Wade Through Irish Blood

Welcome to the History of Ireland. Did there have to be an Irish Civil War? Could the anti-treaty people have found a peaceful and political way in which to protest the agreement? Or was it just simply too much of a zero-sum game? Was the anti-treaty side just too militaristic to do anything but fight?

Well, to start trying to answer this question, we have to break apart the military and political wings of this newly splintered Irish nationalist movement. In the past, we’ve discussed in length the decentralised nature of the IRA, and its, shall we say, lackadaisical approach to top-down political control. Though the IRA had sworn an oath to the Dáil, and theoretically answered to the politicians, we know that they also kind of did their own thing. This lack of respect for the political process in some elements of the IRA became increasingly apparent as 1922 progressed.

As we know, the movement was splitting. As discussed in the last episode, anti-treaty Cumann na mBan split, with Cumann na Séirse forming as a pro-treaty offshoot. Then, though Sinn Féin technically remained a single party, on March 15th, De Valera founded Cumann na Pública, or the Republican Party, as a means to organise the anti-treaty side of Sinn Féin. Finally, you also had the IRA itself. Those who were pro-treaty would go on to form the Irish Free State Army, while those who were anti-treaty kept themselves styled as the IRA. It’s a little confusing, but that’s how we’ll be referring to the two forces. Irish Free State Army, pro-treaty forces. IRA, anti-treaty forces.

Now, in February 1923, De Valera wrote that I have been condemned to view the tragedy here for the last year as through a glass wall, powerless to intervene effectively. I have, however, hope that an opportunity may come my way. Not sure that’s quite true. Dev’s action, or lack of action, did have an impact in early 1922, and that’s what I want to look at first today. But the one thing I would say is that both Dev and I do agree that 1922 really wasn’t his year.

In it, he saw his power, unopposed since 1917, completely and utterly crumble. Part of this was down to the fact that not only did Dev lose any real sense of control of Sinn Féin, but his power over the IRA also began to rapidly fade as the group shook off any sense of being controlled by politicians and instead became more and more extreme. As always, I have to say I find it very, very difficult to have a lot of sympathy for Dev in this situation. He could have pushed hard to try and reign in the anti-treaty IRA and focused on building an anti-treaty political party that would be ready to put the question of the treaty to the electorate. As the leading figure in the Irish movement, he could have worked to keep things political and peaceful.

Instead, he gave a series of infamous speeches across Ireland in the first quarter of 1922. The first was in Dungarvan on March 16th, stating that the treaty barred the way to independence. The next day, on St. Patrick’s Day, he declared if the treaty was accepted, the fight for freedom would still go on and the Irish people, instead of fighting British soldiers, would have to fight the Irish soldiers of an Irish government. That same day, he carried on to Thurles and made even more inflammatory remarks, saying if they accept the treaty, they would have to wade through Irish blood, through the blood of soldiers of the Irish government and through, perhaps, the blood of some of the members of the government to get Irish freedom.

Then, two days later, he carried on in much the same theme. Here’s an excerpt from another speech in Killarney. In order to achieve freedom, if our volunteers continue, and I hope they will continue until the goal is reached, if we continue on that movement which was begun when the volunteers were started, and we suppose this treaty is ratified by your votes, then these men, in order to achieve freedom, will have, as I said yesterday, will have to march over the dead bodies of their own brothers. They will have to wade through Irish blood.

Wade through Irish blood. I’m sorry, but if that isn’t a call to arms that could fan the flames of a civil war, well, then I don’t know what is. Especially when you consider who he was speaking to. At one speech, it was 700 members of the IRA. The next, it was 200, and they were armed. These were the diehards looking to someone for leadership. Newspapers at the time described the speeches as wild and using the language of incitement. While Colin said they are incitements, whatever may be his personal intention, can he not strive to create a good atmosphere instead of seeking to create a bad one?

Ronan Fanning, one of Deb’s biographers, explained it like this. This gory litany, recited before armed audiences, was ever afterwards defended, not as an incitement, but as prophecy. But such speeches were at the very least insensitively provocative and grotesquely irresponsible. It’s easy to say Deb lost control of the militant side of the anti-treaty movement, and we’ll explore that further in a second. I think we have to hold Deb responsible for his rhetoric here. He did nothing to try and convince those who are anti-treaty to find a peaceful solution. In fact, he did the very opposite.

