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Irish Republican Army (1922-1969)

Irish Republican Army (1922-1969)

:This article deals with the Irish republican organisation opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, styling itself "Irish Republican Army", as it existed from the time of the Treaty in 1921 to the split between the Official Irish Republican Army and the Provisional Irish Republican Army in 1969. See List of IRAs for a full list of organisations using the name. Following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6 December 1921, the Irish Republican Army in the 26 counties that were to become the Irish Free State split between supporters and opponents of the Treaty. The 'Anti-Treatyites', sometimes referred to as the Irregulars, continued to use the name Irish Republican Army (IRA) or in Irish Óglaigh na hÉireann (lit. 'Irish Volunteers'), as did the organisation in Northern Ireland which generally supported the pro-Treaty side. Óglaigh na hÉireann was also adopted as the name of the pro-Treaty National Army and remains the official legal title of the Irish Defence Forces. Most Irish people now consider the latter the only body entitled to use that name.

The IRA split

The signature of the Anglo-Irish Treaty by the Irish delegation in London caused an angry reaction among the more radical elements in Sinn Féin and in the IRA. Dáil Éireann ratified the Treaty by 64 votes to 57 after a lengthy and acrimonious debate, following which President Éamon de Valera resigned. Sinn Féin split between pro-Treaty and anti-Treaty factions, and the Army followed suit. The majority of headquarters staff, many of whom were close to Michael Collins, supported the Treaty, but opinion among Volunteers was divided. By and large, IRA units in Munster, part of Clare and most of Connacht were opposed to the Treaty, while those in favour predominated in the Midlands, Leinster and what was to become Northern Ireland. The pro-treaty majority of the Volunteers formed the nucleus of the new National Army. In March 1922 anti-Treaty officers called an army convention, attended by their supporters, which reaffirmed their opposition to the Treaty. Meanwhile the IRA in Northern Ireland maintained their links with Michael Collins. In May 1922 they launched a renewed military offensive, in which they were aided covertly by the National Army.

The Civil War

:Main article: Irish Civil War Irish Civil War Public support for the Treaty settlement and the new Irish Free State was reflected in the victory of the pro-Treaty side in general elections in 1922 and 1923. In April 1922, anti-Treaty forces controversially seized a number of public buildings in Dublin, most notably the Four Courts. The Four Courts garrison kidnapped a pro-Treaty general, JJ O'Connell. This provocation co-incided with the assassination in London of Sir Henry Wilson by an IRA unit, which led to an increase in British pressure for decisive action against the dissidents. The government decided to act, and the Civil War thus started with pro-Treaty forces bombarding the Four Courts, whose garrison surrendered after a few days. The Republicans soon lost most of the territory they initially controlled. The National Army was quickly expanded, recruiting Irish National Volunteer ex-servicemen from the British Army amongst others. Additionally, the British met its requests for armoured cars, artillery, aeroplanes and, crucially, boats that allowed it to capture centres such as Cork city without passing through the Republican-controlled hinterland. Furthermore, without the public support that had existed during the War of Independence, the Irregulars found that they could not sustain a guerrilla war such as that fought against Britain. However, the conduct of the Civil War resulted in long-lasting bitterness on both sides. In September special emergency legislation came into effect under which military tribunals were empowered to order executions. The head of the anti-Treaty forces, Liam Lynch, responded with an announcement that Free State TDs and senators who had voted for the legislation would be targeted. A number of members of the Oireachtas were killed and the property of parliamentarians burnt. The Government, for its part, executed 77 Anti-Treaty prisoners. Government forces also carried out a number of atrocities against captured Irregulars. Eventually, on May 24 1923 the Irregulars received an order, issued by Frank Aiken, their chief-of-staff, to "dump arms". Eamon de Valera supported this in his speech "Legion of the Rearguard": Frank Aiken in 1926.]] In de Valera's words, "Further sacrifice of life would now be vain and continuance of the struggle in arms unwise in the national interest and prejudical to the future of our cause. Military victory must be allowed to rest for the moment with those who have destroyed the Republic. Other means must be sought to safeguard the nation's right." By this time many of the Irregulars were already prisoners of the Free State government led by W.T. Cosgrave; many more were arrested after they dumped arms and returned to civilian life. The prisoners were released over the following period, with Eamon De Valera last to leave Kilmainham Gaol in 1924. In 1926, after failing to persuade Sinn Féin to participate in the political institutions of the Free State, de Valera formed a new political party, called Fianna Fáil, and many Sinn Féin and IRA members left to support him. De Valera would in 1932 become President of the Executive Council, at the head of the first Fianna Fáil government.

Ideology of the post-Civil War IRA

The IRA considered itself to be upholding the Republic that was declared in the 1916 Proclamation, and held that the governments of the Irish Free State were illegitimate. It maintained that it remained the army of that Republic, in direct continuity with the IRA of the War of Independence period. It should be noted that there were several competing organisations on the radical republican side of Irish politics during this period. In addition to the IRA, these including the hardline elements of anti-Treaty Sinn Féin who had not followed de Valera into constitutional politics, and the rump of the anti-Treaty members of the Second Dáil, still proclaiming themselves the only legitimate Irish parliament. For most of this period, the IRA's relations with Sinn Féin were poor (IRA members were even forbidden to join the party), despite the reconciliation attempt represented by the 1929 Comhairle na Poblachta. In December 1938, a reconciliation finally took place between the IRA and the Second Dáil. By the late 1930s at the latest, most Irish people disagreed with the residual Irish Republican Army's claims that it remained the legitimate 'army of the Republic'.

The IRA from 1926 to 1936: flirtations with socialism

From 1926 to 1936, the remainder of the IRA was led by Moss (Maurice) Twomey. The organisation was increasingly influenced by left-wing ideas, although the leadership's varying support for these seems to have owed more to pragmatism than to conviction. The IRA intervened in a number of strikes during this period, and IRA members campaigned against the payment of land annuities (in respect of the buying-out of landlords by the former British administration), with Peadar O'Donnell establishing the Anti-Tribute League in 1928. Many Communist Party of Ireland members were also members of the IRA at this time. Political initiatives such as Saor Éire in 1931 and the Republican Congress in 1933-1934 were promoted by left-wing IRA members such as George Gilmore, Peadar O'Donnell and Frank Ryan. IRA members also helped establish the "Friends of Soviet Russia", from which they later expelled Communist Party members when relations between the two organisations deteriorated. This burst of what has sometimes been termed "social republicanism" expired in the mid-1930s. In 1931 Saor Éire had quickly collapsed due to the combination of fierce reaction from the Catholic Church, deeply hostile to anything that appeared communist, and repressive legislation immediately introduced by the government. The Republican Congress, in turn, was ultimately a failure, partly because Twomey and other conservative elements in the IRA leadership opposed it and forced its supporters to leave the organisation. From the debacle of the Republican Congress until it took a leftward turn again in the 1960s, the IRA would be inspired primarily by a conservative, strictly nationalist political outlook.

Legalisation and renewed repression: the 1930s and 1940s

In 1932 Fianna Fáil under de Valera formed its first government in the Irish Free State, and republican prisoners were released and the organisation unbanned. Confrontations between the IRA and the Blueshirts were a feature of political life in the early 1930s, with the former breaking up political meetings of Cumann na nGaedhael under the slogan "no free speech for traitors" and accusing the latter of being fascists. In 1936, the IRA was banned once again, as were the Blueshirts. Moss Twomey was imprisoned, and was succeeded as chief of staff by Seán MacBride. De Valera's government increasingly followed a strict anti-IRA policy. In 1938, Seán Russell became chief of staff and set about preparations for a bombing campaign against Britain. In January 1939, the IRA Army Council declared war against Britain, and the Sabotage Campaign began a few days later.

The IRA during World War II

During the Second World War, the IRA leadership hoped for support from Germany to strike against Britain during the war, and Seán Russell travelled to Germany in 1940 to canvass for arms. He became ill and died on board a German U-boat which was bringing him back to Ireland in August that year. Gunther Schuetz, a member of the Abwehr parachuted into Ireland and was almost immediately arrested. On February 28 1942 he escaped. The IRA intended to send him back to Germany with a request for weapons, ammunition, explosives, radio equipment and money. The IRA Army Executive met on April 20 and sanctioned the requests. They resolved “to give military information to powers at war with England”. An IRA courier was arrested on the Dublin-Belfast train with documentation of the decisions taken, and details of the German contact. This led to the arrest of Schuetz, on April 30, only hours before he was due to set sail. The boat was seized and the crew arrested. In 1942, the IRA launched an armed campaign in Northern Ireland. It has also been claimed that during the war period IRA members may have attempted to aid the German aerial bombing of targets in Northern Ireland . The IRA was severely damaged by the measures taken against it by the governments on both sides of the border during the Second World War. IRA members were interned both north and south of the border, and a number of IRA men, including chief of staff between 1942 and 1944 Charlie Kerins, were executed for criminal offences by the Irish government during the war. Kerins had been tried and found guilty of the murder of a Garda (police man).

