, merely lashing out at everything and not focusing their thrusts against the enemy. The RIC which by 1919 was beginning to implode, could not be counted upon to give the army any worthwhile information; there was a degree of professional antagonism between the services anyway, souring relations and hindering the important job of rooting out the rebellion. The army felt that the RIC was inept, outdated and not taking a firm enough line with regard to the rebels; the RIC felt that the army would destroy the country if allowed off the leash and were unsuited to what had been decreed a policing matter. However there was very little practical help forthcoming from GHQ (Ireland) on the subject of intelligence. The decision of who, or even if, to appoint as Intelligence Officer (IO) was primarily delegated to the Colonel commanding each individual regiment. Often there would not be a specialist IO; instead an officer would nominally be the intelligence officer and make a half-hearted attempt at gathering intelligence. Some IO’s were extremely proficient in their assumed roles and were able to develop a considerable intelligence apparatus and build up a decent catalogue regarding the movements of insurgents, although their methods were sometimes questionable. A prime example would be the case of Major A.E. Percival, IO for the 1st Essex Regiment. The successes which his regiment enjoyed against the IRA can be directly attributed to the vigour and intensity with which he applied himself to his new role. Although there were reservations about his methods, including many allegations of torture and his routine reckless endangerment of civilian life, he received nothing but glowing reports from his superiors; his behaviour often bordered on sadism, common

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among intelligence officers of the era.46 He corresponded with BrigadeMajor (later Field Marshal) Bernard Montgomery and met with Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, who were impressed at the resolve and initiative of the young officer. Montgomery himself agreed wholeheartedly with the ruthless measures which the Army were forced to take when he commented that ‘…to win a war of this sort you must be ruthless. Oliver Cromwell or the Germans would have settled it in a very short time.’47 The policies which Percival pursued in the fields of intelligence gathering/analysis and the tactical consideration given to said intelligence were pioneering during this conflict. He fully appreciated the fact that 1st Essex were on their own in West Cork, that GHQ were not going to come to their aid on the intelligence front and that unless they took remedial action the IRA would grow bolder in their attempts and possibly inflict serious casualties on the Battalion. Therefore, with the blessing of his OC, he set about his work with three general stipulations; (a) To obtain all possible information as to the organisation and plans of the IRA. (b) To find out all there was to know about the inhabitants of the country. (c) To get a thorough knowledge of the topography of the country.48 Percival appreciated the fact that the British needed to develop a system of counter-intelligence, literally a scheme which would confound the ease with which the separatists were able to penetrate the actions of the army before they happened49 By establishing these requirements he hoped to gain an in depth knowledge of the area and by doing so hoped to put measures in place to combat the intelligence superiority of the enemy, through their superior knowledge of their land. When the life of a Sergeant of the RIC had been threatened, Percival ordered one of his Lieutenants to take a lorry with a section (9 men) and patrol towards a neighbouring town.50 The orders had been issued in the 46

Ernie O’Malley, ‘On Another Man’s Wound’, (Dublin, 1967), p. 308-9. William Sheehan, British Voices, From the Irish War of Independence 19181921, (Cork, 2005), p. 150. 48 ‘Guerrilla Warfare in Ireland, Lecture II: Objects of Intelligence’, P. 6, by Maj. A.E. Percival (IWM, Lt. Gen. A.E. Percival Papers, P.18). 49 Ibid. 50 ‘Report on and arrest carried out recently in the 6th Division Area’, No: 455/1(G), 23/04/1920, p. 1, (IWM, Lt. Gen. A.E. Percival Papers, P.18). 47

