A City in Civil War – Dublin 1921–1924: The Irish Civil War

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Like its predecessors, A City in Wartime: Dublin, 1914–18, and A City in Turmoil: Dublin, 1919–21, this book grew out of one written fifteen years ago called Lockout: Dublin, 1913. It picks up the story from the Truce that marked the end of the War of Independence in July 1921, extends through the Civil War and concludes with the abolition of three of Dublin’s great institutions: the City Council, the South Dublin Union and the Dublin Metropolitan Police. From being the cockpit of revolution, Dublin became the seat of reaction.

As with the previous books, I have tried to show how major public events affected ordinary citizens in their everyday lives. The revolutionary elite that set much of the agenda in previous years was deeply divided by the Treaty. As a result other forces, within the business community, among farmers and the labour movement, began to challenge the hegemony of militant nationalism. A new conservative consensus manifested itself in this desperately poor city, with the Catholic Church not alone filling many of the gaps in social services left by a government that was too busy fighting for survival to pay much attention to the wider needs of society but, in the process, determining the ethos for the city’s denizens.

Among the anti-Treaty ranks various public figures struck revolutionary poses, but few proposed practical policies that would either defend the Republic or advance the radical policies outlined in the Proclamation of the Irish Republic (1916) and the Democratic Programme of Dáil Éireann (1919). At the national level, the outbreak of civil war would see the dissipation of the ‘national struggle’ into a series of localised conflicts that would simultaneously centralise administrative power in the Free State and prepare the way for the return of parish-pump politics.

Many people assisted me during my research. I wish to make particular mention again of the Dublin Civic Archives, a wonderful resource for everyone interested in Dublin and its past. Mary Clarke, Máire Kennedy and their colleagues facilitated my requests with unfailing courtesy. I also wish to thank the staff of the National Archives and especially Catriona Crowe, who has helped revolutionise access to public records in Ireland and has been unstinting in her support, Diarmaid Ferriter for his encouragement and Katherine O’Donnell for bringing articles on women and militarism to my attention and above all for her unfailing kindness and patience when she had many other calls on her time.

Miriam Moffitt gave me great assistance and advice regarding Dublin loyalist claims for compensation, and her briefing ensured that I made the best use of my visit to the British National Archives at Kew. Jim Herlihy pointed me in the right direction on the DMP, Oriel House and much else.

Commandant Padraic Kennedy and his colleagues at the Bureau of Military History have always facilitated my requests for access to material at short notice.

Kieran Murphy and Tom MacSweeney facilitated access to the archives of the Society of St Vincent de Paul, which still battles poverty and deprivation in the city.

Brendan Byrne, Ed Penrose, Jack McGinley, Francis Devine, Theresa Moriarty and their colleagues in the Irish Labour History Society have helped with their comments and discussion of aspects of the history of the period.

My thanks also to Gerry Kavanagh, Keith Murphy and their colleagues at the National Library of Ireland and the National Photographic Archive, Noelle Dowling at the Dublin Diocesan Archives, Seamus Helferty and his colleagues at the UCD Archives. Eamon Devoy of the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union provided access to early records of the Irish Engineering, Shipbuilding and Foundry Trade Union.

I wish to thank Eamon O’Reilly, Pat Ward and Charlie Murphy at Dublin Port for facilitating access to its records, Brian Kirby for access to the Irish Capuchin Provincial Archives, Noel Gregory and Terry Fagan for information on the north inner city, Joe Mooney, John Dorney, Eve Morrison, Ann Matthews, Margaret Ó hÓgartaigh and Tom Morrissey SJ for their insights into the era, and Peter Rigney for access to the files of the Irish Railway Record Society and his unique knowledge of industrial relations in this area. A special word of mention for Shane Mac Thomáis, who gave to me so freely of his vast knowledge of life and death in Dublin, as he did to everyone. The city and its history are infinitely the poorer for his passing.

At Gill & Macmillan I wish to thank Deirdre Rennison Kunz for managing the manuscript through the production process, Jen Patton for picture research, Teresa Daly for spreading the word, Fergal Tobin (now retired) for inadvertently initiating the project, and his successor, Conor Nagle, for staying with it. Thanks also to Don O’Connor for another magnificent jacket, Séamas Ó Brógáin for the depth of knowledge he brings to the editing process, and Síofra Murphy for her meticulous typesetting.

Finally, my son Simon for his support and Geraldine Regan for her encouragement over many years. As in the past, I have tried to recruit my prejudices and predilections constructively to the task of writing this book.

Chapter 1

‘IT WOULD BE ONLY … RUSSIA WHERE A WOMAN WHO SERVED HER KING WOULD BE ALLOWED TO DROP TO SUCH AN EXISTENCE’

Dublin suffered from a severe shortage of good-quality hotels in the summer of 1921. Hardly had the Truce between the Irish and British forces been declared on 11 July than public attention was directed to the demands of peace. ‘One of the effects of the war and the rebellion of 1916 has been to put out of action eleven city hotels …’ the Irish Times commented. ‘All of these were catering for the public in 1913, the year of the last pre-war Horse Show.’ The Horse Show was to be resurrected in all its former glory at the Royal Dublin Society grounds in three weeks’ time, and crowds of visitors were expected not alone from all parts of Ireland but from Britain and the Continent.