The Border Campaign

- Main article: Border Campaign (IRA) Under the leadership of Tony Magan from 1948 on, the IRA rebuilt its organisation. In the 1950s it started planning for a renewed armed campaign, and in 1956 recent recruit Seán Cronin, who had considerable military experience, drew up a plan codenamed Operation Harvest. The border campaign, as it became known, involved various military columns carrying out a range of military operations from direct attacks on security installations to disruptive actions against infrastructure. Internment without trial, introduced first in Northern Ireland and then in the Republic of Ireland, curtailed IRA operations and ultimately broke morale. Eighteen people in total were killed during the campaign, of whom seven were members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and eight were members of the IRA itself. Despite the boost to republican morale given by the massive turnout for the funeral in Limerick of IRA member Seán South, the campaign was on the whole a failure, and did not receive significant support from the populace on either side of the border. It petered out in the late 1950s, and was officially ended in February 1962.

The 1960s: Marxist tendency and the 1969 split

In the 1960s the IRA once more came under the influence of left-wing thinkers, especially those such as Desmond Greaves active in the Connolly Association in London. This move to a class-based political outlook and the consequent rejection of any stance that could be seen as sectarian — including the use of IRA arms to defend the beleaguered Catholic communities of Belfast in 1969 — was to be one of the factors in the 1969 split between the official and provisional wings of the republican movement, with the latter subscribing to a traditional republican analysis of the situation while the former embraced Marxism.

Footnotes

# The term The Irregulars was first coined by Piaras Beaslaí # IRA offered to decommission in 1923 by Ed Maloney, Sunday Tribune. [http://www.nuzhound.com/articles/moloney2000/mal31-12.htm] # Óglaigh na hÉireann is the legal name of the Irish Defence Force - Section 3, Defence Forces (Temporary Provisions) Act 1923. also Section 16, Defence Act 1954. # Legion of the Rearguard Proinsias MacAonghusa Quotations from Eamon de Valera isbn 083426848 page 36; Aiken's order page 92 # J Bower Bell – The Secret Army, pages 262-264; also Enno Stephan Spies in Ireland, pages 226, 245 and 275

Sources

- C Desmond Greaves Liam Mellowes and the Irish Revolution (Lawrence and Wishart, 1989)
- Dorothy Macardle, The Irish Republic (Corgi, 1968)
- Mike Millotte, Communism in Modern Ireland: The Pursuit of the Workers' Republic since 1916 (Pluto, 1984) ISBN 074530317X
- Ulick O'Connor, The Troubles (Mandarin, 1989)
- Enno Stephan, Spies in Ireland (FourSquare, 1963) a translation of Gehelmauftrag Irland 1961 by Gerhard Salaaing Verlag

Official Irish Republican Army

The term Official Irish Republican Army or Official IRA refers to one of the two organisations - the other being the Provisional Irish Republican Army - that emerged from the split in the then Irish Republican Army in 1969-70. Both organisations continued to refer to themselves as the Irish Republican Army and rejected the political legitimacy of the other. The Official IRA had an essentially Marxist approach. Initially engaged in military action against the British Army, it declared an end to offensive action in 1973 but since then engaged in feuds with both the Provisional IRA and the Irish National Liberation Army, a radical splinter group formed in 1974. In later years it was accused of involvement in organised crime, and while it has not carried out any military actions for many years it appears that it remains in existence. The Official IRA was associated with Official Sinn Féin, later renamed Sinn Féin the Workers Party and subsequently The Workers Party, and now known as The Workers Party of Ireland.

The split in the Republican movement, 1969 - 1970

The split in the Irish Republican Army, soon followed by a parallel split in Sinn Féin, was the result of the dissatisfaction of more traditional and militant republicans at the political direction taken by the leadership. Particular objects of their discontent were the IRA's unwillingness to engage in armed action against the British state or military defence of Catholic areas in Northern Ireland, and Sinn Féin's ending of its policy of abstentionism in Ireland. This issue is a key one in republican ideology, as traditional republicans regarded the Irish state as illegitimate and maintained that their loyalty was due only to the Irish Republic declared in 1916 and in their view, represented by the IRA Army Council. During the 1960s, the republican movement under the leadership of Cathal Goulding had been heavily influenced by popular front ideology and drew close to Communist thinking. A key intermediary body was the Communist Party of Great Britain's organisation for Irish exiles, the Connolly Association. The Marxist analysis was that the conflict in Northern Ireland was a "bourgeois nationalist" one between the Protestant and Catholic working classes, fomented and continued by the ruling class. Its effect was to depress wages, since worker could be set against worker. They concluded that the military campaign was counter-productive, that it delayed the day when the workers would unite to declare a 32-county Socialist Republic. (25 years later, Provisional Sinn Féin came to much the same conclusion, although for very different reasons.) The sense that the IRA seemed to be drifting away from its conventional republican and nationalist roots into Marxism angered the more traditional republicans. Many in the Official IRA later referred to the Provisional IRA as "the rosary brigade" because of what they saw as the Catholic and romantic nationalist ideology of the latter. Some radicals believed that the Irish government, MI5 and the CIA had conspired to cultivate the split because they were afraid of another Cuba in Europe's "back yard". The Arms Crisis provided evidence that some members of the Irish (Fianna Fáil) government had attempted to supply arms and funds to a variety of individuals in Northern Ireland. The radicals viewed Northern Protestants with unionist views as "fellow Irishmen deluded by bourgeois loyalties, who needed to be engaged in dialectical debate", although they had no short-term strategy for ending the attacks on Catholic areas by loyalist mobs. This increasing political divergence led to a formal split in the movement: the Marxists became the "Officials" and the traditionalists became the "Provisionals". The critical moment came in August 1969 when there was a major outbreak of intercommunal violence in Belfast and Derry, with tens of fatalities and whole streets ablaze. Since the Civil Rights marches began in 1968, there had been many cases of street violence. The Royal Ulster Constabulary had been shown on television in undisciplined baton charges, and had already killed three civilians, one a child. The Orange Order's "marching season" during the summer of 1969 had been characterised by violence on both sides. By August, the violence was out of control. In accordance with its Marxist analysis, the IRA leadership opposed armed defence of Catholic communities. In the Republic of Ireland, the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Jack Lynch declared that he "would not stand idly by" and moved units of the Irish Defence Forces to the border, though without any intention of intervention in Northern Ireland. The Battle of the Bogside finally galvanised Harold Wilson's British government to send in the British army to "restore order". The Officials were known as the "Stickies" because they sold stick-on lilies to commemorate the Easter Rising; the Provisionals were known as "Pinheads" because they produced pinned-on lilies. The term Stickies stuck, though Pinheads disappeared.

Impact of the Split

When the Provisionals (often called the "Provos") split from the Official IRA, they took away a number of experienced volunteers, depriving the OIRA of some of its operational expertise. The Official IRA remained active, however, albeit with a more restricted level of activity than the Provisionals. Unlike the Provisionals, it did not establish de facto control over Catholic areas of Belfast and Derry. In December 1971, the Official IRA killed Ulster Unionist Party Senator John Barnhill at his home in Strabane. This was the first murder of a politician in Ireland since the assassination of Free State Minister for Justice Kevin O'Higgins in 1927. The Official IRA ceasefire followed a number of armed actions which had been politically damaging. The organisation bombed the Aldershot headquarters of the Parachute Regiment in revenge for Bloody Sunday, but killed only seven civilians. After the unpopular killing of William Best, a Catholic man home in Derry on leave from the Royal Irish Regiment of the British army, the OIRA declared a ceasefire.

