Dan Breen and the IRA (15 page)

Republican Congress activists included members of Saor Éire* and former IRA left-wingers like George Gilmore* and Frank Ryan.* It sought the destruction of ranchers and the establishment of a worker's republic. The Congress' Athlone Manifesto, issued in April 1934, said: ‘We believe that a republic or a united Ireland will never be achieved except through a struggle which uproots capitalism.'

On 22 September 1935, Breen chaired a convention where republican and left-wing activists passed a resolution proclaiming the Congress' ‘oneness with the people of north-east Ulster against whom conscription has been already threatened and appeal with special urgency to the workers of Belfast to take over their section of the front against imperialism, firm in the conviction that the well-being of the whole Irish working-class cannot be safe-guarded in an Ireland still held within the British empire and in the grip of imperial banking interests. There cannot be a free working-class within a subject Ireland.'

The meeting gave rise to much speculation that a new political party was about to be formed. Such a party could, in 1935, have had a devastating effect on Fianna Fáil. The party was only getting into its stride and was anxious to be a broad church within which all manner of nationalists could coalesce. Breen was the most prominent Fianna Fáiler supporting the Congress, but there were indications that a number of the party's councillors and local organisers were sympathetic.

The
Irish Press
, De Valera's paper, reported that ‘since the last convention moves have been made for the formation of an “Independent Republican Party”. A number of leading members of the IRA have expressed themselves in favour of the establishment of such an organisation. Some advocate a policy of entering the dáil and others stand for an abstention policy.'

That was enough for De Valera – huge pressure was brought to bear on the likes of Breen. They disengaged from the Congress. George Gilmore wrote in
The Irish Republican Congress
: ‘The pressure brought to bear by the Fianna Fáil party leaders upon their too-republican branch officers forced them off the platform … and many of the trade union leaders, when left without that shelter, withdrew also.'

In 1944, Breen, for all intents and purposes, threatened to shoot a fellow member of parliament – James Coburn – who'd accused him of having bought an evicted farm when its owner was dispossessed for not paying his rates. Coburn was one of the last relics of the once mighty Irish Parliamentary Party – wiped out by Sinn Féin back in 1919 – and had been elected to the dáil for the National League, the successor to the Parliamentary Party.

‘I want to tell Deputy Coburn that I did buy the farm,' Breen said, during a somewhat confused defence of his own actions. ‘I have no interest in the farm and no interest in land; but in regard to anyone who stands for a no rent campaign or no rate campaign, in as far as in my power, I will see they are dispossessed and I will see that the land of this country is of the same value as the house in city or town. When men have obligations to meet, I will see that they meet them. I make no apology to anyone in this house or in the country for my action in buying that farm. I do not want that farm or any farm; I do not want any interest in land or ownership of land.'

He went on to say that he would hold on to the farm, ‘until such time as they pay their rates. I am willing to lose money on it until they pay the rates … I am of the breed that wiped the landlords out of this country.'

What Breen was trying to say about the farmer who refused to pay his rates seems ambiguous. He had a good reputation in Tipperary for settling acrimonious land and labour disputes. His lifelong rhetoric – some of which he had just shared with the dáil – implied that he was anti-landlord, anti-rancher, very much on the side of the peasant and the small farmer. It seems improbable that he really would have involved himself in grabbing land – for his own advantage – from which a farmer had been evicted.

To cheers from the gallery he then called Coburn a coward, causing Coburn to challenge, ‘Meet me outside and I will tell you whether I am or not.'

Breen was quite willing to meet his accuser outside: ‘I very rarely speak in this house, but when I am challenged I feel I have the right to defend myself. If any man challenges me inside or outside this house, I will defend myself to the best of my ability and with the weapons I decide on, not with the weapons they decide on. If I had taken the care of myself that Deputy Coburn took of himself, I would be able to deal with him as he wished. There was a weapon which John Colt made and which made all men equal and if Deputy Coburn wishes it, we can have it out at any time he chooses.'