The newspaper called for the ‘living-in’ quarters of workers in shops, warehouses and pubs to be converted into temporary hotel rooms. It urged the owners of ‘large, well furnished, houses to let them advantageously in view of the pleasant prospect that presents itself.’ The city’s leading draper, Edward Lee, was commended for his enterprise in establishing the Avenue Hotel in Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) to meet expected demand, for ‘a little enterprise and foresight now would mean much in attracting people to the city.’

The sudden concern of the Irish Times that the city should look its best was born of the ‘optimism prevalent everywhere … since the political truce began and hopes are high that Dublin will regain some of its former glory as the Irish capital.’ Only the previous day the President of the Irish Republic, Éamon de Valera, had arrived in London for talks with the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, to be met by rapturous crowds of London-Irish. For the vast majority of Irish people at home, relief at an end to the fighting had transformed itself into a belief that peace was imminent.

Still fixated on the Horse Show, the Irish Times leader mused that ‘three weeks hence the Royal Dublin Society will open its gates at Ballsbridge to all and sundry. The London Conference may not have come to an end by that time, but in all probability the issue will have ceased to be in doubt.’ It looked forward to the ‘large amount of money’ that would be spent in Dublin ‘to compensate our traders for some of the losses of the dismal period of Civil War.’¹ That the Irish Times could characterise the conflict as a civil war while many of the combatants saw it as a war of independence suggested that the gap was wider than the newspaper’s leader-writer realised.

Meanwhile, authorisation of a return to normal train schedules by the military on the day before the editorial was published, and the lifting of restrictions on the use of motor transport on the day of publication, reinforced the impression that the years of conflict were over. Work was nearing completion on the restoration of the southern half of O’Connell Street, destroyed during the 1916 Rising, and new wage rates were struck for the building trade to usher in an era of industrial peace. Craftsmen could expect to earn between 1s 10d and 2s 2d an hour, while labourers were entitled to at least three-quarters of the relevant craft rate. These were vast increases on the old pre-lockout rates of 1913, when a craft worker might earn 6s a day and a labourer 3s 4d.

The physical regeneration of the city extended to ‘some talk in Municipal circles regarding the erection of a new City Hall which would afford accommodation for all Corporation departments and staff, and also a large public hall for the use of citizens.’ This was a pipe dream, given the parlous state of the finances of Dublin Corporation (as Dublin City Council was called at the time). In fact a political settlement offered ‘the only hope of escape from the crushing burden of compensation for malicious injuries’ imposed as a collective punishment on the community for rebel activities.² It is unlikely that there would have been any discussion at all about building a new City Hall if the British army had not remained in occupation of the old one, along with adjoining Corporation offices in Castle Street.

Nor did the early release of a handful of leading Republicans, such as Alderman Michael Staines, a member of the Dáil for St Michan’s constituency, herald an end to the troubles.³ Staines was despatched immediately to Galway to act as an IRA liaison officer with British forces in the west. Another Dublin deputy, Éamonn Duggan, acted as chief liaison officer for Ireland and for the capital.⁴ Meanwhile almost 4,500 IRA suspects remained in internment camps, including more than a thousand Dubliners, among them the Corporation’s secretary, the veteran Fenian Fred Allan. There were another 1,600 convicted Republican prisoners. All were hostages to fortune and the peace process.

——

An ominous sign that peace was far from imminent was the fact that prisoners arrested immediately before the Truce were still being processed through the courts-martial system. The terms of the Truce had specifically left this issue for resolution at a later date.⁵ In Dublin eight men tried by military courts in the days after the Truce came into effect faced the death penalty for being arrested in possession of weapons or being in the company of armed men, while two more were charged with the attempted murder of a military police sergeant. Most of those arrested refused to recognise the jurisdiction of the court. These included James Doyle of 263 Clonliffe Road, arrested on 2 July with a revolver and fourteen rounds of ammunition, as well as three men arrested on 21 June in South Richmond Street by a patrol of Auxiliaries. John Aloysius Haslam was charged with carrying a loaded Smith and Wesson revolver, James Cluskey had a grenade, and Martin Haugh carried nothing and at first denied to the patrol that he knew his companions; but when he appeared with them before the military court he sealed his fate by refusing to recognise the proceedings.

On 2 July, John O’Connor was arrested in Great Britain Street (Parnell Street) with an unloaded revolver. While he declined to recognise the court or to defend himself, he did offer evidence in support of Michael Kerrigan, who had the misfortune to bump into him when a military patrol arrived on the scene. Kerrigan recognised the court, was carrying neither a weapon nor ammunition and had no known political affiliations. Nevertheless he too now faced the prospect of the gallows.

Two men, Robert Butler and John Richmond Church, were charged with the attempted murder of a sergeant in the Royal Garrison Artillery on the night of 18/19 April. The sergeant was not identified in court, because he was working under cover for the intelligence service. He had shot one of his attackers, whose fate was unknown. Butler and Church strenuously denied involvement in the attack or any interest in politics. They also produced witnesses stating that they were at home at the time of the attack; but because the sergeant was on active service they had no prospect of trial in a civilian court. The fact that both men recognised the court and the nature of their testimony suggests that the incident may not have been politically motivated.