The Official IRA since 1973

Although formally on ceasefire (except for "defensive actions") since 1973 (see above), the Official IRA continued to be involved in a bloody feud with the Provisionals. In 1974 radical elements within the organisation who objected to the ceasefire, led by Seamus Costello, established the Irish National Liberation Army. Another feud ensued, with prominent members of both organisations including Costelloe, losing their lives. However, from the mid-1970s onwards the Official Republican Movement became increasingly focussed on achieving its aims through left-wing constitutional politics. From 1981 on, Sinn Féin the Workers Party, renamed the Workers Party the following year, had some success in the Republic of Ireland, but little in the North. Much as the Provisionals were to find twenty years later, a committment to armed struggle severely limited prospects for political growth and it seems reasonable to say that from no later than 1980 or so, the Officials had no effective military capacity. In later years, some former officials were to rise to high levels in the Republic – while a few others, formerly associated with the movement, even went on to act as advisers to David Trimble. However there has been no statement of any sort to the effect of winding up the Official IRA or even the traditional republican order to dump arms. Throughout the 1980s, allegations that the Official IRA remained in existence and was engaged in criminal activity appeared in the Irish press. These eventually proved a considerable political embarassment to the Workers Party, and in 1992 the leadership proposed amendments to the party consititution which would, inter alia, effectively allow it to purge members suspected of involvement in the Official IRA. This proposal failed to obtain the required two-thirds support at the party conference that year, and as a result the leadership, including six of the party's seven members of Dáil Éireann, left to establish a new party, later named Democratic Left.

Persons killed by the Official IRA

According to the Sutton database of deaths at the University of Ulster's CAIN project[http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/crosstabs.html], the OIRA was responsible for 52 killings during the Troubles. 23 of its victims were civilians, 17 were members of the British security forces, 11 were republican paramilitaries (including three of its own members) and one was a loyalist paramilitary.

List of IRAs

The IRA (Irish Republican Army) is a name used to describe several paramilitary movements in Ireland in the 20th and 21st centuries. All claim descent from the original Irish Republican Army, which was formed from the Irish Volunteers. It was the army of the Irish Republic, declared by Dáil Éireann in 1919. Most Irish people dispute the claims of more recently created organizations that insist that they are the only legitimate descendants of the original IRA, often referred to as the "Old IRA". The playwright and former IRA member Brendan Behan once said that the first issue on any IRA agenda was "the split". For the IRA, that has constantly been the case. The first split came after the signature of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, with supporters of the Treaty forming the nucleus of the National Army while the anti-treaty forces continued to use the name Irish Republican Army. After the end of the Irish Civil War, the IRA was around in one form or another for forty years, when it split into the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA in 1969. The latter then had its own breakaways, namely the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, each claiming to be the true successor of the Army of the Irish Republic.
- The original IRA (in later years, known as the "Old" IRA), recognised by the First Dáil as the legitimate army of the Irish Republic in January 1919. Split into pro-Treaty forces (the National Army, also known as the Government forces or the regulars) and anti-Treaty forces (the Republicans, irregulars or Executive forces) after the Treaty.
- The Official IRA, the remainder of the IRA after the 1969 split with the Provisionals, now inactive in the military sense.
- The Provisional IRA (PIRA), which broke from the OIRA in 1969 over the latter's failing to protect nationalist communities in Northern Ireland, has a left-wing orientation and increasing political activity; the term 'IRA' is almost always now used to denote this particular group.
- The Continuity IRA, broke from the PIRA in 1986 because the latter ended its policy on abstentionism (thus recognising the authority of the Republic of Ireland).
- The 'Real' IRA, a 1997 breakaway from the PIRA consisting of members opposed to the peace process.

Genealogy of the IRA and its splits

Here in more detail is a representation of a genealogical tree of Irish nationalist movements derived from the original IRA:
- Original IRA (the "old" IRA) - fought in the War of Independence 1919-1921
- That part of the Old IRA that accepted the compromise of the 1921 treaty which established the Irish Free State and that became the initial Free State government. Its supporters became the modern-day Fine Gael Party, currently the second-largest party in Ireland. With additional recruits, it became the National Army, later known as the Irish Defence Forces
- That part of the original IRA organized within Northern Ireland not included within the Free State (see below).
- That part of the IRA, organized within the twenty six counties that became the Free State, which rejected the compromise of the 1921 treaty with Britain and under Liam Lynch fought the Irish Civil War against the Free State 'National Army' (led by Michael Collins), with the support of the anti-treaty faction of Sinn Féin, led by Éamon de Valera.
- Fianna Fáil - some years after losing the Civil War a faction of Sinn Féin led by de Valera returned to the democratic fold as the Fianna Fáil party, which is currently the largest party in Ireland.
- The remainder of the IRA, including that part of the Old IRA organised within Northern Ireland, carried on low level sporadic paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland as well as some activities in the Free State (later the Republic of Ireland). After a period of poor relations, the symbiotic relationship between Sinn Féin and the IRA was re-established in the late 1930s.
- By the 1960s, after the IRA waged a disastrous border campaign, Sinn Féin moved towards a Marxist class struggle outlook. With the outbreak of the Troubles Sinn Féin, or as it came to be called after the formation of the Provisional IRA and Provisional Sinn Féin, Official IRA / Official Sinn Féin found itself sidelined because of its decision not to defend Catholic areas of Belfast from sectarian attacks. Over time the Official IRA faded away, while Official Sinn Féin moved to a purely Marxist position, renaming itself first Sinn Féin the Workers Party, and then in 1982 the Workers Party.
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- After the Official IRA's 1972 ceasefire it and Official Sinn Féin suffered a split in 1974 leading to the formation of the extreme left wing Irish National Liberation Army and the Irish Republican Socialist Party, led by Séamus Costelloe (later assassinated by the Official IRA during a bloody feud). The INLA was known for a series of internal feuds and some of the more sectarian killings from the nationalist side.
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- In 1992 the Workers' Party suffered a split when a majority faction failed to secure changes. They left and formed the Democratic Left the most leftist of the parties in the Republic with seats in the Dáil Éireann (though also operating in Northern Ireland). Ultimately the Democratic Left merged into the Labour Party.
- In 1969, the more traditionalist republican members split off into the Provisional IRA and Provisional Sinn Féin. The Provisional IRA operated mostly in Northern Ireland, using violence against the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the British army, and British institutions and economic targets. They also killed members of the Irish army and the Garda Síochána (the Irish police force), which was against one of their standing orders. A further split occurred in 1986, when the southern leadership of Provisional Sinn Féin under Ruairí Ó Brádaigh was deposed and replaced by a new northern leadership under Gerry Adams.
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- The deposed elements, who took a hardline republican stance, and opposed Provisional Sinn Féin's decision to abandon abstentionism and enter Dáil Éireann, set up a rival party and military wing, called Republican Sinn Féin and the Continuity IRA.
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- Members of the Provisional IRA who did not accept the peace process split off to form the Real IRA. Its political wing is the 32 County Sovereignty Movement.
- The Provisional IRA and Provisional Sinn Féin (now more generally referred to simply as the IRA and Sinn Féin, moved to a less militarist and more politically-led position, which ultimately produced the Hume-Adams report and the peace process.

Anglo-Irish Treaty

The Anglo-Irish Treaty, officially called the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was a treaty between the Government of the United Kingdom and representatives of the (extra-judicial) Irish Republic which concluded the Anglo-Irish War. It established an Irish dominion within the British Empire known as the Irish Free State and provided an option for the previously existing Northern Ireland, created by the 1920 Government of Ireland Act, to opt out of the Irish Free State, which it duly exercised. The treaty was signed in London by representatives of the British government and envoys plenipotentiary of the Irish Republic (i.e., negotiators empowered to sign a treaty without reference back to their superiors) on December 6, 1921. Three-fold ratification of the treaty by Dáil Éireann, the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and the British Parliament was required. The Irish side were split on the Treaty, and it was only narrowly ratified in the Dáil. Though duly enacted, the split produced the Irish Civil War which was ultimately won by the pro-treaty side. The Irish Free State created by the Treaty came into force on 6 December 1922 by royal proclamation, after its constitution was enacted by the Third Dáil and the British parliament.