I’ll say it again. Wade through Irish blood for a republic Deb had known he wouldn’t get since the summer of 1921. Wade through Irish blood for an Ireland that had been partitioned since 1920. Wade through Irish blood for the difference between, what, external association and dominion status. Maybe you have a different point of view, and that’s totally fair, but I can’t help but lay some of the blame of what comes next at the feet of Deb’s era. As another historian, Joseph Curran, puts it, for a leader of his stature to utter prophecies of bloody domestic conflict only increased its likelihood. And what came next was the complete militarization of the anti-treaty movement.

So far, we’ve looked at the political side of post-treaty Ireland in the first half of 1922. Now I want to go back and explore what was happening on the military side of things. Historian John Borgonovo estimates that 70 to 75% of IRA members were opposed to the treaty, especially the, quote, guerrilla elite in Connacht and Munster. He argues that not enough had been done to warn provincial members of the IRA of what the treaty would look like, and he points out there was no consultation with IRA leaders outside of Dublin. And that is a huge oversight, considering how decentralized the organization was and how much these men had done to get Ireland to where it was now.

As Borgonovo points out, provincial IRA leaders appear to have been genuinely shocked by the treaty. Keep that in mind as they turn against it. It felt like a compromise being handed down from on high from those who’d never done a real day’s fighting in their lives. No one had told the lads hiding in cowsheds in West Cork that Lloyd George had turned down any idea of a republic a year before. No one had told them anything. And so, of course, they were ready to push on.

An IRA convention was scheduled for March 26th. The thinking being that this would give the organization the chance to determine future army policy. But Richard Mulcahy, now the Minister for Defence, ended up banning the convention as the split in the Irish forces was becoming more and more apparent. In the end, IRA officers attended regardless, with 52 of 73 IRA brigades showing up. And similarly to Cumann na mBan from last week, those who were pro-treaty would have stayed away. They were ordered to by Mulcahy. And so those who showed up were virtually all anti-treaty.

So, only a few days after Dev’s inflammatory speeches, the now anti-treaty IRA rejected the authority of the Dáil, with one leader, Rory O’Connor, declaring that if a government goes wrong, it must take the consequences. If the Dáil is the government of the country, we are in revolt against it.

Now, we should actually stop and introduce who this Rory O’Connor fellow is. O’Connor was a doubler who’d studied experimental physics and metaphysics in college and received both an engineering degree and an arts degree from UCD. He’d worked as a railway engineer in Canada before returning to Dublin in 1915. He then took part in the 1916 Rising and ended up as director of engineering for the IRA during the War of Independence. He was a radical militant, if ever there was one, and argued for an Irish military dictatorship with which to, quote, defend the Irish Republic.

But even within this anti-treaty iteration of the IRA, there were splits, and O’Connor was seen as too extreme and instead the more moderate, Liam Lynch, was appointed Chief of Staff on April 9th. Keen-eared listeners will remember Lynch from episode 32, where we told the story of how he organised the capture of Brigadier General Cuthbert Lucas. Since then, Lynch had led the Cork 2nd Brigade of the IRA throughout the Irish War of Independence. He was smart, capable, and as mentioned in that old episode, he was possessed by a sense of mission and by a revolutionary ardour. But even then, he was more moderate than O’Connor.

Lynch, though an ardent anti-treaty republican, he did want a peaceful solution. At this point, he was still trying to find a political means to, quote, retain national unity, but protect the Republic. However, the problem of a decentralised guerrilla force that has shaken off the shackles of democracy is that it’s very hard to keep them under control. And despite Lynch’s objections, O’Connor led IRA troops to take over the Four Courts in Dublin on April 13th.

Where was Dev in all of this? Well, initially, he was against taking the Four Courts, but he never repudiated it. And as historian David McCullough puts it, he was no longer in a position to lead, but was instead handcuffed to the most extreme of the doctrinaire republicans. Initially, the IRA were left alone in the Four Courts. But this all changed on June 28th when the Irish Free State bombed their ex-comrades.

Next episode, we’ll look at how an assassination and an election paved the way for the assault on the Four Courts. Thanks for listening. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and if you’re enjoying it, give us a review on Apple Podcasts or tell your friends. It really helps. You can also support the show, buy merch and get in touch all through our website, thehistoryofireland.com or you can follow us on Facebook or Twitter. It’s always great hearing from you guys. And if I’ve made a mistake, please do let me know. The History of Ireland was written and produced by me, Kevin Dole. Additional research and fact-checking by Robert Babington, music by Liam Doyle and additional help from assistant producer, Aoife Murphy. The History of Ireland is a production of Ireland Public Television