Michael Collins and the Women Who Spied For Ireland (17 page)

At a conference on 1 June 1922, Lloyd George argued that the crown was ‘a mystic term' which ‘simply stood for the power of the people'. Collins had another mystic term – the Republic – to contend with; he could see that failure to blot out the Crown element in the constitution had brought into sharp focus the possibility of civil war.
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Finally a deal was hammered out whereby the British parliament, while having reservations on the Pact, agreed that the Irish delegation should be free to pursue this course.

Collins arrived back in Ireland to an atmosphere of gloom. A meeting between Collins and de Valera in the Mansion House on 5 June resulted in a joint appeal for ‘Panel candidates in the interests of national unity'. Four days later both men appeared together on a Dublin platform.

Meanwhile, fighting along the border from Belleek to Pettigo persisted between the newly established Ulster Special Constabulary and the Republican Executive Army.

On 11 June Mick asked Kitty, who was in town, to come to see him. Next morning he was in his office early ‘to get a quiet minute or two ... You know I have a pretty bad week before me,' he wrote.

The constitution still needed attention. He had acquired the help of Tim Healy, Crompton Llewelyn Davies (Moya's husband), Hugh Kennedy, law officer, and James Douglas to draw up a blueprint with him, which he then submitted to the British cabinet. Mick had to go to London in a hurry on Monday evening 12 June. All next day he battled through a series of meetings in an attempt to broaden the scope of the constitution but failed to secure terms which he hoped would make it acceptable to the Republicans.

That Tuesday night, reeling in despair, he was on the boat back to Dublin. ‘I did not go to bed after coming off the boat this morning,' he wrote to Kitty. Wednesday's crowded meetings with cabinet colleagues left him only a few moments to send a wire to Kitty before heading to the railway station and boarding the train for Cork. At this Cork meeting Collins severely criticised Brugha's behaviour for encouraging the army split. On the eve of election day (16 June) he again toured his Cork constituency. The constitution was published on 16 June, polling day. Throughout this month Collins was extremely busy. Dealing with constant trouble in the north-east, clashes between pro- and anti-Treaty forces, Provisional Government meetings and a huge amount of correspondence, plus having to meet so many people, consumed his summer days and nights.

The Provisional Government, with Collins as chairman, had decided that from 12 June there would be no further negotiations with their opponents, the Four Courts people, pending the formation of a new coalition, which would be further negotiated after the election.
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On 22 June Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, military adviser to the six county administration, was assassinated outside his London home. The results of the election were announced in the aftermath of this killing on 24 June 1922: 93 pro-Treaty seats and 35 anti-Treaty Sinn Féin seats. Although Michael Collins headed the poll in his own county of Cork, he had little to be jubilant about. The new Dáil was to assemble on 1 July, and Collins could only hope for some improvement in the situation.

The month of June had been so busy that most of Mick's responses to Kitty's letters were telegrams, sent from wherever he travelled. As he had no time to visit Granard, Kitty instead came to Greystones periodically. On 24 June he sent her a telegram: ‘Have finished with the counting at last. Wound up at about seven o'clock this morning. Am returning Dublin today. Will write or wire you when I get back. How are you?'

That night, another telegram: ‘Thanks for letter. I have returned safely and will write to you to-morrow'.

While he was in Granard on the Sunday the pair had a tiff, mainly due to Kitty's ‘frightful misunderstandings' of Mick's inability to write her ‘the long long long' letters as in the past. In London he had found the time, at the expense of sleep; more recently, sleep had become a luxury, often snatched while in transit.

Kitty realised she was her own ‘worst enemy', so she promised that for his happiness as well as her own, henceforth she would try harder; ‘for I do realise,' she wrote, ‘how unhappy I make things for you too'.

In her letter on the day after his visit to Granard she wrote of the desire that gripped her to elope:

I'd have stayed with you, I'd have wanted to. Last night was a real wedding night for you and me. Didn't you feel that way too, but couldn't put it into words? I wanted to run away with you. That must be the feeling with people who do run away like that. We had it last night. That was our night. Glad today for both you and me that I didn't go.
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Mick, again without time to write ‘the long' letter which Kitty loved, said that in Greystones he had ‘... the first real sleep for a week. Talk of being tired – and am still very tired ...'

