De Valera's Irelands (12 page)

Archbishop Byrne wrote to Cosgrave on 10 December expressing his dismay that the term ‘reprisals' had been used in the army communiqué announcing the executions:

Now, the policy of reprisals seems to me to be not only unwise but entirely unjustifiable from the moral point of view. That one man should be punished for another's crime seems to me to be absolutely unjust. Moreover, such a policy is bound to alienate many friends of the government, and it requires all the sympathy it can get.
69

The superior general of the Calced Carmelites, Peter Magennis, wrote to John Hagan from the United States:

I received the news of the shootings of four amongst which was dear friend Liam. That has given me a turn I am almost afraid to contemplate. I know those fellows [ministers] were contemptible curs, but it never occurred to me they were such vampires. Drunk with this sudden greatness their one idea is to revel in human blood.
70

The death of Seán Hales provided a good insight into what the tragedy of civil war had brought to many families. His brother Donal, who lived in Genoa, remained on the side of the anti-Treatyites. His sister Madge wrote to him:

Our home is now a lonely one. Oh Dan it is heart-breaking to look back on poor Seán's life and all he suffered for the cause of Ireland. I would give anything to know if the hearts of the men who took that noble life had one spark of pure love for their country. I am sorry Dan to say that there is more false passion on the Irregulars' side than love of their country.
71

Saddened by his brother's death, Donal nevertheless felt obliged to write to the
Cork Examiner
to protest over the ‘reprisal' killings of the four anti-Treatyites in Mountjoy:

Shocked at the violent death of my brother John I feel it however my duty to raise my voice in terrible protest against the cruel reprisal on the persons of the innocent prisoners shot by the authorities of the Free State in a Dublin prison, 8th Dec. l922. My brother would be the last to tolerate the inhuman act and in life affirmed the heads of the republican movement to be men of high and pure ideals, disinterested in purpose, without personal ambition and like himself struggling for the complete independence of their country.
72

But that was not how Cahir Davitt saw events. In his memoir, completed in 1958, he remained equally resolute. The government had accorded the anti-Treaty forces belligerent rights up to 15 October 1922 when the period fixed for amnesty expired:

I have, I believe, already indicated that I was not in favour of the execution policy; but I never doubted the right of the government to adopt and enforce it … I was not in favour of executing anyone if it could be avoided; but if anyone were to suffer death it was they who deserved it most [the members of the Four Courts Executive] as a punishment for bringing about the tragedy of fratricidal strife. The reprisal execution of O'Connor, Mellowes, McKelvey and Barrett was not merely the most justly deserved of all the executions it was also the most justifiable. As a drastic means of ending the incipient campaign of assassination of Dáil deputies its success was immediate and conclusive.
73

While there were no further ‘executions' of Dáil members, further research will determine the nature of the impact of the executions on the anti-Treatyite forces. De Valera had been numbed by the deaths of close friends at the hands of former political colleagues and comrades. But what latitude did he have to act to restrain the anti-Treatyites?

Liam Lynch had a sanguine and very unrealistic view of the military and political struggles. On 21 December he had written that the ‘home situation generally is very satisfactory, and generally is immensely improving from week to week.' He felt that the anti-Treatyites now believed that the ‘the situation is already saved, at least, as far as the present enemy is concerned.' Lynch was hoping for a large supply of arms from Germany which would give his forces the decisive advantage. That was to be organised by Seán Moylan who had been sent in November to the United States because he was in very bad health to act as a liaison officer for the anti-Treatyites.
74
His departure was a serious blow to those who favoured an end to the war among the anti-Treatyite military.
75

In December 1922, the war entered a new and dangerous phase. There was a new-found ferocity and ruthlessness in the activities of the anti-Treatyites. The property of prominent government supporters was destroyed. On 10 December the home of Seán McGarry was set on fire by a party of armed men who failed to allow the family time to reach safety. His wife and two children suffered from burns, one of the children dying later as a result. The premises of Mrs Nancy Wyse Power in Camden Street were set on fire. The offices of two firms of Dublin solicitors were also destroyed in December. Lord Glenavy's oldest son, Gordon Campbell, had his home burned down on 18 December. Bombs were thrown at the offices of the
Independent
in Middle Abbey street. On 20 December a party of armed men seized the Dublin to Belfast mail train, forced the passengers to leave and set it on fire. They then compelled the driver to crash his train into another train carrying government troops and military supplies. Two unarmed soldiers were fired on in Dublin. One was killed and the other was seriously wounded. An explosion wrecked the premises of Denis McCullagh. Many other acts of wanton vandalism were committed throughout the country.

