The Irish Revolution, 1916-1923 (23 page)

The Dublin Castle administration was also hamstrung by a succession of weak chief secretaries, who were effectively in charge of the Irish policy. Edward Shortt, who supported conscription and oversaw the German plot arrests, was frequently at odds with French and was replaced after less than a year. His successor, Ian MacPherson, who did not last much longer, was equally incapable of dealing with the Irish insurrection, failing to draw any distinction between the political and military wings of the republican movement and acquiescing with the hardline approach favoured by French and his unionist advisers, whose influence he was too weak to resist (O’Halpin, 1987: 180–95).

The weakness of the Irish administration was compounded by the IRA's assault on the RIC and the success of the Dáil courts. Recognising the problems in Ireland, the government appointed the head of the British Civil Service, Sir Warren Fisher, to investigate the operation of Dublin Castle. His subsequent report was damning, criticising the Irish executive's inability to administer and advise on or implement policy effectively. A major over-haul of senior administrative personnel ensued. MacPherson was replaced by Sir Hamar Greenwood and senior civil servants from Britain were brought over to set the Irish administration on a more effective footing. Sir John Anderson became the Joint Under Secretary, with Mark Sturgis and Alfred (‘Andy’) Cope as Assistant Under Secretaries. The latter was also charged by Lloyd George with the task of making contact with the Sinn Féin and IRA leaders with a view to achieving peace (Hopkinson, 1999: 4–7).

These administrative changes were accompanied by changes to the leadership of the military and the police. Sir Nevil Macready was appointed Commanderin- Chief of the British Army in Ireland in early 1920 and improved the army's morale, efficiency and effectiveness in countering the IRA. Sir Hugh Tudor, a decorated soldier with no policing experience, was appointed police adviser without any defined powers. As a result he assumed control of all policing functions and earned a reputation for condoning the worst excesses of the paramilitary police forces introduced in 1920, over which he was both unable and unwilling to impose any authority or discipline.

While the armed response to the IRA became more effective during late 1920 and 1921, due in part to these reforms, one major drawback of the British campaign in Ireland was the failure to establish a unified command over the police and the army, partly because of Macready's refusal to assume such responsibility. The resulting failure to produce a coherent reaction to the IRA was also hindered by the British Government's indecision about whether to pursue a political rather than a military strategy in Ireland because of its unwillingness to admit that it was faced with a war, for fear of conferring legitimacy on the actions of the IRA and Sinn Féin ( Jeffery, 1994: 163–76). Nevertheless, these changes to the British administration, army and policing in Ireland in 1920 were a recognition by the government of the seriousness of the Irish insurrection; and, as a result of the new leadership and a more organised policy, the counter-offensive against the IRA became much more effective in late 1920 and 1921.

THE PARTITION OF IRELAND, 1920–1

Meanwhile in Westminster legislation was being formulated to revive the Government of Ireland Act. The political position in Parliament had changed
dramatically since the crisis over the third home rule bill. The Irish Party was reduced to a rump of seven MPs, and while the Liberal leader, Lloyd George, remained as Prime Minister, there was a Conservative majority in the government. This would ensure that the position of Ulster unionists was protected. The status of unionists was further enhanced by the fact that a former Unionist leader, Walter Long, was the Cabinet's chief Irish adviser and chairman of the committee charged with producing new legislation to determine the constitutional position of Ireland.

The Long committee reported in November 1919, recommending the repeal of the Government of Ireland Act that was passed in September 1914 and its replacement with a new one. Long's proposals envisaged two Home Rule Parliaments, one based in Belfast with jurisdiction over all nine counties of Ulster and one in Dublin that would govern the remaining 23 counties. An idea known as county option, which would have allowed individual counties to hold plebiscites to decide whether to opt in or out of home rule, was rejected as unworkable and likely to exacerbate sectarian sentiment in those Ulster counties such as Fermanagh and Tyrone that had Catholic majorities.