Content of the Treaty

Among its main clauses were that:
- British forces would withdraw from most of Ireland.
- Most of Ireland was to become a self-governing dominion of the British Empire, like Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand and The Union of South Africa. The Union of South Africa
- As with the other dominions, the head of state of the Irish Free State / Saorstát Éireann would be the British monarch, who would be represented by a Governor General (See Representative of the Crown).
- Members of the new Free State's parliament would be required to take an Oath of Allegiance to the Free State. A secondary part of the Oath was to be of fidelity to "King George V, his heirs and successors" as part of the Treaty settlement.
- Northern Ireland (which had been created earlier by the Government of Ireland Act) was to have the option of withdrawing from the Irish Free State within one month of the Treaty coming into effect.
- If Northern Ireland chose to withdraw, a Boundary Commission would be constituted to draw the boundary between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland.
- Britain, for its own security, would continue to control a limited number of ports, known as the Treaty Ports, for the Royal Navy.
- The Irish Free State would assume responsibility for its part of the Imperial debt.
- The Treaty would have superior status in Irish law: in the event of a conflict between it and the new 1922 Constitution of the Irish Free State, it would take precedence. 1922 Constitution

Negotiators of the Treaty

The negotiators included
- David Lloyd George, MP 25px (British Prime Minister)
- Lord Birkenhead 25px
- Winston Churchill 25px
- Austen Chamberlain 25px
- Sir Gordon Hewart 25px
- Arthur Griffith 25px (Chairman of the Irish delegation)
- Michael Collins, TD 25px (Irish Republic's Minister for Finance and head of the Irish Republican Brotherhood).
- Robert Barton 25px
- Eamonn Duggan 25px
- George Gavan Duffy 25px (Robert Erskine Childers, the author of the Riddle of the Sands and former Clerk of the British House of Commons served as one of the secretaries of the Irish delegation. Tom Jones was one of Lloyd George's principal assistants, and described the negotiations in his book Whitehall Diary.)

Detail and background

Tom JonesThe contents of the Treaty divided the Irish Republic's leadership, with the President of the Republic, Eamon de Valera, leading the anti-Treaty minority. The main dispute was centred on the status as a dominion (as represented by the Oath of Allegiance and Fidelity) rather than as an independent republic. Partition, though certainly a factor, was not the most important; both sides believed that the Boundary Commission would transfer many large nationalist areas to the Free State, reducing Northern Ireland's size so as to make it too small to be a viable political entity, leading to Irish unity. (In fact, the commission made no changes, despite the wishes of hundreds of thousands who found themselves left under British jurisdiction.) The Second Dáil formally ratified the Treaty in December 1921. (The House of Commons of Southern Ireland, which was made up largely of the same membership as the Dáil, but which was in British constitutional theory the parliament legally empowered to ratify the Treaty, did so in January 1922.) De Valera resigned as President and was replaced by Arthur Griffith. Michael Collins formed a Provisional Government of Ireland theoretically answerable to the House of Commons of Southern Ireland, as the Treaty laid down. In December 1922 a new Irish constitution was enacted by the Third Dáil, sitting as a Constituent Assembly. Constituent Assembly Opponents of the Treaty mounted a military campaign of opposition which produced the Irish Civil War (1922–23). In 1922 its two main Irish signatories, President Griffith and Michael Collins, both died. Griffith died partially from exhaustion; Collins, at the signing of the Treaty, had said that in signing it, he may have signed his "actual death warrant", and he was correct: he was assassinated by anti-Treaty republicans in Béal na mBláth in August 1922, barely a week after Griffith's death. Both men were replaced in their posts by William T. Cosgrave. The Treaty's provisions relating to the monarch, governor-general and the treaty's own superiority in law were all deleted from the Constitution of the Irish Free State in 1932, following the enactment of the Statute of Westminster by the British Parliament. The Statute provided that all dominions extant or newly created thereafter were fully independent of the United Kingdom and thus not subject to any acts of the British Parliament. (The sole exception to this was Canada, at her own request, who remained nominally subject to the British Parliament until 1982, because the federal and provincial governments could not agree on an amending formula for the Canadian Constitution.) Thus, the Government of the Irish Free State was free to change any laws previously passed by the British Parliament on their behalf. Nearly thirty years earlier, Michael Collins had argued that the Treaty would give "the freedom to achieve freedom". De Valera himself acknowledged the accuracy of this claim both in his actions in the 1930s but also in words he used to describe his opponents and their securing of independence during the 1920s. "They were magnificent", he told his son in 1932, just after he had entered government and read the files left by Cosgrave's Cumann na nGaedheal Executive Council. Cumann na nGaedheal Most people in Ireland today, including members of de Valera's own party, Fianna Fáil, agree that it was a mistake to oppose the Treaty and that it was the best deal possible in the circumstances. Although the British government of the day had, since 1914, desired home rule for the whole of Ireland, the British Parliament believed that it could not possibly grant complete independence to all of Ireland in 1921 without provoking a massacre of Ulster Catholics at the hands of their heavily-armed Protestant Unionist neighbours. At the time, although there were Unionists throughout the country, they were concentrated in the northeast. An uprising by them against home rule would have been an insurrection against the "mother county" as well as a civil war in Ireland. (See Ulster Volunteer Force). Dominion status for 26 counties, with partition for the six counties that the Unionists felt they could comfortably control, seemed the best compromise possible at the time. In fact, what Ireland received in dominion status, on par with that enjoyed by Canada, New Zealand and Australia, was far more than the Home Rule Act 1914 (negotiated and won, albeit through democratic parliamentary procedure by the Irish Parliamentary Party leaders John Redmond and John Dillon), and certainly a considerable advance on the Home Rule once offered to Charles Stewart Parnell in the nineteenth century. Further, though it was not generally realised at the time, the Irish Republican Army was in trouble. It had little ammunition or weaponry left. When Collins first heard that the British had called a Truce in mid-1921, following King George V's appeal for reconciliation at the opening of the Parliament of Northern Ireland under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, he commented: "We thought they were mad". The British, though they may never have realised it, were weeks, perhaps even days away from inflicting severe losses on an exhausted IRA; though, even if they had, it is unlikely that some form of autonomy in excess of home rule would not have been achieved, given the extent to which the Irish population had turned its back on continuing British rule. It is also doubtful that British public opinion would have tolerated the larger and more frequent atrocities this would have entailed. Parliament of Northern Ireland De Valera was once asked in a private conversation what had been his biggest mistake. His answer was blunt: "Not accepting the Treaty". Current Taoiseach (prime minister and leader of Fianna Fáil) Bertie Ahern has conceded that the date that marks the real achievement of independence is 1922, when the Irish Free State created by the Anglo-Irish Treaty came into being, as this brought about British and international recognition of Irish independence.

External links

- [http://www.nationalarchives.ie/topics/anglo_irish/dfaexhib2.html Anglo-Irish Treaty] — full text of the treaty from the National Archive of Ireland
- [http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie Contemporaneous record of the debate on the Treaty in Dáil Éireann]. Category:History of Ireland 1801-1922 Category:Peace treaties

Irish Republican Army

:This article primarily deals with the army of the Irish Republic as it existed up to 1922. For Irish paramilitary organisations after 1922 that use or have used the name Irish Republican Army see Irish Republican Army (1922-1969), Official Irish Republican Army (1969- ), Provisional Irish Republican Army (1969- ), Continuity Irish Republican Army (1986- ), and Real Irish Republican Army (1997- ). Real Irish Republican Army The name Irish Republican Army has been used to refer to several Irish republican paramilitary organisations. The earliest of these was recognised by the First Dáil as the legitimate army of the Irish Republic, as proclaimed in the Easter Rising in 1916 and reaffirmed by the Dáil in January 1919. Though a series of organisations later claimed to be a continuation of the IRA from the 1920s to today, most Irish people disagree with these claims. After the signature of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, members of the IRA who supported the Treaty formed the nucleus of the National Army founded by IRA leader Michael Collins in 1922. While the anti-Treaty IRA continued to exist after its defeat in the Irish Civil War, by the late 1930s it had lost most of the legitimacy with which most supporters of the Republican side initially regarded it. A small minority of Irish people accepts later claimants to the name as the political heirs of the original Irish Republican Army. To distinguish between the army of the Irish Republic, and later claimants to the name, the former is often called the Old IRA.

Origins

Physical force Irish republicanism had a long history, from the Ribbonmen of the late 18th century to the 1798 and 1803 rebellions, the Young Irelander rebellion of 1848 and the Irish Republican Brotherhood of 1865. One of the key leaders of the IRB was Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa. His funeral in 1915 became a major national event and brought together many of the key leaders of early 20th century nationalism, from Padraig Pearse to Michael Collins. The acronym IRA was first used by the IRB organization in America (also known as the Fenian Brotherhood). This "Irish Republican Army" of the 1860s comprised the American Fenians' paramilitary forces, organized into a number of regiments. Fenian soldiers wearing IRA insignia fought at the Battle of Ridgeway (June 2, 1866). However the term Irish Republican Army in its modern sense was first used in the second decade of the 20th century from the merger of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizens Army after the Easter Rising.

Political background

The Government of Ireland Act 1914, more generally known as the Third Home Rule Act, was an Act of Parliament passed by the British Parliament in May 1914 which sought to give Ireland regional self-government within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Although it received the Royal Assent in September 1914, its implementation was postponed until after the First World War (at that stage expected to last only a matter of months). However the outbreak of the Easter Rising in 1916 and the unexpected electoral success of Sinn Féin in the 1918 general election made implementation of the Act moot. It was never implemented but was eventually replaced by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which was to give Home Rule separately to six counties in the northeast (Northern Ireland) and to the remaining twenty-six counties (the so-called "Southern Ireland").

