1916 (25 page)

The case study of Pim illustrates the manner in which the court martial characteristics of DORA were retained in Irish law, despite the March 1915 amendment allowing trial by jury. The case also illustrates the evolving character of the Irish police forces. The RIC and DMP had always monitored the political activities of suspect individuals – the police files on individuals with their weekly and monthly assessment bear testimony to that fact – but, with the introduction of DORA, these files were made available to the military authorities. In this way the police forces became an indispensable adjunct to the army and the court martial system.

Although the royal commission claimed that the crimes branch of the police forces was ‘not specially qualified to deal with political crime’, the history and record of the forces themselves tell a different story.
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So too
did Joseph Brennan, an official in Dublin Castle, who noted in his text of the commission’s report that: ‘Crime Special attend more to politics than to crime, and are less affected by boundaries than English police.’
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The personal opinion of Brennan as to the political character of the police forces, and to their efficiency, was confirmed by the official record at the end of the War of Independence, which described the crimes branch of the RIC as highly organised with ‘two special men stationed at Glasgow, Liverpool and Holyhead’.
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In the context of police efficiency and the careful surveillance of political suspects, it was inevitable that charges against other individuals would be brought under the terms of DORA. By October 1915 charges and barring orders had been imposed on twenty one individuals. Among them were Liam Mellows, Denis McCullough, Ernest Blythe, Seán MacDermott, Seán Milroy, Francis Sheehy Skeffington, Desmond FitzGerald, Terence MacSwiney, Thomas Kent, J.J. Walsh and P.S. O’Hegarty.
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Many of the sentences were imposed for anti-recruiting speeches: for example,
the arrest of MacDermott on 16 May 1915 in Tuam, Co. Galway was made under the terms of DORA, for making a ‘seditious speech’ that was ‘calculated to discourage those present from joining the British Army’.
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The case of Francis Sheehy Skeffington was of particular interest and, in its denouement, of the utmost significance. He was arrested under the terms of DORA on 31 May 1915, shortly after he had published an open letter to Thomas MacDonagh in the
Irish Citizen
calling upon him to end the ‘militarism’ associated with the Irish Volunteers.
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The British authorities, however, were not concerned with Skeffington’s appeals for peace to the Irish Volunteers. Rather they were concerned to silence his calls for peace in the war. From the first issue of the
Irish Citizen
after the outbreak of war, which issue was accompanied by a poster declaring ‘Stop the War’, he had campaigned strenuously for peace.
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Sheehy Skeffington was arrested on the charge that a speech he had made was ‘likely to be prejudicial to recruiting’. He was subsequently refused trial by jury and, on conviction, sentenced to six months’ hard labour. He was, however, released ten days later, after a hunger strike.
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In
a speech from the dock he maintained that he was acting no more illegally than Sir Edward Carson. ‘To say that “if conscription comes, we will not have it,”’ he said, ‘is no more a breach of the law than it was treasonable for Sir Edward Carson to say “if home rule comes, we will not have it”.’ Then, having condemned the military and despotic characteristics of DORA, he concluded that ‘any sentence you may pass on me is a sentence upon British rule in Ireland.’
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The same sentiments were expressed by George Bernard Shaw in a sympathetic letter to Sheehy Skeffington’s wife, Hanna. ‘The Defence of the Realm Act,’ Shaw affirmed, ‘abolishes all liberty in Great Britain and Ireland, except such as the authorities choose to leave us.’
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This loss of civil liberties was challenged by a gathering of thousands in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, on 12 September 1915. A pamphlet entitled
Defence of the Realm Act in Ireland
was published by a committee of public safety and a collection of rallying songs also appeared. One song was called ‘Dora’ and contained the lines: ‘Her blue eyes are beaming like two bayonets gleaming / and she brought a supply of the same.’

These efforts to publicise the effects of DORA in Ireland were complemented by the virtually single-handed campaign of Laurence Ginnell to raise issues relating to the Act in the House of Commons. On 21 December 1915 he asked Birrell on what grounds action had been taken against the men who had been imprisoned under DORA: ‘If they are not political,’ he asked, ‘surely they are not criminal?’ To which Birrell replied: ‘No Sir, they are grounds affecting the public safety.’
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This was but one of hundreds of parliamentary questions asked by Ginnell at that time. Despite these questions, demonstrations and publications, DORA continued to be applied rigorously against the person.