Amid such mayhem came news on 20 December of seven executions. In some cases, the tactics chosen by the National Army to fight against the anti-Treatyites did not come out of a textbook. In Kerry, in particular, the methods chosen to prosecute the war require scholarly investigation. One officer who served in the south, Lieutenant Patrick Quinlan – a veteran of the War of Independence – has left the following account in his diary for 14 December:

Was Orderly Officer today. Same old ding-dong again. Nothing but [?] as to how I got on. Of course A.1. was the formula of the report I had to give everyone but it cut me that I could not open up about some of the things that I had seen and learned during the tour. I could not very well say ‘this fellow is a waster, or that fellow is a dud, a fool or a featherhead', and in cases where you would least expect it, but mum is the word. I compare some officers of the National Army to a beautiful fruit or [?] which grows in the cooler season in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. It grows very rapidly flowering into a most dazzling display of gorgeous petals ripening slowly into a lovely fruit like a tomato but breaking into dust and generating an obnoxious and pungent odour when touched. Thus it is with the bogus patriotic Dandies who grew up and blossomed during the Truce but they are bursting under the test like the fruit one by one but they leave the pungent odour which is obnoxious to the taste of public opinion. It ill becomes me to entertain thoughts of kicking up a row about the state of affairs in this army but when there is a grievance where is the remedy to be found. The authorities must be fully aware of the state of affairs or if not they are to blame.
76

Cahir Davitt, an unimpeachable source, has written in his memoirs of an incident which occurred towards the end of December. A party of armed men, who described themselves as ‘the authorities', called at the lodgings of Francis Lalor and took him away by force. His body was later found near Milltown golf course. Davitt commented: ‘This killing had all the appearance of being an “unofficial execution” carried out by some members of the government's forces.' It was in that fashion, he added, ‘we saw the old year out.'
77
The Irish Civil War, comparatively speaking, was not characterised by a systematic policy of widespread extra-judicial killings. As Todd Andrews wrote in his memoirs: ‘In Civil War, alas, there is no glory; there are no monuments to victory or victors, only to the dead.'
78

Despite the routing of anti-Treatyite forces in different parts of the country, de Valera told McGarrity in a letter on 20 January that:

there will be much bloodshed and suffering here before this conflict is ended. The worst of it all is that England is having the laugh at us, and that there is no peaceful method of solution in sight. The people are dispirited and it is impossible to get back the vim and dash of a couple of years ago. We are however doing our best.

He felt that there was now no alternative but to continue the struggle – a belief he still held, however half-heartedly, as late as 5 February:

Some more of our good men are falling by the way, but there can be no turning back for us now. One big effort from our friends everywhere and I think we would finally smash the Free State. Our people have a hard time of suffering before them, and we have of course to face the possibility of the British forces coming back and taking up the fight where the others lay it down – but God is good.
79

He told McGarrity that he felt ‘if this war were finished Ireland would not have the heart to fight any other war for generations, so we must see it through.'

