De Valera's Irelands (11 page)

Part of de Valera's problem was that a number of those most likely to exercise a moderating influence over the anti-Treatyite militants were in jail – Seán T. O'Kelly being among them. In Kilmainham, O'Kelly wrote that it would be far better ‘for the good of the country' to try to end the hostilities. He prevailed upon Oscar Traynor and Tom Barry to contact the Provisional Government authorities.
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Barry made the contact and Liam Tobin was sent to interview him. But the meeting ended ‘in hot words on both sides', according to O'Kelly, after Tobin tried to ‘bully' him and place obstacles in the way of the talks. He added:

If they adopt bullying or hectoring manners and raise all sorts of petty quibbling points, such as that our people must write their notes only on paper headed ‘Provisional Government', they are going the right road to secure a continuance of the war till the very last bit of ammunition of the republicans has been expended and the last of their men imprisoned or shot.
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O'Kelly suggested that one of the bishops ought to be approached to act as a mediator. O'Kelly felt that Traynor and Barry were willing to go to talk with O'Connor and Liam Mellowes in Mountjoy. The rector of the Irish College, John Hagan, arrived in Dublin towards the end of August. He approached Mulcahy and put O'Kelly's ideas to him. Mulcahy was not very enthusiastic but he sought to facilitate the monsignor. A letter from Mellowes and O'Connor to Hagan on 6 September 1922 demonstrated only intransigence. Both men joined in the ‘passionate longing' that:

the section of the countrymen now in arms against the Republic should end the senseless and criminal sterile and unite with us in its defence against the common enemy whose devilish machinations have, by the aid of the powerful and corrupt press in this country, stampeded them into continuing the war which the British forces hitherto failed to make effective.

They promised Hagan, however, to hand on his letter to their superiors outside the prison. Hagan wrote that the communication did not show ‘anything like eagerness to arrive at an understanding'. He urged both O'Connor and Mellowes to meet the two men from Kilmainham (Barry and Traynor) as they would be ‘giving away no principles'. On 11 September, Mulcahy wrote to Hagan that he had given permission for the meeting. But in the meantime, Barry had escaped from jail while a note to Mellowes and O'Connor had gone unacknowledged.
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It appeared that the minister's instincts about the lack of will for peace were the more accurate.

Hagan made one final bid to salvage the peace move by contacting de Valera. But the limitations on de Valera's power to influence the military wing of the anti-Treatyites were evident in his reply. He suggested to the rector that he should see the prisoners first as ‘nothing will be gained by seeing us at the moment.' He recommended that he see an unnamed friend in O'Connell Street who would be ‘able to give all necessary information from our point of view.'
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The initiative foundered as had a peace move initiated by another clergyman who was working in San Francisco, Mgr John Rogers. De Valera had agreed to meet Richard Mulcahy in Dublin on 6 September. Both forces issued safe conducts to the other side. However, Mulcahy was advised by the anti-Treatyites to travel in civilian clothes.
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Mulcahy was giving the anti-Treatyite leader a last chance before he set out on a definite course. Mulcahy took the meeting sufficiently seriously to issue an order which reduced routine raids as much as possible, limited the movement of troops and sought to avoid military activities. But the meeting with de Valera was not successful.

Further peace efforts by the leader of the Labour Party, Tom Johnson, and the trade unionist, William O'Brien, did not meet with success. Dáil Éireann met on 9 September. Despite his personal wish to take part in the debate, de Valera and his associates were not present. Mulcahy requested the cabinet, in mid-September, to introduce emergency powers establishing military courts for soldiers or civilians found guilty of crimes ranging from armed attacks on the national forces to being in possession of arms or explosives or taking part in looting, arson and destruction of private property. Dáil Éireann approved the draconian proposals on 28 September by 48 votes to 18.