Not that political crime was always of an elevated nature. Patrick Keogh and James Doyle of Malahide were charged with ‘depriving two private soldiers of their boots’ at Cloghran, Co. Dublin, on 29 May. The soldiers said they were enjoying a drink in a public house when a group of armed men held them up. They had no weapons—and, after the brief encounter, no boots either. Keogh refused to recognise the court but Doyle pleaded not guilty, perhaps feeling that a pair of boots was not worth dying for.

The jurisdiction of the court-martial system, which sentenced most of those appearing before it to internment or terms of imprisonment rather than death, was already under appeal to the House of Lords. A case had been taken on behalf of two Cork prisoners, Patrick Clifford and Michael O’Sullivan, sentenced to death in April for unlawful possession of arms, and the proceedings were keenly watched as they dragged on through July and into August 1921. The appeal proved unsuccessful. As Lord Shaw put it, ‘the King’s law is for the King’s lieges and other people cannot claim protection if they forswear allegiance.’ The Law Lords found that the field courts-martial were not courts at all but ‘committees’ established by the local officer commanding British forces to make sure martial law was enforced in areas under his control. As they were not courts, they did not fall under the jurisdiction of the law.

Like the IRA, the Law Lords were refusing to recognise the courts-martial, with the same potentially lethal results.

The balance of terror was not entirely one-sided. Hostages of war were held by Republicans, albeit far fewer in number. The release of loyalist prisoners, such as Lord Bandon, a leading Southern unionist, and P. S. Brady, a resident magistrate in Cork, was welcomed as part of the peace dividend but posed questions about the fate of others still missing, such as seventy-year-old Mary Lindsay. It later emerged that she had been executed for aiding the enemy, along with her chauffeur, James Clarke. Rebels cited lack of facilities for holding and trying prisoners as mitigation for summary justice.

Another sign that much unfinished business remained a hostage to fortune was the decision of the government to suspend the Irish Land Bill then wending its way through the House of Lords. Despite protests from some Irish peers, it was decided that there was little point in trying to resolve the land question until it was clear which regime would be responsible for administering any new scheme for redistributing farms and compensating landlords.⁶

——

Dáil Éireann’s Irish Bulletin was still in war mode in July, with its latest issue publishing ‘stirring stories’ of the heroism of Volunteers in the concluding hours of the conflict, and there were continuing reports of death and injury from Ulster. Unfortunately, what Ulster loyalists denounced as ‘the farcical Truce’ had come on the eve of the Twelfth, and there were twelve funerals in Belfast alone on 14 July for the latest casualties of sectarian violence in the Northern capital.⁷ Anyone who doubted the true state of affairs received a sharp reminder in a public appeal from the Irish Republican Dependants’ Fund for help in supporting the families of political prisoners, who included thirty-eight women. It pointed out that a ‘Truce is not Peace’: it ‘is only a suspension of hostilities, rights no single one of our wrongs, and provides no cure for the suffering of our country.’⁸ Even the optimistic Irish Times conceded that, should the talks fail, the loss of the Horse Show would prove ‘a minor calamity’ in the general scheme of things.⁹

Fortunately, some progress was made on the vexed issue of hostages well before then, when the British government decided at the beginning of August to release thirty-six of the thirty-seven Dáil deputies in custody. The exception was Commandant Seán Mac Eoin, deputy for Longford and Westmeath, who had been condemned to death by field court-martial on 14 June for the murder of an RIC district inspector who was killed in a skirmish at Ballinalee, Co. Longford, the previous February. The Republic’s leaders responded with a warning that a meeting of Dáil Éireann convened for 16 August would not take place if Mac Eoin could not attend, and the Truce itself would be put in jeopardy.

Within three days the British side climbed down and the field court-martial system was suspended. As Austen Chamberlain told the House of Commons, the decision to release a prisoner condemned to death ‘was based solely upon the existing situation in Ireland and the importance at the present time of avoiding conflict.’¹⁰

——

It was against this happier backdrop that the Dublin Horse Show finally went ahead. More than 55,000 people attended, far more than in the troubled years of 1919 and 1920 but still not as many as flocked to the pre-war events. Still, a new national assertiveness was in the air. The IRA threatened to stop proceedings if the Union Jack was flown or other manifestations of Empire allowed. Dublin’s ubiquitous Lord Mayor, Laurence O’Neill, appealed to de Valera, only to be advised ‘to be very careful not to give any offence to the Army.’ O’Neill, a dedicated peace-maker, negotiated an agreement whereby only the RDS’s own flag would be flown, no anthems would be played, and the traditional reception for the Lord Lieutenant would be cancelled.¹¹

Widespread dissatisfaction was also expressed at the majority of judges being English. The society defended itself by stating that outsiders were needed to ensure that there would be ‘no suggestion of favouritism’ in the decisions made, though the Irish Independent commented that ‘Irishmen are surely as good judges of horseflesh as any Englishman.’