But the Civil War on the anti-Treatyite side had deteriorated into a series of skirmishes and attacks on soft targets. The family home of the Minister for Home Affairs, Kevin O'Higgins was attacked by ‘Irregulars' at Stradbally, County Laois, on 11 February 1923. The haggard was set on fire and the raiding party then entered the house and shot dead Dr O'Higgins, the minister's father, in the presence of his wife and daughter. In that climate, anything other than total victory was unacceptable to Cosgrave and his ministerial colleagues on the Executive Council. He told a delegation, representing neutral IRA on 27 February 1923, that that objective would be secured even if it meant having to kill 10,000 republicans.
80

Among the anti-Treatyites to die was Charlie Daly from Knockane, Firies, County Kerry. He had joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913 where he rose in the ranks to adjutant. Arrested and returned for trial in summer 1917, Daly refused to recognise the courts and went on the run. In September 1918 he received a two-year jail sentence. Released in 1919 he took up his old position in the IRA and was elected to the Kerry County Council. He served as a brigade quarter master in the south until he was sent to Tyrone by headquarters in August 1920 as an organiser. He was arrested in Dublin and spent a few months in jail before being released. He was immediately appointed by Michael Collins as officer commanding the Second Northern Division in May 1921. Daly opposed the signing of the Treaty. He remained in Tyrone until April 1922. He was then sent by the anti-Treatyites to Donegal where he was subsequently arrested on 22 November.
81
He was arrested with two Listowel men, Timothy O'Sullivan and Daniel Enwright, and another man, John Larkin, from Derry. Found guilty by court martial of being in possession of firearms and bombs, they were sentenced to death and jailed in Drumboe Castle, Stranorlar, County Donegal.
82

Daly wrote on 7 February to his friend, Fr Brennan, of Castlemaine in Kerry, who was also his parish priest. He took advantage of the fact that he was writing to a priest to unburden himself and the letter went uncensored:

I would never have thrown away the prospects which were mine twelve months ago and gone through all this painful business with the knowledge of possibly meeting a fate such as mine may be without having been actuated by the purest of motives. I hope, Father, that you don't think that I've said all this as an argument or in a spirit of opposition. Neither argument or opposition would do me any good situated as I am now. I am but as a man faced with probable death explaining my feelings and convictions to you and that only from the moral and religious point of view apart altogether from political arguments. You will, I am sure, understand my intention all the more readily as you happen to hold opinions different to mine.

Daly regarded the last war as a having been a glorious one: ‘Everything – patriotism, glory and the popular support of the people and clergy, impelled every Irishman worthy of the name to do his part in it.' He regarded the Civil War, however, as being ‘that most horrible of all wars' and were it not

... for my strong convictions as to its morality and righteousness I would never have taken part in it, or persisted in it afterwards, not against the common enemy but against our own comrades and dearest friends we have been compelled to turn our arms. This was repugnant enough in itself but was much more so when we had to do it at the cost of forfeiting the sacraments, which every Irish Catholic cherishes so much, and also with, to some of us, the thought of possibly imperilling our souls.

Daly found it particularly difficult to cope with the condemnation of the bishops. He had seen Bishop O'Sullivan a year ago and had not been persuaded by him that he was wrong in his judgement. He regretted that all the more because of the active role the bishop had played in the War of Independence. But as regards the stance of the hierarchy on the Civil War, Daly observed that ‘both national and church history of many countries – our own in particular – record similar parallels in the past and time has since shown that mistakes were made.' But Daly remained on the anti-Treatyite side ‘which was not alone up against the power of a mighty empire, but was opposed by a power which, with me, counted far more – the power of the bishops' opposition.' That fact might have had the effect of keeping him neutral, ‘but then I am not one of those who can stand idly aside when a great national issue is at stake.'
83

The four were told that they would be shot on 14 March 1923. The common local belief was that was a reprisal for the shooting of a Free State officer, Captain Bernard Cannon, at Creeslough on 10 March 1923, who was killed by a bullet to the heart fired during a raid on the local barracks. Writing to his father within hours of his execution, Daly had little doubt that he and the other executed men ‘will be with God in a couple of hours from now.'
84
His farewell letter to his mother was very devout and reassuring. Daly had no doubt about the morality of his actions or the justice of his cause. The local parish priest, Fr P. B. McMullen wrote to Daly's friend, Fr P. J. Brennan on 21 March 1923. He asked the priest to contact Daly's mother and explain that, although he had only known her son for a short time ‘I learned enough of him to see that he was far above the average and to respect him highly though in politics we stood far apart.'
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