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usual manner and the patrol left at 20:15 hours as per ordered and proceeded towards the town; however two miles north of the town the young officer, following orders given to him personally by Percival prior to his departure, stopped the patrol. He dismounted and leaving the lorry with two of the men returned with the balance across the fields and established an observation post at the rear of the barracks. When no one approached the barracks by 2300 hours, the Lieutenant decided to patrol the village and encountered a mob of approximately 40 men; the troops managed to stop the first half dozen and paraded them in front of the local RIC who identified one as being wanted for over six months for sedition and offences against Crown forces.51 This type of operation was successful for three reasons; firstly the secrecy surrounding the orders ensured that there was very little chance that information could leak to the IRA; secondly, the personal initiative of the young officer to patrol the village ensured that the mob were caught unawares and confronted by unexpected heavily armed opposition; thirdly, the stealthy return to the village after the very public departure ensured that there a degree of uncertainty over future troop movements in the area. Simple changes were easy to make, such as varying routes, times, strengths, etc. It ensured that the insurgents had to be constantly alert for changes to the norm, forcing them to use increased resources. A steady flow of decent intelligence ensured that battalion staff officers were able to plan operations against the insurgents, which usually stood a good chance of success. The British attempt to encircle the majority of the 3rd Brigade IRA at Crossbarry was the direct result of information which had been gathered during the ‘aggressive interrogation’ of a captured IRA volunteer; this was one of Maj. Percival’s preferred methods of obtaining intelligence and he did not pull any punches in this regard and it was felt that he frequently lapsed into torture.52 Being armed with the exact location of their enemy enabled the Army to concentrate all of their forces on a single area and thus achieve complete numerical superiority and not run the risk of losing a smaller detachment; as Percival stated simply;

51

Ibid. ‘Guerrilla Warfare in Ireland, Lecture II, Methods of obtaining Information’, P. 9, by Maj. A.E. Percival (IWM, Lt. Gen. A.E. Percival Papers, P.18).

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Chapter Four …we always insisted on regarding the enemy Flying Columns as our main objective as it was only by the destruction of these columns that we could hope to stop the IRA activities.53

However as matters turned out, the IRA though the employment of forward scouts, were able to devise a strategy which ensured that the majority of their troops were able to escape the British ambush unscathed. In the aftermath of this battle, the closest engagement to a conventional set-piece battle during the conflict, regimental officers began to realise that a conventional strategy was of little use. As the IRA continued to escalate their policy of guerrilla warfare against the Crown forces, some regiments began to experiment with a different type of tactical philosophy. This new stratagem eschewed the Army’s overdependence on large-scale engagements and began to consider how best to engage the enemy and not only emerge victorious but also maximise the enemy’s casualties; this new policy was aimed at ensuring that the enemy unit would be unable to return to offensive operations for an increased period of time. This strategy was similar to strategies employed by Kitchener during the Second Anglo-Boer War; it yielded results then and it showed definite promise in the final stages of the Anglo-Irish War. However this strategy of wide scale ‘roundups’ was neither quick nor painless. It was a long-term strategy, requiring large numbers of soldiers patrolling in heavy sections or light platoons (twentyforty men, heavy flying column strength) independently of each other and still acting in a broader concert.54 Some regiments began to experiment with soldiers patrolling a small area, in force, searching houses and farms that they came across and then continuing their patrol. Their aim was to drive any insurgents in front of them and thus ensure that the Army would know that the area they had just ‘cleared’ would be safe to operate in.55 The Army was thus hoping to create large pockets of controlled countryside, in an almost counterpoint to the actions of the IRA in the destruction of rural RIC huts. The ROIA which had been enacted into law did go someway towards providing the Army with a framework to engage the insurgents. However as has been mentioned previously it did have limitations which the Army 53

Ibid. ‘Guerrilla Warfare in Ireland, Lecture II’, P. 2, by Maj. A.E. Percival (IWM, Lt. Gen. A.E. Percival Papers, P.18). 55 Ibid. 54

