The Anglo-Irish Treaty in the Bureau of Military History witness statements - Part 2
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| Brighid O'Mullane circa 1918. From the National Museum of Ireland collection. |
Another of the ways in which the
Bureau of Military History witness statements can throw new light on our
understanding of the events surrounding the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty
is by providing fresh insights into the attitudes and motivations of some of
the significant figures connected with the Treaty negotiations. One example of
this type of insight involves Michael Collins and his decision to sign the
Articles of Agreement which became known as the Anglo-Irish Treaty. This is
usually portrayed as a pragmatic, but reluctant, decision based on a realistic
assessment of the IRA’s chances of defeating the British in any renewed
conflict. Michael
Hopkinson, writing in the Cambridge dictionary of Irish Biography,
mentions Collins’s awareness of the IRA’s “dire shortages of arms and
ammunition” at the time of the truce[1]
(something which is attested to in the witness statement of Joseph Lawless).[2]
J.B.E. Hittle claims that it is Collins’s
“enthusiasm for war” (and that of the other members of the delegation,
especially in light of the fact that Collins himself, and the IRA in general,
had become more visible to the British as a result of the cessation of
hostilities since the Truce) that had diminished, rather than their “zeal for
an Irish Republic”.[3]
Marie Coleman reiterates the point about the IRA’s loss of “much of its valued
anonymity” being an important factor in Collins’s decision to sign the Treaty.[4]
According to Hopkinson, it was
pragmatism based on his realisation “that it would soon bring about the removal
of the British military presence from the south and west of Ireland”, rather
than any belief in “the virtues of dominion status” that motivated his decision
to sign.[5]
The witness statement of Richard
Walsh, however, gives a rather different impression. Although not involved in
the treaty negotiations himself, Walsh had known Michael Collins through his
involvement in the Irish Republican Brotherhood. According to Walsh, Collins was
inclined, “at an early stage after his release from Frongoch” (the camp in
which he was imprisoned after the Easter rising, being released in late December
1916[6]),
to support the idea of “the Irish people getting into their hands the powers of
partial self-government”, viewing such an outcome as a useful stepping-stone
from which, ultimately, to go on to achieve full independence.[7]
This depiction of Collins as having
been willing to accept some version of home-rule, long before the treaty
negotiations began, certainly adds at least an element of nuance to the more
usual portrayal of Collins’s motives in agreeing to the terms of the treaty.
As well as providing details of events and attitudes,
some of the statements give a sense of the mood in the country at the time of
the treaty and its aftermath. Joseph Lawless describes the way in which, in
early 1922, the country began to drift towards civil war without actually
believing it could really happen: “Civil War began to be spoken of
vaguely…but I doubt if any of those who used this phrase had any conception of
the horrors of civil war. Though it was spoken of so glibly, I do not believe
that any of us thought seriously that such a thing could really occur.”[8]
The
split in the ranks of Sinn Féin and the IRA over the question of whether or not to accept
the terms of the treaty was extremely acrimonious, resulting, as it did, in
open civil war. Nevertheless, in some of the accounts in the witness
statements, it is possible to see a certain amount of generosity of spirit, and
mutual respect, between people on both sides of the split. For example, former
Cumann na mBan member Katherine Barry Moloney gives
an account of “one of many arguments about the Treaty” which she had with
Michael Collins in 1922. Collins, in trying to persuade Katherine Barry to
support the treaty, listed the names of several “fine soldiers” who had agreed
to back it and suggested that, had he still been alive, her own brother, Kevin
Barry (who had been executed in 1920 for his part in an ambush on a British
Army patrol) might also have taken a similar line. Katherine Barry responded by
recounting to Collins a memory of the night in 1919 when Kevin Barry, along
with all other members of the Irish Volunteers, had been required to swear an
oath of allegiance to the Dáil.
He had, on his return home, expressed some concern about the oath, telling his
sister that “When this damned Dáil takes Dominion Home Rule, they need not
expect us to back them up”. When Katherine Barry told this story to Collins,
the latter replied, “That is good enough. I won't say that any more” (referring
to his suggestion that Barry might, had he still been alive, have backed the treaty).