Easter Rising

Southern Ireland outside the GPO in 1916.]] Southern Ireland For what was initially a minority of nationalists, the home rule conceded was judged to be too little, too late. In the Easter Rising of 1916, these nationalists staged a rebellion against British rule in Dublin and in some other isolated areas. Weapons had been supplied by Germany, under the auspices of a leading human rights campaigner, Sir Roger Casement. However the plot had been discovered and the weapons were lost when the ship carrying them, the Aud, was scuttled rather than allow the arms to fall into British hands. The rebellion was largely centered on Dublin. The leaders seized the General Post Office (GPO), raising a green flag bearing the legend 'Irish Republic', and proclaiming independence for Ireland, though ironically some republicans in the GPO talked of making Prince Joachim of Prussia the King of Ireland if Germany won the First World War. Although many Irish people today believe that the Rising and its leaders had public support, in reality there were calls for the execution of the ringleaders coming from the major Irish nationalist daily newspaper, the 'Irish Independent' and local authorities. Dubliners not only cooperated with the British troops sent to quell the uprising, but undermined the Republicans as well. Many people spat and threw stones at them as they were marched towards the transport ships that would take them to the Welsh internment camps. However, public opinion gradually shifted, initially over the summary executions of 16 senior leaders—some of whom, such as James Connolly, were too ill to stand—and of other people thought complicit in the rebellion. As one observer described, "the drawn-out process of executing the leaders of the rising... it was like watching blood seep from behind a closed door." Opinion shifted even more in favor of the Republicans in 1917-18 with the Conscription Crisis, when Britain tried to impose conscription on Ireland to bolster its flagging war effort. A small monarchist Irish party, Sinn Féin was widely, but wrongly, credited with orchestrating the Easter Rising, although the group was advocating less-than-full independence at the time. The party's founder and leader, Arthur Griffith, was campaigning for a dual monarchy with Britain, a return to the status quo of the Constitution of 1782, enacted by the Irish Parliament under Henry Grattan's Parliament. The Republican survivors of the Rising, under Eamon de Valera, infiltrated and took over Sinn Féin, leading to a crisis of goals in 1917. In a compromise agreed to at its Ard Fhéis (party conference) Sinn Féin agreed to initially campaign for a republic. Having established one, it would let the electorate decide on whether to have a monarchy or republic; however, if they chose a monarchy, no member of the British House of Windsor was to be eligible for the Irish throne. House of Windsor From 1916 to 1918, the two dominant nationalist movements, Sinn Féin and the Irish Parliamentary Party fought a tough series of battles in by-elections. Neither won a decisive victory; however, the Conscription Crisis tipped the balance in favor of Sinn Féin. The party went on to win a clear majority of seats in the 1918 general election : of the 73 seats in which Sinn Féin were elected, 25 were uncontested.

The emergence of the IRA after the Easter Rising

The first steps towards reorganizing the defeated Irish Volunteers was taken in 27 October 1917 when a convention took place in Dublin. This convention, which subsequently became known as a IRA convention, was called to coincide with the Sinn Féin ard fheis. Nearly 250 people attended the convention; internment prevented many more from attending. In fact, the Royal Irish Constabulary estimated that 162 companies of volunteers were active in the country, although other sources suggest a higher figure of 390. The proceedings were presided over by Eamon de Valera, who had been elected President of Sinn Féin the previous day. Also on the platform was Cathal Brugha and many others who were prominent in the reorganising of the Volunteers in the previous few months, many of them ex-prisoners. De Valera was elected president. A national executive was also elected, composed of provincial representatives (including Dublin). In addition, a number of directors were elected to head the various IRA departments. Those elected were: Michael Collins (Director for Organisation); Diarmuid Lynch (Director for Communications); Michael Staines (Director for Supply); Rory O'Connor (Director of Engineering). Seán McGarry was voted General Secretary, while Cathal Brugha was made Chairman of the Resident Executive, which in effect made him Chief of Staff. The other elected members were: M. W. O'Reilly (Dublin); Austin Stack (Kerry); Con Collins (Limerick); Seán MacEntee (Belfast); Joe O'Doherty (Donegal); Paul Galligan (Cavan); Eoin O'Duffy (Monaghan); Seamus Doyle (Wexford); Peadar Bracken (Offaly); Larry Lardner (Galway); Dick Walsh (Mayo) and another member from Connacht. There were six co-options to make-up the full number when the directors were named from within their ranks. The six were all Dublin men: Eamonn Duggan; Gearóid O'Sullivan; Fintan Murphy; Diarmuid O'Hegarty; Dick McKee and Paddy Ryan. Of the 26 elected, six were also members of the Sinn Féin National Executive, with Eamonn de Valera president of both. Eleven of the 26 were elected Teachta Dála in the 1918 general election and 13 in the May 1921 election.

Dáil Éireann

Sinn Féin MPs elected in 1918 fulfilled their election promise not to take their seats in Westminster but instead set up an independent 'Assembly of Ireland', or 'Dáil Éireann', in Gaelic. On January 21st, 1919, this new, unofficial parliament assembled in the Mansion House in Dublin. As its first acts, the Dáil elected a prime minister (Priomh Aire), Cathal Brugha, and inaugurated a ministry called the Aireacht.

The battle for control of the IRA

Aireacht The new leadership of the Irish Republic worried that the IRA would not accept its authority, given that the Volunteers, under their own constitution, was bound to obey their own executive and no under body. The fear was increased when, on the very day the new national parliament was meeting, 21 January 1919 the IRA, acting on their own initiative, killed two Royal Irish Constabulary constables (James McDonnell and Patrick O'Connell) by Seán Tracy and Dan Breen while the South Tipperary IRA volunteer unit were seizing a quantity of gelignite. Technically, the men involved were considered to be in a serious breach of IRA discipline and were liable to be court-martialled, but it was considered more politically expedient to hold them up as examples of a rejuvenated militarism. The conflict soon escalated into guerrilla warfare by what were then known as the Flying Columns in remote areas. Attacks on remote Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks continued throughout 1919 and 1920, forcing the police to consolidate defensively in the larger towns, effectively placing large areas of the countryside in the hands of the Republicans. Royal Irish Constabulary helped redefine the relationship between the Aireacht and the IRA.]] Moves to make the IRA the army of the Dáil and not its rival had begun before the January attack, and were stepped up. On 31 January the IRA organ, An t-Óglách published a list of principles agreed between two representatives of the Áireacht, acting Príomh Aire Cathal Brugha and Richard Mulcahy and the Executive. It made first mention of the organisation treating "the armed forces of the enemy — whether soldiers or policemen — exactly as a national army would treat the members of an invading army". An article in An tÓglách stated that "The Irish Government claims the same power and authority as any other lawfully constituted Government; it sanctions the employment by the Irish Volunteers of the most drastic measures against the enemies of Ireland . . . England must be given the choice of evacuating the country or holding it by foreign garrison, with a perpetual state of war in existence." In the statement the new relationship between the Aireacht and the IRA was defined clearly.
- The Government was defined as possessing the same power and authority as a normal government.
- It, and not the IRA, sanctions the IRA campaign;
- It explicitly spoke of a state of war.

The Oath to the Irish Republic

Richard Mulcahy As part of the ongoing strategy to take control of the IRA, Brugha proposed to Dáil Éireann on 20 August 1919 that the Volunteers were to be asked, at this next convention, to swear allegiance to the Dáil. He further proposed that members of the Dáil themselves should swear the same oath. On the 25 August Collins wrote to the Príomh Aire, Eamon de Valera, to inform him "the Volunteer affair is now fixed". However, a power stuggle continued between Brugha and Collins, both cabinet ministers, over who had the greater influence. Brugha was nominally the superior as Minister for Defence, but Collins's powerbase came from his position as Director of Organisation of the IRA and as his key powerbase as a member of the Supreme Council of the IRB. De Valera too resented Collins's clear power and influence, which he saw as coming from the secretive IRB than from his position as a Teachta Dála (TD) and minister in the Aireacht.