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began to discover. The Act was flawed in that London did not allow the entire Island to be declared as a Martial Law Area, believing that this would send the wrong ‘message’ to the world; instead specific Martial Law Areas, usually comprising one or more counties, were declared on a ad hoc basis. While this allowed London the ability to claim that they still had control over the country, what it did in fact was make the Army’s task that degree more difficult. By not allowing the Army to declare a complete Martial Law Area, insurgents were able to allow themselves be pushed to one end of a search area and then merely cross the county border, where they wound then find themselves with comparatively greater freedom of movement in an area not under Martial Law. Even with the limitations of the new Act, it was still possible for the Army to emerge victorious from the conflict having defeated the insurgency. However in order to do that they needed to be able to destroy the rebellion completely, to completely rout the insurgents and to rid the land of their machinations, thus allowing Crown authority to be reasserted. Due to the elastic nature of the IRA’s organisational structure, especially below brigade level, defeating them would be very difficult; when one plan of attack fails for the guerrilla, they merely adapt and develop another one. Therefore in order to be able to defeat the chameleon-like rebels, the Army needed to be able to patrol in force, in concert (possibly with cavalry sweeps to support and co-ordinate larger counter-attacks once contact was made) with other patrols, The IRA had already demonstrated how small groups of heavily armed men could exert a force disproportionate to their physical size; by adapting their tactics to those of their enemy, the British Army were attempting to counter the effects of asymmetric warfare and beat the IRA at their own game. Such strategies were however incredibly heavy on manpower and resources. It would, its detractors argued, be a return to the darkest days of the Land War when the Army was regularly fielded into the remotest corners of Ireland in order to provide reinforcement to an undermanned and overwhelmed RIC.56 While conceding the fact that there was a serious problem in Ireland, Lloyd George was still unwilling to allow the Army carte blanche in dealing with it and refused to allow for the full implementation of this strategy. Instead he still desired the struggle to remain one of a police force pitted against a series of malefactors.57 56

Elizabeth A. Muenger, The British Military Dilemma in Ireland; Occupation Politics 1886-1914 (Dublin, 1991), p. 100. 57 Jones, Whitehall Diary, Vol. III, p. 28.

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Accordingly, while at the time of the Truce the Army was making progress and beginning to get results against the IRA, it was still a very far cry from putting the issue to bed. Even with their increasing success against the Volunteers as the conflict progressed it is doubtful, had the Truce not been declared in July 1921, that the Army would have been able to force a decisive breakthrough at any stage before winter of that year. They would certainly not have succeeded if manpower levels had not been increased substantially. It is often cited as fact that the long dry summer of 1921, and the accompanying drying out of the majority of the countryside’s impassable boggy marshland, robbed the IRA of most of their hiding places.58 What is constantly, possibly conveniently, overlooked is the fact that the winter of 1921-1922 (Nov. 1921 – Feb. 1922) was actually wetter than the Winter of the previous year; 311mm of precipitation when contrasted with 285.2mm for 1920-21.59 Thus one can conclude that it would have been difficult for the British Army to press home their hard gained successes against the insurgents and the war would have almost certainly dragged on for another year. The opening paragraphs of this chapter give the reader a brief overview of the history of the British Army in Ireland. And while it is a long and distinguished one, with many wars and re-conquests of note, it is important to bear one vital thing in mind. None of those wars were fought against a force employing a guerrilla strategy. Guerrillas don’t have to defeat the enemy in order to win; they merely have to exist, to survive to fight another day. Britain’s last experience of countering guerrilla warfare had been in the Boer War, a generation earlier. The lessons that had been learned then had been severely diluted in the institutional memory of Whitehall. Lloyd George, throughout the conflict, had demonstrated an unwillingness to allow the Army to deal with what was effectively a declaration of War on the Union of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; he simply stated that ‘you do not declare war on rebels.’60 One must also take into account the state of the Army during the course of the insurgency in Ireland. Due to the regimental system the measures employed, to counter the IRA, by officers’ commanding individual regiments often varied greatly; a great deal depended on personal 58

O’Malley, On Another Man’s Wound, p. 377. United Kingdom Metrological Office Historical Archive (1921-1922) accessed on 11th July, 2008 at 12:37 a.m., http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/stationdata/armaghdata.txt 60 Townshend, The British Campaign in Ireland, p. 40. 59