In recounting this episode, Katherine Barry Moloney describes Collins’s
reaction to her demonstration of the likelihood that Kevin Barry would not have
supported the treaty as being one of “characteristic generosity”.[9]
It is well known that Michael Collins was held in high regard on both sides of
the treaty-split and that his death was mourned even by many in the anti-treaty
IRA, including those who were prisoners at the time.[10]
It is also well known that Collins continued to hold many of his former
colleagues who had chosen to oppose the treaty in high regard, and had tried to
prevent the split from descending into civil war.[11]
However, accounts like Katherine Barry Moloney’s shed some light on the human
reality of such complicated political and personal relationships as they played
out in the day to day interactions amongst the participants in those events
surrounding the treaty-split, in a way that would not perhaps come across in a
more formal or academic historical account. A similar account of the existence
of a degree of warmth between protagonists on both sides in the debate over the
treaty is found in another witness statement, describing a meeting in which Sean
Hales, a pro-treaty TD, was arguing with a noisy crowd of anti-treaty IRA
volunteers: “The verbal exchanges at this meeting between Sean Hales and the
I.R.A. hecklers were in a very friendly strain, jocular and witty rather than
critical, and Sean, a very jovial man, revelled in the repartee and seemed to
get a great kick out of it.”[12]
Although Katherine Barry Moloney, as a
convinced republican, had been involved in nationalist activities throughout
the period in question, many of which she describes in her witness statement,
the cover sheet to the statement gives the subject as the “National activities
of her brother, Kevin, from 1917 up to 1/11/1920, the date of his execution.”[13]
Less than 10 percent of the witnesses were female,[14]
and a significant number of these are described on the cover sheets of their
statements in terms of their relationships to men who played a prominent part
in the Irish revolution. Through the work of historians such as Margaret Ward,
Senia Paseta and Ann Matthews, we know that there were many women who played
very significant roles in the national movement in Ireland. Cumann na mBan
members, especially, played important and often dangerous parts in the War of
Independence and the Civil War (in Dublin, during the latter conflict, this was
particularly the case after many of the male members of the anti-treaty forces
were captured and imprisoned soon after the outbreak of hostilities). As a
result of these activities, a significant number of women were imprisoned or
even killed, as in the case of a Mrs Hartney, whose death is described in the
witness statement of Limerick Cumann na mBan president Madge Daly.[15]
Women also featured very strongly in the debates over the Anglo-Irish Treaty,
from Dáil members such as Mary MacSwiney and Kathleen Clarke, to rank
and file members of Cumann na mBan who held meetings amongst themselves to
discuss the issue and many of whom demonstrated or spoke at public meetings and
debates. The relative marginalisation of women that can be discerned in their
treatment by the Bureau investigators, both in terms of the numbers of women
interviewed and the tendency to consider their historical importance to be, in
many cases, contingent on the activities of their male relatives, is evidence
of the prevalent institutional attitude at the time in which the Bureau was
operating. Women who had played a significant part in the national movement
were often denied the prominence they deserved in the subsequent public
memorialising of the events of the revolutionary period. However, in spite of
this bias against giving proper recognition to the activities of women, it is
still possible, using the witness statements, to get some idea of what life was
like for women involved in the nationalist and republican movements during this
time. Some of the female witnesses give interesting insights into the treaty
split, particularly as it affected members of Cumann na mBan. Brighid
O’Mullane, for example, describes being sent, along with other members of the
Cumann na mBan Executive, “to various parts of the country to counteract
pro-Treaty influences”, especially to areas “where many of the senior officers
of the I.R.A. showed pro-Treaty tendencies.”[16] Later,
she describes how, during a pro-treaty rally being addressed by Arthur
Griffith, Michael Collins and other prominent speakers, she, along with several
other uniformed Cumann na mBan members, “rushed the platform, removed the
Republican flag and got safely away with it, to the consternation of the people
on the platform.”[17] O’Mullane
went on to be Cumann na mBan’s Director of Propaganda during the Civil War and,
in her witness statement, describes a number of daring and dangerous escapades
that she and her Cumann na mBan comrades undertook during that conflict.
Another member of the Cumann na mBan Executive, Eilis Aughney, also describes
visiting various parts of the country after the publication of the treaty, in
an effort to “keep the organisation together and to counteract the
discouragement caused by the split.”[18] A
number of the witnesses mention the Cumann na mBan convention held in February
1922, where an overwhelming majority of those present voted to reject the treaty.
Most of these witnesses go on to describe their involvement on the anti-treaty
side in the civil war. Although there was a small pro-treaty faction that broke
away from to form a new organisation under the name Cumann na Saoirse,[19]
Cumann na mBan were more successful than the IRA in retaining a unified
organisation after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and it is possible
that activities such as the speaking tours undertaken by the likes of Brighid
O’Mullane and Eilis Aughney were a factor in maintaining this unity.
CONTINUED IN NEXT POST
[1] M.A. Hopkinson,‘Collins, Michael’, in Dictionary of Irish Biography, Volume 2
(Cambridge, 2009), pp. 678–682, p. 679.
[2] Lawless, WS 1043, pp. 396-397.
[3] J.B.E. Hittle, Michael
Collins and the Anglo-Irish War: Britain’s Counterinsurgency Failure
(Washington, D.C., 2011), p. 211.
[4] M. Coleman, M., The
Irish Revolution, 1916-1923 (Oxford, 2013), p. 104.
[5] Hopkinson, ‘Collins, Michael’, pp. 679-680.
[6] M. Laffan, The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Féin Party, 1916-1923 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 66.
[7] Walsh, WS 400, p. 152.
[8]
Lawless, WS 1043, p. 408.
[9] K. Barry Moloney, BMH WS 731, pp. 9-10.
[11] P. Hart, Mick:
The Real Michael Collins (London, 2005), p. 394.
[12] M. O’Donoghue, BMH WS 1741, p. 228.
[13] Barry Moloney, WS 731.
[15] M. Daly, BMH WS 855, p. 11.
[16]
B. O’Mullane, BMH WS 485, p. 2.
[17] Ibid., p. 3.
[18]
E. Aughney, BMH WS 1054, p. 3.
[19] A. Matthews, Renegades:
Irish Nationalist Women 1900-1922 (Cork, 2010), pp. 322-323.
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