Daniel Morrissey, a fellow Tipperary TD, was so distressed by the turn that the discussion was taking that he intervened: ‘It is the most lamentable thing that has happened for years and no good purpose can be served by a continuance of what has gone on from the time this motion was moved. Things have been said here today, many of them in heat, that I am sure those who uttered them will afterwards be sorry for. There can be no good purpose in continuing this kind of discussion. It is something we should all put behind us and forget as quickly as we can, for the sake of the dignity of parliament and for the sake of the country.'

One of Breen's regular buddies in Leinster House was Liam Tobin, Michael Collins' former intelligence guru. They occasionally encountered faces from their past. ‘I became friendly with a butcher in Moore Street named Walsh,' said Breen. ‘I used to meet him racing and I often gave him a lift. About ten or fifteen years ago he came to see me in the dáil. He waited for me to come down and I shook hands with him. Liam Tobin was very excited and he signalled me. I said, “Wait, until I see my friend off.” Tobin said: “You are a right bastard! Do you know the fellow you are talking to, he's the detective that was with the other fellow you shot that night in Drumcondra.” He never came back after that. Tobin sent word to him to the gate to say he was not to return … Another funny story about Tobin. This happened during the war, 1939–45. I had a car and I used to drive Tobin home … We were on the main Merrion Road and I just missed a fellow on a bicycle. He threw himself off it. Tobin said, “It was a pity you didn't get him.” He said, “that's Dinny Barrett, the assistant commissioner of the Tans.” It would have looked deliberate if I had hit him … He was an RIC man in Belfast … We used to go to mass at 5.30 a.m. in Clarendon Street to get him but he never came.'

He didn't confine his activities during the Second World War to almost running over old foes. One of his prized possessions was a portrait of Rommel, the German war hero, which he claimed he'd been given by a German diplomat.

On 8 May 1942, David Grey, the American ambassador to Ireland, reported to President Roosevelt on the movements of German agent Henning Thomsen: ‘In Dublin, Thomsen, the secretary of the legation, has been entertaining, at the Gresham Hotel, Dan Breen, a former IRA gun man and present deputy for Galway [
sic
], known to be pro-German and suspected of being on the German payroll. He also gave a party in a private room for some members of the Italian legation and several pro-Axis Irishmen. They had a lot to drink and late in the evening they began to sing “Let us drink tonight. Next month may not be so happy”.'

George Fleischmann, a German combatant who'd been interned in the Curragh during the war, was a friend of Breen's. When hostilities ended in Europe, the Irish government let it be known that they were sending all German prisoners home. Fleischmann was one of the many internees who didn't want to leave Ireland. Some of these men came from the eastern part of Germany and faced an uncertain future in a land now controlled by the Russians.

Fleischmann was given parole prior to repatriation but did not report back to the Curragh. T. Ryle Dwyer, in
Guests of the State
, says that ‘Fleischmann was friendly with Dan Breen … If necessary he was prepared to hide Fleischmann at his home, but first he interceded with De Valera, who authorised Fleischmann to remain in Ireland on condition he kept his presence secret from anyone in Austria.

Ernie Hogan spoke of Breen's last years in the dáil: ‘I got to know Dan in the 1950s when he was getting on in years and I was a young man starting off in Fianna Fáil. I can't pretend that we saw all that much of Dan down in south Tipp but he was a godsend to Fiann Fáil because you didn't have to do a whole lot of campaigning to get the legendary Dan Breen elected. And the older he got, the more special he seemed. By the time I met Dan a lot of the heroes of the War of Independence were dead and buried but, despite awful health, he was very much alive. And larger than life. He was not what you would call a great constituency TD. He found a lot of that kind of thing very boring and why wouldn't he? After the things he'd seen and done in his life. In those days, anyway, people didn't necessarily expect a TD to be always holding clinics and arranging things for them. I think that quite a few people were glad to have the opportunity to vote for Dan, just because of what he did for the country. Frank Loughman had to act as Dan's man on the ground in the county. Dan was keen on the GAA and you'd always see him at Croke Park for an All Ireland. He'd been supporting Tipp teams there since Bloody Sunday. Every meeting you had with him was a privilege. A total privilege.'