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motivation and whether or not such individualism was encouraged. Also it should be noted that not every regimental battalion in Ireland was a homogenous group; as was highlighted earlier, some regiments had almost been destroyed in the First World War and as a result were awash with poorly trained recruits. Untrained and untried men were not best suited for participation in a constant low intensity counter-insurgency situation; the need to be constantly alert, forever vigilant played on the nerves of the best men and Ireland did not receive the best men by far. Budgetary constraints after the end of the First World War also played an important role in the makeup of the armed forces; the army was faced with providing a multitude of forces to the post-war empire, while the force itself was returned to pre-war levels. This factor almost certainly had an impact on the way in which the Army was able to respond to developments in the Irish situation. Decreased spending meant that there was a gradual tapering off in the quality of training given to recruits and thus the quality of battalions fielded by the regiments. Full strength regiments and their battalions were usually despatched overseas to secure Britain’s imperial possessions; invariably those regiments posted to Ireland were not as strong as those sent elsewhere. Isolated regimental battalions were often subjected to a siege-mentality; they were cut off from the community and suffered from the widening gulf between Nationalists and Unionists and DeValera’s policy of ‘social ostracisation’ as did their colleagues in the RIC.61 Also it should be noted that there were severe restrictions imposed upon the Army by the Cabinet in their attempts to prosecute what they viewed as an undeclared war; political indecision and failure to understand the situation ‘on-the-ground’ ensured that the cabinet continued to make the wrong decisions in relation to how best to counter the growing insurgency in Ireland. In spite of there being a desire by GHQ to create a coordinated and cohesive counter-insurgency strategy for Ireland under martial law, there were few overt moves to produce that strategy. Each individual regiment essentially decided whether or not to successfully engage the enemy. The lack of a co-ordinated strategy as a result of political vicissitudes, budgetary shortfall, lack of proper training to counterguerrillas, imperial overstretch and a lack of a properly formatted and integrated military intelligence network can all be said to have contributed to the failure of the British Army’s counter-insurgency policy during the Anglo-Irish War. 61

Ryan, The Royal Irish Constabulary, 1814-1922, p. 104.

CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION

The British government fought had fought ferociously to retain Ireland within the Empire for as long as there had been an empire to defend. Irishmen of all creeds had joined the Army and the Royal Navy and helped to defend that empire for centuries. Since the advent of the Act in 1801 allowing for the enlargement of that Union to encompass Ireland, the Army and the RIC suppressed more than four serious attempted rebellions and decades of agrarian and worker violence and agitation. So why therefore was a ragtag collection of (relatively) poorly armed guerrilla fighters able to force the world’s greatest imperial power to the bargaining table. Why was the army which defeated two of the world’s other great empires, on a single front, in the greatest conflict seen in Europe since the Thirty-Years War, not able to annihilate this puny foe? Why did the imperial government which sanctioned the forced migration of an entire nation of people and then authorised a policy of deliberate neglect bordering on ethnic cleansing against them, find itself unable to turn a blind eye to a few hundred deaths in the greater cause of safeguarding that empire? There is no one single definitive answer for this remarkable turnaround in British fortunes. The first chapter dealt with the failure of the British government to effectively engage with their vassal administration in Dublin and the inability of the Castle administration to engage in any longterm with regards to the security of the country. The Castle lacked a coordinated and definite approach to policing in Ireland; the RIC was an armed force, yet the DMP was unarmed. The RIC had to record the most minute detail of change in their locality, whereas the DMP had a special unit dedicated to the detection of politically motivated crime. Neither force were able to detect the planning for the Easter Rising in any meaningful way. Neither force was able to interdict the landing of arms in any particular way prior to the Rising, partly due to their own inefficiencies, partly due to the government’s inaction on the issue of the importation of arms by the Ulster Volunteers.