The show at least provided an opportunity to display Irish manufactures, which included presentation boxes of Gallaher’s cigarettes provided by Clondalkin Paper Mills and matches made of cardboard. Other domestic products included Longford wool and dolls from Co. Mayo. No heavy industry or light engineering products were in evidence, but then the boycott of Belfast goods in retaliation for the pogroms remained part of the political landscape of the South.

The ubiquity of organised religion further tainted hopes for the future. Cardinal Michael Logue expressed the hope of many when he told a novitiate of the Fathers of Charity in Omeath, Co. Louth, that ‘the people, thank God, amidst their present sufferings, are good and fervent Catholics.’

——

The same month another gathering took place in the Mansion House in Dublin whose participants shared the cardinal’s confidence in the future. The Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress could look back on a period of enormous growth since the employers’ pyrrhic victory in the Dublin Lockout of 1913. In 1913 its affiliated unions had 100,000 members; now the figure stood at 300,000.¹² In fact the strength of the movement was in decline, as de facto union recognition, introduced during the Great War, was ending in many industries, and rising unemployment took its toll.

Whether the still formidable organisational strength of the movement could be converted into political power was the question that concerned delegates. Thousands of workers expelled from the shipyards and other work-places in Belfast remained unemployed, and the annual report of the ILP&TUC admitted that ‘we can see no light ahead’ on that front.

There had been other, more welcome manifestations of work-place militancy. A large number of ‘soviets’ had been established, with workers in pursuit of better pay and conditions occupying and operating concerns rather than mounting pickets in the traditional way. Knocklong Creamery in Co. Limerick and the Arigna Mines in Co. Roscommon were the best known. These creamery workers and miners seized the means of production and paid themselves from the proceeds. In both cases the men secured pay increases. Joe McGrath, formerly an accountant with Craig Gardner and finance officer of the ITGWU, said: ‘They had one complaint in Knocklong, and that was that the workers in the rest of Ireland were more or less asleep in regard to their efforts’; but Louie Bennett of the Irish Women Workers’ Union cautioned the ILP&TUC Executive that ‘if we want to secure control of our industries … we need an Advisory Committee.’ Efforts in Dublin to assert workers’ control over enterprises had foundered from a lack of expert advice.

An even bigger problem was securing employment for men who had lost their jobs because of union activity or, as a Dundalk delegate put it, ‘because of the fight they made for the Irish nation.’ For the moment, the leadership of the ILP&TUC was happy to welcome the manifestation of ‘soviets’; however, in acknowledging the successes the secretary, Thomas Johnson, echoed Bennett, saying, ‘It cannot be done immediately, and not in every strike or on every occasion that the employers or owners refuse to continue their functions as organisers of production.’¹³

It was the political rather than the economic crisis that dominated the debate, and this was led, in turn, by those with advanced nationalist views within the ILP&TUC leadership, men who had been closest to the Dáil Éireann government before the Truce. Rather than challenge the supremacy of Sinn Féin and the IRA, the Congress nominated members to the Irish White Cross, a body established by the President of the Irish Republic, Éamon de Valera, as an alternative source of relief to the British Red Cross Society. It gave priority to victims of British and loyalist outrages.

Earlier in the year, when elections were held under the Government of Ireland Act, which partitioned the country and established separate parliaments in Belfast and Dublin, the ILP&TUC declared that ‘the Labour Party should take no part … beyond calling upon all workers, North and South, to demonstrate their loyalty to Ireland and freedom by voting only for those candidates that stand for the ownership and government of Ireland by the people of Ireland.’ The movement even baulked at establishing a fund to help the families of trade unionists interned by the British, in case it would be interpreted as a split in the national ranks; instead the Executive referred members to the White Cross and Republican welfare bodies.

Trade unionists had paid a high price for their close association with the Republican movement in the South, especially in Dublin city and county. Besides the hundreds interned, the secretary of the Skerries Branch of the ITGWU, Tom Hand, had been killed by Auxiliaries, and four of the six Dublin IRA members hanged in Mountjoy Prison on 14 March 1921 were trade unionists, including Captain Paddy Moran, president of the Irish National Union of Grocers’ and Vintners’ Assistants.¹⁴

At least the Truce meant an end to the Dublin curfew, which had seen unions and other organisations meeting as early as 3 p.m. to make sure they could conclude their business and their members get home before the military deadline.¹⁵ Workers in many occupations refused to work late in case they were arrested for breaking the curfew. Shipping was particularly affected, and the turnaround times on vessels could double, depending on the state of the tide. The retail trade, railways, banks, entertainment and even street dealers selling fruit and vegetables had been crippled by the curfew.

Unfortunately, the return to normality brought a new threat, that of a sustained assault by employers on earnings and living standards. The post-war boom was over, and workers in Britain had already suffered savage pay cuts, with miners’ wages reduced from 80s a week to 44s. Even the traditionally militant and well-organised engineering trades had agreed wage cuts of 6s a week in the weeks before the ILP&TUC conference. Some unions promised ‘to consider a further reduction equalling … 10s or 12s in September.’ The question was how Irish workers would respond to the employers. Ironically, the disturbed state of the country had masked the seriousness of the threat. Economic activity may have been disrupted in many places, but the lack of law and order had made employers hesitate to impose cuts. Some labour leaders misread the signs badly. The president of Congress, Tom Foran, told delegates in August that ‘if the miners in England … had acted as the miners in Arigna had acted [i.e. with a soviet] we would be a long way towards the social revolution.’

