1916 Read online

  Nevertheless, attitudes towards the rebels themselves were ambivalent. Certainly, the party’s leader, John Redmond, described them as ‘irreconcilable enemies’ who had made an ‘attempt to torpedo home rule and the Irish party’, but the dilemma faced by his party was acute.1 The rebels, for all the damage they had done, were nationalist Irishmen. According to the Longford Leader (owned by the party MP, J.P. Farrell), they were the constitutional movement’s ‘own flesh and blood’.2 Moreover, the Irish party remained proud of its Fenian antecedents and had for decades praised a long succession of rebels and martyrs to the cause. John Fitzgibbon MP (who had himself, like Farrell, been an imprisoned agitator) could well understand the ‘mental agonies’ of those arrested after the Rising: ‘These men can be consoled by the fact that they had in the past history of Ireland many comrades who suffered the same treatment, so that it is not to be wondered at.’3

  These varied attitudes were reflected in the differing tone of public statements made by the party’s two most prominent figures, Redmond and his chief parliamentary colleague, John Dillon. Their statements and speeches were widely publicised at the time and the differences between the two men have been well analysed by subsequent historians.4 However, the attitudes of their followers in Ireland remain relatively unstudied. It is simply not known how far the bulk of the Irish party endorsed Redmond’s outright condemnation of the rebels, Dillon’s seething defiance of British stupidity and brutality, or both. Study at the local level may also shed some light on the more fundamental issue of just how much Irish party activists identified with the rebels and, ultimately, of how much they were tuned to the same militant, nationalist, anglophobe wavelength as the movement which would very soon displace them, Sinn Féin.

  As in my previous work on pre-Rising nationalist public opinion, this study is based primarily on an analysis of weekly, provincial newspapers published in five politically-linked counties in the Irish midlands and east Connacht – Leitrim, Longford, Roscommon, Sligo and Westmeath.5 The political affiliations of these papers were clearly flagged – twelve were nationalist, two independent and two unionist.6 At the time of the Rising, eight of the nationalist papers were consistent supporters of the Irish party and four were opponents. Competition between these local titles remained intense, which meant that while owners and editors still saw themselves as the vanguard of opinion, they could never move so far ahead of their readers as to risk losing circulation, printing contracts and advertisers. The provincial press remained just as much the mirror as the leader of local opinion.

  Admittedly, the provincial press was past its pre-war prime. Local newspapers were severely constrained in size by the wartime scarcity of newsprint. Their reporting after the Rising was curtailed by military censorship, albeit a censorship that was distinctly patchy and inconsistent in its effect. They also faced intensifying competition from the daily Irish Independent, which had sustained an increase in circulation of some 60 per cent, to well over 90,000 copies, since the outbreak of war. Nevertheless, they remained the most important forum for the dissemination of the views of the intertwined commercial, professional and political elites of ‘small town’ Ireland and, in particular, for the expression of local Irish party opinion.

  II

  The immediate responses of the provincial press to the Easter Rising were formed in a climate of profound shock and confusion. Information was sparse and rumours were abundant. Train and postal services to Dublin were disconnected for over a week and nearly all of the Dublin press was temporarily out of action. However, certain elements of hard news did feature consistently across the provincial press as it went to print ahead of the first weekend of the Rising. There had been an armed ‘Sinn Féin’ rebellion in Dublin in which numerous prominent buildings had been occupied, but which had been contained by substantial troop reinforcements. There had been heavy shooting, looting and many deaths. Both the Irish Citizen Army and Irish Volunteers had taken part. There had not been a general uprising across Ireland and most other major towns and cities in Ireland were ‘quiet’. There had been German involvement – the arrest of Sir Roger Casement, having landed in Ireland from a ‘German ship’, was reported across the local press.