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The inability of the government to allow the Castle to run its own affairs and in turn the inability of the Castle administration to work effectively with each new Chief Secretary and Lord Lieutenant ensured that there would never be a harmonious relationship between the two. It would always be a case of who guarded whom? Did Dublin guard Ireland for London, or did London hold Ireland in trust for Dublin, never really releasing enough power to the Castle administration to be able to prove itself capable. The lack of independent policy and the lack of fiscal independence on behalf of the Castle Administration resulted in the eventual and continued degradation of security services being provided by the RIC. The Royal Irish Constabulary had brought about the semblance of order to a troubled Ireland for almost a generation. Yet as soon as peaceful conditions began to establish themselves the Castle administration, with British Exchequer pressure, began to reduce the numbers of policemen employed by the Force annually. This reduction in force by the RIC, whilst appearing reasonable in normal peacetime conditions in mainland Britain or elsewhere, were foolhardy in Ireland; a country with a history like Ireland , with its natural inclination towards rebellion and popular insurrection does not simply become placid overnight. The decision to reduce the numbers of the RIC was a political consideration. The decision to dump heavier arms (swords, carbines and rifles) in barracks and to neglect the ongoing instruction in arms drill and elementary tactics was a political decision made by an administration which had become embarrassed in having the only permanently armed police force in the British Isles. The Castle’s decision to ‘de-claw’ the RIC was politically motivated and not founded on any practical considerations. The draining of the best and brightest from the RIC was also indirectly a government policy; the pay and conditions in the RIC became less popular as alternate policing opportunities began to present themselves elsewhere within and without the Empire. The lost generation weighed heavily on the RIC during the Anglo-Irish War and was certainly the reason for the lethargy which overcame some of the older men, closer to retirement and with more to lose; these men would be less inclined to take risks and actively lead any potential counter-insurgency operations against the IRA. The decision from the Cabinet to rebrand the war as a police action, at most a matter of colonial policing, was a fatal flaw. The decision to recruit a short term colonial gendarmerie to reinforce the sagging RIC was

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another; only the conceivable redeployment of an Ulster Volunteer Force as a peacekeeping force would have had the potential for greater disaster. Military men, bereft of military discipline, engaged in a military action (Whitehall’s opinions to the contrary) was a debacle waiting to happen. And it happened. If the British Government had decided to proclaim Martial Law throughout the entire country for a period of less than six months and possibly quietly recall a dozen or two dozen battalions from active service in the quieter Dominions (Canada or South Africa) then the IRA could have been utterly destroyed. They were hard pressed to fight a cobbled-together British Army weakened and all as it was in Ireland; a fully functional British Army, with a politically sanctioned mandate from Cabinet and a dedicated and determined strong corps of soldiers, NCOs and officers would have torn any pretensions of Republican power asunder. Although a return to pre-war enlistment numbers was normal and economically necessary in peacetime, the theory of retaining weaker and skeleton regiments in historically troubled provinces like Ireland was a fatally flawed one. The lack of heavy definite measures, when clearly needed, was another sore point with military chiefs despairing of cabinet members playing politics with the conflict. Ideally a strong gendarmerie, fully and heavily supported on the periphery by the military, would have been the best option. However the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries were not given long enough to train and co-ordinate their operations. Even had both forces been aligned closer to each other on an operational level, the Black and Tan/Auxiliary plan was not the ideal way to solve the problem. A strong, single bodied force, competently led and well trained in both conventional policing and counter-insurgent tactics was what was needed. The Italian Carbinieri and the French Gendarmerie were the two most often cited examples of strong definite policing which was sought. As this was not forthcoming, the government needed to use the military to rapidly and decisively end the insurgency. In the end it chose not to do this for a variety of reasons including financial insecurity, international pressures and unwillingness to admit to being unable to control their own province. In conclusion, the policies which the British government embarked upon with regard to the insurgency in Ireland were flawed from the beginning. Successive administrations had failed the national police force which had traditionally been the bulwark against separatist agitation in Ireland. The lack of a suitable paramilitary police force capable of dealing with the