The full scale war

The Irish War of Independence was a brutal and bloody affair, with violence and acts of extreme brutality on both sides. The British sent hundreds of World War I veterans to assist the RIC. The veterans at first wore a combination of black police uniforms and tan army uniforms (because of shortages), which, according to one etymology, inspired the nickname Black and Tans. The brutality of the 'Black and Tans' is now legendary, although the most excessive repression attributed to the Crown's forces was often that of the Auxiliary Division of the Constabulary. One of the strongest critics of the Black and Tans was King George V of the United Kingdom. When the Lord Mayor of Cork Terence MacSwiney lay dying on hunger strike the King personally intervened to try to get MacSwiney's release from gaol. hunger strike Other critics of British policy included Sir Samuel Hoare, a future British cabinet minister, who said :If what is now going on in the Austrian Empire, all England would be ringing with denunciation of the tyranny of the Hapsburgs and of denying people the right to rule themselves. The IRA was also involved in the destruction of many stately homes in Munster. These belonged to prominent Loyalists who were aiding the Crown forces, and were burnt to discourage the British policy of destroying the homes of Republicans, suspected and actual. Many historic buildings in Ireland were destroyed during the war, most famously the Custom House in Dublin, which was disastrously attacked on de Valera's insistence, to the horror of the more militarily experienced Collins. As he feared, the destruction proved a pyrrhic victory for the Republic, with so many IRA men killed or captured that the IRA in Dublin was almost wiped out overnight. This was also a period of social upheaval in Ireland, with frequent strikes as well as other manifestations of class conflict. In this regard, the IRA acted to a large degree as an agent of social control and stability, driven by the need to preserve cross-class unity in the national struggle , and on occasion being used to break strikes . By June 1921, Collins's assessment was that the IRA was within weeks, possibly even days, of collapse, with few weapons left. However events took an unusual turn which astonished him.

The King's Speech

David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister at the time, found himself under increasing pressure (both international and from within Britain) to try to salvage something from the situation. This was a complete reversal of his earlier position. He had consistently referred to the IRA as a "murder gang" up until then. An unexpected olive branch came from King George V, who, supported by South African statesman General Jan Smuts, managed to get the British government to accept a radical re-draft of his proposed speech to the Northern Ireland parliament, meeting in Belfast City Hall in June 1921. The King had often protested about the methods employed by Crown forces to Lloyd George.

The Anglo-Irish Treaty

Belfast The speech, which called for reconciliation on all sides, changed the mood and enabled the British and Irish Republican governments to agree a truce. Negotiations on an Anglo-Irish Treaty took place in late 1921 in London. The Irish delegation was led by Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins, as de Valera — now 'President of the Republic' — insisted that as head of state he could not attend, as King George was not leading the British delegation. Under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, Ireland was partitioned, creating Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. Under the terms of the Anglo-Irish agreement of 6 December 1921, which ended the war (1919-1921), Northern Ireland was given the option of withdrawing from the new state, the Irish Free State, and remaining part of the United Kingdom. The Northern Ireland parliament chose to do so. An Irish Boundary Commission was then set up to review the border. Irish leaders expected that it would so reduce Northern Ireland's size, by transferring nationalist areas to the Irish Free State, as to make it economically unviable. Contrary to myth, partition was important but not the key breaking point between pro and anti-Treaty campaigners; both sides expected the Boundary Commission to emasculate Northern Ireland.

The IRA and the Treaty

The IRA leadership was deeply divided over the decision by the Dáil to ratify the Treaty. Of the General Headquarters (GHQ) staff, nine members were in favour of the Treaty while four opposed it.
- Pro-Treaty were Richard Mulcahy (Chief of Staff); Eoin O'Duffy (Deputy Chief of Staff); J.J. O'Connell (Assistant Chief of Staff); Gearóid O'Sullivan (Adjutant General); Sean McMahon (Quartermaster General); Michael Collins (Director of Intelligence); Diarmuid O'Hegarty (Director of Organisation); Emmet Dalton (Director of Training); Piaras Beaslai (Director of Publicity).
- Anti- Treaty were Rory O'Connor (Director of Engineering); Liam Mellows (Director of Purchases); Seán Russell (Director of Munitions) and Seamus O'Donovan (Director of Chemicals). Austin Stack, whose position on the GHQ staff was ambiguous after Brugha tried to foist him on GHQ, was also anti-Treaty. On 10 January, at least three anti-Treaty members of the IRA GHQ (one account claims four); six divisional commanders and the officers commanding of the two Dublin brigades meet to formulate their anti-Treaty strategy. They argued that the IRA's allegiance was to the Dáil of the Irish Republic and the decision of the Dáil to accept the Treaty meant that the IRA no longer owed that body its allegiance. They called for the IRA to withdraw from the authority of the Dáil and to entrust the IRA Executive with control over the army. The following day, this group issued Mulcahy with a letter requesting that an Army Convention be held on 5 February to discuss these proposals. The letter is signed by GHQ staff Rory O’Connor, Liam Mellows, Seán Russell, and Seamus O’Donovan, as well as Oscar Traynor, Liam Lynch and other IRA commandants. On 13 January, Mulcahy replied to the anti-Treaty IRA officers to state that he would not call a convention without the authority of Dáil Eireann as the Government of the Republic. On same day, Rory O’Connor wrote to Eoin O’Duffy stating that a convention would be called regardless. O'Connor added that O’Duffy’s orders would only be obeyed by the anti-Treaty section provided they were countersigned by himself. On 16 January, the first IRA division – the 2nd Southern Division – repudiated the authority of the GHQ. On 18 January, Richard Mulcahy chaired a meeting of the GHQ Staff, divisional commandants and some brigade commandants. It agreed to hold an Army Convention within two months and that, in a meantime, a 'watchdog' committee would be set up with representatives from both sides. This committee did not meet often, however. A month later, on 18 February, Liam Forde, O/C of the IRA Mid-Limerick Brigade, issued a proclamation stating that: "We no longer recognise the authority of the present head of the army, and renew our allegiance to the existing Irish Republic". This was the first unit of the IRA to break with the pro-Treaty government. On 24 February, the 'watchdog' committee established a month earlier met. Rory O'Connor requested Mulcahy to secure Dáil approval to hold an army convention on 26th March. Three days later on 27 February, the Dáil Cabinet sanctioned the Minister of Defence's request to hold an Army Convention. This decision was duly announced by IRA chief of staff, Eoin O’Duffy, who requested brigade conventions to assemble to elect delegates. On 5 March, a stand-off developed between pro- and anti-IRA forces in Limerick over who would take control of a military barracks vacated by the departing British troops. A compromise was reached around the 12/13 March. Clearly concerned at developments in Ireland, and in Limerick in particular, on 14 March Winston Churchill wrote to Michael Collins, warning him that: "An adverse decision by the convention of the Irish Republican Army (so called) would, however, be a very grave event at the present juncture. I presume you are quite sure there is no danger of this". The following day, 15 March, the Dáil cabinet decided to prohibit the holding of the Army Convention scheduled to take place on 26 March. Amateur historian Dorothy Macardle claims that the banning of the convention arose because "Mulcahy realised that 70 to 80 per cent of the IRA was against the Treaty and he feared that the Convention could have been used to establish a military dictatorship". However, issuing a summons under the title Republican Military Council, 50 IRA senior officers including 4 GHQ staff, 5 divisional commanders and a number of brigade commandants, decided to go ahead with Convention. On 22 March, Rory O'Connor holds what was to become an infamous press conference at the headquarters of the republican party (Cumann na Poblachta) in Suffolk Street, Dublin. He declares that the army is "in a dilemma, having the choice of supporting its oath to the Republic or still giving allegiance to the Dáil, which, it considers, has abandoned the Republic. The contention of the army", he says, "is that the Dáil did a thing that it had no right to do." When asked if he would obey President Arthur Griffith, he said he would not as he had violated his oath. When asked if the army would forcibly prevent an election being held, O'Connor stated: "It will have the power to do so." He went on to say that "the holding of the Convention means that we repudiate the Dáil … We will set up an Executive which will issue orders to the IRA all over the country." In reply to the question on whether it can be taken that we are going to have a military dictatorship, O’Connor said: "You can take it that way if you like." On 23 March, Richard Mulcahy (Minister of Defence), in a letter to General O'Duffy, orders the suspension of any officer or man who takes part in the "sectional" Convention. On 26 March, a Convention of (predominantly) anti-Treaty delegates met in the Mansion House, Dublin with between 220 and 223 delegates present. The convention past a resolution saying that the Army "shall be maintained as the Army of the Irish Republic under an Executive appointed by the Convention". A temporary Executive of 16 members was elected headed by Liam Lynch and including Rory O’Connor, Liam Mellows and Ernie O’Malley. The convention adjourns until 9 April. On 28 March, the (anti-Treaty) IRA Executive issued statement stating that Minister of Defence (Mulcahy) and the Chief-of-Staff (O’Duffy) no longer exercised any control over the IRA. In addition, it ordered an end to the recruitment to the new military and police forces of the Provisional Government. Furthermore, it instructed all IRA units to reaffirm their allegiance to the Irish Republic on 2 April. On 9 April, the (anti-Treaty) Army Convention reconvened in Dublin. It adopted a new constitution and elected a new 16-member Executive composed the following members: Liam Lynch (Cork), Frank Barrett (Clare), Liam Deasy (Cork), Tom Hales (Cork), Tom Maguire (Mayo), Joseph McKelvey (Tyrone), Liam Mellows (Galway), Rory O'Connor (Dublin?), Peadar O'Donnell (Donegal), Florrie O'Donoghue (Cork), Sean O'Hegarty (Cork), Ernie O'Malley (Dublin), Seamus Robinson (Tipperary), Joe O'Connor (?), Sean Moylan (Cork), and P.J. Ruttledge (Mayo). When the Executive met, it elected Liam Lynch as new IRA chief of staff, Ernie O'Malley as assistant chief of staff, and appointed a seven-member Army Council. Barry's Hotel in Gardiner Row was made (anti-Treaty) IRA headquarters. The pro-treaty IRA soon became the nucleus of the new (regular) Irish National Army created by Collins and Richard Mulcahy. British pressure, and tensions between the pro- and anti-Treaty factions of the IRA, led to a bloody civil war, ending in the defeat of the anti-Treaty faction. On May 24, 1923 Frank Aiken, the (anti-treaty) IRA chief-of-staff, called a cease-fire. Many left political activity altogether, but a minority continued to insist that the new Irish Free State, created by the "illegitimate" Treaty, was an illegimate state. They asserted that their "IRA Army Executive" was the real government of a still-existing Irish Republic. Subsequent organisations that have used the name claim lineage from that group, which is covered in full at Irish Republican Army (1922-1969). For information on later organisations using the name Irish Republican Army, see the table below. For a genealogy of organisations using the name IRA after 1922, see List of IRAs