The ever-moderate secretary of the ILP&TUC, Thomas Johnson, questioned the cost-of-living index used by the British government’s Labour Gazette. He said it failed to take account of Irish conditions. Retail prices had risen by 240 per cent during the First World War and had fallen back to 128 per cent by May 1921, according to the Gazette; but Congress had conducted its own survey, which showed that the price of basic household items in Ireland was still 175 per cent of what it was before 1914. Because Irish workers generally had lower wages, worked longer hours and spent a higher proportion of their income on necessities, the ILP&TUC proposed ‘the guiding policy of the [Irish] unions to be … to claim advances in the lower paid occupations,’ and to oppose any reduction in ‘real wages; that is to say, a reduction greater than the decline in the cost of living.’ To work more effectively in support of this strategy, Congress urged the formation of workers’ industrial councils or joint committees—at the local and the national level—in businesses and industries where they did not already exist.¹⁶

——

The battle was joined by the Irish Engineering, Shipwrights’ and Foundry Trade Union, which formed an alliance with branches of the British unions from which it had recently broken away. The ITGWU, which represented labourers in the sector, also joined the fray. The omens were not propitious. The boilermakers, who sought a pay increase of 23s 6d a week in August 1920, had been forced to settle at the end of January 1921 for a British Industrial Tribunal award of 1s 9d.¹⁷ Already, on 27 July, the eve of the ILP&TUC conference, the Engineering Employers’ Federation in Britain told the engineering unions in Ireland that it wanted a cut of 6s in pay, together with the elimination of a 12½ per cent bonus scheme agreed the previous year. Nor was the federation prepared to accept negotiation on the cuts at the company level, because of ‘the unsettled political situation’ in Ireland.

The main engineering firms in Dublin aligned themselves with the federation and made it clear that they regarded themselves as ‘an integral part of the United Kingdom.’ Employers in Cork and other centres followed suit. Reporting back on negotiations to the IES&FTU, the president of the union, Jack Redmond, said that even employers previously prepared to consider localised negotiations had committed themselves to the hard-line British strategy.

If the men expected support from Dáil Éireann’s Ministry of Labour, they were disappointed. It suggested that they accept the cuts in the hope that employers would engage in localised bargaining on future changes when the political crisis was resolved. The IES&FTU ordered an immediate strike. The British craft unions were in a dilemma, as their parent organisations had already accepted pay cuts in the rest of the United Kingdom; but some of their shop stewards pledged to support the strike, even if they had to do so unofficially.¹⁸ It was a defining moment for the new Irish craft union, which said it was rejecting the pay cuts because it did not accept that Ireland was ‘an integral part of the United Kingdom,’ nor was it bound by agreements reached there. Jack Redmond became secretary of the strike committee, and Thomas Foran, president of the ITGWU and of the ILP&TUC, endorsed the craft workers’ contention that ‘the negotiations for a settlement in England, without the workers of Dublin being consulted, were not going to be accepted in this country.’ He warned that employers in the Irish shipping, flour-milling and chemical industries were planning similar wage cuts in August, and said that Congress would help all its affiliates ‘to stand together in the coming attack.’¹⁹

Despite public displays of solidarity, tensions ran high behind the scenes between the IES&FTU and some of the British craft unions, which remained reluctant to support a dispute over pay cuts already conceded in Britain. The dockyards, where British unions remained strong, had to be excluded from the strike. Funds were tight, and many workers were hard pressed to stay out. The IES&FTU (which changed its name to the Irish Engineering and Industrial Union on 1 August) had to establish a £60 emergency float after complaints about its failure to anticipate the widespread hardship caused by the strike. In one highly embarrassing incident a deceased member could not be buried until his family could obtain access to the union’s death benefit.²⁰

Meanwhile the railway companies demanded that their unions accept a reduction in pay of 6s a week once military controls ended. The shipping companies sought a pay cut of 2s a week, having first mooted a cut of 4s. The main British engineering union, the Amalgamated Engineering Union, threatened to break ranks in the railways and accept the proposed reduction. Somehow, unity was maintained.²¹ Tensions eased only when control over pickets was ceded to a Joint Strike Committee, which gave the IEIU increased representation to reflect its growing strength.²²

In September 1921 the IEIU further consolidated its position by affiliating to the relatively new Dublin Workers’ Council rather than the traditional Dublin Trades Council. This was probably due in part to its need to keep in with the founders of the DWC, Thomas Foran and William O’Brien, leaders of the dominant faction within the ITGWU, but the DWC was also recognised by Dublin Corporation as the nominating body to the Arbitration Board that dealt with disputes involving skilled employees in the city.