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growing insurgency required the deployment of a solid military presence with wide powers to enable them to deal effectively with the threat posed by the rebels. Such action was not sanctioned and as a result the halfhearted British response was defeated and the most powerful imperial power in the world was driven to the negotiating table by its own stupidity and vanity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources Callwell, Major General Sir C.E., Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, BART, GCB, DSO, His Life and Diaries, Vol. II (London, 1927).1 Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Henry L. Sprague, January 26, 1900, US Library of Congress, accessed on 12th August, 2008 at 12:27 p.m. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/at0052as.jpg ‘Guerrilla Warfare in Ireland, Lecture II: Objects of Intelligence’, P. 6, by Maj. A.E. Percival (IWM, Lt. Gen. A.E. Percival Papers, P.18). ‘Report on and arrest carried out recently in the 6th Division Area’, No: 455/1(G), 23/04/1920, p. 2, (IWM, Lt. Gen. A.E. Percival Papers, P.18). Letter from Gen. Sir Henry Wilson to Gen. Sir Hugh Jeudwine, 6/12/1920. (IWM, Gen. Peter Strickland Papers, 72/82/2).

Public Records British Embassy to the Foreign Office, London. 5th July 1921, FO 371/5633.

Official Publications Memo E.C. S/32964(G) Organization and Training in Regimental Depots: (i) Functions of Depots, (b), p. 1. (IWM, Gen. Peter Strickland Papers, P.363). Sinn Féin and the Irish Volunteers, p. 2, (B20/387) H&S Ltd, 8550 W.W. (IWM, Gen. Peter Strickland Papers, P.363). Secret Weekly Intelligence Summary GS 4045/I, p.8. (IWM, Gen. Peter Strickland Papers, P.363).

1

Wilson was murdered before he could publish his own autobiography. Callwell’s own input to this collection of his own personal papers is minimal. I have only cited original diary entries from this work and thus feel confident that it can be entered as a primary source document.

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‘Summary of the Law of Riot and Insurrection’, in Manual of Military Law (Ed.) Lord Thring (London, 1916).

Secondary Sources Abbott, Richard, Police Casualties in Ireland (Cork, 2000). Beckett, (Ed.) Ian F. W., ‘Extracts from the Diary of Lieutenant-general Sir John Spencer Ewart, 30 April 1914’ in The Army and the Curragh Incident 1914 (London, 1986). —. ‘A Memorandum by the Military Members of the Army Council on the military Situation in Ireland’ in The Army and the Curragh Incident 1914 (London, 1986). —. ‘Report by Major-General W.P. Pulteney’ in ‘The Army and the Curragh Incident 1914’, (London, 1986), P. 367, Beckett, Ian F.W., Modern Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies: Guerrillas and their opponents since 1750 (London, 2001). Bennett, Richard, The Black and Tans, (Kent, 1959). Black, Robert, The Conservative Party from Peel to Churchill, (London, 1970). Bowden, Tom, The Irish War of Independence 1919-21, in Police Forces in History, Sage Reader in 20th Century History, Volume 2, (Ed.) George L. Mosse (London, 1975). Brown, Judith M., The British Empire and the Great War, 1914-1918’, in ‘The Oxford history of the British Empire, Volume IV: The Twentieth Century’, (Eds.) Judith M. Brown and Wm. Roger Louis (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999). Butler, J.R.M., ‘Imperial Questions in British politics 1868-1880’, in The Cambridge History of the British Empire: Volume III, The EmpireCommonwealth, (Eds.) E.A. Benians, J.R.M. Butler, P.N.S. Mansergh, E.A. Walker (Cambridge, 1967). Carrington, C.E., ‘The Empire at War, 1914-1918’ in ‘The Cambridge History of the British Empire, Volume III, The EmpireCommonwealth’, (Eds.) E.A. Benians, J.R.M. Butler, P.N.S. Mansergh, E.A. Walker (Cambridge, 1967). Coogan, Tim Pat, The IRA, (London, 1993). Cottrell, Peter, The Anglo-Irish War, The Troubles of 1913-1922, (Oxford, 2006). Fennell, Thomas, The Royal Irish Constabulary: A History and a Personal Memoir, (Dublin, 2003). Fleming, N.C. and O’Day, Alan, ‘Cost of Living Indices’, in ‘the Longman Handbook of Modern Irish History Since 1800’, (Harlow, 2005).