In the dáil, as a new generation of politicians began to take over, he seemed all the more symbolic and celebrated. Young bloods, recently elected, made it their business to meet the famous but ailing Dan Breen. One new Fianna Fáil deputy asked him what the secret of his success was. ‘The secret of my success,' he answered, ‘is the word republican.'

He stood for re-election, for the last time, in 1961. He didn't do quite as well as he had in the past but he got in. The Tipperary poll topper on this occasion was a fresh young Labour Party candidate by the name of Seán Treacy.

‘On my first day in the dáil in 1961,' Treacy remembers. ‘I got a message that Dan Breen wanted to see me. He was sick in the Mater Hospital and he sent me this note written in his spidery handwriting, asking if I'd come to see him. To me he was this renowned figure for whom I had so much respect so I was thrilled to get his summons. As soon as I could – it was my first day in the house and there were a number of things I had to do – I made my way to the Mater. They were used to having him there – he'd been visiting them with his wounds since the days of the Fernside incident. He had his own room and his own nurse, this woman who was clearly very fond of him and who was used to handling him. He took a bit of handling. When I went in to see him he was intrigued by my name. This was what interested him. I think that he was fascinated that a young man by the name of Seán Treacy had been elected by the people of south Tipperary, all those years later. And he was right to take note of it. My parents were both republicans and I was named after the great hero of the Third Tipperary Brigade. So we talked. He was very poorly. He'd wanted to see me because he needed somebody on the opposition benches who would pair with him during his absence in hospital. This meant that he didn't have to enter the dáil for votes, but could be paired off against me. And he really was in no condition to be traipsing off to Leinster House. I was honoured to do this favour for a fellow Tipperary man and for the great Dan Breen.'

Peadar O'Donnell remained close to Breen: ‘In 1962, I wrote to Dan Breen … I said, “Dan, with all this talk about the Americans in Vietnam there should be an Irish voice in the chorus. The only two people in the country who can be called on are yourself and myself.” Very modestly we called ourselves the Irish Voice on Vietnam. I went to Dan with a copy of the protest letter we were to hand in to the American embassy. I commenced to read it. He stopped me abruptly. “What are you doing?” says he. “Sure any bloody letter you sign I'll sign”.'

Once in power, Fiana Fáil achieved a seemingly permanent political supremacy. De Valera set about, by constitutional and resourceful means, dismantling the Free State and the culture which surrounded it.

The Fianna Fáil cultural agenda facilitated the rise of a new type of establishment intellectual, one who had either been ‘out' during the Tan War, or who was generally deemed to be sympathetic to the ‘cause'. Gradually the country was covered with commemorative plaques and statuary celebrating 1916–21 raids and affrays which had involved future members of Fianna Fáil. Former warriors not suited for high office or cultural distinction were fixed up with sinecures in the civil service, local government and the many ‘bords' set up to promote fisheries, horse and greyhound racing, tourism and other aspects of national industry. This can't be simply construed as a form of hopeless corruption. Those who fought during the Tan War were frequently the able go-ahead people in their communities, active in every aspect of civic and cultural life. They were also, very often, people who had passionately optimistic visions of what an independent Ireland might become and were now free to play some part in attempting to bring such visions to fruition.

Séamus Robinson slipped comfortably into this new establishment. Like most of the Ulstermen who'd fought in the southern war he, inexplicably, did little to aid the nationalist population stranded within the Northern Ireland or to bring about the end of partition. Instead he settled into life in Dublin's leafy Rathgar suburb; a bitter, comfortable and angry bureaucrat of the revolution.

One neighbour recalled: ‘There he lived on Highfield Road in a big redbricked house, complete with an immense garden, that he didn't know what to do with, on a street still almost entirely full of Rathgar protestant families. He was a pious civil servant, anxious to fit in and to be respectable.'

Robinson had been a founder member of Fianna Fáil and he became one of the party's first Seanad members. He remained a senator until De Valera abolished that chamber in 1936. When Fianna Fáil introduced the Military Service Pensions Act of 1934, aimed at providing pensions for IRA veterans, Robinson worked on processing applications. In order to qualify for the allowance, claimants had to provide proof – in the form of a legal statement or a reference from a senior officer – of their involvement.