Instead of calling off the futile struggle, de Valera and the anti-Treatyites attempted to regroup. A meeting of the army executive was held on 17 October and a decision was taken to set up an ‘Emergency Government' of the ‘Republic' with de Valera as President. Austin Stack was nominated Minister for Finance, P. J. Ruttledge was given Home Affairs, Seán T. O'Kelly got Local Government, Robert Barton was given Economic Affairs and the jailed Liam Mellowes was made Minister for Defence. It did not appear to the reasonable observer that de Valera and the anti-Treatyites were prepared to end hostilities at the earliest time.

Convinced that de Valera was not going to sue for peace, the Executive Council met on 4 October 1922 and took a decision to approach the Roman Catholic hierarchy to secure a condemnation of the anti-Treatyites. The bishops did not disappoint. On 22 October a statement was published condemning the campaign of destruction which had resulted in murder and assassination and ‘wrecked Ireland from end to end'. Those involved were ‘guilty of the gravest sins, and may not be absolved in confession, nor admitted to holy communion, if they propose to persevere in such evil courses.'
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Crestfallen, de Valera wrote apologetically to his friend, Archbishop Daniel Mannix of Melbourne, on 6 November 1922 that he had often wished ‘but had not the heart to write you.' He said:

The last pronouncement of the hierarchy here is most unfortunate. Never was charity of judgement so necessary, and apparently so disastrously absent. Ireland and the Church will, I fear, suffer in consequence.

He spoke about the fait accompli of the Treaty agreement:

The tactics subsequently resorted to were still more unworthy and made inevitable the existing situation which, once the document was signed, could have been averted only by the most delicate tact and rigorous straight dealing. I am convinced that the Free State Agreement must go. It has brought nothing but disaster so far, and promises nothing but disorder and chaos. It gives no hope whatever of ordered stable government. Human nature must be recast before those Irishmen and Irishwomen, who believe in the national right and the national destiny as in a religion, will consent to acquiesce in the selling of the national birthright for an ignoble mess of pottage, as they regard it. Think then of the prospects of a government which can only exist by outlawing the most unselfishly patriotic citizens of the state.

He added that party feeling was ‘running rather too high now for calm dispassionate thinking, or for real statesmanship to have any opportunity.' He held the IRB as being most responsible for the present situation but added:

The people everywhere, young and old, are beginning to realise that the only salvation for the nation now is a return to the old Sinn Féin principle of cleaving to their own institutions, whilst ignoring the authority and the institutions which the foreigner has tried to impose.

Returning to an old theme of his, de Valera wrote:

I cannot but think of the hopes of this time a year ago – the almost certain prospect of a settlement which all could have accepted or at least acquiesced in, leaving us a united nation with a future to be freely moulded under God by ourselves. It is sad, but chastening to realise how rudely they were all blasted within a month … and I assure you of the affection and esteem of all who are striving now that the way may not be closed for those who may be destined to complete the work towards which the hopes of the nation have been set definitely since Easter 1916.
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The Bishop of Galway, Thomas O'Doherty, expressed the anger of many when he wrote on 11 November to Mgr Hagan in Rome:

Things are not very hopeful here. De Valera has allowed himself to be hoisted into the ‘Presidency' on the remaining bayonets of Rory O'Connor's squad. It is not a very dignified or comfortable position now. The Republic is out now for victory or extermination and the women are screaming or fasting.
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The day before this letter was written, 10 November 1922, Erskine Childers was arrested at Annamore, County Wicklow, the home of his cousin, Robert Barton. He had been making his way to Dublin – probably at de Valera's request – where, it was believed, he would be made secretary to the anti-Treatyite ‘government'.
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Childers was sentenced to death on 18 November and he was executed by firing squad four days later.
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The debate which followed the sentencing of Childers was marked by a certain Anglophobe vindictiveness on the part of a small number of government ministers.
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De Valera must have silently blamed himself for what had befallen Childers.

