Abstract
This chapter will explore the attempts of the guerrilla Irish Republican Army (IRA) to discourage, stifle, and punish dissent among the civilian population, and the actions by which dissent was expressed or implied. An examination of low-level, ‘everyday’ (and mostly non-violent) acts of defiance and punishment will show that civilian interaction with the IRA was far more fluid than is usually allowed. While the ‘everyday’ acts of resistance discussed here could be inconsequential in isolation, their cumulative effect was important. Similarly, interaction with Crown forces that would have been unremarkable outside of war brought civilians under the suspicion of local IRA units. To achieve hegemony over local populations, guerrillas had to punish even small acts of dissent and ensure that they were not repeated. It will be seen that the nature of this punishment was dictated by the perceived seriousness of the offence and, more importantly, by local conditions.
While the assumption that the IRA relied on the support, either active or passive, of the general population is to a large extent true, it oversimplifies or misses many of the complexities inherent in the local relationships between civilians and guerrillas – complexities that are not unique to the Irish case.
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Notes
- 1.
Military Archives of Ireland (hereafter MAI), Bureau of Military History Witness Statement (hereafter BMH WS) 1246, Michael Cleary.
- 2.
Richard English argues that none of the above terms adequately describe what actually took place and prefers the term ‘Irish War for Independence’: Richard English, Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland (London, 2006), 28–7.
- 3.
MAI, BMH WS 1633, James Murphy; MAI, BMH WS 755 (ii), Seán Prendergast.
- 4.
William Sheehan, British Voices from the Irish War of Independence 1918–1921: The Words of British Servicemen Who Were There (Cork, 2005), 173.
- 5.
MAI, BMH WS 1668, Thomas Hevey.
- 6.
MAI, Collins Papers, A/0604, GHQ to Brigade Commandants, c. December 1920. Best results, it insisted, could only be had by taking ‘full advantage of this goodwill’.
- 7.
Quoted in Fergal Peter Mangan, ‘Compensation in the Irish Free State 1922–23’, MA thesis (University College Dublin, 1994), 18.
- 8.
Charles Townshend, The Republic: The Fight for Irish Independence (London, 2013), 149–165.
- 9.
Sturgis quoted in Townshend, Republic, 165. For examples from the police and military see: National Archives, London (hereafter UKNA), CO 904/109–110, Royal Irish Constabularly Monthly Confidential Reports (hereafter MCRs), Inspector General, August 1919 to January 1919; UKNA, WO 141/93, ‘Record of the rebellion in Ireland in 1920–21 and the part played by the army in dealing with it. Volume I. Operations’.
- 10.
For the comparatively impersonal nature of violence in Belfast, see Peter Hart, The I.R.A. at War, 1916–1923 (Oxford, 2003), 247–50 and in Dublin, Joost Augusteijn, From Public Defiance to Guerrilla Warfare: The Experience of Ordinary Volunteers in the Irish War of Independence, 1916–1921 (Dublin, 1996), 327–332.
- 11.
Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge, 2006), 226–9.
- 12.
Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War (New York, 1989), 44–52.
- 13.
James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (London, 1985), xvii, 277–81.
- 14.
The most contentious example concerns the ‘Bandon Valley massacre’ in April 1922. For recent scholarship on the killings see David Fitzpatrick, Descendancy: Irish Protestant Histories Since 1795 (Cambridge, 2014), 221–9; Barry Keane, Massacre in West Cork: The Dunmanway and Ballygroman Killings (Cork, 2014); John M. Regan, ‘The “Bandon Valley massacre” as a historical problem’, History 97 (2012): 70–98; David Fitzpatrick, ‘Ethnic cleansing, ethical smearing, and Irish historians’, History 98 (2013): 135–44. For Peter Hart’s description of the killing, the work that has motivated the literature above, see Peter Hart, The I.R.A. and its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916–1923 (Oxford, 1998), 273–292.
- 15.
Hart, I.R.A. at War, 230.
- 16.