Footnotes

# Dorothy MacCardle, The Irish Republic (Corgi, 1968) p.267. # ibid p.269. # ibid p.269. # ibid p.282. # ibid. p.293. #The Church of Ireland Gazette recorded numerous instances of Unionists and Loyalists being shot, burnt or forced from their homes during the early 1920s. In Co Cork between 1920 and 1923 the IRA shot over 200 civilians of whom over 70 (or 36%) were Protestants: five times the percentage of Protestants in the civilian population. This was due to the historical inclination of Protestants towards loyalty to Britain. A convention of Irish Protestant Churches in Dublin in May 1922 signed a resolution placing "on record" that "hostility to Protestants by reason of their religion has been almost, if not wholly, unknown in the twenty-six counties in which Protestants are in the minority." #"The Politics of Illusion: Republicanism and Socialism in Modern Ireland", Henry Patterson, Hutchinson Radius, 1989: pp. 14-15 ISBN 0091741394 # Communism in Modern Ireland: The Pursuit of the Workers' Republic since 1916, Mike Milotte, Dublin, 1984, pp. 56-57 #Jan Smuts was one of the best Boer commanders of the Second Boer War. In 1914 at the start of World War I the Boer "bitter enders" rose against the government in the Boer Revolt and allied themselves with their old supporter Germany. General Smuts played an important part in crushing the rebellion. The South African establishment, of which Smuts was a part, in contrast to the British establishment in 1916, was lenient to the leaders of the revolt, who were fined and spent two years in prison. After this revolt and lenient treatment the "bitter enders" contented themselves with working within the system. It was his experience of the Boer British rapprochement which he was able to bring to the attention of the British government as an alternative to confrontation.

Sources

- Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins (Hutchinson, 1990) ISBN 0091741068
- Tim Pat Coogan, The Troubles (Arrow, 1995, 1996) ISBN 1357108642
- F.S.L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine
- Dorothy MacCardle, The Irish Republic (Corgi, 1968) ISBN 55207862X
- Aengus Ó Snodaigh, [http://republican-news.org/archive/2000/May11/11hist.html IRA Convention meets], An Phoblacht/Republican News, 11 May 2000.
- Seamus Fox, [http://webpages.dcu.ie/~foxs/irhist/index.htm Chronology of Irish History 1919-1923].

External links

- [http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/mil/html/mh_025100_irishrepubli.htm Reader's Companion to Military History - Irish Republican Army (IRA)]
- Category:National liberation movements ja:IRA

Irish Free State

The Irish Free State (Irish: Saorstát Éireann) was (1922–1937) the name of the state comprising the 26 of Ireland's 32 counties which were separated from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland under the Irish Free State Agreement (or Anglo-Irish Treaty) signed by British and Irish Republic representatives in London on December 6, 1921. The Irish Free State came into being in December 1922, replacing two co-existing but nominally rival states, the de jure Southern Ireland, which had been created by the Government of Ireland Act 1920 and which from January 1922 had been governed by a Provisional Government under Michael Collins and the de facto Irish Republic under the President of Dáil Éireann, Arthur Griffith, which had been created by Dáil Éireann in 1919. (In August 1922, both states in effect merged with the deaths of their leaders; both posts came to be held simultaneously by W.T. Cosgrave.)

The historic background

The Easter Rising of 1916, and in particular the decision of the British military authorities to execute many of its leaders after courts martial, generated sympathy for the republican cause in Ireland. But, crucially, it was the republicans and some independent Nationalists who led opposition to the idea of compulsory military service for Irish men in the conscription crisis of early 1918. The crisis saw the Irish Parliamentary Party, who supported the Allied cause in the Great War in response to the passing of the final Third Home Rule Act 1914, become discredited and the result was that in the December 1918 general election the majority of Irish seats in the Westminster parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland were won (mainly unopposed without contests) by Sinn Féin, a previously non-violent monarchist party founded by Arthur Griffith in 1905, that under Eamon de Valera's leadership from 1917 had campaigned aggressively for an Irish republic. In January 1919, Sinn Féin MPs (or TDs as they became known, from the Irish Teachta Dála) refusing to sit at Westminster, assembled in Dublin and formed a single chamber Irish parliament called Dáil Éireann (Assembly of Ireland). It affirmed the creation of an Irish Republic and passed a Declaration of Independence. However only the Soviet Union recognised the Irish Republic internationally, although it was accepted by the overwhelming majority of Irish people. (Recent calculations of Sinn Féin support in 1918, based on actual electoral battles at national and local level puts party support at in the region of 45–48%, largely because many of their seats were won without being contested). The War of Independence was fought between the army of the "Republic," the Irish Republican Army (known now as the "Old IRA" to distinguish it from later claimants to the title) and the British Army of the United Kingdom of which Ireland was still nominally part. In 1921, a truce was declared, and at the end of the year, negotiations were opened, under British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Arthur Griffith, who headed the Irish Republic's delegation. In reality, that these negotiations would produce a form of Irish government short of the independence wished for by republicans was not in doubt. The United Kingdom could not offer a republican form of government without losing prestige and risking demands for something similar throughout the Empire. Furthermore, as one of the negotiators, Michael Collins, later admitted (and he was in a position to know, given his role in the independence war), the IRA at the time of the Truce was weeks, if not days, from collapse, with a chronic shortage of ammunition. "Frankly, we thought they were mad," Collins said of the sudden British offer of a truce, although it was unlikely they would not have continued in one form or another, given the level of public support. The President of the Republic, Eamon de Valera, himself realised that a republic was not on offer. He decided not to be a part of the treaty delegation and so be tainted with what some more militant republicans were bound to call a "sell out." As expected, the Anglo-Irish Treaty explicitly ruled out a republic. What it offered was dominion status, as a state of the British Commonwealth (now called the Commonwealth of Nations), equal to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Though less than expected by the Sinn Féin leadership of 1919–1922, it was substantially more than the initial form of home rule within the United Kingdom sought by Charles Stewart Parnell from 1880 and a serious advancement on the final Third Home Rule Act 1914 which the Irish nationalist leader John Redmond had achieved through democratic parliamentary proceedings.

The governmental and constitutional structures of the Irish Free State

The structures of the new Irish Free State were laid out in the Treaty and in the Constitution of the Irish Free State Act. It provided for a constitutional monarchy, with a three tier parliament, called the Oireachtas, made up of the King and two houses, Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann (the Irish Senate). Executive authority was vested in the King, and exercised by a cabinet called the Executive Council, presided over by a prime minister called the President of the Executive Council.