Affairs of state called: ‘Must finish this – the usual thing! Everyone waiting, God help me – take this note for what it ought to be – about twelve pages long. God be with you, Kitty dear'.
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When Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson was shot the whole of the British Empire was shocked. Reginald Dunne and Joseph O'Sullivan of the IRA's London battalion were arrested and later charged. The Dublin cabinet, including Collins and Griffith, condemned the killing.

The British ministers incorrectly blamed the Four Courts garrison for the killing. Rory O'Connor made a public statement that he and the Four Courts men had had nothing to do with it: ‘If we had, we would admit it'.

When Collins learned of the arrest of his friend Reggie Dunne and that of Joseph O'Sullivan, it created further complications for him. Although he condemned their action, he took full responsibility for their lives. In London, the event led to emergency cabinet meetings. Because the British associated the murders with the anti-Treatyites in the Four Courts, they put pressure on Collins to deal with them.

(Collins failed in his attempts to free Dunne and O'Sullivan. Their trial went ahead in the Old Bailey on 18 July. The men were found guilty and sentenced to death. In spite of Collins' appeals for a reprieve they were hanged in Wandsworth prison, London, on 10 August, 1922.)
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Lloyd George was no longer prepared to permit ‘the ambiguous position of Rory O'Connor ... with his followers and his arsenal in open rebellion in the heart of Dublin in possession of the Courts of Justice ...' So on behalf of ‘His Majesty's Government' he felt ‘entitled to ask' Collins ‘formally to bring it to an end forthwith'. Furthermore, his government would be prepared to place at Collins' disposal ‘the necessary pieces of artillery' which might be required. Toleration of this conduct was seen as ‘rebellious defiance of the principles of the Treaty ... now supported by the declared will of the Irish people'.
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Matters were brought to a head by news that J. J. (Ginger) O'Connell, pro-Treaty deputy chief-of-staff, had been taken hostage by Four Courts Executive forces. He was held in order to secure the release of Leo Henderson, Executive forces, who had been arrested by pro-Treaty (Provisional Government) troops as he commandeered transport at Ferguson's Garage, for removal of supplies to the north.

On Wednesday 28 June, an ultimatum was delivered to the Four Courts garrison to surrender. That day, Mick wrote to Kitty: ‘I hope the thing won't last much longer ... I do wish you'd come up for the weekend'.
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The ultimatum brought no response so two eighteen-pounder guns borrowed from the British army opened fire on the building. The Civil War had officially begun. By Friday 30 June, the Four Courts garrison had surrendered unconditionally and many anti-Treatyites were taken prisoners.

Michael Collins' worst nightmare soon became real. His hope for the swift and speedy end to the occupation of the Four Courts and the resumption of normality dissipated. Lynch, Deasy and de Valera and a number of the Republican Executive headed south; the area south of a line stretching from Waterford to Limerick was to be held by the Republicans. Oscar Traynor took command in Dublin, where sporadic skirmishes caused much destruction.

Collins, who had done so much over the previous months to prevent a civil war, now realised he would have to be prepared to fight his friends openly. At a Provisional Government meeting on 30 June, chaired by Collins, ‘It was decided that the attack on other strongholds of the Irregulars should be vigorously continued ...'
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During the early days of July, anti-Treaty forces clashed with government forces countrywide, and it looked as though the government, the Treaty and all that Mick Collins had worked for were swiftly being eroded. Fighting had begun to spread, and like a cancer was eating into civilian life.