Eunan O’Halpin has found that 277 civilians were killed by the IRA between January 1919 and December 1921, 183 of whom were executed as ‘spies’: Eunan O’Halpin, ‘Problematic killing during the war of independence and its aftermath: civilian spies and informers’, in Death and Dying in Ireland, Britain and Europe: Historical Perspectives, ed. James Kelly and Mary Ann Lyons (Dublin, 2013), 329.
- 17.
Kalyvas, Logic, 104.
- 18.
UKNA, CO 904/114, MCRs, County Inspector, Tipperary South Riding, January 1921.
- 19.
UKNA, CO 904/115, Reports on Breaches of the Truce, Queen’s County.
- 20.
MAI, BMH WS 1721, Seamus Robinson.
- 21.
National Library of Ireland (hereafter NLI), Ms. 31,399, ‘Record of Activities 7th Battalion, Cork No. 1 Brigade’ [no date].
- 22.
NLI, Florence O’Donohgue Papers, Ms. 31,325, Jeremiah Keane to ‘Ned’, 30 September 1928.
- 23.
National Archives of Ireland (hereafter NAI), FIN/1/1613, Thomas Keating to W. T. Cosgrave, 14 May 1923.
- 24.
University College Dublin Archives (hereafter UCDA), Mulcahy Papers, P7/A/24, Sara Mary Malcolmson to ‘Dail Eireann Cabinet’, 4 October 1921.
- 25.
See, for example, MAI, BMH WS 603, Stephen O’Brien; MAI, BMH WS 1563, Michael Dineen; MAI, BMH 1595, Seamus Babington; MAI, BMH WS 1738, Jeremiah Deasy.
- 26.
NLI, Florence O’Donoghue Papers Ms. 31,325, Jeremiah Keane to ‘Ned’, 30 September 1928.
- 27.
UCDA, Mulcahy Papers, P7/A/35, Patrick Brennan to Richard Mulcahy, 12 December 1921.
- 28.
UCDA, Mulcahy Papers, P7/A/24, Diarmuid O’Hegarty to Minister for Defence, 20 September 1921.
- 29.
UCDA, Mulcahy Papers, P7/A/35, CS to OC 1st Eastern Division, 21 Sep. 1921.
- 30.
UCDA, Mulcahy Papers, P7/A/35, Edward Lynch to de Valera, 13 October 1921.
- 31.
C. S. Andrews, Dublin Made Me: An Autobiography (Dublin, 2001; 1st edn. 1979), 236–7.
- 32.
See, for example, complaints found in the Fintan Murphy Collection (MAI, BMH CD/227) and the Daniel Mulvihill Papers (UCDA, P64).
- 33.
UCDA, Daniel Mulvihill Papers, P64/5(26), Donal O Maoilmicil to Daniel Mulvihill, 30 November 1921; MAI, BMH Contemporary Documents, CD/227/21/L6T, J. O’Dowd to Fintan Murphy, 25 August 1921.
- 34.
MAI, BMH Contemporary Documents, CD/227/21/B21, Dominick Foran to Fintan Murphy, [late 1921].
- 35.
See, for example, the numerous complaints about commandeered bicycles in the Fintan Murphy Collection (MAI, BMH CD/227).
- 36.
Kalyvas, Logic, 104.
- 37.
See UKNA, CO 762/3–202, Irish Grants Committee claims.
- 38.
UKNA, CO 762/177/7, James Gordon claim; Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, D989/B/3/9, Frank Daunt and Henry Deverill claims.
- 39.
T. K. Wilson, Frontiers of Violence: Conflict and Identity in Ulster and Upper Silesia, 1918–1922 (Oxford, 2010), 36.
- 40.
Joost Augusteijn, ed., The Memoirs of John M. Regan, a Catholic Officer in the RIC and RUC, 1909–1948 (Dublin, 2007), 149.
- 41.
Ibid. 150.
- 42.
UKNA, PRO 30/67/42, Desart to Midleton, 27 March 1920.
- 43.
Tim Wilson, ‘Ghost provinces, mislaid minorities: the experience of southern Ireland and Prussian Poland compared, 1918–23’, Irish Studies in International Affairs 13 (2002): 61–86; Andy Bielenberg, ‘Exodus: the emigration of southern Irish protestants during the Irish war of independence and the civil war’, Past and Present 218 (2013): 199–233.