The success of the DWC in overshadowing the old Trades Council reflected the closeness of many trade unionists to Sinn Féin, the largest party in the City Council. William O’Brien and the ‘Republican Labour’ councillors were in effect junior partners in the Sinn Féin-Labour coalition that controlled the Corporation. Several IEIU members had run as Sinn Féin candidates in the 1920 municipal election, although only one, the general secretary of the IEIU, P. J. (Patrick) McIntyre, had been elected.²³ A further indication of republican leanings came in early September when the union referred a demand for £2 3s 5d in respect of income tax from the British Collector of Taxes ‘to the responsible official of Dáil Éireann for advice.’²⁴

None of this did anything to resolve the engineering dispute, which now involved about a thousand craft workers.²⁵ McIntyre used his position as a city councillor to raise the engineering strike at a meeting of the Corporation on 3 October, and the Lord Mayor, Alderman Laurence O’Neill, called a conciliation conference with the employers but failed to break the deadlock.²⁶

——

There was more progress on the railways, where another conference under the auspices of the Lord Mayor reached a settlement.²⁷ Unfortunately, the terms caused serious damage to the internal cohesion of the IEIU. Many members, particularly in the Great Southern and Western Railway works at Inchicore, vowed to continue the struggle.²⁸ A mass meeting in the Banba Hall in Parnell Square on 18 September proved so acrimonious that the following night two founder-members of the union, Christy Farrelly, representing the iron-moulders, and John Rooney, representing the coach-builders, proposed the expulsion of the GSWR men, and one of the leading dissidents, Joe Quinn, was suspended from his position as treasurer of the union.²⁹ Eventually the executive instructed all dissidents to return to work on 26 September and withdrew strike pay from those still on the picket line, as well as unemployment benefit from those laid off as a result of the dispute.³⁰

Several of these men had worked closely together in a special intelligence unit Michael Collins established to ‘smash up’ British unions and establish the IEIU in order to control important branches of the economy, such as the power stations and railways, as well as liaising with other nationally minded unions, such as the ITGWU, in such areas as Dublin Port. However, the lack of any clear industrial strategy or long-term political outlook made it inevitable that they would fall foul of demarcation disputes, the curse of the craft unions, and unity in the IRA was splintered on the factory floor.³¹ As it happened, the IRA itself was soon to divide.

The sense of betrayal among the Inchicore men ran deep over acceptance of the wage cut. It took a provincial delegate to tell the Dubliners bluntly that ‘reductions at the present time were inevitable.’ If ‘the shop men go on strike they will be attempting the impossible, and in the process … ruin the future of the union.’³² Of course the same analysis could be applied in the engineering industry, but these firms were far more numerous and their economic circumstances more varied than those of the railway companies. Some were profitable enough to continue paying existing rates, or to implement less drastic cuts than the 6s a week demanded by the Employers’ Federation. That was why the basic demand of the engineering unions remained local bargaining.³³

Their strike finally ended on 22 October when agreement was reached at yet another conference in the Mansion House under the auspices of the Lord Mayor. The unions were forced to accept the cut of 6s a week and had to settle for guarantees that there would be no victimisation.³⁴ The failure to secure work-place bargaining was a serious setback, and the fact that they had fought much harder than their British counterparts only underlined the inevitability of the outcome. Pay cuts in other sectors followed.³⁵

On 16 September, the day after the railway settlement, the IEIU stopped paying benefits to members interned by the British authorities. Following the ILP&TUC precedent, it said it did not wish to be seen to discriminate in favour of its own members; but in truth the union could no longer afford to.³⁶ The general president, Jack Redmond, described the financial situation as ‘extremely critical.’³⁷ The following week he resigned, deciding to become self-employed rather than unemployed. He told the Executive that, as ‘he was about to enter into business on his own account … it would not be at all fitting for an employer to occupy that position.’³⁸ He was a significant loss, having held the line with the Inchicore men, maintained good relations with Dáil Éireann and the ITGWU, found suitable head office premises for the union and overseen its finances. He was typical of a generation of dedicated trade unionists whose instincts were separatist rather than socialist.

The union’s finances were now so bad that it could not afford to give him a testimonial. It even began holding bingo sessions in the head office and enquired about acquiring a bar licence from the Dáil Éireann Ministry of Home Affairs, as well as pursuing tenants who were in arrears with the rent. Although the latter included the Dublin Brigade of the IRA³⁹ and the James Connolly Labour College, it was a commercial tenant, Hampton Leedon Ltd, that was the worst offender. Meanwhile the bingo sessions were dropped at the end of the year. They raised £18 8s 9d but cost £24 4s 4d to run.⁴⁰

——

By far the greatest setback for the trade union movement was the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board on 1 October 1921 by the British government. While the spread of socialist ideas and trade union organisation had fuelled the campaign for improved pay rates and conditions in Co. Dublin and further afield, it was the establishment of the board in 1917 that provided structures that facilitated the growth and increased militancy of the rural workers who flocked to the ITGWU. Pay for agricultural labourers reached a peak of 34s a week for a 55-hour week in May 1921 and some 37s 6d for ploughmen.⁴¹ In some places, such as north Co. Dublin, men won 40s a week (the maximum rate for women was 19s 6d). The driving force behind de facto union recognition for rural workers was the same as for their urban cousins: the British government’s need to ensure industrial peace in wartime. But now the Hun was beaten, and ploughman and fitter alike would be left to their own devices just as the economic recession bit.