Throughout Dublin, Republicans had established themselves in other buildings, principally in hotels along O'Connell Street, including the Gresham. Meanwhile Maud Gonne had returned from Paris and in an effort at reconciliation had brought a group of women together. As they entered the Four Courts the garrison was due to surrender. The women then divided into two groups, one to meet Michael Collins, Griffith and Cosgrave, the other to meet the anti-Treaty side. Maud Gonne claimed that it would be on women that ‘the misery of the civil war would fall'. They had a ‘right to be heard', she said. But Griffith, her long-standing friend, replied, ‘We are a government and we have to keep order'.
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The second group did not get very far with Oscar Traynor at the Hammam Hotel. It was here that Máire Comerford also came on her bicycle after she left the Four Courts. Traynor gave her some advice on changing gears; soon she had the hang of it and took off to Republican-held posts around the city to see if there were any wounded. It was at this stage that she decided definitely to throw in her lot with the anti-Treatyites.
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Countess Markievicz had taken up sniper duty in Moran's Hotel. Many of Collins' female friends and associates, such as Leslie Price, Linda Kearns, Grace Plunkett, Peg Barrett and her sisters, Madge Daly and her sisters, joined the opposing forces.

Cathal Brugha, with a small garrison, which included Linda Kearns, Kathleen Barry and Muriel MacSwiney, remained in the Hammam Hotel with orders to hold out until surrender was inevitable. On Tuesday, as the Hammam Hotel began to blaze under the heavy bombardment, Traynor sent a dispatch to Brugha asking him to surrender. But Brugha continued to fight like a tiger ‘... and fell amid a volley of shots'. Two days later he died. His friends revealed he had not intended to surrender.
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News of Brugha's death appalled Collins. Though they were enemies latterly, he had admired the spirit and dogged determination of the older man. He understood his aggressive action, his strong-mindedness and his obstinacy.

At this time of great turmoil and stress, Mick's concern for Kitty was great, and Kitty's concern for him was heartfelt. She wrote: ‘When I think of you perhaps in the midst of a fight, I think that I should be near you, beside you. Because if you were going to die, I'd like to go with you.'
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Caught up in the affairs of the country, he would often only have time to send ‘a very very hurried wire today' to Kitty, ‘ – please do forgive me for it. There are people waiting while I write it'.
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Next day from Government Buildings: ‘... I'm longing to see you and everything and all my love and wherever I may be for the next week, I'll do my very best to wire and write. And God be with you, my own Kitty'.
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Sometimes Kitty chastised Mick for not writing more often; if she was ‘really sure' that he missed her and ‘had not somebody else,' she said, perhaps she would understand. Yet on reflection, it was good of him ‘to write at all' and he ‘so worried and upset'.
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With the Civil War mounting, with reports of men being killed and injured and hardships in many homes and with a million pulls on his crowded time, Mick read what he called Kitty's ‘really unpleasant letter' two or three times with a heavy and sad heart. ‘And who's the somebody else?' he wrote in desperation.

And O'Connell St is broken down and I'm sorry that the poor old Gresham is gone and destroyed. But it is gone, and I suppose I can't restore it or can I or what? And what must I do? And now I'm called. So goodnight and love and everything. And if I'm in places where I can't even wire to you or where you don't hear at all of me or from me, I'll think of you and it will be all the harder because you won't know and harder still because you'll be wondering that you don't hear and all sorts of things ... And fondest love, no matter what.
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Matters discussed at government meetings concerned military decisions rather than political issues. In Kerry, with its long coastline and mountainous regions, anti-Treaty forces continued to train and muster military support; they took over towns and villages throughout the county and engaged in guerrilla activity. Michael Collins now decided to tackle the problem head-on; he would go back to soldiering and take command. At a government meeting on Wednesday morning 12 July, he ‘announced that he had arranged to take up duty as commander-in-chief of the army and would not be able to act in his ministerial capacity until further notice, and that Messrs. O'Higgins, McGrath and Fionán Lynch had also been appointed to military posts'. At this meeting W. T. Cosgrave, minister of local government, ‘was appointed to act as Chairman of the Provisional Government and as Minister of Finance in the absence of Mr Collins on military duties'.
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During the day (12 July) he wrote to Kitty: ‘I was worrying about you somehow. This is just a note, and you may not hear from me except by wire for a few days. You won't mind that – not really. I wonder when I shall see you again. May God be with you always. With all my love.' Before going to sleep that night he wrote her another note because he had got a letter from her which lacked understanding of all he had to do. The strain of work was enough: ‘I've read it with a heavy and a sad heart two or three times ... Why do you think so harshly of me? It does seem strange'.
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