- 44.
NAI, FIN/COMP/A381/30(2), Garda Thomas Cassidy to Superintendent, Cavan, 5 August 1923 in George Cartwright claim.
- 45.
Boycott director Joseph MacDonagh admitted as much: NAI, Dáil Éireann Papers, DÉ 2/261, MacDonagh to Department of Finance, 8 January 1921.
- 46.
UCDA, Mulcahy Papers, P7/A/39, Monthly Report, Monaghan Brigade, April 1921.
- 47.
See for examples, Anglo-Celt, 21 May 1921, 28 May 1921, 2 Jun. 1921.
- 48.
MAI, BMH Contemporary Documents, CD/227/21/B9, Alex Evans to Fintan Murphy, 28 July 1921.
- 49.
UCDA, Mulcahy Papers, P7/A/23, Arthur Vincent to Mulcahy, 30 August 1921.
- 50.
MAI, BMH Contemporary Documents, CD/227/21/D18, Thomas Wheeler to Fintan Murphy, 4 August 1921; Patrick Conboy to Fintan Murphy, 18 Sep 1921 (CD/227/21/F6).
- 51.
David Fitzpatrick, Politics and Irish Life, 1913–1921: Provincial Experience of War and Revolution (Dublin, 1977), 119. See also Fergus Campbell, Land and revolution: nationalist politics in the west of Ireland 1891–1921 (Oxford, 2005), 264–6.
- 52.
Anne Dolan, ‘“Spies and Informers Beware…’, in Years of Turbulence: The Irish Revolution and its Aftermath, eds, Diarmaid Ferriter and Susannah Riordan (Dublin, 2015), 157–171.
- 53.
MAI, BMH Contemporary Documents, CD/227/21/H1, Jeremiah Gilmartin to Fintan Murphy, 25 August 1921.
- 54.
MAI, BMH Contemporary Documents, CD/76/2/7, Captain, Carlow Brigade, to Divisional Commissioner, 27 Oct. 1921.
- 55.
MAI, BMH Contemporary Documents, CD/227/21/D29, Joseph Ennis to Fintan Murphy, [late 1921].
- 56.
UCDA, Mulcahy Papers, P7/A/34, J. J. Keane, to P. Barry, 22 September 1921.
- 57.
UCDA, Mulcahy Papers, P7/A/34, Keane to Defence Department, Dáil Éireann, 27 October 1921; UCDA, Mulcahy Papers, P7/A/34, Keane to Stack, 30 September 1921.
- 58.
Fitzpatrick, Politics and Irish Life, 151.
- 59.
Kalyvas, Logic, 111–114.
- 60.
Joice M. Nankivell and Sydney Loch, Ireland in travail (London, 1922), 146.
- 61.
Wilfrid Ewart [ed. Paul Bew and Patrick Maume], A Journey in Ireland 1921 (Dublin, 2008), 30.
- 62.
Matthew Hughes, ‘The banality of brutality: British armed forces and the repression of the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936–39’, English Historical Review, 124 (2009): 324.
- 63.
Karl Hack, ‘Everyone lived in fear: Malaya and the British way of counterinsurgency’, Small Wars & Insurgencies 23 (2012): 683. Raphaëlle Branche’s chapter in this volume refers to the same process in Algeria.
- 64.
For an example of police avoiding contact with loyalists see UKNA, CO 904/115, RIC Monthly Confidential Report, County Inspector, Cavan, June 1921. In 1920, British intelligence disseminated detailed instructions for sending information anonymously via a London address: MAI, BMH Contemporary Documents, CD/209/1.
- 65.
UCDA, Mulcahy Papers, P7/A/45, General Orders (New Series), 1920, No. 20 ‘Spies’.
- 66.
UCDA, Mulcahy Papers, P7/A/17, OC Mid-Limerick to CS, 3 March 1921.
- 67.
UCDA, Mulcahy Papers, P7/A/17, Brennan to CS, c. April 1921.
- 68.
Quoted in Hart, I.R.A. at war, 297.
- 69.
MAI, A/0879, IRA Intelligence Reports, 1st Southern Division, 1922 (hereafter Intelligence Reports).