——

If Dublin’s trade unionists were in reactive mode in the Truce period, some former supporters of the late John Redmond were beginning to exert a significant influence on the course of events. Joseph Brennan came from a wealthy Co. Cork family that was able to send him to Clongowes Wood College and University College, Dublin, and then to the University of Cambridge after he complained of poor teaching and study facilities in Dublin. At Cambridge he studied mathematics and then classics, winning a first in Latin and Greek as well as various prizes before securing a place in 1911 in the first division of the British Civil Service.

Although he was now securely ensconced in London, Brennan continued to show an intense interest in Irish affairs. He spoke on a platform supporting the Redmondite candidate in his native Bandon in 1910, in defiance of the All for Ireland League, which was the dominant force in local nationalist politics.

When the opportunity came in 1912 of a posting to Dublin Castle, Brennan took it. He epitomised the younger generation of educated, public-spirited nationalists ready to put the Home Rule project into operation. At Cambridge, writing in the Christ’s College magazine under the pseudonym ‘Corcaigh’, he had advocated a federal structure for the British Empire. He holidayed in the west of Ireland, where he took strong objection to the activities of local proselytisers as a manifestation of ‘aggressive Protestantism’ and wrote to the Archbishop of Tuam suggesting that Connemara hotels be supplied with notices showing details of Masses in the locality.⁴²

Brennan’s outlook may have been conservative (he met his wife at a Clongowes Social Services Conference), but he enjoyed the theatre and had a wide circle of friends, who stood him in good stead in the coming decade of revolution. Meanwhile, when war came, two of his brothers served in the British army and a sister in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. The 1916 Rising did not dent his faith in the Home Rule project or in Redmond, and he stuck by the stricken leader until his death marked the political demise of the Irish Party in 1918. When Brennan’s brother Jerry died in France during the closing stages of the war, he could still take comfort in the thought that ‘he died for Ireland and doing his duty.’⁴³ Now a deputy clerk in Dublin Castle, Brennan did his best to maintain a moderate nationalist position in discussions with his superiors, who were increasingly intolerant of any dissent.

Whatever about his own views, Brennan’s social circle outside work was becoming radicalised by default. When Edward Shortt was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland he considered making Brennan his private secretary, until he was shown a captured document reporting that ‘so long as Joe is in the Castle everything will be all right.’⁴⁴ Brennan was indeed becoming increasingly sceptical of the efficacy of British policy. When he returned to Co. Cork to visit his father in late 1920 he saw at first hand the state of the country: family members had been threatened and assaulted for employing ‘Sinn Féiners’, the family’s hosiery factory had been burnt down and the family home at Kilbrogan House attacked. ‘You are no doubt aware that for some days past the town of Bandon, Co. Cork, has been subjected to outrage, arson and general terrorism by forces of the Crown,’ he told his friend Cornelius Gregg, the Chief Secretary’s private secretary in London. After itemising attacks on his family and their property in a telegram to Gregg, he demanded ‘proper redress’ and asked, ‘Is it not possible to have some steps taken to establish discipline among the troops or otherwise allay the apprehensions of good citizens?’ He was reproved by his superior in Dublin Castle, Sir John Taylor, for using the telegraph service to transmit the message, but Gregg told Brennan: ‘I am getting daily sicker and sicker of the news from Ireland.’

An inquiry into events at Bandon was promised by Sir Nevil Macready, the officer commanding British forces in Ireland, but it proved a whitewash. When Brennan resorted to having a question asked in the House of Commons to publicise what was happening in his home county it only added fuel to the flames of his indignation because of the combative response of the Chief Secretary, Sir Hamar Greenwood. MPS were told that the trade of James Brennan and Sons was built on the boycott and murder of a local loyalist businessman.⁴⁵

A few months later, when negotiations opened between the Irish and British delegations in London on the shape of the Treaty, Brennan’s moment had come. By October 1921 he had been put in charge of the Finance Division of the Chief Secretary’s Office. The link between Dáil Éireann’s Minister for Finance, Michael Collins, and the disaffected Brennan was made through another former Clongowes boy, Patrick McGilligan, then private secretary to Dáil Éireann’s Assistant Minister for Local Government, Kevin O’Higgins. O’Higgins was not part of the negotiating team but he was secretary of the Economic Relations Committee reviewing taxation issues. Like Collins, O’Higgins was deeply aware of the shortcomings of the Irish team on financial matters.

The first meeting between Collins and Brennan took place in McGilligan’s flat in Leeson Street. Brennan was extremely nervous, not so much at the prospect of meeting Collins as at being followed and having his job put in jeopardy. He agreed to help the enemy, salving his conscience by recalling that the facts and figures he was producing for Collins were available in official publications, provided one knew where to look.

The Irish team certainly needed all the help it could obtain, as the British negotiators on financial matters included senior Treasury officials as well as members of the British premier’s formidable Irish support team, such as Sir John Anderson, Andy Cope and Lionel Curtis, all of whom were Brennan’s superiors at Dublin Castle. Brennan therefore had the unenviable task of working all day on British government briefs, only to spend his nights producing rival papers for the other side. He produced eight papers in all, some of them highly technical, covering such issues as making reliable estimates of Irish revenue, determining Irish liability for Britain’s war debts and contributions to pensions for Irish ex-servicemen, as well as RIC and DMP members, not to mention the judiciary, and of course calculating compensation for landlords under the various Land Acts. Brennan did not sign any of these documents, as the results of his duplicity would have been fatal to his career, and possibly in other ways if the Treaty talks had broken down and hostilities resumed.