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Hachey, Thomas E., Britain and Irish Separatism; From the Fenians to the Free State 1867/1922, (Washington D.C., 1984). Heathcote, T. A., ‘The Army of British India’ in The Oxford History of the British Army, (Eds.) David G. Chandler & Ian Beckett, (Oxford, 1994). Herlihy, Jim, The Royal Irish Constabulary, 1822-1922 (Dublin, 1997). —. Royal Irish Constabulary Officers; A Biographical Dictionary and Genealogical Guide 1816-1922 (Dublin, 2005). James, Lawrence, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (London, 1995). Jenkins, Brian, Irish Nationalism and the British State, From Repeal to Revolutionary Nationalism, ( London, 2006). Jeffrey, Keith, The British army and the crisis of empire 1918-1922, (Manchester, 1984). Jones, Thomas, Whitehall Diary, Vol. III, (Oxford, 1971). Kee, Robert, Ourselves Alone: Volume Three of The Green Flag (London, 1976). Kennedy, Paul, The Realities behind Diplomacy (London, 1981). —. The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (London, 1991). Lloyd, T.O., The Short Oxford History of the Modern World; The British Empire, 1558-1995 (2nd Edition, Oxford, 1984). MacDonagh, Oliver, Ireland, the Union and its Aftermath (Dublin, 2003). Martin, F.X., ‘Carson – Unionist and Rebel’ in Confrontations – Studies in Irish History (Ed. J. C. Beckett (London, 1972). Moylan, Sir John, Scotland Yard and the Metropolitan Police, (London, 1929). Macardle, Dorothy, The Irish Republic (London, 1937). Muenger, Elizabeth A., The British Military Dilemma in Ireland; Occupation Politics 1886-1914 (Dublin, 1991). O’Donnell, Ruán, 1798 Diary (Dublin, 1998). O’Malley, Ernie, ‘On Another Man’s Wound’, (Dublin, 1967). O’Riordan, Thomas, The Price of Freedom; The Life Story of Mick Fitzgerald (Commandant) O/C 1st Battalion Cork No. 2 Brigade (Barrys, Fermoy). O’Sullivan, Donal J., The Irish Constabularies 1822-1922 (Kerry, 1999). Ó Halpín, Eunan, The decline of the Union: British government in Ireland 1892-1920 (Dublin, 1987). Palmer, Stanley, Police and Protest in England and Ireland, (Cambridge, 1988). Sheehan, William, British Voices, From the Irish War of Independence 1918-1921, (Cork, 2005).

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Spiers, Edward, ‘The Late Victorian Army’ in David Chandler (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army (Oxford, 1994), pp 189214. Townshend, Charles, The British Campaign in Ireland 1919-1921: The Development of Political and Military Policies, (Oxford, 1975). —. Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion (London, 2005). Whelan, Bernadette, United States Foreign Policy and Ireland; From Empire to Independence (2006), p. 32.

Unpublished Matter Gardiner, Eamonn T., British Army Counter-Insurgency Strategy & Tactics during the Second Boer War 1899-1902’, (Limerick, 2008).

Journals Bailey, Thomas A., ‘The United States and the Blacklist during the Great War’ in The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Mar., 1934), pp. 14-35. Brewer, John D., ‘Max Weber and the Royal Irish Constabulary: A Note on Class and Status’, in The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Mar., 1989), pp. 82-96. Higgs, Henry, ‘The Geddes Reports and the Budget’ in The Economic Journal, Vol. 32, No. 126, (Jun., 1922), pp. 251-264. Lowe, W.J., ‘The Constabulary agitation of 1882’ in Irish Historical Studies, Vol. 31, No. 121 (May, 1998), pp. 37-59. Johnson, James H., ‘The Context of Migration: The Example of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century’, in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series (Vol. 15, No. 3, 1990), pp. 259-276. Kernek, Sterling J., ‘Distractions of Peace during War: The Lloyd George Government's Reactions to Woodrow Wilson, December, 1916November, 1918’ in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, Vol. 65, No. 2 (1975), pp. 1-117. Ryan, Brendan, ‘The Royal Irish Constabulary, 1814-1922’ in Offaly Heritage, Journal of the Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society (Ed.) Dr. Rory Masterson, Vol. 5, 2007-2008, pp. 83-116.