DORA
AND POSTAL CENSORSHIP

The censorship of the post to and from Ireland came to form part of the postal censorship organisation MI9, which was established at the outbreak of war. Under this structure mail coming into England and Ireland from European countries and the United States was censored. By the end of the war almost 5,000 civil servants were employed in this work. From small beginnings a vast edifice of surveillance was constructed: on 3 August 1914 one man was employed; by 31 December, 170 men and women were at work; by 31 December 1915, the total had risen to 1,453; by 30 June 1916, to 2,559; and by 4 November 1918, 4,861. A similar comprehensive system of cable censorship was also put in place under the control of Colonel A.G. Churchill.
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Despite protests from the Foreign Office that it was not desirable to force America into the censorship net, the chief postal censor, Lieutenant Colonel G.S. Pearson, defended the system, maintaining that it was ‘one of the most powerful weapons against the enemy’ that the government possessed.
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This broad organisation of postal censorship was supported in Ireland by a specific system of surveillance in which Major Price had a central role. For example, an order dated 23 November 1914 by Lord Aberdeen, the lord lieutenant, empowered officials:

to delay, detain, and transmit to Major I.H. Price, intelligence officer, who has been duly appointed censor at Irish command, Parkgate, Dublin, for examination by him, for our information, all postal packets addressed to any of the following persons at the addresses named or to any other addresses.

All telegrams and telegraphic communications were also to be sent to Price. This order was subsequently issued by Sir Matthew Nathan, under secretary at Dublin Castle, to the postmaster general and A.H. Norway, secretary to the Post Office.
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When Lord Wimborne succeeded Aberdeen in early 1915, similar orders were issued. Another intelligence officer,
Colonel Hill Trevor, was appointed censor at Belfast garrison in order to organise surveillance in that part of Ireland.
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The staff at Price’s disposal numbered only five and the system of censorship applied in Ireland differed somewhat from that employed in England. Whereas in England the aim of censorship was to detect German agents and the activities of pacifists, in Ireland political considerations were paramount. Ben Novik has found, in a detailed study of some sixty three censorship warants issued between August and December 1914, that ‘more than two thirds (forty two in all) were for political reasons’. The censorship files themselves provide further testimony to the efficacy of the Irish police forces.
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Before a warrant could be issued there had to be clear evidence that censorship of the suspect’s post was merited. This required information and this was provided by police reports. Not only were they detailed but also they contained a surprising awareness of IRB activity. For example, a report on IRB funding was submitted by the superintendent of the detective (‘G’) division of the DMP, on 30 November 1914; therein Sergeant Edwards of Belfast, after closely monitoring MacDermott’s movements in the city on 21–2 December 1914, stated that ‘as I have been informed that McDermott [
sic
] was here on very important IRB business I will make a further report when I get the necessary information from my informants.’
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The problem, from Major Price’s point of view, was that the information provided by this form of censorship was not always acted on. One letter, written on 24 March 1916 (i.e. shortly before the Rising) from a member of staff at St Mary’s College, Rathmines to a friend in America, was of particular concern to Price. It reported that a lot of people had been imprisoned under DORA on St Patrick’s day; it praised the Volunteers who were ‘getting stronger every day’; and it encouraged the correspondent to return to Ireland where ‘we want the like of you to strike a blow at John Bull’.
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Price read extracts from this letter, ‘an extremely bad letter’ he called it, in his evidence to the royal commission. He then recounted what had happened to the letter after it had been sent to the chief secretary, the under secretary and the lord lieutenant. Price reported that ‘the under secretary [Nathan] wrote: “the outbreak in the summer – look upon as vague talk”. Mr Birrell wrote: “the whole letter is rubbish”; and Lord Wimborne initialled it.’ On hearing this account, the members of the commission laughed, and when Price added that ‘this is only typical’ more laughter ensued.
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Other incidents of this kind occurred before the Easter Rising. On the one hand they illustrate the close scrutiny under which the Irish Volunteers operated; on the other they reveal the confusion and the lack of resolve that existed at the heart of the Dublin Castle administration.
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In the meantime advanced nationalists continued to publicise their views through the press and Major Price was again personally involved in some of the measures taken against them.

A
DVANCED NATIONALIST PROPAGANDA – PHASE TWO

Despite the suppression of four newspapers in December 1914 the advanced nationalist press and, indeed, the advanced nationalist movement, continued to make its case in favour of an independent Ireland and against a British imperial war. This reality was recognised by the royal commission, which reported that:

throughout the whole of the remainder of the year 1915 the Irish Volunteer party were active in their efforts to encourage sedition. Seditious papers were published, pamphlets of a violent tone issued and circulated, paid organisers were sent throughout the country to enrol and drill volunteer recruits, and the leaders themselves were active in attending anti-recruiting meetings at which disloyal speeches were openly made.
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In the light of these developments some people, such as Lord Midleton, Arthur Hamilton Norway and Major Price, blamed Under Secretary Nathan for bowing to the advice of John Dillon, deputy leader to Redmond in the Irish party. Price informed the commission that:

one unfortunate thing which hindered us a good deal was the attitude of the official nationalist party and their press. Whenever General Friend did anything strong in the way of suppressing or deporting these men [the organisers] from Ireland, they at once deprecated it, and said it was a monstrous thing to turn a man out of Ireland.
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While Nathan admitted in his evidence that ‘the suppression of seditious newspapers’ was carried out ‘against the advice of the Irish parliamentary party’, he did not reveal the closeness of his ties with Dillon.
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