The suggestion of a separate Home Rule Parliament for a nine-county Ulster was significant. In the first place it was a recognition of how unionist opinion had changed since 1912. At the outset of the third home rule crisis unionists were implacably opposed to home rule for any part of Ireland, preferring to remain an integral part of the United Kingdom. Since then they had faced the reality that the British Government was prepared to break up the union by implementing Irish home rule. The changing political attitudes of nationalist Ireland also convinced them that they had no desire to remain part of the same political entity. In the eyes of unionists, nationalists’ loyalty during the war was questionable, especially in view of their opposition to conscription, and the armed uprising against British rule was further testament to their treachery. By 1920, while most unionists would still have preferred to remain within the union, they had realised that the best chance of protecting their own interest lay in self-government for Ulster
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.

However, the nine-county Ulster recommended by the Long Committee was not that favoured by Ulster unionists. In 1911, 43 per cent of the entire province of Ulster was Roman Catholic, whereas the Catholic population of the six counties with the largest Protestant populations was only 34 per cent (Buckland, 1973: 179–80). The third option for Ulster unionists would be to take control of only four counties – Antrim, Armagh, Derry and Down – excluding the most contentious counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh, which had Catholic majorities of around 55 per cent. However, such an entity would be too small to survive economically or politically. The Long Committee's choice of a nine-county Ulster was a deliberate effort to ensure that partition
would be temporary and that eventual Irish reunification would be achieved. However, the opposition of the Ulster unionists and their influence with the Conservative-controlled Government ensured that a six-county Ulster was the solution adopted (Laffan, 1983: 61–8).

The Government of Ireland Act was passed on 23 December 1920 and partitioned Ireland into two home rule entities to be called Northern Ireland (comprising Counties Antrim, Armagh, Derry, Down, Fermanagh and Tyrone) and Southern Ireland which contained the remaining 26 counties
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. The powers of the legislatures of both jurisdictions were similar to those envisaged for the Irish Home Rule Parliament under the 1914 Act, and considerable powers over defence, finance and trade were reserved for Westminster. The lack of effective taxation powers would prove to be a serious problem for the Northern Ireland Government during the 1920s and 1930s. The inclusion of a plan to establish a Council of Ireland ‘to make orders with respect to matters affecting interests both in Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland’ (O’Day, 1998: 327), and a clause outlining how a Parliament for the whole of Ireland might be established, indicated that the government hoped partition would not be a permanent solution. The Northern Ireland Parliament was offered the alternatives of continuing to operate under the Government of Ireland Act or accept a form of home rule within the Irish Free State, set out in article 14 of the treaty. There was never any likelihood that this latter option would have been availed of.

A number of safeguards were inserted to protect both the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland and the Protestant minority in Southern Ireland. These included a prohibition on the endowment of religion or interfering with educational rights on religious grounds, clauses that had also been in the 1914 Act, and the use of proportional representation by single transferable vote (PRSTV) to elect the members of both Houses of Commons. This latter provision was designed to ensure that minority political parties would secure adequate parliamentary representation. The British Government did not intend a Sinn Féin-style landslide like 1918 to recur in Ireland. The provision remained in Northern Ireland until 1929 when it was repealed, in the face of Labour-Unionist opposition to the ruling
Ulster Unionist Party
. The abolition of PR in Northern Ireland reinforced unionist dominance and remained a grievance for nationalists. PRSTV remains the electoral system in the Republic of Ireland.

Ulster Unionist Party
: The political party representing unionists in Ulster.

The Government of Ireland Act came into operation in May 1921. Elections for both Parliaments were held, although Sinn Féin refused to recognise the new notional political entity of Southern Ireland and deemed the election to be a contest for the Second Dáil. Neither Labour nor the remnant of the IPP contested the election and all 124 Sinn Féin candidates were returned unopposed. Four independent southern unionists were returned unopposed
for the Dublin University (Trinity College) constituency. In Northern Ireland, 40 of the 52 seats in the House of Commons were taken by Unionists, with Sinn Féin and the Nationalists (effectively the old home rulers) taking six each. Sinn Féin's northern MPs, including Collins, de Valera and Griffith, did not take their seats in the new Northern Ireland Parliament which was opened by King George V in City Hall, Belfast on 22 June 1921. Home rule had finally been implemented in Ireland, but ironically it was the Ulster Unionists who had been so strongly opposed to the idea a decade previously upon whom it was conferred. The partition of Ireland was now a reality. The British Government had solved the Ulster part of the Irish question and could now concentrate on seeking a peaceful settlement with Sinn Féin in the south.