‘Robinson was in charge of the IRA pensions,' one man said, ‘with responsibility for giving out the little bit of pocket money that was on offer. And I believe he was a right pain in the arse to deal with and made life miserable for lads who were trying to collect their money.'

During the decades when his fellow party member was operating a speakeasy in New York (allegedly locking horns with Al Capone), being greeted with torchlit processions and brass bands, topping the poll in general elections, purportedly meeting James Joyce (and Albert Einstein) and becoming a national icon, Robinson harboured serious resentment towards Breen. The main source of his sense of grievance was
My Fight for Irish Freedom
, required reading in early Fianna Fáil Ireland. Robinson felt that his role had been played down, that Breen was taking credit for having started the War of Independence and for leading the IRA in south Tipperary.

This sense of affront was largely in Robinson's imagination. Breen's book stuck to the line that the Big Four were a band of brothers who took on a mighty empire and won. There are many friendly references to Robinson and, given what Breen really thought of him, he got off lightly. He also garnered favourable mentions in Ernie O'Malley's influential and literary (if not quite so widely read)
On Another Man's Wound
.

He may have invested his hatred in the book because, in reality, he was still seething from the way the Tipperary IRA had treated him. He
had
been used as a puppet by Treacy and Breen. The forthright farmers and country boys of Tipperary
had
become tired of his dithering or bureaucratic ways. In the profoundly regional and provincial Ireland of that era, he was expecting a lot if he expected all Munster people to welcome his Belfast accent and his Belfast attitudes.

In 1947, he got his chance to set the record straight and to get some revenge. The only problem was, so did everybody else. The Bureau of Military History saw Séamus Robinson explain his role in the fight for Irish freedom and his comrades debunk his claims.

The De Valera administration, encouraged by the Irish Committee of Historical Sciences, established the Bureau of Military History, whose remit was to collect – either orally or in written form – the memories of the revolutionary generation while they were still of an age when they could clearly recall what had happened. The idea, at the time, was that these testimonies would remain sealed until a reasonable period – perhaps twenty-five years – had passed. Most of the collected ‘statements' (as these testimonies are known) didn't see the light of day until the twenty-first century.

Diarmaid Ferriter thinks that ‘Fianna Fáil was determined to play a role in how the revolutionary period was remembered, but it was also understood that the project would have no credibility if it was mistrusted or boycotted by Fine Gael … The instructions given to interviewers were clear. They were urged to steer witnesses away from obvious fantasy or exaggeration, but under no circumstances to induce testimony. If the testimony was being given orally, “copious notes” were to be taken and the notes converted into a coherent statement to be submitted to the witness for approval; where there was evidence of unreliability through “failing memory” or “self-glorification”, a report to that effect was to be appended.'

All manner of establishment intellectuals were suggested for the job of running the bureau including Seán O'Faolain, Frank O'Connor and Frank Gallagher but the job eventually went to a solicitor called Michael McDunphy. The full-time members of the bureau were Florrie O'Donoghue, John McCoy and Séamus Robinson.

De Valera was correctly cautious about this initiative. One of the leading lights behind it was UCD's Professor R. Dudley Edwards, a man who harboured contempt and dislike for De Valera and everything he stood for.

Robinson's role was to look after Fianna Fáil's interests. In the course of doing so he had ample opportunity to assure his own place in history. Others, like Breen and Jerome Davin, were equally anxious to set the record, vis-à-vis Robinson, straight.

His statements insisted, again and again, upon his role as senior officer in the Third Tipperary Brigade. The principal object of his ire was Breen, with references to his rival's weight, ugliness, unreliability and incompatibility. Sometimes he was portrayed as a near comic book villain, bug eyed and with grinding teeth.

Appended to the rear of one of his statements was a file of letters, hatchet jobs on Breen, which had clearly circulated throughout the milieu that Robinson, De Valera and Breen traversed on an almost daily basis. The only purpose behind this campaign can have been to embarrass Breen to the greatest extent possible

The result was a time bomb from another era, recently exploded, that was designed to wipe out Breen's reputation and the credibility of his book.