As it happened, the specialist subcommittee never reconvened, and financial issues were dealt with in direct talks between Lloyd George and Collins and the other principals. This made Brennan’s advice all the more vital. While partition and the oath of allegiance would feature far more prominently in negotiations and the subsequent debate on the Treaty, the economic gains would have a far greater bearing on the daily lives of citizens in the new Irish dominion. It was partly as a result of Brennan’s surreptitious contribution to the negotiations that the British conceded the right of the new Irish government to full fiscal autonomy, including the power to impose duties ‘for the encouragement of infant industries and for economic development,’ while the measures for fisheries protection and revenue collection contained the seeds of an Irish naval service.

From 16 January 1922 Brennan would find himself embarked, like thousands of other public servants, on a new career, serving the nascent Irish Free State. Collins appointed him Comptroller and Auditor-General on 1 April. Although he was not formally appointed Secretary of the Ministry of Finance until 1923, he was the directing force behind it, even before his nominal superior, William O’Brien, was moved sideways to chair the Revenue Commissioners. By the summer of 1922 Brennan was in London meeting Sir John Anderson and other former colleagues to continue negotiations on unfinished business.

If Brennan was one of the most significant members of the existing administrative hierarchy who facilitated the transfer of power, he was by no means the only one. The fact that colleagues unhappy with the change of regime could transfer to Northern Ireland or Britain eased the change process. The leading historian of the Irish public service, Martin Maguire, concludes that ‘the Provisional Government, by seizing control of the civil service, seized control of the entire existing machinery of the State. Thus, a revolutionary act was cloaked in a constitutional and parliamentary form.’ The only outward manifestation of the change was the decision to abandon Dublin Castle and make City Hall the temporary administrative headquarters of the Free State. There was even talk of using explosives to demolish the Castle and eradicate this hated symbol of British rule.⁴⁶ A similar debate was taking place simultaneously in Russia, where some members of the new communist regime wanted to demolish the Kremlin.

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The Truce that prevailed from July 1921 was something of a misnomer. As Emmet Dalton, who took over the role of chief liaison officer for the IRA with the British forces on 1 December, put it,

a most unprecedented outburst of brigandism swept the whole country. Armed hold-ups and motor thefts were a daily occurrence. Towards the latter end of December six motor thefts were reported to my office all upon the same day. The C.I. [Criminal Investigation] Department not then functioning, the police work was directed from my headquarters in the Gresham Hotel.⁴⁷

Alice Howard, Countess of Wicklow, was one of many members of the Anglo-Irish ascendancy in the greater Dublin area who feared the consequences of a general breakdown in law and order. Shortly after Dalton took over his new post she travelled into the city centre ‘to Mitchell’s to see about my fur jacket [which needed altering]. Then we went to the Distressed Ladies Sales at Shelbourne [Hotel] to meet V. [Viscount] Holmpatrick—met a good many friends—All in despair at the state of the country.’ She was further depressed by the weather, which was ‘Dark and Gloomy,’ and complained that she was frequently confined to the house, because ‘we cannot take the car out as they are being stopped and stolen every day.’⁴⁸

She might have taken some comfort from knowing that the South Dublin Brigade of the IRA, within whose operational area she now lived, was also concerned about unauthorised expropriations of transport. In a ‘special memorandum’ it told Volunteers that ‘seizures shall only be carried out when sanctioned by the Brigade O/C. RECEIPTS should be given for all goods commandeered for Army purposes.’ Concern had been prompted when a car had been commandeered from a local loyalist by a Southern Division officer en route to the Four Courts garrison.⁴⁹

Generally speaking, intimidation of Southern loyalists was far more prevalent outside Dublin, where they were more physically and socially isolated. Besides, the continued presence of large numbers of British troops in the capital inevitably curbed the worst excesses of lawless elements among Republicans and their opportunist fellow-travellers. Nevertheless, some Dublin unionists did find themselves very exposed, such as Annie Hole, who ran a boarding-house at 22 Lower Mount Street. This had been the scene of an IRA attack on suspected British intelligence officers on Bloody Sunday, 21 November 1920. One of her lodgers, a ‘Mr McMahon’ (otherwise Temporary Captain Henry Angliss), had been shot dead, and another, Temporary Captain Carl Peel, narrowly escaped assassination. ‘From that time onwards … her house was continually watched by rebels,’ her solicitor subsequently told the Irish Grants Committee, established to compensate loyalists who suffered losses because of their support for the British government. She had run her business as a landlady in Dublin for thirty years but now found it impossible to make ends meet, where previously she claimed to have enjoyed an income of £600 a year from her lodgers and was able to employ two servants. In June 1922 she finally sold the house, with all its contents, for £300 and moved to Britain, where she earned £35 a year as a part-time housekeeper. Her solicitor told the committee that

she has lost everything that she had in the World and all due to her loyalty to the British connection. When other people in Dublin would not take in British Officers she welcomed them and was a mother to them, and when the murders