The grief of a number of prominent Irish bishops was revealed in their private correspondence. The auxiliary Bishop of Armagh, Patrick O'Donnell, wrote to Mgr Hagan:

No event of recent years has saddened me in the same way as the execution of Erskine Childers. Since I heard of it I think of little else. I knew him some years ago and derived much friendly assistance from him during the Irish Convention [1917]. I think I was the first to suggest that his services would be sought at that time. So, much as I disliked intervening in any way, when I saw a few days ago that he was in jeopardy, I wrote to the Law Adviser suggesting that he should be spared. Plainly I had nothing for my pains. All the executions are deplorable especially that of poor Childers. I said mass for him today … Up to then the Irish government seemed to me to have done well on the whole and then, I can judge, wisdom left them. I trust it may soon return … Our cardinal and the Archbishop of Dublin are against the executions.
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The Archbishop of Dublin, Edward Byrne, wrote in protest to Cosgrave. John Hagan wrote to say that he was glad to know that there was at least one voice raised on the side of mercy: ‘unfortunately deeds like this are bound to awaken distant echoes, and only one endowed with the gift of prophecy can venture to foretell where it is going to stop.'
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De Valera had no control over the decision by Liam Lynch to issue an order on 27 November that all TDs who had voted for the ‘Murder Bill' were to be shot on sight.
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On 30 November, three other executions were carried out. Shortly after that a copy of an order, purporting to be signed by Tomás Derrig as ‘adjutant-general' of the anti-Treaty forces, was found in the possession of a prisoner on his arrest. A copy was sent to Cahir Davitt who was in the Army's Command Legal Staff. It provided for the ‘execution' of all members of the Provisional Government, all members of the Dáil who had voted for the Army (Special Powers) Resolution, the members of the Army Council and most if not all of the Army's Command Legal Staff. Davitt recorded: ‘We were generally sceptical as to whether this wholesale “execution” order was to be accepted at its face value when our doubts were tragically resolved on 7 December.'
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Seán Hales, a distinguished west Cork military leader in the War of Independence, was shot dead leaving the Ormond Hotel in Dublin on his way to Leinster House. Another deputy, Padraic Ó Maille, who was travelling with him in the same sidecar, was seriously but not fatally wounded. This crisis completely eclipsed the formal coming into being of Saorstát Éireann (Irish Free State) on 6 December l922.

Davitt was summoned to the adjutant-general's office where the Army Council had been meeting on the evening of 7 December. Mulcahy told him that they had decided to set up a system of military committees to deal summarily with persons arrested in possession of arms, ammunition or explosives, while retaining the military courts to deal with cases other than those of persons caught red-handed. Any such person arrested would be brought as quickly as possible before a committee of officers. They were to investigate the circumstances of the arrest and report to the Army Council recommending a punishment. Mulcahy wanted Davitt to draft regulations for such a committee and have them ready that night. Davitt saw the committees as something in the nature of a drumhead court-martial. He said that they could have no judicial function since they could decide nothing but only make a recommendation. Each committee would have to include an officer from Davitt's Command Legal Staff. He could ensure that the committee's investigations were properly conducted and its report properly presented. But with regard to the un-judicial character of the proposed committees, Davitt said he would prefer that he should be requisitioned solely in his military capacity and that neither he nor any member of his staff would have responsibility for the military committees. He agreed to draft the communiqué which appeared under Mulcahy's name the following day in the press.
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At a meeting of the government that evening a decision was taken to execute four prisoners. The men were Rory O'Connor, Liam Mellowes, Dick Barrett and Joe McKelvey. Archbishop Byrne had spent a number of hours on the eve of the execution trying to persuade Cosgrave against taking the action. To compound the tragedy Rory O'Connor had stood as best man for Kevin O'Higgins. Mulcahy and Eoin MacNeill were believed to have proposed and seconded the motion for execution. Kevin O'Higgins accepted the decision with great reluctance. The following day the four men were executed in Mountjoy without due process as a ‘reprisal' for the assassination of Hales and a ‘solemn warning' to those associated with the four executed men who were ‘engaged in a conspiracy of assassination against the representatives of the Irish people.' These were the terms used in the official communiqué.