  The local nationalist press was swift to condemn. This applied to both pro- and anti-party papers. In Roscommon town, the anti-party Roscommon Journal pronounced the Rising to be ‘an outrage and a crime against the teachings of the Church’. In Boyle, the pro-party Western Nationalist wrote of ‘revolution, desolation and horror’ stating that untold calamity would bring infamy on the instigators and drive the country back a generation. The Sligo Nationalist declared that whoever hoped for intervention by a foreign despot was not a patriotic Irishman. ‘He must be marked as an enemy of his country, and the brand of criminality will sear his soul.’ For the Westmeath Examiner , owned by Redmond’s friend, John Hayden MP, it was a dark and bitter chapter in Irish history, a well-organised plan originating in Berlin, and not in any circumstances justified. No doubt, it said, some of those in Dublin were not badly motivated, ‘but the fool is often as bad as the criminal’.7

  A week later, condemnations of the blind folly of the rebels, their manipulation by Germany and the criminality of the Rising still pervaded the local press. For the Athlone-based Westmeath Independent , the Rising was a crime against the government of the country and against Ireland, causing ‘the bitterest resentment against the mad fanaticism’ which had occasioned it. ‘Poor dreamers’ had been deluded by German intrigue.8 News coverage was now far more extensive, with eyewitness reports from local people trapped in Dublin, detailed reports of events across Ireland and, right across the press, news of martial law and the first arrests and executions.

  What also appeared in Irish party papers, though, was a distinctive, party-political narrative. The Rising had endangered home rule – by alienating British opinion it placed the post-war implementation of home rule in jeopardy. The Westmeath Independent had stated, as early as 29 April, that the blackest element of the crisis would be that the ‘ridiculously designated’ rebellion would be seen in England as Irish ingratitude towards English democracy.9 By 6 May several others took up the theme. To avoid the poisoning of Anglo-Irish relations, to preserve home rule, it was vital that Irishmen rallied to their natural political leaders, the Irish party, and isolated the minority. Moreover, the blow to home rule had been deliberate, struck by rebels who were long-standing enemies of the Irish party. Party papers now pointed the finger at ‘men here and there throughout Ireland’ who did not rebel in Dublin, but who gave countenance and support to the Rising’s organisers. The Sligo Nationalist pledged to ‘meet them and fight them foot by foot on this issue’. The Westmeath Examiner and Roscommon Messenger (both owned by John Hayden) attacked those who had always been opposed to the chosen leaders of the Irish people. ‘We have such all around us, though they are not numerous … They pose as idealists and a quite superior sort of Irishman.’ Before God they were equally responsible for the Rising with those who actually rebelled.10

  This political theme was entirely in accord with the personal manifesto issued by the party’s leader on 3 May. Although he was in no doubt that ‘Germany plotted it, organised and paid for it’, Redmond also denounced his Irish political enemies, the ‘insane movement’ which risked dashing the cup of liberty from Ireland’s lips. For years, the Irish party had been ‘thwarted and opposed by the same section’. Their rebellion ‘was not half as much treason to the cause of the Allies as treason to the cause of home rule’.11 Redmond amplified these remarks just over a week later, in his cable addressing American opinion via the New York paper, Ireland. It was not so much hatred of England as hatred of home rule and the Irish party that was at the bottom of the movement, which was run by ‘Sinn Féin cranks’, German agents and remnants of Larkinite discontent. ‘It was even more an attempt to hit us than to hit England … I beg our people in America not to be unduly disturbed by this futile and miserable attempt to destroy Ireland.
It has failed – definitely, finally failed.’12

  That a significant element of the Irish party, and above all its leader, should immediately go for the political jugular of its nationalist opponents is not surprising. ‘Constitutional’ and ‘advanced’ nationalists had been in bitter opposition to each other since the autumn of 1914 and had attacked each other with all the vigour and invective of nationalist splits since the days of Parnell. The primary cause of this division was the war, and in particular the Irish party’s open encouragement of wartime recruiting into the British army to serve in ‘the firing line’. As J.J. Lee has summarised, Ireland’s participation in the war was intended to secure the operation of home rule, woo British opinion, unite nationalists and unionists in shared wartime comradeship and secure better arms and training for the Volunteers. By contrast, Irish ‘neutrality’ in the war would play into the hands of unionists, make partition certain, and forfeit British support.13 The party’s commitment to support England and her allies in the war was essential to avoid outraging British opinion in the midst of what was already seen as the most terrible war in history. Home rule may have been on the statute book, but both the date of its implementation and the degree of Ulster’s exclusion were unknown. Both remained within England’s gift. The Ros-common MP John Hayden, speaking in May 1916, summarised the choice faced by the party in 1914:

  Suppose, at such a moment, Mr Redmond had said ‘Ireland will hold aloof from the war unless you put the Home Rule Act into operation and defy the Ulster Volunteers,’ what would have happened? Not only would the Home Rule Act not be in force but it would not now be on the statute book. It would have been dead for their generation anyhow.14

  According to the Longford MP J.P. Farrell, speaking in November 1916, ‘he [Redmond] had to decide in a moment whether to antagonise the British people in a fashion that could never be forgiven or forgotten, or endeavour to retain their friendship and goodwill.’ Farrell continued: ‘We can always revert to the policy that will revive the rule of Cromwell. Any fool can do that.’15

  As for the minority of nationalists in 1914 who could not accept a wartime alliance with ‘England’, they were, indeed, dismissed by the Irish party as fools, cranks and factionists, as mischief-makers, utterly inexperienced, impractical intellectuals, socialists or people of no standing. Above all, they were pilloried as ‘Sinn Féiners’. This was partly because several of their leaders had in recent years been members of Arthur Griffith’s Sinn Féin party. By 1914, as Matthew Kelly has written, Griffith’s incessant journalism had succeeded in establishing ‘an almost exclusive association between Sinn Féin and advanced nationalism’.16 However, the Irish party also sought to link all of its nationalist opponents to a small movement that many believed to be a cranky failure. Moreover, the ‘Sinn Féiners’ were now branded, again and again, as ‘pro-German’ or, as the propaganda sheet the National Volunteer described them, ‘the Sinn Féin–Larkinite combination who have suddenly become convinced of the ineffable beauties of German militarism’.17 The headlines for the first article in the first edition of the National Volunteer, in October 1914, summed up the Irish party line:

  In November, the paper published The Sinn Féin Voght , parodying the separatist, nationalist verse of the Shan Van Vocht :

  For much of 1915, the party believed that it had won its struggle with its opponents. In July, speaking to the New York World, Redmond dismissed them as ‘what is called the Sinn Féin movement … simply a temporary cohesion of isolated cranks in various parts of the country’, which did not ‘count for a row of pins so far as I am concerned’.20 By the end of the year, however, it was clear to many press and police observers that constitutional nationalism was weakening, relative to what almost all called its ‘Sinn Féiner’ opponents. The response of the Irish party was to try to boost its flagging organisation on the ground, and to increase the volume of its verbal attacks. In late 1915 and early 1916, organisers such as John Keaveny, a Connacht director of the Hibernians, toured counties such as Leitrim, Roscommon and Sligo trying to revive UIL branches. To the Breedogue, Roscommon UIL, Keaveny denounced ‘the Sinn Féin element … malcontents, carpers, with penny-pistol ideas for emancipating Ireland’. Addressing the Kilmayral UIL branch, he spoke of ‘hot-headed and irresponsible boys’, who would ‘play into the hands of Carsonites after the war and nothing will get up English backs quicker than all the sneering’. It was Sinn Féiners who were doing this and they were ‘openly pro-German’. To the Frenchpark UIL, again in Roscommon, Keaveny declaimed that there was never a more meaningless party than ‘the Sinn Féin movement’ but he then slightly spoiled the effect by stating that its object was to overthrow the Irish party.21 At the beginning of April 1916, J.P Farrell told the Edge-worthstown, Longford UIL, that the Sinn Féiners were malcontents who had never done any constructive work for Ireland. To cheers, he declared his belief that there was Dublin Castle or German money behind them. On 15 April, the Sligo Champion carried a signed article, ‘Irishmen, Beware of Sinn Féinism’, by the local Protestant home ruler R.G. Bradshaw. Irishmen would lose all if German militarism gained the ascendant. Those who claimed that Ireland was sacred to the Germans were ‘disciples of Judas’ and ‘traitors’. ‘Sinn Féinism’, he concluded, ‘is pro-Germanism’ and its followers ‘are marked out to be shunned’.22