The majority of this correspondence is made up of rejected ‘Letters to the Editor' signed by Mrs Kathleen Kincaid, Robinson's sister-in-law. Robinson clearly looked over Mrs Kincaid's shoulder as she wrote but, being a government employee, he couldn't lend his name to such abusive epistles. The fact that they were sent to editors at the
Irish Press
group, newspapers controlled by the De Valera family, ensured that they'd never appear, but that the whole of Dublin would hear about their contents. By appending them to his own Bureau statement, Robinson came close to breaking the rules of the body he worked for; Mrs Kincaid's letters were overflowing with obvious fantasy, exaggeration and (assuming Robinson had a hand in their composition) self-glorification.

In one letter she claims that: ‘Dan Breen was never in charge of an organised fight during the whole of the Tan War. Ask anyone who is a first-hand authority.'
My Fight for Irish Freedom
was ‘an insult to intelligence and the Irish Republican Army alike.' Either Breen or Michael Collins were denigrated as a ‘paper-manufactured “hayro”.' ‘Whose duties,' she enquires, ‘as quartermaster kept him in Dublin almost permanently?'

Mrs Kincaid wrote to the editor of the
Sunday Press
, having received one of her many rejection slips: ‘Your refusal to print my letter surprised me. I phoned my brother-in-law Séamus Robinson. He, too, was surprised – at my being surprised. He murmured something about, “Truth is a noose when it comes to trying to get any Tipperary man to expose the Great Tipperary Hoax. No Tipperary man can be expected to espouse my fight for Irish freedom,” he said. “But didn't Dan Breen write that?” I asked. “No, it was Mrs Séamus O'Doherty who wrote
My Fight for Irish Freedom
and the
Sunday Press
is anxious to expose it – for sale”.'

Some letters suggest that Robinson deserved the credit for initiating Soloheadbeg and for starting the Tan War. ‘There are men and women in Dublin today,' Mrs Kincaid argued, ‘who remember discussing with Séamus Robinson months before he went to Tipperary, ways and means of re-starting the fight along the lines that he started at Soloheadbeg …'

Her most extravagant claim somewhat undermines the consensus regarding Seán Treacy's innovative mind and charismatic leadership in Tipperary: ‘Séamus Robinson was recognised by all during all those years between 1918 and 1923 as the authority, the beginning, the driving force and the brain behind Soloheadbeg and all that.'

Séamus Robinson came out from behind Mrs Kincaid and wrote a poignant but haughty letter to the Soloheadbeg Memorial Committee in January 1950 which revealed his attitude towards the way things had turned out for him.

He had been invited to attend the unveiling of the Soloheadbeg Memorial. ‘For reasons that seem good to me,' he responded, ‘I must decline the invitation. As a member of the “Bureau of Military History 1913–21” I have to be careful that my presence and silence at a function such as the unveiling of the memorial at Soloheadbeg Cross (where I was the officer in command), where speeches and addresses will be made and delivered, will not be interpreted as lending even the appearance of any shade of official authority by me, either personally as the brigade officer commanding at the time, or as a member of the Bureau of Military History, to statements that may be made in connection with the function.' He felt he could not lend, ‘my imprimatur to proceedings'.

He explained that
My Fight for Irish Freedom
‘had no authority from the GHQ of the republican army at the time or of the officer commanding the brigade or division' and that, ‘on the whole, I prefer Buck Rodgers'.

Having persuaded Mrs Kincaid to sing his praises and to wash as much dirty linen in public as the clothesline would hold, he explained to the Soloheadbeg Memorial people that ‘I have never yet tried to sound my own horn, nor have I ever yet attempted to wash dirty linen in public – I have never even complained in public – because I had hoped (forlornly?) that some generous-minded Tipperary man would some day try to redeem what other Tipperary men have done (or left undone) to a stranger who went amongst them out of love for Ireland to do a certain job for Ireland and Tipperary and who did it.'

Movingly, neurotically and obsessively, he thought that ‘had I served my country in any other part of Ireland as I have served her in south Tipperary, I would not have been damned with faint praise and worse, for the last thirty years.'