Newspapers Gerry White and Brendan O’Shea, Thomas Kent: executed for who he was, not what he had done, Irish Examiner, 08/05/2008.

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New York Times, July 20, 1916. —. June 20th, 1922.

Miscellaneous United Kingdom Metrological Office Historical Archive (1921-1922) accessed on 11th July, 2008 at 12:37 a.m., http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/stationdata/armaghdata.txt

APPENDIX A PHOTOGRAPHS

A Thompson M1921 (SMG) Sub-Machine Gun, .45 calibre with a 50 round drum magazine. When it entered the conflict, this weapon provided the IRA with an easily man portable weapon capable of providing Fire Support or an effective close combat weapon. (Author’s own photograph)

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Appendix A

A Lewis Gun (without the traditional cooling shroud) with a top loading, 47 round drum magazine. This weapon was man portable and considered light at roughly twelve kilograms. It was used by all belligerents during the conflict as a fire support weapon and as a vehicle mounted weapon. (Author’s own photograph)

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A posed photograph showing dismounted British soldiers engaging the IRA along a low ditch in County Clare. Had this been a real engagement, the armoured car would begin acting as a Fire Support Group and lay down covering fire as a party of the soldiers moved forward and attempted to outflank their attackers, either killing or capturing them. (P. 9, IWM, Gen. Peter Strickland Papers, P.363)

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Appendix A

A photograph showing British regulars searching civilians entering Fermoy train station. Note the battle dress of the soldiers, including helmets, ammunition bandoliers slung over the outer layer of clothing and weapons in hand. Note also the soldiers not actively engaged in searching remaining vigilant nonetheless. (P. 32, IWM, Gen. Peter Strickland Papers, P.363)

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This photograph shows two British regular army officers (Lawson and Adams) with Brigadier General H R Cumming in Kenmare, County Kerry, Ireland, shortly before their deaths in March 1921. Cumming and three other soldiers were killed by IRA Volunteers in an ambush on 5 March 1921. Lawson and Adams were killed just over two weeks later on 21 March 1921 when the Kerry IRA launched a daring attack on a train near Headford junction outside Killarney. Twenty British soldiers were killed in the incident with three IRA casualties and a smaller number of civilian casualties. This image is from the Imperial War Museum in London.

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Appendix A

World War I recruitment poster used in Ireland. Note the statement that ‘100,000 men still eligible [for enlistment].’ This indicates that the War Office recognised the fact that late in the war there was still vast manpower reserves in their troubled province, including those with unionist and separatist tendencies. (Imperial War Museum)

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Recruitment poster for the newly constituted Black and Tans (RIC Rank and File). Note the high rate of pay and allowances available. (The Royal Irish Constabulary and The Black and Tans in County Louth 1919-1922, p. 33)1 1 The Royal Irish Constabulary and The Black and Tans in County Louth 19191922, Stephen O’Donnell (Self Published, 2004), p. 33.

APPENDIX B MAPS AND DIAGRAMS

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Appendix B

Normal RIC patrol being ambushed effectively (1919-20)

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Modified RIC/Auxiliary patrol formation (1920-1921). Note the increased spacing and larger convoy enabling a manoeuvre group to encircle the ambushers.

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Appendix B

West Cork Area .The First battalion, First Essex Regiment was responsible for an area from Cork City to the Cork/Kerry border (brown line), an area of roughly four-five hundred square miles of rugged hilly terrain. The battalion had six-hundred men, across all ranks and support arms. It was based at Bandon, with outlying garrisons. Maj. A.E. Percival was its Intelligence Officer.