  This strain of invective was, therefore, sustained by the party right up to the eve of the Rising. When that uprising materialised out of the blue, it was immediately labelled as both ‘Sinn Féin’ and ‘pro-German’, using language honed over the previous eighteen months. That the rebels were Sinn Féiners was, for party speakers, axiomatic. That they were pro-German was corroborated by the reference to ‘gallant allies in Europe’ in the Proclamation of the Republic and by events on the Kerry coast – the arrest of Casement and the sinking of the Aud. The rebels struck at the heart of the party’s ‘pro-England’ wartime political strategy. As John Dillon put it in his famous parliamentary speech of 11 May:

  I say that these men, misguided as they were, have been our bitterest enemies. They have held us up to public odium as traitors to our country because we have supported you at this moment and have stood by you in this great war.23

  III

  There was, however, another party attitude towards the Sinn Féiners, which was apparent in the months before the Rising. For all that they were political opponents, individual Sinn Féiners did receive sympathy and support from many constitutional nationalists if their actions led to their being prosecuted by the authorities. As an example of this, in the second half of 1915 a succession of resolutions was put up at council meetings, protesting against the arrest and deportation to Britain of Irish Volunteer organisers. Though many of these resolutions were blocked or amended by Irish party stalwarts as Sinn Féin-inspired, they often produced heated debate and expressions of sympathy from individuals who were still clearly constitutional nationalists. In a few cases, including Sligo corporation, the Long-ford guardians and the Roscommon town commission, the resolutions passed. The pro-party newspaper the Western Nationalist (set up in Boyle as recently as 1908 to counter Jasper Tully’s vitriolic, anti-party Roscommon Herald ) criticised what it saw as injustice. Under the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA), military officers could order people out of the country if they were thought to be hindering recruiting. It was unjust that any man could be deported simply because he preached politics with which the military disagreed.24

  More widespread, within the five counties studied here, was sympathy for local men who suffered at the hands of the authorities. In Westmeath, at the beginning of September 1915, a young man named Edward Moraghan was at Mullingar railway station when he got into a row with a group of soldiers. He called them cowards to enlist, said that England should fight her own battles and was promptly arrested. He was subsequently sentenced by magistrates to three months’ hard labour. The sentence triggered considerable criticism. In particular, the treatment of a young man seen as hot-tempered but respe
ctable (with two brothers away in the army and the only remaining support for his farmer father) was contrasted with the impunity with which English strikers and ‘conscriptionist’ critics of the war were allowed to operate. Patrick McKenna, the UIL national director for south Westmeath and a protégé of John Hayden, briefly resigned in protest from Westmeath County Council until the lord lieutenant remitted Moraghan’s sentence.25

  More seriously, two local Volunteer leaders were arrested in Co. Sligo in November. In Tobercurry, Patrick Dyar was charged with speaking against recruiting and possessing anti-recruiting documents. Dyar, a book-keeper, had persuaded thirty two local men to sign a document pledging that they would resist conscription even at the cost of their lives. He received one month in prison. On his release in December he was greeted with the traditional torch-light procession and band parade. As the Western Nationalist put it, ‘poor hot-headed Irishmen are safer prey’ than English labour leaders.26 Rather more dramatic was the case of Alex McCabe, one of Dyar’s few fellow Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) men in Co. Sligo. McCabe was charged with possessing explosives on railway premises. When arrested, he was in possession of forty two gelignite cartridges, twenty detonators, five coils of fuse wire, an automatic pistol and a list of arms purchases.27 This was, as the local press reported it, a ‘sensation’, and McCabe was taken to Dublin, under heavy escort, where he was eventually tried in February 1916. McCabe’s case epitomised the confusion of local opinion about Sinn Féiners. As an anti-war activist and Volunteer, he had been an irksome rival to the Irish party – in July 1915 he had been suspended from his teaching post by the local parish priest, Rev. O’Grady of Keash, because of his ‘objectionable political activity’.28 When he became a prisoner, however, he became a nationalist victim in British hands. A ‘McCabe Indemnity Fund’ was set up and the Sligo Champion printed a brief appeal for contributions.29 The Sligo MP John O’Dowd asked parliamentary questions about his constituent’s conditions of imprisonment and terms of trial; J.P. Farrell even visited him in prison, on the pretext that he was the nephew of one of his own Longford constituents.30 Such gestures of support, however, were as nothing to that of the Dublin jury, which accepted McCabe’s defence that the explosives were for fishing, ignored the judge’s direction and after twenty minutes’ deliberation acquitted him.31