THE TRUCE AND THE TREATY

The first efforts to reach a peaceful settlement in the War of Independence started in autumn 1920. Plans to organise a meeting between Griffith, the acting Dáil president, and Sir John Anderson, foundered over the issue of recognition of the Dáil. In the absence of direct contact between Sinn Féin and the British Government, efforts were made for neutral figures to liaise between both sides. Between October and December 1920, Patrick Moylett, a businessman with a republican background, acted as a go-between for communications between Griffith and senior British civil servants. His mission was unsuccessful because of the British insistence that Sinn Féin abandon its demand for a republic and also because of contemporary events including Bloody Sunday and the arrest of Griffith on 25 November. Details of the secret mission were also leaked to the
Irish Independent
newspaper, by which time Moylett had lost Sinn Féin's trust (Hopkinson, 2002: 180–1).

The peace mission that came closest to success was that undertaken by the Irish-born Archbishop of Perth in Western Australia, Patrick Joseph Clune, whose personal motive sprang from the death of his nephew, Conor Clune, in Dublin Castle on Bloody Sunday. Acting with the support of Lloyd George between November 1920 and January 1921, Clune held meetings in Ireland with Griffith, Collins and other senior Sinn Féin members as well as Anderson and the other members of the administration in Dublin Castle. By December 1920, however, it was clear that the government was making demands that were unacceptable to Sinn Féin, especially the precondition of disarmament prior to a truce (Hopkinson, 1999: 93). The government appears to have felt that the republicans were desperate for a settlement and tried to impose as many demands as possible on them. Lloyd George was also coming under pressure from Conservatives, who now comprised the majority
of his government, and senior military figures, to take a hardline approach. As a result, republican leaders became suspicious of Lloyd George's intentions and Clune's closeness to him, and the negotiations were abandoned. Various other efforts by prominent southern Unionists, religious leaders, literary figures (Shane Leslie and George Russell), Lady Greenwood (the Chief Secretary's wife), Mark Sturgis and the Tory peer, Lord Derby, all came to nothing (Hopkinson, 2002: 181–91).

These efforts indicate that there was a will on both sides to bring the conflict to a conclusion in the appropriate circumstances. By July 1921 circumstances were more amenable to a settlement for both sides. The military campaign had reached a stalemate and the republican advantages in areas such as intelligence and guerrilla warfare were not as strong as they had been. De Valera's return to Ireland in December 1920 was significant as the recognised leader of the republican movement was now back in the country and effectively allowed to function unmolested by the government in the hope that an agreement could be reached with him. From the government's point of view the enactment of the Government of Ireland Act and the establishment of a Home Rule Parliament in Belfast removed the thorny issue of Ulster from any subsequent negotiations with Sinn Féin. The provisions of the Government of Ireland Act also acted as a stopwatch for a peace settlement; if the southern Irish provisions were not enforced by 12 July 1921, the British Government faced the prospect of having to impose crown colony government with martial law, and many influential people, including Anderson and Macready, were opposed to resorting to further coercive measures. Politicians from the dominions, in particular the South African Prime Minister, Jan Smuts, were urging Lloyd George to concede dominion status to southern Ireland; this pressure was a testament to the work of the Sinn Féin envoy, Colonel Maurice Moore (Hopkinson, 2002: 194–5).

The truce of 11 July 1921 ended the War of Independence. It was followed by a series of four meetings and an exchange of over 50 letters and telegrams between de Valera and Lloyd George aimed at establishing the basis for formal peace negotiations. The biggest obstacle at this point was the status of the Irish delegation, with de Valera insisting that the delegates be recognised as the representatives of a sovereign nation, a request which Lloyd George was not prepared to concede. The negotiations were rescued by the judicious actions of the middlemen, Harry Boland and Joe McGrath, who disobeyed de Valera's more uncompromising instructions (Fitzpatrick, 2003: 232–4). On 30 September de Valera accepted Lloyd George's invitation to send a team of Irish negotiators to London ‘with a view to ascertaining how the association of Ireland with the community of nations known as the British Empire may best be reconciled with Irish national aspiration’ (Pakenham, 1972: 77).