The Representative of the Crown

The King in Ireland was represented by a Governor-General of the Irish Free State, The office replaced the previous Lord Lieutenant, who had headed English and British administrations in Ireland since the Middle Ages.

The Oath of Allegiance

As with all dominions, provision was made for an Oath of Allegiance. Within dominions, such oaths were taken by parliamentarians personally towards the monarch. The Irish Oath of Allegiance was fundamentally different. It had two elements; the first, an oath to the Free State, as by law established, the second part a promise of fidelity, to His Majesty, King George V, his heirs and successors. That second fidelity element, however, was qualified in two ways. It was to the King in Ireland, not specifically to the British King. Secondly, it was to the King explicitly in his role as part of the Treaty settlement, not in terms of pre-1922 British rule. The Oath itself came from a combination of three sources, and was largely the work of Michael Collins in the Treaty negotiations. It came in part from a draft oath suggested prior to the negotiations by President de Valera. Other sections were taken by Collins directly from the Oath of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, of which he was the secret head. In its structure, it was also partially based on the form and structure used in the Dominion of Canada. Besides this which is heavily debated, Eileen Dover was also mentioned as a member of the Canadian board that sent suggestions to the forming Irish State. Though controversially moderate by other dominion standards, and notably indirect in its reference to the monarchy (and hence widely criticised by unionists and other dominions), it was criticised by nationalists and republicans for making any reference to the Crown, the claim being that it was a direct oath to the Crown, a fact demonstrably incorrect by an examination of its wording. But in 1922 Ireland and beyond, it was the perception, not the reality, that influenced public debate on the issue. Had its original author, Michael Collins, survived, he might have been able to clarify its actual meaning, but with his assassination in 1922, no major negotiator to the Oath's creation on the Irish side was still alive, available or pro-Treaty. (The leader of the Irish delegation, Arthur Griffith had also died in August 1922). The Oath became a key issue in the resulting Irish Civil War that divided the pro- and anti-treaty sides in 1922–23.

Irish Free State at the British Empire Games

The Irish Free State sent a team to the British Empire Games in 1934 in London.

Northern Ireland

The Treaty provided for an all-Ireland thirty-two county state, subject to the proviso that the six Northern Ireland counties, which had their own government under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, could formally opt out of the Free State, which they duly did. (Had it remained, Northern Ireland would have been a self-governing province of the Irish Free State, with its own parliament and government as before.) Northern Ireland thus remained part of the renamed United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Treaty also allowed the United Kingdom to retain naval use of four Free State ports.

The Irish Civil War

The compromises contained in the agreement caused the civil war in the 26 counties in June 1922-April 1923, in which Michael Collins's pro-Treaty "Free Staters" defeated the anti-Treaty Republicans led by Eamon de Valera, who had resigned as president of the Republic on the treaty's ratification, to the fury of some of his own supporters, notably Sean T. O'Kelly. On resigning, he then sought re-election in an attempt to wreck the treaty. However his ploy failed as the electorate voted for pro-treaty candidates. Arthur Griffith became President. Michael Collins was chosen by the House of Commons of Southern Ireland (a body set up under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 and to which the Provisional Government was nominally answerable) to become Provisional Prime Minister. As both the House of Commons and the Dáil had almost identical members, it was academic which body was meeting. Griffith's republican administration and Collins' Crown-appointed government merged with the deaths of both men, their respective offices being held by the same man, W.T. Cosgrave.

"Freedom to achieve freedom"

W.T. Cosgrave issue from late 1928, this is a farthing coin from 1936 showing the obverse.]]

Governance

Two political Parties governed the Irish Free State between 1922 and 1937.
- Cumann na nGaedheal under W.T. Cosgrave (1922-32)
- Fianna Fáil under Eamon de Valera (1932-37)

Constitutional evolution

Michael Collins described the Treaty as 'the freedom to achieve freedom'. In practice, the Treaty offered most of the symbols, powers and functions of independence, including a functioning parliamentary democracy, executive, judiciary, a written constitution which could be changed by the Free State, etc. However, in theory, a number of limits existed:
- The British king remained king in Ireland;
- The British Government had a continued role in Irish governance. Officially the representative of the King, the Governor-General also received instructions from the British Government on his use of the Royal Assent, namely a Bill passed by the Dáil and Seanad could be Granted Assent (signed into law), Withheld (not signed, pending later approval) or Denied (i.e., vetoed). Letters patent to the first Governor-General Tim Healy had named Bills that if passed were to be blocked, namely an attempt to abolish the Oath, etc. In reality no such Bills were ever introduced, so the issue never arose.
- The Irish Free State, like all Dominions, had an inferior status to the United Kingdom, which meant, in theory, it could not have its own citizenship (merely a shared Commonwealth citizenship), could not have direct access to the monarch except through a British minister, and had to use the British state's Great Seal of the Realm on all of its state documents, again symbolising its inferior status to the United Kingdom within the Commonwealth. All this changed in the 1920s. A reform of the King's title, under a Commonwealth Conference decision and given effect by the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927, changed the King's role in each dominion. No more was he King in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, etc. Instead he became King of Ireland, Australia, etc. So from that change, embodied in the Royal Titles Act, the British king had no role whatsoever in each dominion. His only role was as each dominion's own king, advised in each dominion's affairs by the dominion, not by the United Kingdom. Furthermore, the British government lost any role in either the selection of a governor-general or in advising him. In this manner, the United Kingdom lost the ability to influence internal dominion legislation. The Free State went further. It 'accepted' credentials from international ambassadors to Ireland, something no other dominion up to then had done. It registered the treaty with the League of Nations as an international document, to the fury of the United Kingdom, who saw it as a mere internal document between a dominion and the UK. Most dramatically of all, the Statute of Westminster, again embodying a decision of a Commonwealth Conference, enabled each dominion to enact any legislation to change any legislation, without any role for the British parliament which may have enacted the original legislation in the past. Ireland symbolically marked these changes in two mould-breaking moves.
- It sought, and got the King's acceptance, to have an Irish minister, with the complete exclusion of British ministers, formally advising the king as King of Ireland in the exercise of his Irish powers and functions (e.g., the signing of a Treaty between the Irish Free State and the Portuguese Republic in 1931);
- The unprecedented abandonment of the use of the British Great Seal of the Realm and its replacement by the Great Seal of the Irish Free State, which the King awarded to his Irish Kingdom as King of Ireland, again in 1931. (The Irish Seal consisted of a picture of 'King George V of Ireland' enthroned on one side, with the Irish state Harp and the words Saorstát Éireann (Irish for Irish Free State) on the reverse. It is now on display in the Irish National Museum, Collins Barracks in Dublin.) When Eamon de Valera became President of the Executive Council (prime minister) in 1932 he described Cosgrave's ministers' achievements simply. Having read the files, he told his son, Vivion, "they were magnificent, son." (All that remained was British control of a number of ports in the Irish Free State, called the Treaty Ports. However that was an issue not of constitutional law but technical requirements in the Treaty which could be and were renegotiated in 1938 to Ireland's satisfaction.) That freedom allowed de Valera, on becoming President of the Executive Council (February 1932) to go even further. With no British restrictions on his policies, he abolished the Oath of Allegiance (which Cosgrave intended to do had he won the 1932 general election), the Senate, university representation in the Dáil, appeals to the Privy Council. His one major error occurred in

Irish Republican Army (1922-1969)

The IRA split

The Civil War

Ideology of the post-Civil War IRA

The IRA from 1926 to 1936: flirtations with socialism

Legalisation and renewed repression: the 1930s and 1940s

The IRA during World War II

The Border Campaign

The 1960s: Marxist tendency and the 1969 split

Footnotes

Sources

Further reading

Official Irish Republican Army

The split in the Republican movement, 1969 - 1970

Impact of the Split

The Official IRA since 1973

Persons killed by the Official IRA

See also

List of IRAs

Genealogy of the IRA and its splits

See also

Anglo-Irish Treaty

Content of the Treaty

Negotiators of the Treaty

Detail and background

Further reading

See also

External links

Irish Republican Army

Origins

Political background

Easter Rising

The emergence of the IRA after the Easter Rising

Dáil Éireann

The battle for control of the IRA

The Oath to the Irish Republic

The full scale war

The King's Speech

The Anglo-Irish Treaty

The IRA and the Treaty

Footnotes

Sources

See also

External links

Irish Free State

The historic background

The governmental and constitutional structures of the Irish Free State

The Representative of the Crown

The Oath of Allegiance

Irish Free State at the British Empire Games

Northern Ireland

The Irish Civil War

"Freedom to achieve freedom"

Governance

Constitutional evolution