- 70.
UCDA, Mulcahy Papers, P7/A/38, OC Cork No. 2 Brigade to CS, 19 March 1921.
- 71.
MAI, BMH Contemporary Documents, CD/280/3/3, Threatening letter from ‘Headquarters, I.R.A., Tralee’, 1921.
- 72.
Jane Leonard ‘Facing “the finger of scorn”: veteran’s memories of Ireland after the Great War’, in War and memory in the twentieth century ed. Martin Evans and Ken Lunn (Oxford, 1997), 63.
- 73.
See, for example, UKNA, CO 762/170/4, Mary Anne Curtis claim; UKNA, CO 762/29/3, Margaret Notley claim; UKNA, CO 762/94/16, David William Hewitt claim; UKNA, CO 762/113/1, John Ryan claim; UKNA, CO 762/116/15, John J Cartwright claim.
- 74.
Intelligence Reports, Norah Griffin, Kerry.
- 75.
Intelligence Reports, Chrissie O’Halloran, Cork.
- 76.
Intelligence Reports, Miss B. Graham, Kerry.
- 77.
The famous West Cork guerrilla Tom Barry wrote in his memoir that the IRA there had ‘no doubt that nearly all of them [Protestants] disagreed with our campaign’: Tom Barry, Guerilla Days in Ireland (Dublin, 1981; 1st edn, 1949), 113. Of the 157 for whom religious denomination can be satisfactorily established using the 1901 and 1911 census returns, 117 (74.5 per cent) are Roman Catholic and 39 (24.8 per cent) Protestant; Cork suspect William Wood Wolfe is returned as Agnostic on his 1911 census form. Non-Catholics made up only 9 per cent of the population in Cork in 1911, 3 per cent in Kerry, 5 per cent in Limerick, and 5 per cent in Waterford.
- 78.
Intelligence Reports, David Lyne, Kerry; Ernie Davis, Cork; Alexander Moynihan, Kerry; Thomas Relihan, Kerry.
- 79.
Intelligence Reports, Thomas Connell & Baby O’Shea, Cork.
- 80.
Intelligence Reports, 2 Batt. Cork No. 5 Brigade.
- 81.
UCDA, Mulcahy Papers, P7/A/45, General Orders (New Series), 1920, No. 13 ‘Women Spies’, 9 November 1920.
- 82.
Kalyvas, Logic, 104–5.
- 83.
For an example of a boycotting poster see NLI, Ms. 739, ‘Proclamation of Boycott of R.I.C.’, West Donegal Brigade, 26 June 1920.
- 84.
For some of the most recent work on the treatment of Protestants and other minorities during the Irish Revolution see Paul Taylor, Heroes or Traitors? Experiences of Southern Irish Soldiers Returning from the Great War, 1919–1939 (Liverpool, 2015); Gemma Clark, Everyday Violence in the Irish Civil War (Cambridge, 2014); Fitzpatrick, Descendancy; Andy Bielenberg, ‘Exodus: the emigration of southern Irish protestants during the Irish war of independence and the civil war’, Past and Present 218 (2013): 199–233. Much of this scholarship has come about in response to Peter Hart’s important and controversial book The IRA and its enemies, first published in 1998.
- 85.
Wilson, Frontiers of Violence.
- 86.
R. B. McDowell, Crisis & Decline: The Fate of the Southern Unionists (Dublin, 1997), p. 135.
- 87.
Anne Dolan, ‘“The shadow of great fear”: terror and revolutionary Ireland’, in Terror in Ireland, 1916–1923 ed. David Fitzpatrick (Dublin, 2012), 33.
- 88.
Ibid.
- 89.
Scott, Weapons, 285.
Acknowledgement
The author wishes to acknowledge generous funding from the School of Histories and Humanities, Trinity College, Dublin and the Irish Research Council for the research on which this chapter is based.
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Hughes, B. (2017). ‘The Entire Population of this God-forsaken Island is Terrorised by a Small Band of Gun-men’: Guerrillas and Civilians During the Irish Revolution. In: Hughes, B., Robson, F. (eds) Unconventional Warfare from Antiquity to the Present Day. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49526-2_5
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